Baby Reed!

I’m happy to announce the arrival of baby Reed at 6:32am today!  He was a healthy 6lbs 13oz, and 19″ long.

Mom and baby are doing great, they are both conked out right now after a long, long night.

looked like the boston cream pie worked a treat… off to the hospital!

Tags: Baby, meredith, Pregnancy

So Meredith still hasn’t delivered. She hasn’t gone into active labor. And she’s more than a week overdue. It feels like we’ve been in a holding pattern circling the airport forever, with no end in sight. But just like with a flight, the end comes one way or the other (ie, land or run out of gas.) I’m just hoping that she won’t need to be induced. We’ll know a lot more within the next couple of days i’m guessing.

In the midst of this personal frustration, something really interesting happened in my professional life. I don’t talk about it much, but I have a number of side projects that I work on.

Since December 2000, I’ve been constructing and running a site called ODwire.org, which has become the largest social network for eye doctors. I actually started it at the behest of my father, a retired eye doctor, just as a way for him to keep in touch with his peers and old friends.

When I started the initial design for the community I thought the site would be a major flop (sorry, dad), for several reasons:

• It wasn’t clear to me back then that folks of my father’s generation would take to the site, or that highly paid professionals would take the time to browse such a site
• I did not think my father would have the sticktuitiveness to act as a site facilitator without alienating large chunks of the member base.
• My father also demanded that the site should be run as a closed community that required registration and manual verification before a user could “enter the club”. He felt that professionals would want a more private space to share their feelings, and without some degree of privacy, no one would want to chat or open up about issues of substance. Great idea, but this made it really difficult to get noticed by search engines, because search bots couldn’t get inside the site. As far as the bots knew, our content was limited to 3-4 pages.

Despite my initial concerns, and much to my amazement, the site didn’t flop. It has grown from nothing to being an important, legitimate media property serving the profession.

This morning, we went over the 10,000 registered, verified user mark. This may not sound like a lot of users when you think about general social networking sites like Twitter, but in reality it represents 1/4 to 1/3 of ALL optometrists in the United States, and it is a highly targeted, sought-after population. The site does over a million page views a month, and it is far and away the biggest site of its kind in eye care. Not bad for a ‘gated online community’.

Meredith has long asked me to comment about how we managed to build the community and keep it relevant and growing over the past 8-9 years. I’ve been reluctant to share, simply because… I don’t know the answer! That is, i’ve never really taken a step back to analyze the success factors or ‘secret sauce’ that made our small community into an important venue.

Meredith is going to teach a class about online community for SJSU in January, and she’s asked me for some real-world examples that I can share with the students. So it is probably high time that I wrap my head around what it is we’ve built, why it is so popular, and how it can be replicated. Or at the very least, come up with some anecdotes about the pitfalls of building a community like ours so that her students won’t make the same mistakes we did along the way.

In commemoration of our 10,000th registrant, Meredith was kind enough to get me this awesome Boston Cream Pie this morning. Yay chocolate! Yay creamy goodness!

Who knows — maybe the cake will push her into active labor, and we’ll have something even more important to celebrate today

According to my mother, I was born 9 days late, which is exactly how late little Reed is today. At this point, I’m having contractions 24 hours a day, some extremely painful and lengthy, others more mild. Often, they develop a pattern — coming every 10 or 7 minutes — and just when we think maybe we should time these they manage to dissipate into randomness. I also now have a cold (thanks Adam), which is only adding to my discomfort. When getting a non-stress test yesterday to make sure the baby was tolerating contractions ok, my contractions actually pegged the meter (going way over 100 — not sure what that really means, but I know it was measuring uterine pressure), so I’m pretty sure they’re legitimate contractions. I just don’t understand why I keep having so many of them when they never seem to turn into labor. I’m having one right now as I write this and were I standing, I’d have had to lean onto something to stay on my feet. I can take the pain, but I can’t take it all going nowhere.

Fortunately, the non-stress test and the ultrasound we had this week show that the baby seems to be doing fine, so at least I don’t have to worry about that point (and he’s still a boy, which is also good to hear). But as we get closer and closer to Monday — the day they’ll want to induce me — I’m starting to get more and more anxious for labor to start on its own.

