And RocketBaby Makes Three.

Last I left you, my semi-faithful readers, I’d planned to post about the swell new bed RocketMan built—constructed of plywood and pipe, it’s got plenty of storage space underneath and is our first actual bed (as opposed to a box spring on the floor). But no sooner had we wondered what to do with the now-defunct box spring that events took an alarmingly fast—and then excruciatingly slow— turn. I’ll try to keep it as brief as I know how.

Sunday, July 26

I wake up feeling achy and feverish. By 8 PM that night, my feverish feeling is shunted aside in favor of the concern that I hadn’t felt the RocketBaby kick in some time, even after dinner, which usually set her off and galloping. We paid a quick visit to the St. Francis ER, where we listened to her heart rate (a healthy 150) and we headed back home, concerns somewhat assuaged.

Monday, July 27

NICU: All the wires and tubes a parent could never want!

• 3 AM: I wake up to go to the bathroom and return to bed in a fit of chills and shuddering. Bad news.
• 8:30 AM: After a quick consult with my sister and a friend, I call my OB office; they tell me to get to OB triage for a no-stress test, tout suite. I wake RocketMan and we head out to the Richmond.
• 11 AM: After a full no-stress test in which the baby has not moved AND has shown to be holding steady at a marathon heartrate (170-180), the nurse tells me we’re going to induce. RocketMan’s eyes get very, very big.
• 12 PM: In the labor and delivery suite, the OB on call gets out the poking stick and says she’s going to break my water. My eyes get very, very big.
• 12:05 PM: There’s meconium in the water. I know what this means: the baby has somehow passed her first bowel movement in the womb (two weeks ahead of schedule, no less) and the likelihood of me having mother-daughter bonding time after the delivery has dropped to about 1 chance in 100.
• 12:05 PM – 8:30 PM: Miraculously, the epidural takes full effect, and I need no Pitocin to get the labor going; this little tadpole wants OUT. In eight hours, I go from 3.5 centimeters dilated to a full 10, and it’s go time!
• 9:52 PM: It’s a girl, as we knew! And she’s got a full head of hair. And she’s whisked off to the NICU for the full infant-in-distress treatment. RocketMan cries a little. I lay back and think, Huh. That was surreal.

Tuesday, July 28 – Monday, August 2:

Days pass in a series of antibiotics for me (for two infections, one because of the meconium, one due to mastitis); antibiotics for the baby; marking progress by when the ventilator is removed from her mouth, when she graduated to needing no oxygen at all, when only the antibiotics are keeping her in the room with all the other babies, some so tiny and ill they look like the alien in the guy’s head in Men in Black. It’s a crude comparison, I know, but it’s the only one that came to mind with some of these little ones. The NICU nurses are like goddesses in printed scrubs, the doctors full of serious concern; RocketMan fields phone calls and text messages while I lay back in the hospital bed, still feverish and wondering if we’d ever get around to naming her.

It's a good thing she's cute, or we'd never forgive her for all the diapers.

Monday, August 2:

The RocketClan make it back to the space station, all present and accounted for, all intact and with mostly clean bills of health (although I’d go on to get a recurrence of the mastitis and another, less fun infection due to the antibiotics; I’ll let the ladies figure out which one that is).

Friday, August 14:

Here I am, grabbing some time at last to share the news with the blogosphere. I’m sure I’ll be sharing pictures of the nursery and the bed and all the other adjustments we’ve made soon enough, but until then, you’ll have to be satisfied with a picture of our most hard-won home improvement project yet: Eliza Breen, born July 27, at 7 lbs., 11 oz., 21 inches long.