Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 25, 2008
Got Ben to Brooke’s in less than half an hour, terrified he’d be a screaming monster and wake their little girl up, but she worked miracles and got him back to sleep. We can’t express how grateful we are to Brooke and Jason for taking him.
I drove 80 mile an hour all the way to the hospital, 4 ways flashing. We passed a cop but he was either asleep or he decided we weren’t worth it.
Nic’s filling out paperwork and I have to figure out how to park the car… They offered to do it for me, but couldn’t find the forms necessary for such an undertaking.
Anyway, still looking like a long haul yet, so if your planning on camping out for the duration, now would be a good time to catch a nap…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 25, 2008
With all this false labor (for the last 3 weeks) its hard to know if this is real or not. But Nic thinks it is. Contractions 5-7 minutes apart and coming on strong for the last hour. Sorry about the ridiculous time of night, but we’re heading in to the hospital. Here’s hoping this is it!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 24, 2008
Here, let us entertain you with pictures of our first born, while #2 continues to hold our lives, and maybe soon our sanity, hostage…
Posted by Nicole Wise on Mar 20, 2008
Today is Abi’s due date (40 weeks pregnant baby!)
So I had my weekly doctor’s appointment. I was interested to see if I had dilated any more from last week, which was just over 1cm, and I figured I would maybe be 1.5cm to 2cm. But to my surprise when he checked me (which by the way is not very fun) he said I was 3cm dilated and 80% thinned out, or effaced. Now this is interesting to me since at about this time with Benjamin I had already been at the hospital for 8 or so hours and had an epidural.
Oh and I guess since I was progressing so well from last week he decided to do a procedure called “Stripping the Membranes” and if anyone has had this done you know how NOT fun it was (Google it if you want to find out more). So in case anyone is wondering the doctor said it could happen tonight OR it could happen next week… in other words, we are still waiting!!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 18, 2008
As our friend Dave pointed out, we’re now sure that we’re having a girl — because she’s making everyone wait.
The official due date isn’t until Thursday… which really means that it could be another 2 weeks before she arrives (after 2 weeks past the due date, they’ll induce labor.) Nicole’s been having pretty regular bouts of contractions usually about 10-15 minutes apart — although “bouts” isn’t the right word because they last half the day, then mysteriously go away. We’ve stopped getting excited about those, but Nic still diligently writes them down, hoping for a pattern to emerge.
I’ve been working from home this week, hoping to be near-by when something starts happening. Really that just means that we’re both trapped in the house, scared to go anywhere. The cabin fever is setting in and we’re almost through every episode of Firefly and Jericho (another great show likely to be canceled before its time) so we’re starting to go a little crazy.
In short, absolutely nothing is happening, there’s nothing to read here, go about your business. We’ll post again when something happens — I already have the post saved as a Draft 
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 16, 2008
So last night we’re laying in bed watching Firefly (because as I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing else we can do right now) and I noticed Nic is keeping a spreadsheet on the craptop. This isn’t unusual (because as I mentioned earlier, she makes spreadsheets for everything) but I glanced over and figured out that she was writing down contractions, and the last 15 were almost exactly 10 minutes apart…
Around 11:00 we started getting ready to go to sleep, but not before I put the bags by the door, laid out some comfortable clothes I could quickly get into, and texted Brooke (and maybe one or two other people) to suggest she keep her cell phone handy.
I’m pretty sure we were both awake for the next 2 hours — Nic timing her contractions, and me almost bouncing with excitement. But eventually we both fell asleep, and when we woke up this morning the contractions were gone and there was still no Abi.
She’s being very stubborn. It was not like this at all with Benjamin. We told him when we were ready, and the next day he arrived. And the water broke first so we didn’t have to deal with the ambiguity of timing contractions. Maybe this kid is gonna be trouble…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 10, 2008
Its starting to look like that whole “expect her to come early” thing isn’t really true at all. Not that it should be a surprise. Predicting due dates isn’t so much a science as it is a wild guess.
We had an ultrasound this morning, but it was mostly just a big waste of time. First of all, the baby’s legs were crossed so we were unable to confirm its gender, and we both really wanted some re-assurance that we’ve purchased the right color accessories. Secondly, the baby is big enough now that she’s really packed in there quite tight, and the two pictures they managed to get of the face show her squished up so tight that its nearly impossible to tell what’s what.