The really annoying thing about not going into labor by your due date is that people constantly feel the need to comment on it or ask about it. I know they’re just being nice, but I really don’t feel like talking about it since I’m frustrated enough with the thoughts in my own head. While I like my neighbors, I purposely tried to avoid them (unsuccessfully) on my walk today because I just didn’t want to talk about how I haven’t had the baby yet. I hate feeling so anti-social, but I really am getting sick of answering questions about how late I am and all that.

Not surprisingly, all of these things are making me rather cranky as Adam can attest. I know I’m taking things out on him sometimes, but, to be blunt, he should consider himself lucky for not being on my end of things. To have uncomfortable and painful contractions all day, to feel big as a house, to have a nasty cold, to be exhausted because you just can’t seem to get enough sleep, and to be worried about how long it’s taking for this baby to get the show on the road is much worse than having someone crab at you. While he has lost his patience a few times, he’s been taking very good care of me and deserves a medal for managing to stay positive.

It’s funny… during this pregnancy, I put so much thought and concern into what would happen when I was in labor (what I wanted, didn’t want, etc.). It never occurred to me that going into labor period was going to be the major issue. At this point, I just want to have a healthy baby and I don’t care what it takes to make that happen. I’d really rather avoid a c-section, but induction is actually starting to look appealing, even though it would probably lead to a cascade of other things I don’t want (like an epidural, which scares the living daylights out of me, being a person pathologically afraid of needles, especially those going into one’s SPINE!). #1 for me right now is meeting my baby and I will accept whatever it takes to make that happen.

For my first week home, I wasn’t feeling impatient about the baby coming in the least. I enjoyed spending time with Adam, going out for lunches and dinners, and just getting some R&R before the big day. In fact, part of me was relieved that the baby hadn’t come, because I wanted that time with Adam, just the two of us.

By Friday night, though, I felt much more ready to have the baby. And maybe that made a difference, because I started having contractions Saturday night. They started coming every 20 minutes, then 15, then 10, and after about 6 hours (at 3am-ish), they were 7 minutes apart. For a good part of the night I couldn’t sleep as I was so excited (it was like that “night before the first day of school” feeling you get when you’re little), but I tried to force myself to sleep around 4am, figuring that I needed as much rest as possible, and as the contractions became more intense, they’d wake me up. When I woke up around 8am, I was still having the occasional contraction, but they were random, less intense, and much more sporadic. Boo.

Flash forward to Sunday evening, when I started having much more intense contractions, 15 minutes apart, for over 3 hours. These were so painful that sometimes I couldn’t even stand up during them. I figured, ok, these really hurt, this must be the real deal. Adam and I decided to try and sleep around 10:30, since we figured we’d end up needing to go to the hospital in the early morning hours. When I woke up to use the bathroom around 2am, I was having some contractions, but they were really mild and randomly spaced; nothing like the ones before. Sigh…

I don’t mind waiting for Reed to come. I can be patient. But this is driving me nuts. To get all revved up and excited, thinking this is it!, only to find that it isn’t, is incredibly frustrating. I know the contractions are doing something in that they’re making my cervix more dilated and effaced, but it’s definitely a let-down when it doesn’t progress beyond that. I won’t get my hopes up tonight if I have more contractions. Probably when I’m really in labor, I’m not even going to believe it. It’ll be like the boy who cried wolf. Until my water breaks or we see Reed’s head, I’m not going to buy into the contractions.

I’ve tried most of the things people suggest you try to stimulate labor (though nothing will make me go near castor oil) and the “baby chicken” was apparently a bust as well. I think I’m just going to focus now on relaxing, eating healthy, and not worrying about going into labor (or not going into labor). Reed will come when he’s ready to come and if he doesn’t in the time-span my midwives say is acceptable, I’ll just have to accept the medical interventions I did not want. Again, it’s not in my hands, and I feel like all of these old wives tales about what stimulates labor only have the effect of making people feel like there’s something they can do, which consequently makes them feel like failures when those things don’t work (or they believe they worked when really, their labor would have started then either way). Every legitimate scientific thing I read tells me that something the baby does stimulates labor, so the ball is completely in Reed’s court, and I’m just going to make myself as comfortable and relaxed as possible until he decides he’s ready to make his appearance.

