Carlos Nicolas turns 1 week and Big Carlos gets a toy too!

It's the best thing ever to have little Carlos Nicolas here with us. Although I will say that he takes up a lot more space than I expected from an 8 lb, 1 cubic foot little being! He makes more laundry than Carlos and I combined, our trash pile has doubled due to diapers, his seating accessories are now spread throughout the house and his stroller is about the size of our car. It also takes five times longer to do anything: for 3 days we attempted to watch a movie we rented and when we did get around to it, it took 4 hours to get through the movie! I've also been attempting to post this blog for the last 3 days....But for all that he provides endless entertainment just by breathing. He still isn't sleeping much so the ugly doll is there to ward off any nightmare breastmilk dreams...Or maybe that's what's waking him up!

Big Carlos worried that he wasn't going to be my number one once the little guy came along and it only took until day three that he caught me telling the baby that he was my favorite guy in the whole world. "Ah-Ha! I told you!" Carlos said. With that I think he felt justified in his getting a toy too.... His toy is 40 years old and probably needs about as much TLC as young Carlos. I personally think my toy is a whole lot cuter...

Carlos Nicolas arrives on July 27th!

It's official - the baby beat House II!! Carlos Nicolas finally decided to join us! Though he seemed happy to stay put at 41 weeks we smoked him out with spicy food and threats of castor oil. He was very accommodating as Carlos didn't want him to come on Monday July 28th and I was worried about being induced on the 29th and we were both worried about driving to Sibley hospital at rush hour. So being the gentleman that he is he decided that 5am on sunday was a good time to make a trip to the hospital.



The gruesome details:
Contractions started at dinner (spicy thai!) and got regular around midnight. I tried to distract myself until 3:30am when I finally had to wake up Carlos to help me pump up the birthing ball. We timed the contractions (on excel :)) until 5am. The intense ones came every 5 minutes and then slightly shorter ones every couple of minutes. At 5am we finally picked up that hospital bag that I had packed a month before and headed out.

Of course the trip wasn't without Carlos and Genny moments...like the fact that we didn't exactly know how to get to the hospital so I had luckily packed a map and navigated between contractions. Then there was the "birthing ball" which when inflated didn't really fit into our two door car. Carlos decided it was a good idea to wedge it between my face and the windshield. "It'll keep you safe" he tried to tell me. Right...tell that to a woman having contractions 2 minutes apart! Neither of us thought to deflate the ball, but luckily it did end up wedged in the back.

Although the contractions were so regular and painful when we got to the hospital at 5:30am I was still only 3 cm dilated!! I almost fell over. No progress at all! So I put on a hospital gown and walked around the room and bounced on the ball for another hour and a half. I kept shaking all over every time I had a contraction which made relaxing and "focusing on breathing" really hard! Luckily at 7:30 I was 6 cm dilated. Of course by then I was bouncing in pain with the contractions and carlos was fast asleep on my hospital bed! I had to force him up when the nurse told me I needed to get back on the monitor. It gets kindof blurry but I know that they had to hook me back up to the fetal monitoring which constricts your movement and at that time my water broke. Unfortunately there was meconium which meant that little Carlos' bowels didn't want to wait anymore (which makes sense now as he is quite the prolific pooer!). By then I was 7.5 cm dilated and they were hurrying to get the doctor to the hospital. The nurse said that I would be pushing soon and so I focused on the big digital clock on the wall facing me, willing the minutes to pass.

The process wasn't really what I expected - there was only one nurse there and the doctor only made an appearance at the very end to set up the slip and slide plastic thing and unveil a table of instruments that I hoped she wasn't planning on using on me. The nurse stood on one side and instructed Carlos to "grab a leg!" I was shocked - as I am sure Carlos was too - I thought he was going to stay above my midsection and hold my HAND - NOT MY LEG!! I remember thinking even at the time how surreal the experience was. They told me to push for 3 sets of 10 during a contraction. It was much better when the nurse would do the counting as I would loose count and Carlos counted so slowly I thought I would die before he would get to 5! I would open my eyes between pushed and see the doctor standing back saying "oh, Sylvia (she calls me by my first name) - that was just great!" What does that mean even? I couldn't feel much happening so I thought she was being patronizing. But I guess his head was starting to come out and when the doctor told Carlos to look and see the head, Carlos responded somewhat horrified and somewhat disdainfully "That's his head?!" The doctor took time to explain that babies heads aren't fused together fully, blah,blah,blah - all while I am between contractions and wondering how we were having this conversation!

