From Wit’s End

(Taken with Grandpa’s cellphone.)

I got an unusual call this morning on my cellphone for Rachel’s Dad, who was visiting Baby Nora for the first time with Rachel’s Mom and little brother Nik. I handed the phone off to my father-in-law with nary a second thought.

A minute later, he was freaking out. Their house burned down last night. That’s the sort of sentence that you can’t help but read at least twice, but it is true. The rest of the morning was spent trying to get as much information from a distance as possible. Rachel’s sister Beka was on the scene fairly quickly, and they also got a good bit of support from their church and neighbors. Over time, we found out that the fire started with some creosote in the chimney, even though they hadn’t had a fire in their wood stove for about three days. Also, both dogs survived and were found, though both are shaken and one got burned on his face pretty badly.

We were thankful that we could love them through the worst of the shock today. We were in the middle of making Rachel’s Family’s traditional Valentine’s day breakfast when the news came in: Peanut butter french toast in the shape of hearts, pineapple rings, bacon, and parfaits made with frosted flakes, cherry pie filling, and vanilla ice cream. Rachel and I roused ourselves from our melancholy after a while and finished preparing these things, and we sat down to “breakfast” at around 11:30am. By the end of the meal, Rachel’s folks were beginning to make wry comments about the situation, and everyone was feeling a little better with food in their stomachs. Rachel’s sister Jennifer took them clothes shopping, and we had dinner at her house this evening with a few mutual friends from church.

All in all, it was a very surreal day but it ended tolerably well. Indeed, the whole situation could have been a lot worse. In their house, the wood stove had been at the foot of the stairs to the second floor, where Rachel’s little brother Nik usually slept. If they had been home when this happened, it would have been highly likely that someone would gotten seriously hurt or even killed. As it is now, we all have a lot to be thankful for. Rachel’s family got many offers for a place to stay from families in their church, and her dad’s work associates will be putting together a collection for them. They’ve often talked about building a house on a more scenic part of their property, and now Rachel’s Mom can get the new kitchen that she wanted but couldn’t do without the old kitchen long enough to get. You never want something like this to happen, but the love that can flow in the aftermath of such a tragedy is truly a wonderful sight to behold.

Well, like I said, I had a pretty bad day last week. Strangely enough, the bad day was providentially reversed today:

Last week, we found out that our company was cutting our pay NAFTA-wide by 5% as a defensive austerity measure in this bad year in the automotive business. Today, I had my annual performance review, which went better than I thought it would. Consequently, my pay will be going up about 4.5% for the year. So I’ll only be getting a net half-percent cut in pay.

Also, last Friday I lost my wallet somewhere in the medical park when we were taking Nora to her first doctor’s appointment. I was pretty frantic and canceled all my credit and debit cards. Today was the day all the replacement cards came in the mail.

The ironic thing about all this is that today is Friday the 13th.

…slowly but surely. It seems like everytime Jack wakes up from being asleep, he’s a little more reconciled to the idea of having a little sister around. The first morning at home was the most harrowing: he threw such a crazy tantrum that he fell into his toy cradle in his room, which is how he got that bruise on the side of his face. But he’s getting better: he likes to give Nora kisses, and he’ll get one of the baby shower gift bags from Nora’s room and bring it over to “give Nora a present.”

Another funny thing that has happened is that all of a sudden he plays by himself a LOT more easily. Something about a baby coming home has sparked his imagination in all kinds of ways, apparently. It’s kind of cool.

Wow, just look at that. She’s a little miracle.

This was my first day back to work after Nora was born. I went to an associate’s desk to catch up, and he asked me if I had heard about the All Hands meeting that was held the other day. Another one? Yep. This one outlined the NAFTA-wide austerity measures that the corporation will be rolling out starting March 1st:

• an across the board 5% cut in pay for everyone,
• a termination of 401k matching for the rest of the year,
• and the company is telling everyone when to take their vacation days. If one’s PTO gets used up, then the mandatory days off will be unpaid leave.

So that was nice to hear on my first day back. I was kind of thankful that I had only come in for a half day.

In the afternoon, I drove Rachel and Baby Nora to Baby Nora’s first doctor’s appointment. Jack fell asleep in the car, of course. Instead of wake him up, I carried his entire car seat into the doctor’s office, propped it back against the wall with some seat cushions, and let him sleep comfortably while I filled out Baby Nora’s doctor paperwork, fiddled around on my iPhone, and generally tried to not reel from the bad news of the morning. I pulled my health insurance card out of my wallet so that the office assistant could make a copy of it, and then stuck it in my pocket when they gave it back. Jack slept the whole time Rachel and Nora were with the doctor, and also while I carried him back to the car. He only just stirred as I was pulling out of the medical center parking garage.