So, in my last post, I mentioned my colleague and friend, Toni, who was due to deliver 9 days before me. She lives about an hour north of us, so the odds of my running into her randomly are slim to nil. At the spur of the moment around 3pm yesterday, Adam and I decided to drive 45 minutes north to Burlington and buy ourselves some magazines (from B&N) and treats (from my favorite gourmet market). At 5pm, we decided that perhaps we should have dinner up there and made reservations at Sonoma Station, a restaurant we’d never been to before but that had gotten really good reviews. A few minutes after we arrived for our 6pm reservation, who do we see walking towards the restaurant but Toni and her husband, Allen! Mind you, this place is a good 35 minutes from both of our houses and neither of us have ever been there before.

When I exclaim in wonder about their coming to the same restaurant, the waitress says to me “oh she must be the one ordering the ‘baby chicken.’” The what now? Apparently, they have this chicken dish that isn’t on the menu, but has supposedly made a number of women go into labor after eating it. I guess at 9 days overdue, Toni is ready to try anything to get that baby moving (though my mom went 9 days overdue with me and everything turned out just fine). So our wonderful meal ended up being even more wonderful with Toni and Allen sitting next to us. I just can’t get over the coincidence that we both chose to go to the same restaurant at the same time and that the restaurant I chose almost randomly has something called a “baby chicken.” What are the odds?!?!?

The meal was seriously delicious (the restaurant could hold its own anywhere in the country, including Sonoma), and while I didn’t have the “baby chicken,” we did make another reservation for Friday in case I haven’t delivered by then.

So, today is my due date, or at least that’s what I’m told. The fact is, my uterus isn’t exactly equipped with a calendar, and even if it was, I’m guessing that Reed can’t read yet (though Adam was reading at 3, so nothing would surprise me with his genius genes in this munchkin). Given the length of my cycles and when we started trying to conceive, I always thought the baby would come on the 10th or 11th, so I’m not exactly holding my breath for something to happen today. But still, it’s definitely a weird feeling to know that I could go into labor at any moment… or that it could be two weeks away. I guess it’s kind of like being in the military — you never know when you’ll be called on a mission and you just have to stay well-rested and well-prepared for it at every moment. Being one who loves schedules, this is not my scene.

Some days, I feel ok with waiting a while for the baby to come. If I’ve slept well and am not in too much discomfort, I figure I could be happy going for another week or so. Last night though, with the baby deciding to use my bladder as a punching bag for 2 hours in the middle of the night (and I can’t even begin to describe how jarring that pain is), I was definitely feeling ready to evict him. But most of the time, I don’t feel desperate to get this baby out of me! like some women do.

Friday was my last day of work. I’d saved up 9 vacation days since I wasn’t sure how I’d be feeling or how prepared we’d be for baby towards the end. While we’re prepared and have Reed’s room just so (at least we think we do!), that last week of work was brutal. I was so uncomfortable and exhausted that I can’t even fathom how I could have done another week (given my theory that my due date is actually this Friday). I know some people take part of their maternity leave a few weeks before the baby is due, and I was definitely torn between wanting to rest before baby and wanting to maximize my time with him. So having those 9 days to pack in before my maternity leave officially begins (April 17) was a good idea. Then, even if the baby is very late, I’ll still have 8 weeks with him before I start going back 2 days/week.

My midwife suggested wine, spicy food, pizza, and sex to spur on labor (along with walking, but it’s been cold and rainy for days now). If that isn’t the best prescription I’ve ever been handed by a medical professional, I don’t know what is! We’re going out for Thai food for lunch, so that will definitely cover the spicy. And I just had my first glass of wine in a very long time (we sprung for a really delicious Acacia pinot noir that we hadn’t had in years and years). I’m just hoping that people don’t treat me like a watched pot, because it will drive me nuts. My colleague was due 9 days before me (and hadn’t given birth as of Friday), and every day, I had people at work asking me if she’d given birth yet. I didn’t want to bug her every day, because I knew how I’d feel if people did that to me. I told the folks at work that Adam would post to this blog when I was in labor so people could just check here to know if the baby was on the way. So no need to wonder — if there’s no news on this blog, then you can assume there’s no news.

