Quick Updates...

1) Another visit to the doctor today - all is well, Angela can stop the medicine tomorrow, and if she goes into labor, well, then, they will just let nature take its course! Angela is, of course, thrilled and petrified by this, because now that she is able to stop the meds, her shakiness should resolve....but now the baby could come any day!!! The doctor checked Angela out - she is not yet dilated at all, and she said it felt like the baby was in the proper position, but just to be sure, she did a quick ultrasound scan - it was AWESOME seeing the baby's head and teeny tiny toes...as well as its liver and heart. Looks quite healthy from a non-human-doctor's point of view! All very very exciting!

2) Got some new kicks today, proper running ones - Brooks Radius 06, pictured below:


They are super comfy and I can't wait until I am able to run again so I can give them a real test-drive.

3) Went to Alex and Korinne's house for dinner tonight and met their adorable 6 week-old Husky pup Nikita! She is absolutely gorgeous, and she likes shoes - I have the bite marks to prove it.

(Please pardon the blurry/crappy cell phone picture, its the best I have at the moment!)

Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé!

Since the US Soccer (football) team blows goats and was highly disappointing in its World Cup bid this year, I have only 1 team left to support - my "2nd home" - that's right, ENGLAND.

Today, although not the best game, Beckham did his thang and bent the shit out of it to score the only goal in a 1-0 defeat of Ecuador.

Here's me showing my support for the lads:

And, finally, the 36-week belly shot - looks pretty much the same as last week to me!

Next up - England vs. Portugal on Sat. July 1st. Should be a good one!

Luxury and Misery

Had a great day on Wednesday - Bayer (the drug company) took us and 13 other vets (and significant others) into the city. We met at Roosevelt Field Mall, and were greeted by...

...oh yes, a Hummer. A STRETCH Hummer.

It was tight quarters in there for 15 people, but it was still pretty awesome. I had never been in such a limo before! We were taken to see The Producers (3rd row orchestra seats) and to dinner at Toni DiNapoli's restaurant. It was frikkin' AWESOME.

Today I ran my 2nd 5K race, The Shwachman Diamond "Dash For a Cure" (http://www.dashforacure.org). My right knee had, for some unknown reason, been bothering me the last 2 days. I hadn't thought much of it, I figured it might keep me out of this race if it didn't feel better, but when I woke up this morning it felt fine.


When I was warming up, I felt it twinge a bit, but I stretched it out and felt good to go.


The horn sounds, I start running.


Then it starts to twinge again. After a minute or 2 it feels fine, so I keep on rolling.


By the end of the race, I was really starting to feel it.


As you can see in this picture, I managed to finish the race, only 3 seconds worse than my last one (which, I guess isn't bad considering the circumstances). I sat down afterwards to rest a bit and drink some water. When I stood up, I could no longer bear weight on my right leg. Ouch. I came home, iced it and took some Advil. It is feeling better now, I can walk on it, but it is still sore as a mofo. Hopefully it heals up over the next few days so I can resume running...otherwise I guess I should see a doctor. Fingers crossed! Next time, if my knee isn't perfect, I ain't running. Lesson learned.

Random Stuff

Yesterday was Angela's baby shower (organized and run by mom and Melissa, who did a spectacular job!) - we had a pretty low-key thing here at the house, where I was the BBQ-man-slave for all the ladies. Luckily, my dad and buddy Mike were here to help me with the cooking and distribution of food, and Marty, uncle Bruce and cousin Hy were also here to add some testosterone. Once the BBQ-ing was complete, I was directed to go to my mom's to get some chocolate bars that she had ordered...

...and so, rather than drive, we (Mike, dad, Mart and I) walked over so as to spend some time away from the estrogen-fest. Upon returning, we walked in to...

...so rather than witness this girlie-ritual, I felt compelled to get the hell out of there. So, we (Mike, Bruce, Marty and I) walked to the boardwalk for a while. When we got home, most people had already gone, but there was still some cake left (luckily)...