Pushing wasn't quite the relief that I anticipated as after every push I had extreme abdominal pressure and back pains. But then I could tell something was happening and pushed for dear life, despite what I could tell was maybe tearing. And then the doctor stood back and said "My, what a big baby!" and all 21.5 inches and 8lbs 2 oz slithered out. Carlos said that he starting crying with his foot still in the womb! Because of the meconium the neonatalogist had to look at him before I could hold him. They took him to the other side of the room and told Carlos that he could go see his son. Carlos was sitting with tears welling in his eyes and I could tell that he wasn't sure he would be able to stand up. But he did and the nurse brought him some juice. I have to say that Carlos did great for all his talk about not wanting to see the full process...

Even though I had heard a million labor stories it was still totally surreal & unexpected & amazing & crazy that after all that that we have a young carlos. He is so adorable and I can spend hours just watching him. It's amazing that even just breathing can provide endless amounts of entertainment...Unfortunately he isn't the best sleeper so I get lots of chances to watch him at night as he wakes up every hour!!

As for the house - well the good news is that we passed the last inspection which hopefully means that drywall can go up and the house will start looking more like a house. The insulation is up which was no easy feat and the stairs are on! The stairs replace a very unstable board that was used as a ramp into the house which always elicited horrified looks when a 9 month pregnant lady climbed up it.

I'm attaching some photos of young carlos, the picture I was about to post on sunday of 41 weeks, and some house photos. Everyone says he looks like carlos (though he has my wrinkled skinny fingers!) so we'll see if he becomes a Carlito or a Charlie....

Little Alien

Kumquat made it!! D-day came and went! He made it to 40 weeks and decided to just keep on going. I guess he decided it wasn't worth the effort to come out to celebrate my father's birthday which was yesterday. Clearly he is siding with Carlos who would prefer he stay in for another month - or at least until Bolivian Independence day on August 6th.

We went to Philadelphia yesterday to attend the memorial service of Sylvia Taft Lotspeich - after whom I am named. It was a wonderful remembrance of her and we got to spend time with the extended family. Carlos was worried Kumquat might make an appearance on the I-95, but luckily we made the journey without problem. Despite how cooperative he is being, I am still left with this surreal feeling of knowing that in 24 hours + (up to 9 days I suppose) our lives will be dramatically different. ...weird thought to go to sleep with...

I guess it's tough to see in the video but he sure pokes out a lot. Let's hope he is practicing his stellar dance moves...

Kumquat turns 39 Weeks

Kumquat made it to week 39! We're very proud of how cooperative he is being - he seems to be trying hard to help Carlos keep working on House II. But it's unlikely that the result will change given that Carlos asked recently: "what constitutes the house being done?...does it need to have electricity?" hmmm - good question...With one week remaining House II probably won't be quite ready...So in the meantime Carlos and I are doing our version of nesting: tearing apart House I!!

We've been spackling, plastering, repainting and re-spackling, re-plastering and re-repainting. Classic. Carlos has also been fighting with the back fence door which is not cooperating. The good news about that is that he finally put on the tool belt I got him. The bad news is he filled it with Negro Modelo which might be one reason for the fence gate was not cooperating... And somehow the house looks more disheveled than when we started!


My not-so-beauty sleep is getting a little less comfortable these days as my lower back hurts, but other than that I feel good. As for Carlos - when he isn't preoccupied with thoughts of refinancing he likes to poke Kumquat and watch him squirm.

Look at my new trick - now you see the watermelon....now you don't!! Kumquat is as big as a watermelon! I'm hoping that he doesn't weigh as much though because my arm almost fell off carrying that watermelon.

Kumquat isn't as patriotic as I thought he might be as he decided not to come out for the fireworks. In fact we haven't had any more episodes of cramping so maybe that means he'll stay in for awhile longer. He would be well advised as DC summer is hot and swampy. The doctor did say that I am almost 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced, but again that could mean anything. She thinks he'll be about 7 lbs - phew. I'm hoping for a kumquat that is 7 lbs and with the temperament of Carlos as a baby.

This week I attended the breastfeeding class which was helpful, but also scary. It seems a lot harder than I thought! Plus the instructor had a fake breast that she kept shoveling into her mouth which I found more disturbing, than insightful.

