Baby News via RSS, E-mail or Cell Phone

As the count-down timer can attest to above, we're getting closer and closer to the baby's due date. Some of you have expressed a wish to hear news about Valerie going into labor or when the baby is born. We will try to make as many calls as we can, but obviously it may take some time and other pressing matters at the moment may preclude contacting everybody. However, I have figured out how to post a message on this blog from my BlackBerry, so if you want to know the latest and greatest news, you should subscribe to this blog.

Here are a few ways to do this:

1. Subcribe to the RSS feed - http://www.valeray.com/atom.xml
- This will subscribe to the feed in your RSS reader, which can be done in the latest versions of IE or Firefox. You will need to open up these programs in order for it to download the latest post, however.

2. Have the RSS feed forwarded to your email - http://www.rssfwd.com/
- For this function, just put the URL from #1 into the website and it will let you input your email later so that you will receive all updates in your email. Conceivably, you can also put in your cell phone SMS email (e.g. phonenumber@vtext.com) to get it forwarded to your phone.

3. Have the RSS feed directly forwarded to your cell phone - http://cellfish.com/rssToPhone
- This should also work to get RSS on your phone in a more direct manner.

Well, that's it. Obviously, you can turn these feeds off after the baby is born so you don't get every blog post about the kid's dirty diapers, but I'm hoping this helps those of you who want to keep up to date on baby news.

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So apparently CellFish sucks. If you want the blog texted to your phone, send me your phone # and I'll put it directly on the blog settings for it to send to you when a post is published.

What will our baby look like?

Ray + Val = ?

NCAA Tournament

UCLA is in the NCAA tournament and are favorites with a lot of "experts" to win it all. It might be a little too much excitement for mommy and baby though.

For those who have watched March Madness with us in the last couple of years, you know that UCLA has a tendency to cut it close till the very end of their games making it exciting/stressful to watch. This year seems no different.

We were watching the UCLA game yesterday and they were down as much as 10 pts in the 2nd half. Took them till the final minutes to catch up and then the score ping ponged back and forth. Texas had a final chance to tie it up or win with a 3-point shot, but lost the ball to us, Westbrook dunked it, and we BARELY won (turns out that that last dunk was disallowed so we only won by 2). We cheered loudly...and mommy jumped forgetting that unlike other years, she was carrying a baby in her belly. Not good.

Both new daddy and I would love it if UCLA could cut down the "excitement" and be up a good 10 pts at the end of the game :) Is that asking too much?

What is funny also is that I picked the baby's due date to be April 7th in our first poll. Guess what? That is the day of the NCAA Championship. So if UCLA is playing, I may go into labor from the stress of the game ;P

One Last Poll

Ok folks, we're coming down to the wire so I've got made one last pool for you good guessers out there. This time, you must guess how much the baby will weigh when he is born. Check out the right side of the page for the poll and enter your guess in the comments!
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Edit: Ok, so apparently I don't know my pounds and ounces so I had to reset the poll. Sorry! Feel free to guess again!

Yay more ultrasound photos :)

So there have been a couple of doctor's visits since the last one I wrote about so I will give you a brief summary of each.

March 10th, 2008 - No ultrasound and it would have been a pretty fast visit except that she was worried I might have had an infection again. She had me go to the lab to give them my sample and then she had me come back to do another test in the office. I felt like I had to wait double because she wanted to wait for tests and etc. My initial test showed that my white blood count was low again, but the final culture showed that there might have been a contaminate in my sample too that affected my results. Phew - really didn't want to take antibiotic again.

Today, March 19th, 2008 - Saw the OB doctor again instead of my normal doctor. She confirmed that I had normal/negative results for a Group 6 Strep test I took last week that would have been bad for the baby. Yay. Took some ultrasound photos too but not as good as when Ray takes them.

Hard to see but he is looking at us in the photo. One eye is the darker circle within the whiter area in the top middle, then the nose is the white area below that, and the other eye is the dark area below that. It is like he is lying down in the photo to the right so if you tilt your head to the right he would be "right side up."

Thought this photo was interesting because the dark horizontal oval in the top middle is the baby's stomach. It is that large because the doctor said we caught him taking in fluids. His stomach will start to expel them later and flatten out. Hehe he was probably having lunch when we did the ultrasound.

Hospital Tour

Ray and I went on the hospital tour to familiarize ourselves with the different areas the baby and I will be going to when in labor. A nurse took a bunch of other couples and us around to the places we would need to know and answered a bunch of questions.

* Parking - she wanted to make sure we knew where to park so that we would be on the same floor as the maternity areas of the hospital. It was quite funny to have a group of pregnant women standing together in the parking lot while everyone walked by. I think a lot of people were wondering what was going on.

* Labor & Delivery - we followed a bunch of pink and blue footprints from the parking lot to this area where they would inspect me and admit me when in labor. It is possible that they could "reject" me and tell me to go home till I am closer to the time of birthing so that they don't use up a room just because I am having a few contractions. My contractions have to be 5-6 min apart for about an hour and I need to be dilated about 4cm.

* Birthing Center - they will send me to this VERY pleasant area if there is nothing unusual about the birth and they suspect everything will go as planned. Right now i see no reason why I wouldn't go here. The rooms are quite spacious and there is a TV, CD player, and fully equipped bathroom in each.

* Family Care Center - after the baby has come and we have bonded for a little bit, they will send us here for the rest of our stay in the hospital. These rooms are smaller than in the Birthing Center but have two patient beds. They will try to only put one mom and baby in each room so that dad can sleep in the other bed overnight if he wants to. They only put two patients in the room if absolutely necessary.

There are a lot of places to go when I go into labor, but at least now we know where everything is. We don't expect anyone other than family to even want to come when I am in labor, and actually it might be easier for the baby to meet everyone when he is home.

Can't wait till he gets to come home with us!!!!!!!!

One month to go!

Yes, we are very excited!