...since this was a TCBY White Chocolate Mousse cake (i.e. heaven on earth), I had to indulge despite it being mostly melted already. I would have lapped it up off the floor or drank it from a cup, I wouldn't have cared, it was delicious. I then realized that my neck hurt. Turned out that, including my morning boardwalk run, I had walked/run over 11 miles and been BBQing for an hour or so, all without sunblock! Therefore, my neck had become distinctly lobsterific. *Sigh*


Went to the doctor today for 34-week check-up, Angela was hooked up to the monitor, everything is going absolutely fine. So, here's your 34-week belly shot:


Finally, I also was sent this photo similar to the Famous Fetus one, except this is my sister and her boyfriend Daniel on the big screen at Times Square:


Cool, eh?

Famous Fetus

This is an actual photo of Times Square this past monday with our baby's first baby picture on the big screen! My sister submitted some photos to some contest, and this one was chosen as one of the ones to be posted at 4:48:30pm from June 5-9th, 2006. How cool!!!

Update

Just a quick note to say that Angela's re-check at the doctor's revealed no more contractions! So, she can come back to work at a limited capacity and will be re-checked next week! Whew!

Plugs and Contractions

This past thursday night, Angela thought she might have passed her mucus plug (for those of you who have no idea what that means, it is basically a wad of mucus that plugs the cervix to keep infection from reaching little mini-Spar). That normally doesn't happen so soon in the pregnancy, but the childbirth class we took told us it was no biggie, that we should call the doctor in the morning to tell them. So we did...they wanted to check her out to make sure she wasn't dilating. Her appointment was for 3pm on friday (she left work early to go to the appointment, I had to stay at work).

When 5pm rolled around and she hadn't returned to work, I began to wonder what was happening - I had a text message on my phone saying they had her on a monitor and she would be a while. Of course, I left straight away and went to the hospital to be with her. When I arrived, she was hooked up to 2 monitors (one to monitor her uterine contractions and one monitoring the baby's heart rate) - she had started having early contractions very regularly since arriving at the hospital. They wanted to put her on an IV to hydrate her to see if that would stop it - so after several attempts (she has awful veins) and me almost passing out from watching the attempts, they got a vein and pumped her up. No luck. They did some tests on her and found out that her cervix was closed (good news) and she was not actually in labor (very good news). However the contractions kept on coming every 3 minutes or so...by this time it was around 9pm.

They decided to give her a shot of some medicine (a smooth muscle relaxant) to stop the contractions. It did the trick...however it also dropped her blood pressure, and she nearly fainted. This, of course, happened while I was downstairs grabbing a sandwich. I came back up to find her on oxygen and shaking. Pleasant. She calmed down quickly...and the contractions started again. Oh, and her IV line blew too. So, they had another 5-6 attempts at replacing the IV (again, I nearly passed out), and were unsuccessful - so they had to call in "the IV team" which was an older lady who looked like a librarian on crack. She got a vein first try, and we were very thankful. They then gave her another shot of the medicine, and her contractions ceased and desisted. No more fainting spells (for either of us). We were discharged with a prescription for the same medicine she had been getting in shot form, to be taken every 4 hours, and she was directed to be on bed rest for the weekend. By now, it was around 1 am.

So....wife and baby are doing fine (baby has had no problem at all throughout the whole thing), she is still getting some tightening sensations here and there and is a bit shaky from the meds at times, but otherwise fine. I am sure she has been enjoying being waited on hand-and-foot by Jeeves (i.e. the butler/manslave...otherwise known as ME). The plan is for her to be re-evaluated tomorrow to see if she has to stay on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy or if she can move around more (I am assuming she won't be able to return to work, but we will see what the doctor says). Hopefully she can get off this medicine and get back to some sort of normalcy, as she HATES being confined to the bed. Keep your fingers crossed for us...

Oh, also, we got some new windows installed in the house. They look nice.