An update on Laura: She’s contracting, but not terribly strong. She’s comfortable, has been able to eat (Jello and soup, anyway), and is currently walking around, waiting for the baby to do his thing.

As for dad, I have songs from musicals running through my head…

“The son will come out … tomorrow! Bet’cher bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be son!”

Having now been here for 7 hours, it’s starting to feel that way 🙂 We’re still optimistic for today, however at this rate, it will likely be after the kids get home from school.

As always, we’ll continue keep you posted.

From Mom: “Sciatica sucks. That is all.”

From Dad: “Hospital food? Not that bad.”

From Inigo Montoya: “I do not suppose you could a-speed things up?”

And finally, from the Great Space Coaster: “This is Gary Gnu, with the no guh-news, is good guh-news television network.”

That is the worst picture EVER! Nate swears I don’t look like the great Marshmallow Woman, but I’m not convinced.

Added later- and the nurse totally agrees with me.

Although things are progressing (the nurse swears they are!) and contractions are happening (“that was a strong one,” says Laura), there’s not much going on. Still waiting and dilating.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of Laura’s chart, so you can actually see contractions if you care about such things:

And here’s a picture of the mom-to-be-again, looking remarkably chipper for someone who’s actively in labor.

So, I just read what Nate wrote. I think that “loooooong needle” comment was totally not cool. I’m actively dreading it. Not enough time has passed since Clark’s epidural, and I’m kinda freaked.

And bored. Just waiting around for my body to get serious, but we’re moving in that direction.

We’ve had the first visit from the doctor, are contracting more, and things are moving along. Things are getting set up for the anesthesiologist to come in in a bit for the epidural (loooooong needle!), but nothing new to report.

We’re going to try for a photo of the socks here, which may or may not work.

Mr Finch, here. We are at the hospital (arrived at 6:00 this morning!), Laura is hooked up to the IV, is 80% effaced, and has dilated to 2 cm. We’ll keep things updated throughout the day, but don’t expect photos for a while … we can take pictures, but we have no image editing software on the laptop, so the pix are too big to post (which is a shame, because we have some CUTE shots of the goldfish socks).

More later!

I’ve ripped this dumb sock SO many times. As it is, it’s not perfect, but no one will know. It looks and feels fabulous. I just have the leg on the second sock to finish, and if the baby waits ’til Monday to come, I don’t see any reason why they won’t be ready.

Behold, the Goldfish Socks-

After all the effort I spent trying to knit this sucker toe up for the fishtail effect, it’s kind of silly that I photograph them upside down, but I’m in a hurry.

I’m off to help teach Liv’s class how to knit.

And I totally have sock fever. Good thing I’ve got lots of sock yarn.

If anything exciting happens this weekend, we’ll post. If not, you’ll hear from us Monday with baby updates.

I didn’t knit a stitch ’til early this morning, when I finished the gusset, turned the heel, got partway through the heel flap and realized that, without a doubt, the foot on my sock was too long.

Why can’t I ever knit anything right the first (or even second) time?

So I frogged it. I’ve re-knit the gusset and am ready to turn the heel. So far, I’m seriously digging this pattern. I’m only using the gusset/heel/flap instructions and applying them to my Goldfish sock. The gusset is really nice. I have a very high instep, so I need it. I’m suspecting that I probably need a little more gusset than this pattern gives, but I’m going to knit it as written on this pair, and adjust on future pairs if needed.

Mediocre knitting picture-

They’re probably not going to be ready for the hospital, but I’ll get as much done as I can.

~

The baby descended yesterday. I wouldn’t say he’s actually dropped, or low, but he’s most definitely lower. I can see it when I look at myself straight on. I didn’t have any stomach trouble when I went to bed last night. I feel pressure in my hips and other, low-type areas of my body. I almost fell down in the school parking lot yesterday, picking up the girls for Cross Country, from a sciatica attack. Fortunately, I was right next to my car so I could grab/lay on my bumper ’til it passed. I felt like a dork and the principal walked right by, looking straight ahead and pretending that she didn’t see someone almost fall down in front of her. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

So what do you think? Does this look like a 39 week, 9 pound baby to you?

I remember looking much bigger with Veronica, but I don’t think I waddled this much.

I am feeling much better (from the sinus infection). I’m planning to go to Costco this morning. Depending on how I feel after that, I may venture out in search of pajamas for the hospital. Or the grocery store. Then I want to come home and knit some orange socks.