At Home

Alright, here's the breakdown of last Tuesday:

10:30- Karen calls me after a visit to the doctor. Bella's heartrate was at a normal range, but wasn't fluctuating when they'd stimulate her, and Karen's blood pressure was up, but not insane...so...the doctor told us to be at the hospital at 2:00 to induce.

2:00- Go to the hospital where they start Karen on Potosin.

6:00- Doctor tells us that Bella should be here around breakfast time on Wednesday.

8:00- Doctor somehow convinces Karen to get an epidural to see if it will help with her bloodpressure. Somehow Mark stays in the room and doesn't pass out while Karen gets the epidural.

9:45- Doctor tells us that a c-section is the best bet to insure there's no trauma for Bella or Karen. Bella's heartrate was fine, just not jumping when Karen would have a contraction.

10:00- They wheel Karen into the Operating Room.

10:15- I join her in the Operating Room.

10:21- Isabella Grace Bacigalupo is born at 5 lbs 2 oz.

11:30 Tuesday night through 11:30 Saturday morning- Absolute blur of nurses caring for Karen, nurses caring for Bella, friends visiting, family visiting, phone calls, etc.

Well, we all came home on Saturday (which happened to be the one year anniversary of moving into the house). Bella is doing great! Right now, she enjoys sleeping, eating, pooping, and hearing Mommy & Daddy's voices.

She's slept through the night the first two nights she's been home. Right now, she's the most easy-going baby that I've ever seen. Hopefuly she'll continue to be that way.

She's Here!

I'm only home for a few minutes...more details to come. For now, here's some pictures.

Isabella Grace Bacigalupo
born 10/25/05 at 10:21 pm
5lbs 2 oz, 17 inches long

No more soap & shampoo for us!

The time for Bella to get here is getting closer and closer. Reality is setting in more & more with every "pre-birth event" that passes. And apparently, I'm striving for cheesier and cheesier titles to these posts.

This past week, we had our final 2 baby showers. One with my co-workers (and a couple of former co-workers...one who will be mentioning me one day in her first Oscar acceptance speech) and one with the church folks. After wrapping all of the showers up, this child has more clothes than she could possibly wear before she outgrows them. In no way is that a complaint...I'm very happy and feel very blessed that we know that many people that care enough to give us (I mean Bella) a gift. Now we're running out to Babies-R-Us & Target to stock up on the few things we have to get before she gets here.

As all of these events come and go, that "I'm excited but don't know what to expect" kind of feeling sets in. Sad to equate it to this, but the closest thing I can think of is that it feels like the week leading up to a big game. You have some idea of what's going to happen due to practicing and preparing for the other team, but until it unfolds in front of your eyes, you really can't expect anything except a whole lot of butterflies before the start of the game.

In other baby related news...the Brawner twins are here. Much to my disappointment, they weren't named "Luke & Leia". However, Marc & Lorie came up with some pretty good names, Katherine "Kate" Alexandria & Joseph "Joey" Clark. Everyone's doing well, the babies were 5 & 7 pounds, Lorie is doing well, and Marc is at least holding up well enough to send me an email afterwards (however, he could have sent that email just before passing out for all I know).