Introducing Lana Kathleen Mayes

Our beautiful baby girl, Lana Kathleen Mayes, was born on August 29th, 2006 at 6:52pm. She found the hospital's cancellation of our scheduled induction on Tuesday morning wholly unacceptable and sent me into labor shortly after lunch with no medical intervention.

Did I mention that Lana's a big girl? She weighed in at 9lbs 13 ounces and became an overnight celebrity in the maternity ward as the largest baby recently delivered. She is healthy and has a beautiful head of brown hair. John and I are completely smitten.




View more photos of Lana

Pregnant and Fabulous?

To celebrate my last day in the office, my friends at work took me to lunch at Mary Macs. Sabrina brought along her camera and was snapping pictures of the occasion when I expressed my embarrassment at having photos taken in my bloated state. Our normally reserved Flash developer, Kenn, advised me to "just flip my hair back and look fabulous!"

These days I'm less concerned about looking fabulous and more focused on keeping the three pair of pants and five shirts that still fit clean. I've become the stereotypical pregnant lady who ends up dribbling food down onto her belly at every single meal. Eating becomes quite a challenge when your belly requires you to sit two feet away from your plate.

The good news is that I should only need to wear my extra large pregnancy clothes for a few more days. I’m scheduled to show up at the hospital on Tuesday morning to get the baby birthing process started. Holy shit. I’m going to have a baby! Now that is fabulous.

The Final Countdown

At my last appointment, my doctor asked if I am the type of person who would like to schedule a time to come in and initiate labor or wait for things to get going naturally. I told her I would have grown this baby in a pod like the ones used in The Matrix, if only the medical community would hurry up and figure out a way to do it without those pesky battery plugs in the head and the unsavory diet of the liquefied dead.

If she stays true to her word, I will be scheduled to enter the hospital next Monday and jump-start the labor process. I’ll also begin the execution of my birthing plan, which mostly consists of telling anyone and everyone I see with a nametag that I want an epidural and I want it NOW.

In Defense of Humanity

I spend enough time commuting into downtown Atlanta and removing someone else’s dog crap from my yard to know that people can be inconsiderate jerks. I also pay enough attention to the news to realize that people are doing horrible things to one another every single day. It’s enough to make any future mom worry about the world she will bring her child into.

While this concern will probably never go away altogether, my pregnancy has given me new faith in people. It’s not just my mom who comes over to clean my house on weekends, my neighbors who call if they hear any commotion that might indicate a rush to the hospital, my friends who email to check on me every few days, or my coworkers who reserve a parking space for me and pick up the things I drop around the office. I already know these are good, wonderful people and count myself lucky to have them in my life. No, the real surprise has been the complete strangers who go out of their way to hold doors open for me so I don’t bump my belly, to delight in my lunch orders (“Broccoli for the baby!”), and to stop what they are doing in order to talk to me about my baby.

Everywhere I go, people seem genuinely interested in my unborn baby. It is both strange and refreshing to talk to strangers about something so personal, and it is one of my favorite things about being pregnant.

Belly Watch

For My Own Protection

For the past couple weeks, I wake up each morning to find I can no longer bend my fingers. They have been swollen for a couple of months now, but this new sensation feels like I jammed each finger on my hand during a vigorous overnight basketball game.

This seemed like just another senseless pregnancy side effect until the pain prevented me from putting a fist through my ridiculously slow computer during work today. At the height of my crankiness, I am unable to punch my electronics or make a fist to threaten the incredibly annoying woman at the doctor’s office who insists that I must be having twins. Maybe Mother Nature knows what she’s doing after all.

9 Month Update

Dear Baby Girl,

We did it! We’ve reached the milestone that I’ve both longed for and dreaded since I first found out about you: NINE MONTHS! It is a commonly held belief that it takes nine months to grow a human baby. Most couples believe that until they make their first prenatal visit and find out that the baby’s due date is set at 40 weeks. I’ve never been great at math, but I’m almost positive that 40 weeks is much closer to ten months than to nine. And when you’re talking about the pain and discomfort of waddling around on swollen feet in 90 degree heat while carrying a living, kicking being in your belly, it seems most appropriate to round up.

Despite my ever-increasing discomfort and ever-decreasing mobility, your father and I have managed to complete many of our final preparations for your arrival. We’ve finished up your new room – I’m sure you will find it much more spacious and colorful than your current digs. You’ll also find it filled with lots of clothes, blankets, toys, and baby gear thanks to our many wonderful friends and family. We also interviewed and selected your pediatrician, Dr. Leard. I think you will like him, and not just because his office is right across the street from a Dairy Queen.

Most significantly, we’ve finally decided on your name. I tell you this at my own peril, since we will still not announce it before your birth and your Grandpa Roy will surely read this and badger me constantly for the next four weeks. Although we’ve considered only a couple of first names for the past few months, the final decision came to us quite suddenly last week. I’ll throw out a clue and say that either the first or middle name we’ve selected is one of the suggested names on your site right now.

Your father and I are very much looking forward to meeting you, and I hope I will not have to write a 10 month update before that happens. Please remember to take it easy on me during delivery – there will be plenty of time for kicking and spreading those long legs out later on!

Love,
Mom

Poop Management

I once worked with a guy who was hyper-organized, loved spreadsheets, and was unnaturally attached to his PDA. He carried the PDA everywhere with him, including the office restroom. Today I flipped the page on my Baby Owner’s Manual daily calendar to find a very close representation of what I always imagined he was doing in there with the PDA:


I'm sure his own spreadsheet was more thorough than this example, though. It must have at least included a "moderate" option under the delivery column.