Welcome to the air world Aoife-Marie !!!

The castor oil omelet was a resounding success!! Omelet-induced contractions began around 3pm, and the labor began in earnest at 6pm after a surprise admittance into the hospital. Mandy dilated from 1 to 10 cm in four hours (WOW!), pushed for about another hour, and on March 26th at 12:31 AM, 7lb 8oz Aoife Marie Nice was born into Papa's arms after an amazing labor orchestrated by Mama with help from a great support staff.


She is quite the charmer and is melting hearts of all who meet her.

A new page dedicated to the early life of Aoife Marie will be up and running soon!

These Last Few Hours

It is important to me that i spend a part of the next few hours
here alone with you in the darkness.

You and i will never be this close again.
By morning you will be a tiny person all your own.
No longer the kicking,demanding bulge in my body
that i have grown to love so well.

I pray God will safely guide you on your Journey
and, i ask him for strength to help you all i can.

Again, you signal your impatience to be free.

Time to wake your Daddy!

written by Dee Dee McCall

Mythical Omelet

Tim made the legendary castor oil omelet. I must say it was delicious. He mixed four eggs with four ounces of castor oil. I ate half the omelet, and if in two hours nothing happens, I'll eat the second half. It was light and fluffy....yum.

False Alarm

Last night at midnight, I felt water trickle down my leg. Thank goodness this did not coincide with the need to pee to confuse me. This was definitely something else. I had some pretty strong contractions, but this morning they slowed down, and at Jeri's visit, she told us that she didn't think it was amniotic fluid based on a pH test. So, we wait some more...Tim's excited to make a castor oil omelet in the morning.

Last visit?

Weight: 153lbs
Blood Pressure: good

Hopefully, today was my last visit with Jeri. She seemed pretty confident that it would be. We talked a little bit about natural induction which we won't worry about until next week if I'm still pregnant. If I don't have our baby by next Wednesday we'll have to go and have a stress test to make sure that my placenta is still delivering the rich nutrients to our baby. This would mean that we would get to see her in my womb one last time. I'm very curious as to what she looks like in there now that she is full term. While Jeri was feeling the position of little bun, I had a contraction. I couldn't feel it, but Jeri said that I had one. I've been feeling contractions early in the morning at times. It wakes me right up as I anxiously wait to see if this is actual labor. They don't last very long, and pretty soon I realize that they are not "real" contractions. Little bun was also very quiet last week, but her activity has picked up a lot this week. On Monday night, I felt her burrowing pretty low down for a few hours. On Tuesday night I didn't feel her at all...not once. Tim and I were very worried the next day and tried to poke her to wake her up. I ate some oatmeal and laid on my left side to count her kicks. She was alive!!! It's pretty scary when you think you're almost there and then something feels wrong. Family and friends have been keeping in touch and wishing me well, and thank you for that. I have a lot of you on my list to email as soon as I think I'm in labor, and some of you are programed into my phone to receive a text message. We are still shooting for St. Patrick's day to have the baby, but if she comes sooner that is just fine with us. This journey has been so amazing for both of us, and we are anxiously awaiting our little one.

Weight: 150lbs
Blood Pressure: perfect
Protein: a trace (normal)
Glucose: negative

Today Jeri talked to us about labor a little bit. She made it clear in a humorous way that I let go and become "animal" in the labor room. She told me that one of her patients peed on her, and she laughed about the whole thing. She's a really funny one. We learned in birth class about a place called "labor land". When you are in this place you are out of your head, and you are surrendering to birth. It's really amazing to watch women in this state in videos. It's as if they are hypnotized and as soon as the baby is born, the "love hormones" rush to the womans brain, and they snap out of it. There are so many benefits to giving birth naturally both for mother and child.

Alta Bates: Birthing Center

Tim and I went to the birthing center at Alta Bates. There were a lot of pregnant ladies on the tour most of them very large. Our guide was a nurse that had worked in the birthing center for 20 years. The first place that we saw was the nurses station. The nurses looked fairly relaxed. I guess it was a quiet night. We next saw triage where they will check to see if I am in labor enough to be admitted into a room. It was very small. I hope I don't have to be in there for long. She next showed us the labor delivery room. Every room has a bath and shower, but some rooms have a jacuzzi. Jeri told me to ask for one of those rooms because I'm having a natural birth. The problem with these rooms is that there are no windows, and they are smaller. The room seemed pretty nice. It smelled very strongly of cleaning products, so I'm going to have to bring some smells to distract me from it. The rooms were nicely decorated, and there was a flat screen T.V. I'm glad I got to see the room, but it made me wish that I was having a home birth after all. It's really not that bad though; I've just never had to be in a hospital room before. We next looked at the nursery where the babies go if they need to be observed more. There were a couple of babies in there, and I could not take my eyes off of them. They were so new and pure. I felt a wave of euphoria. I'm not sure what happened on the rest of the tour because I starred at the babies for too long. Oh, she then took us to the recovery room which is semi-private. They were just the standard hospital rooms. Next we went up to the Newborn intensive care unit. There were a couple of preemies, and I almost had a heart attack looking at them. They were so tiny, and lonely. I'm so glad that I am past having a preemie. Well, that was about it. I pre-registered so that I wouldn't have to when I arrived.