People keep asking me if I’m “ready.” I’m not even sure what that means. Do I have diapers and the basic things a baby needs? Yes. Do we have 2 weeks-worth of food in our freezer? Yes. Do I feel ready to have my life change? Yes (it’s not like we have a wild and crazy lifestyle to give up). Do I feel ready? I guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be, but it doesn’t mean that I actually feel ready. Not having much experience (read: any experience) with babies, I know that first month is going to be really hard. I’m lucky that Adam will be home with me and plans to do as little with work as he can during that first month. We’ll also have a post-partum doula come a few times in the first couple of weeks just to provide help and encouragement. I think it’s just fear of the unknown and not knowing how I will deal with everything (with crazy hormonal changes AND a little person completely dependent on me) that makes me feel less than ready. But I know that we’ll get through it and after a month or so it will all become routine. Again, it’s the not knowing that gets me. Were I doing all this without Adam, I’d be a basket case, but together, I know we can do anything.

Off to our Thai lunch in Montpelier. Maybe this will be it! Or not. Stay tuned…

Our house was built before the widespread deployment of cable TV.  When cable finally arrived here (i’m guessing sometime in the late 70′s),  the house’s previous owners just took a drill to strategic portions of the exterior and ran the cables straight into the rooms where they wanted service.

Unfortunately, they only ran the lines into a couple of rooms.   Not even the living room had a jack.

With the baby coming, Meredith insisted on better access to TV around the house (she’s got to do something while nursing, after all!)

This left me with a terrible choice:  try to retrofit coax drops all over the house (painful, labor intensive) or find a way to transmit the signals wirelessly (possibly expensive,  probably complicated).

We already had a pretty fast 5Ghz 802.11n network in the house and I had a bunch of obsolete hardware rotting in the closet, so the wireless decision seemed obvious.

I’m writing this guide because I hope someone finds it useful, and so three years from now when some piece of the system croaks I have notes to look back on…

MythTV: The DIY Solution

MythTV is an open source software project, so named because it is designed to turn off-the-shelf commodity hardware into the “Mythical” media convergence device.

In practice, it turns your PC into a Tivo-like device that can also play games, stream music, get weather reports, etc….

It is unlike Tivo in a couple of  important ways:

• No mandatory subscription fees.  However, to get good schedule data is it is important to subscribe to a service like Schedules Direct ($20 annually.)  You can use that one account with all the MythTV boxes in your house, so the more units you add, the greater the cost savings vs. Tivo.
• Client-Server architecture.  With Tivo, you play back recordings on the same box that does the recording.  With MythTV, those roles can be split into two different machines:
  1. A server (aka “back-end”) which takes a cable TV input from the wall and records programs to its hard drive.
  2.  A client (aka “front-end”)  hooked up to a TV, which receives recorded and live programs from the server over the computer network either wired or wirelessly.

  One server can serve many clients.  As you can surmise from the description, the clients don’t need access to a cable jack.  So you can place them anywhere around the house.  As long as they can communicate over the network with the server, they’ll be able to receive programming. In fact, you can even use your PC or Mac as a client.

Sadly, one way that MythTV is really not like Tivo is the ease of setup.  Tivo is truly plug-and-play.  You can have one unboxed and running in under 10 minutes.

MythTV makes you work for it.   You need to pick the right hardware & software, then configure it properly. You even need to program the remotes so that they work reasonably well with the clients.

Thus:
If you hate tinkering with hardware, don’t try MythTV.
If you get upset editing xorg.conf by hand, don’t try MythTV.
If you didn’t understand that last sentence, don’t try MythTV.
Seriously, you will thank me later.

That said, the project has come a long way.  There are now several MythTV re-spins based off  major linux distributions, like MythDora and Mythbuntu.  These greatly ease the process of getting a functioning system with a high “WAF”  together in a reasonable amount of time.

Step 0: Pick a Distribution

I chose to use Mythbuntu 8.10 on our clients and server.  This is the latest version of Ubuntu with the latest avaialble version of MythTV layered on top of it. I picked it mainly because of my familiarity with Ubuntu, the large database of supported hardware, and the helpful community around Ubuntu. (The community is critical — if you run into a problem, they are the only ones who will provide useful advice.)