When we came home we all assumed our newly-typical positions. Rachel nursed Nora on the couch, Jack was playing in his room, and I sat down to the computer. I think I may have thought about buying something online, but when I felt for my wallet, it wasn’t there. I got a little frantic, and after a while Rachel called the doctor’s office. They hadn’t seen a wallet. When it occurred to me that I could possibly have dropped it in the parking garage somehow, I decided to drive back to the medical park (Yes, without my driver’s license. I did the speed limit the whole way.) I checked the parking garage floor, walked into the doctor’s office, searched to no avail, and the office lady called the medical park security officer, and I filed a report with her. I went home feeling pretty bad (but still doing the speed limit), and I decided there was nothing else to do but cancel all my cards and figure out how to get a new driver’s license. Thankfully, there is a DMV office open in Lexington on Saturday, and my Mom offered to drive me over there the next and take Jack with so that Rachel could feed Nora undisturbed.

So yes, it was a pretty bad day.

Click on the links to see the short videos that my Mom sent us from her phone (on Jack’s behalf, of course):

“Happy Birthday, Baby Nora!”

“I love you, Mommy!”

[I'm pretty sure that there's a way to embed the videos on this page directly, but I will have to read up on that before I can do it.]

Safe and sound. Grandma is bringing Jack home even as I type. Soon we will all be one big happy! When things calm down after he gets back (HA!), I will see about posting some more pictures (and videos? Maybe. ) from the last few days.

I was trying out the new facial recognition feature on iPhoto, and practically fell out of my chair giggling when I saw this:

Rachel’s folks sent these flowers. Check out the Bible verse for a laugh.

Rachel is sitting up and taking nourishment, and generally enjoying being lucid after childbirth (a distinct improvement from last time).

If you’d like to come over for a visit, we would love to see you. We are in room #223 at LMC. I’m told that we will probably be discharged on Thursday, so you are welcome to see us anytime before then.

Coming in at 19.75″ and 7 lbs, 7 oz, a stealer of hearts and a seller of smiles, I give you… Baby Nora!!!1!

Rachel is holding Nora and seeing if she will latch on. We are all well, as you can see.

Wow, that was fast! She only took about five minutes to go from seven to ten cm dilation. And she only had to push twice!

Baby Nora was born at 12:11pm.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

The contractions are more regular (about every 2.5 minutes) and more intense now. Rachel is starting to do her Lamaze breathing.

She is also eating a red popsicle.

Contractions are about two or three minutes apart now, and Rachel is actually finding it more comfortable to stand up.

Contractions are about four minutes apart, and Rachel is as cool as a cucumber. The only thing bothering at the moment is that the Fox News Channel keeps going back to covering today’s free breakfast promotion at Denny’s.

“Man, I should have brought a pack of cards or something.”

This is definitely much less crazy than last time. Fortunately, I brought some reading material.

If I’m reading the computer chart correctly, it looks like the contractions are about five minutes apart.

Per grandmotherly request, the time is now shown on each post. I was pleasantly surprised that I found the WordPress syntax to make that change, and I was pleasantly unsurprised that it was so easy to do it on the iPhone. (Enter gushing Apple fanboy statement here. )

Which is different from last time, when things were so weird and fast that the doula never saw us.

The internal sensors were put in and are showing some mild contractions, but Rachel isn’t feeling very much yet. She is laying quietly and watching TV.

He said Rachel’s platelets were at 128, so that’s good. The next thing they’ll do is give her some Pitocin and make Rachel’s water break.

We have arrived at Lexington Medical Center, and Rachel has changed onto her hospital gown. The room is a lot bigger than last time.

…for the last time for a long time. Rachel’s sister Jennifer came to pick up our dog Kat at around 7pm, and my folks left with Jack and his things at around 8pm. It’s just me and Rachel, and we are going to sleep early. Good night, known world. We are leaving you tomorrow for good — for the good of a whole, new person.

…and “D” is for daughter!

The doctor scheduled our induction for 5am. [journalist voice] And we will be covering it live and exclusively right here, so tune in bright and early. [end journalist voice]