Carlos is still coming to grips with the fact that Kumquat is going to win. This week was more electrical and plumbing. And the big thing was ordering kitchen cabinets. My big fear is having cherry floor and cherry cabinets - it might be too matching - like a big log cabin or something. We are terrible about conceptualizing things as we seem to always want to make changes once we see the outcome. I don't know how to get better at that - maybe it's practice. But it sure has cost lots in terms of time and money.

Carlos decided to work on House #1 today and just like that we had 4 holes in the wall of the hallway and a hole in the roof...a good day's work!

Kumquat is a comin'...

Earlier this week I woke up with not-so-fun cramping at 6 in the morning. I remained in bed for awhile and then migrated downstairs to the couch. I remained there for awhile and then migrated outside. I started to the right and then made a left and then another left and clearly had no where to go so I weighed my options.... I didn't possibly want to run into some one I knew who might be heading to work as I looked like a mess in a half-baked outfit and walking funny. So I followed side streets and walked toward the bagel place by union station. Unfortunately I hadn't calculated that I also didn't want to see young, springy high school White House interns either and they seemed to gravitate to the bagel place. It's probably not that fun to see them anyways the older I get, let alone when I am on the cramp war path.

The pain lasted for a couple of hours and then I was back to feeling perfectly fine. But in those two hours I had plenty of thoughts about kumquat's health, whether I was really ready to be a parent or to go through labor, etc...all of which culminated in the absolute horrific realization that there was no turning back nor was there some alternate route. So I burst into tears. Even though I thought I was getting prepared by washing baby clothes and stocking up on diapers I hadn't been focused on the real preparation - the mental preparation.

At the doctor's appointment I was told that I was 1 cm dilated and that little kumquat was getting ready to come out - probably early. We were hoping to keep him baking for awhile - not like House II would get done in three more weeks....but at least we would be three weeks closer to being done!

In House II the fireplace got torn down and is getting reconstructed a little to the right and Carlos has spent numerous hours with Nomer, the kitchen cabinet guy at Lowes. Nomer has a pretty cool software package that enables him to design and visualize cabinetry. Although the designing is free the cabinets sure are expensive!

This weekend was aunt Mary's birthday so my mom and Mary were here to celebrate. Of course celebrating also meant putting them to work so my mom reconfigured our front "yard." Yard is a little bit of a misnomer as it is only about 5 ft x 5 ft! We did allow them a little bit of fun as we went out to dinner and then got to watch DC United play Galaxy this afternoon. DC United trounced Beckham and his LA galaxy 4-1. For the millions that Beckham gets paid he sure is lazy! He was jogging around the field and despite a few nice passes didn't seem to do much.

Here are some belly and game pix

The countdown starts....

Whether we believe that July 19th is going to come or not we seem to be slowly marching towards d-day with the help of others. Last weekend we had a baby brunch in New York and ended up with more loot than I know what to do with...onesies, a car seat, diapers, books, nursing pads, swaddling blankets and a cradle! Who would have thought that such a small being (hopefully 6 lbs!) needs so much! We had more decorated onesies and Soogy made one which I'm including a picture of...clearly she is impacted by baby Wallis' primary activity....POO!!


We're so lucky to have people who know what this whole thing is about....I can't imagine filtering all the information out there by ourselves and I know that I haven't even done as much reading as I should have by this point. Luckily the world of baby products hasn't found our mailing address yet as I hear that they bombard you with junk mail and maybe a diaper here and there.

With more stuff and more reading and more labor horror stories comes more anxiety! It continues to shock me that 6.5 billion people happened this way!!!!

On the house front Carlos continues to think that we are moving in soon. I'm a little more skeptical...The rooftop deck is almost done and the electrical and plumbing crews are hard at work now. Carlos had a lawyer respond to our neighbor's most recent aggressive tactic. It is an amusing letter and he assures us that her lawyer is more expensive so we are happy to engage in a protracted discussion :) She believes that we need to pay her legal fees as well as the highest estimate possible for (unnecessary) chimney repair. Instead of walking out her door, turning right and walking 3 steps to talk to us about her concerns she hired a lawyer to write us a letter about it and now wants us to pay for her lawyer's lengthy process of writing us a letter. weird world we leave in that lawyers are the first means of communication for neighbors! Our lawyer's letter reminded her lawyer that we reserve the right to pursue legal action for her harassing activity including comments that she prefer that we not live there - anyone else (presumably anyone with a less hispanic last name...) was welcome and she wouldn't cause problems as long as we agreed not to live there!!