Step 1: Get a SchedulesDirect Account

You’ll need to subscribe to SchedulesDirect in order to download your cable system’s TV schedule each day.  They offer a free trial for 7 days, then if you like it they ask that you subscribe for $20/year.

As an aside, SchedulesDirect is a not-for-profit organization.   They perform a valuable service, transforming the TV schedules from cable companies around the world into an easy-to-swallow XML feed that MythTV and other open soruce projects can download.

They’ve been 100% accurate with our cable schedules up until now, I highly recommend supporting them if you’re into DIY TV projects like MythTV.

Step 2: Get the server running

Fortunately for me, we had a cable drop in the room that I use as my gym.  I could throw an ugly server in there and Meredith wouldn’t notice or care.

Digging through my junk closet, i found such a case.   It had a 2006-vintage Celeron D motherboard, which is more than fast enough for the jobs that the server has to perform.  In the MythTV world the back-end, with the help of a TV Capture Card, handles the recording and storage of the programs and listens for requests from clients to serve up content.

I also had a 1TB hard drive lying around, so threw that into the case.  1TB is good for 500-700 hours of standard-definition TV recordings.

The hardware that actually does the “heavy lifting” of encoding the signals from the cable into something that a computer can play back is called a video capture card (aka TV-Tuner card), and it was the one piece of hardware I didn’t have lying around.

The best place to find such a card is eBay.  And the classic capture card for MythTV is the Hauppauge PVR-350, which is what I used.

This card is considered a good choice for a number of reasons, most importantly because its Linux drivers work well, and because it has two coax inputs.  You can split your cable signal and stick two cables into the card — this lets you record two streams at once, or watch one stream of live TV while recording another.  Very handy, especially if you have more than one client in the house.  A decent capture card compatibility list can be found here. (But do yourself a favor — stick with the supported Hauppauge boards.)

One great feature of MythTV is that it can support multiple capture cards in the same machine.  So, if I anted up for another PVR-350 and stuffed it in this server, the machine could record 4 streams at once!

MythTV also has the concept of a ‘master-slave’ server relationship.  You can setup additional servers (called ‘slaves’).  The master server tells the slaves what programs to record when.  This sort of expandability is a huge bonus, particularly if you are adding clients all over the house.  Or if you and your spouse can never agree on what to record.

Once you’ve got your (hopefully compatible) hardware put together, installing the server software is usually straightforward.

Mythbuntu installs like plain, old Ubuntu but at the end of the setup also installs the MythTV software & helps you configure it.  The configuration options are beyond the scope of this blog post.  The MythTV wiki has a wealth of information about how to set it up.

Step 3: Build the client machines

Client machines typically take a little more thought to build, since they sit next to or under the TV.  This means they cannot be excessively ugly, large or loud (WAF rears its ugly head once more…)

Additionally, the motherboard that you use in the client needs a way to send a signal out to a television.   You can achieve this in one of three ways:

• a TV-Out built into the motherboard
• a TV-Out built into an add-on AGP or PCI video card
• a signal converter, which can change a VGA signal to composite or S-Video.

My junk closet/treasure trove happened to hold a couple of VIA EPIA-M10000 motherboards from 2003.

The VIA EPIA M-Series are considered classic motherboards for a Myth front-end because they are:

• Cheap (check out eBay)
• Use very little power
• Can frequently be run fanless, so they are silent
• Have a built-in MPEG2 decoder chip, which offloads the video decoding from the wimpy CPUs that these boards are usually saddled with.
• Have composite and S-Video TV outs.
• Are well supported in Linux

Alternatively, i’ve heard of people using mobos like the  Intel D201GLY2 or the newer Atom-based D945GCLF Little Falls, two more low-power consumers.

All these motherboards are tiny (Micro-ITX sized)  so you can use extremely small, somewhat less ugly cases which resemble cable boxes.

Installing the front-end is similar to the back-end, just stick the Mythbuntu disk in and answer a series of questions, including information about the back-end that you’re going to connect to.