Ultrasounds are really annoying because the bulk of the work is done by a tech, who takes pictures and points out things that don’t look anything like what they say they are. Then they leave and you sit alone in a dark room for half an hour — Nicole still with her belly gelled up. In his own sweet time the doctor saunters in, spends about 60 seconds doing what the tech did, and then walks away.
This time, after his 60 second review, he turned to us and, with some disappointment on his face, announced “average.” As if he were hoping for a mutant of some kind. “Its an average-sized baby. Good bye.” And left.
Thanks doc, that was a great use of our morning. I’ve decided that Abi will, for now, be Abi/Abe, in case she turns out to be a boy. We’d never actually name anyone that, but it seems like we shouldn’t be too specific about gender until we meet them…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Mar 06, 2008
The waiting is the worst part.
I know its the “calm before the storm” and all that and we should just enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts, but patience is not a virtue I posses in spades. There’s nothing to do!!
Some time in the next minute to 5 weeks Nic’s going to go into labour. Worst case scenario, its the end of the work day and its rush hour. Here’s how that would look:
- I drive north for 8 exits, typically a 17 minute drive, but at rush hour between 25 and 45, depending on whether or not there’s any radar traps or pointless one-car accidents
- I pick up Nic and Ben; we drive north 3 more exits and drop Ben off with Jason and Brooke
- We turn around and drive 9 exits south on one highway, 2 exits on another highway and 7 exits on a third highway to Albany med…
Total time? Optimistically, we’re looking at 2 hours. I’m not really sure if thats going to cut it, but that’s worst case scenario. Best case we could probably do everything in 1 hour.
As much as we appreciate Brooke and Jason taking our kid, and as much as I enjoy my job, maybe you can see why we’re feeling like we need to be near our family during this season in our lives?
So we’re ready for best- or worst-case scenarios, we’re packed, we have the new stroller (and sold the old one) and the tiny new-born diapers. Now we just need her to arrive. Our preferred date would be March 8th, which would allow us one final date night on Friday (with free babysitting, thanks to Brooke’s mom!) and would mean that I’ll be at home when things start happening. I’m doing my best to beam this information to Abi telepathically, but I’m not sure if she’s getting the message. I guess we’ll find out…
These are our friends, Jason and Brooke, without whom we would probably be doing a home birth… and although that worked out great for Brian and Melissa, its not something we want to try in our tiny apartment with the nearest hospital 25 minutes away! Thank you guys!
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Feb 29, 2008
Just a few notes for those who are starting to get curious about Baby #2. We’re pretty much ready: the hospital bag is packed, my time-off paperwork is signed, so now its just a waiting game. Here’s some other notes (for the squeamish: medical details follow)
- She is still due March 20th, but we’ve been told to expect an early delivery
- Nic had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and was told her cervix is soft and she’s 1cm dialated…
- But the doctor scheduled an ultrasound for March 10th, so obviously he doesn’t think Abi will be arriving before then.
- The other night both Nicole and I had a dream that Abi turned out to be boy. The first ultrasound was pretty clear when we saw it, but now we’re both wondering if we should have a boy’s name picked out, just in case.
- We will be live-blogging the delivery just like last time, and also posting some pics to the Flickr feed… that is assuming there’s time for it. Everyone we talk to warns that baby #2 will come really fast, so we’ll see if that’s true for us.
Of course, the big day will be announced here, and if you want to be on the cell phone/text message notification list, just let us know.
Posted by Nicole Wise on Feb 23, 2008
Wow, thinking back ten years ago to when we first started dating I don’t think I would have guessed that I would be living in another country, traveled half way around the world, have one kid and another on the way and been married for six and a half years. But if you asked Jon he wouldn’t be surprised at all because you see he had his whole life planned out when I met him, which I think was an awkward moment…
Anyway I have been meaning to do this post for a while but it’s not something I normally do so I forget about it plus I blame it on being pregnant and having the worst memory because of it! Ok I found a picture that we took last pregnancy, for a post I think, and we took another one, in the same outfit, during the same week of pregnancy. Now we have both pictures and we want to know if you can tell which one is Abigail and which is Benjamin. I think I look about the same size in both pictures. So vote, and let us know what you think!
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Everything is going well with Abigail, she is kicking like mad! Today I had a doctors appointment and I asked how big he thought she might be and he said about 5.5 lbs and if I make it full term she will likely be around 7 lbs or so. Also the Doctor said that if I happen to go into labour anytime they won’t try and stop it now, and he said that can be any day, you just never know…
Update: the correct answer was “A” for Abigail! Picture B was last year!
