5 Days!

Eleanor is 5 days old today. She arrived on May 20th, two days after her due date, at 7:53pm, 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 18.9 inches long. Labor was fast and went very well.

Typically I would be giving a belly photo and a pregnancy update today, and I am over joyed to be sharing pictures of our beautiful baby girl instead. It's still so surreal that she is actually here now. It feels like we have been waiting for her forever. We are so in love.

We'll be posting lost of pictures of Eleanor here, but even more on my flickr page. Several are up already. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/callai/

40 Weeks

40 weeks today! Due date day. As you can see, we are still waiting, but this little bun is fully cooked. Hopefully this will be my last belly photo updated. I'm hoping that by this time next week we'll have a sweet baby girl in our arms.

“You’re” by Sylvia Plath (1960)

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

39 Weeks

39 weeks today! 7 days until our due date. Statistically, Eleanor has the greatest probability of being born sometime between the 18th and the 25th. We'll continue to keep our fingers crossed for an early arrival, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in the appropriate place.

Now that we've reached the very end, I've been reflecting about how great this pregnancy has been. It’s been totally complication free. Every scary test has come back negative. Every ultrasound has looked great. I’ve done more than my fair share of worrying, but really, things couldn’t have gone better. I’m so lucky. I’m lucky that we were able to conceive quickly and easily, and I’m lucky to be carrying a healthy baby to term who is neither very large or very small (the midwife guessed her current weight at 7.5 lbs). I just can’t wait to meet her.

38 Weeks

38 weeks today! 14 days until the due date. These will be the longest days of my life. This is definitely the worst part. I've actually turned to video games for distraction, and I don't even really like them! I started a farm on Harvest Moon called "Preg."

I had an appointment with my midwife today and the first thing she said to me was “Does it feel like it will be any minute now?” Nope. No. It does not. It feels like I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life with an incredibly sore pelvis, waddling around with giant swollen extremities. But at least I get this sweet baby in my belly who gives me constant nudges and kicks to remind me that she’s alive and well. I’m trying to focus on these positive aspects of pregnancy, along with my Harvest Moon game. We’ll make it through the last few weeks!

37 Weeks

37 weeks today! We have achieved full term status, and Eleanor is welcome to join us whenever she would like. There are still 21 days left until our estimated due date, but that date is starting to seem all the more pointless and arbitrary. It could be 21 days, it could be 5, it could be 30. Of course we're hoping for sooner rather than later. Let the official waiting game begin.

I finally was able to go to the salon for a new haircut. It had been far too long. I actually hadn't had it attended to since the beginning of last August! Not much of a change, but it's easy to deal with and seems like a pretty good "Mom Do" to me. Plus, it distracts me from my new stretch marks. I swear I find a new one every time I look in the mirror. I guess it means our girl is growing!

We also got a new MacBook this week, which is a fresh clean slate to fill with photos and videos of the baby. I certainly will be glad to be done taking pictures of myself. I'll have a much cuter subject. By the way, my plan for this blog when the baby is born is to try to post one photo a day so that our friends and family in Phoenix can watch Eleanor grow. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with it, but I'll do my best.

36 Weeks

36 weeks today! 28 days until the due date and one week until the baby is full term. Getting closer...

Nothing much to report this week. We're all doing well and just waiting at this point. We finished our birth classes last weekend. This weekend we are doing a breastfeeding class and a final meeting with our doula. I've been taking it really easy and getting a lot of rest.

Since I don't have anything worthwhile to write about, I'll post this video I took a few weeks ago of Eleanor moving around. If you watch it in full screen mode you can see that she is hiccuping the entire time. The other movements are dramatic enough that you could see them from a mile away. I'm really going to miss seeing and feeling her move in my tummy when I am no longer pregnant.

Eleanor Moving from Callai Nagle on Vimeo.

35 Weeks

35 weeks today! 35 days until our due date, and only two weeks until our baby is full term. It’s so crazy to think that she could be here in just a few weeks.

We will likely still have to wait over a month, but our home is totally baby ready now. The nursery is complete, the changing table is stocked, the dresser is full of clothes, the closet is organized, the bassinet is set up in our bedroom, the bath stuff is waiting on the new shelf we hung in the bathroom, and the bottles are sterilized and in their own cabinet in the kitchen. It totally looks like a baby lives here and it feels so good.

Here are some photos of the nursery. It’s finished for the most part. I might still add a few small touches here and there (a mobile, a small wall bin for books), but I’m satisfied with the way it looks now. The room is very small, so my strategy was to use few but brightly colored modern decorative items to maintain a sense of openness despite the fact that we’re really squeezing a lot of furniture into a tiny space. I didn’t stick with the exact color palette I originally had planned on, but I like all of the cheery colors and the way it lets me mix and match. Also because the room is so small, it is very difficult to photograph, so these aren’t the best pictures, but it will at least give you an idea of what the room looks and feels like. Thank you so much to everyone who helped contribute to the decor!





Oh, just in case anyone was wondering, Andrew is going to be the best daddy ever. Want some proof? Last weekend we picked up that cute pink flower wall lamp at Ikea. I was so excited to set it up. I really felt like it would be the finishing touch to the nursery. Before we put it on the wall, we put in a bulb to test it. It didn't turn on. We tried another bulb. That one didn't turn on either. We checked the bulbs in another lamp and both were working. We tried plugging the flower lamp in a different outlet. Nothing was working and it was becoming obvious that there was something wrong with the wiring. I was really upset and convinced that it was totally broken. In order to keep his emotional pregnant wife from breaking down in tears, Andrew took apart the lamp to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. He found a loose wire that he was able to connect, put the entire thing back together, and had it working in a matter of minutes. Our hero!

I've started washing loads of baby laundry. We bought a washing machine that is slightly smaller than a regular one and hooks up to our kitchen sink. I absolutely love it. There is a washer and dryer in our building, but it costs $2.50 per load to use which really starts to add up, especially when you account for the additional laundry a new baby (and especially a cloth diapered one) requires. I haven't had a washing machine of my own since I lived with my parents and I'm really loving the convenience of it. We didn't get a dryer so I'm trying out air drying. It takes a while to accomplish since the air here isn't as dry as in Phoenix, but I think the money saved will make it worthwhile. Plus, look how cute a load of baby laundry looks drying in the California sun:


Just a few more loads to go and all of her clothes and blankets will be fresh and clean for her arrival.

Alright Little E, we're ready when you are!