The installer will set up the hardware automatically and this is why it is important to choose your hardware carefully — if your distribution is baffled by the hardware it detects, you are going to be in a world of pain and spending many sleepless nights trolling the MythTV support forums.

Just as an aside, here’s my xorg.conf file for my EPIA M10K, using the composite TV-out (hope it helps someone):

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “openchrome”
Option “TVType” “NTSC”
Option “TVOutput”
Option “EnableAGPDMA”
Option “ActiveDevice” “TV”

EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Configured Monitor”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Monitor “Configured Monitor”
Device “Configured Video Device”
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
EndSection

If you want to change the channel from the couch, you’ll also need a remote and an IR receiver that plugs into a USB port.  Lots of people like the StreamZap. One of the cool things about MythTV is that it not only supports a ton of different remotes, but you can also program remotes that it doesn’t know about out-of-the-box.

We had an extra Tivo remote lying around (also available on eBay, $10-15), and I was able to find links to someone who got it configured properly.   This was a critical piece of the puzzle, because the more I can get the MythTV to behave like the Tivo, the happier Meredith is.  And a happy Meredith is a critical goal for this project.

Step 4: Record Some Shows!
After the construction ordeal is over, the final step is to actually start using the thing.

You can watch Live TV with it, or set up programs to record. You can set up your recording schedule using the TV and remote (a la Tivo), but it is cumbersome and annoying. The *better* way to do it is to access MythTV’s web server.

When you set up your back-end Mythbuntu should have given you the option to install MythWeb. It is a very simple way to see the upcoming schedule of shows and pick which you want to record.

Another neat way to progam the MythTV system is through an iPhone. There’s an app for that.

Step 5: Watch TV, Already!

That was a lot of work, but in the end you’ve built a system that has many advantages over other PVRs:

• It can  be easily expanded to every room in your house (without multiple subscription fees, a la Tivo)
• You don’t need to be near a cable jack
• Centralized storage means every client can access all the shows on the common back end
• The ability to stream music and other media, as well as games,  to the front-ends around the house

If you are intrigued by MythTV but all the setup talk has you spooked, you can also buy pre-built MythTV boxes on eBay.

Good luck and happy loafing!

Tags: EPIA, MythTV

I’m happily over the stomach bug from hell, but am definitely at the point in this pregnancy where I’m pretty much uncomfortable all the time. It’s become hard to do most of the things I’d taken for granted in the past, like picking stuff up off the floor, eating a full meal, walking without pain, sitting without pain, sleeping through the night, etc. I’ve had a lot of joint pain lately, which has made me pretty cranky, but I also have my good days, like yesterday, when we went to Hanover, NH to browse their cute stores, see a movie (Slumdog Millionaire — awesome!), and celebrate a friend’s birthday over dinner. I know times like that are fleeting, so I’m trying to enjoy them as much as possible. Mostly, though, I’m enjoying my time with Adam — just the two of us.

The whole “having a baby” thing has definitely become more real this week. We installed Reed’s carseat bases on Friday and last weekend I packed our bags for the hospital, wrote up my birth plan/preferences (the term birth plan seems ridiculous to me, as it’s clearly something you can’t plan out), and created some checklists for Adam to make sure we have everything ready before we leave for the hospital. While I’m definitely ready to evict Reed from his cozy little home, the whole idea of being a mother still seems so strange and foreign to me. I was never one of those people who always wanted to be a mother. I love kids and have always related well to them (probably better than with adults!), but I never felt that huge desire to be someone’s mom. I also wasn’t totally against having kids either — I probably could have gone either way. It was being married to Adam that made me want to have a family, but it was so much about my love for him and my certainty that he’d be an amazing dad than from some ticking clock/biological desire thing. I feel so much love and protectiveness for Reed already, so I know that bond is there and will be there when he arrives on the scene. It just feels weird to me that I will be someone’s mother and that someone will be completely dependent on me and Adam for everything. I’m sure the first few months will be an intense and stressful time, but I know we’ll get into the swing of things. Having an amazing husband definitely makes me feel more confident in our ability to make it through that adjustment period.

I have absolutely no idea what to expect with the whole birth thing. My mother had fairly short and easy labors with both me and my brother, so I’m really hoping to take after her. There are just so many unknowns and for someone who likes to control for the unknowns in her life, this is going to be an interesting lesson in surrendering to whatever happens. OMG, so NOT my thing!!! My awesome massage therapist is training to be a childbirth educator (for which she has to observe lots of births) and offered to come to my birth for free and provide comfort, massages, etc. I was sorely tempted, since she is really sweet and a very calming presence, but ended up deciding not to. While I know there will be hospital staff coming in and out throughout the whole thing, I feel like this is a very special time for me and Adam as a couple. And I just don’t know if I’d be as comfortable with someone else there the whole time. On the other hand, a friend of mine is looking to pay someone (a doula) to support her during her labor and delivery. And other women want to be surrounded by lots of friends and family when they deliver. Go figure. I guess it’s all about how we view the birth experience. To me, it’s all about me and Adam and our love for each other, and I’m such a private person that I know I’ll only be able to be myself at that time with him. He is a calming presence for me and I know he’s going to be a great support.

I feel like all of this will be a good learning experience for me. I’ve done so many things over the past few years that have scared the living daylights out of me (public speaking, writing a book, teaching, etc.) and all have made me stronger and have led to better and better things. I know this will be the same, but losing control (over my body, my life, etc.) is really terrifying for someone who has difficulty giving up control even over small things. Were I to analyze my behavior over the past months, I’d say my relentless research on baby products and my getting Reed’s nursery just-so is a last-ditch effort at asserting control, but I am fully aware that I will have very limited control over what will happen in my life over the next few years. It scares me, but just like everything else that has scared me over the past few years, I really do welcome the change, because it comes with so many good things too (like a baby!) and I know I’ll be a better person for it.

For the past three days, I’ve barely gotten out of bed. I’ve had either the worst stomach virus or the worst case of food poisoning I’ve had in my entire life. Late Saturday night I actually ended up in the ER because I couldn’t keep fluids down, my pulse was racing and I was worried about how dehydration might affect the baby. While I haven’t thrown up since early Sunday morning, my stomach can barely tolerate anything without causing me excruciating pain. At this point, the only liquids I can have are broth and water and the only solids I can have are bread, crackers and rice. Even my old standbys of gatorade and yogurt are just not working for me. This diet is not exactly enough to support one person, much less a person and a baby who at this point needs a lot of nutrition since he’s supposed to be growing half a pound a week. The baby seems to be doing ok as far as I can tell — he’s moving around as much as he ever has (and he moves like crazy!) — but I’m actually feeling more wiped out today than I did on Tuesday. We’re interviewing candidates for a position at work on Thursday and Friday, so I’m really hoping I feel better soon. I’m just not seeing any improvement.

Before my disaster, though, I was having the best weekend! I took a half day off Thursday and all-day off Friday to spend with family. Adam’s parents, sister, her kids and her boyfriend as well as my parents came for the weekend for my baby shower. Adam’s best friend from childhood and his wife and adorable daughter also came. It was so nice to see everyone, though definitely a bummer that I couldn’t run around and play with my niece and nephew as much as I could before I got pregnant. It just felt nice to be surrounded by the people I love so close to my due date — it was a warm and wonderful experience.

The shower on Saturday afternoon was so much fun! My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece planned the whole thing and since they are masters of style, everything was gorgeous and perfect. When I heard there would be games, I got a bit nervous, having been to a shower once where we were forced to sniff baby food on diapers to guess what the food was (yuck!). But these were cute, light-hearted brain-teasers — perfect for a group mostly made up of librarians! My nine-year-old niece, Maddy, was a terrific master of ceremonies (she is the smartest, friendliest, most amazing 9-year-old in the world). The party really exceeded all of my expectations. Before the shower, I was feeling disappointed that a few friends who didn’t have kids decided not to come, but it didn’t end up making the party any less fun. The people who did come were awesome and it was perfect.

It was definitely a bummer that three hours later I was throwing up and couldn’t enjoy the big family dinner going on, but no amount of sickness could have spoiled what was a wonderful time with family and friends. I might feel like hell at the moment, but I’m extremely cognizant of the fact that I’m a very lucky girl.