We're official!

Pop the champagne. The city issued our occupancy permit today. Doug packed up his tools. "Enjoy it!" he said as he left.




That's Doug, making Paca do all the hard work.


He'll be back. This weekend, in fact. He needs his last check.

We would recommend him in a hammerbeat.

Gonna be kind of strange not having Doug and crew around. But it's a relief, too. Living in a house with pounding hammers, grinding sanders, the smell of oil-based paint and a crying baby wears on anyone. We're glad that's over. Thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa Hunsberger have been around to help start reassembling belongings.

Where are we now?

OK, last week we moved into a long-term stay hotel so cheap it charged 50 cents for those round in-house coffee packets. That's CeeCee sitting inside the My Breast Friend.



Claire didn't know the difference.



This week, our good friends Sonya and Matt bequeathed us their house while they celebrate Thanksgiving in Indiana. We are in heaven.

Grandpa and Grandma Huns are here too. Claire met them with a couple of coos and later impressed them with her loud farts.



Meanwhile, back at our place, the kitchen is just about done. The cabinets and countertops look great.





Maybe by Monday we'll be able to move in.

Settling in ... or not ...

We're home! We left Willamette Falls Hospital on Thursday night forever grateful for its staff's attention, instruction and care. If we have another, we'll have it there. But we're glad to establish a routine at home. Or, at least, try to.

That's a burping session at the hospital.

I could write a long, protracted entry about Sarah's improbable labor, which was both empowering and traumatic for both of us. But I don't have the energy right now. And you don't have the patience, probably, to read it. I'll maybe save it for later.



Home is a somewhat unseemly situation. As I write, on this rainy Saturday afternoon, two carpenters are putting the finishing touches on our kitchen cabinets, which were delivered three weeks earlier than first thought. Those carpenters have been sawing and hammering behind a closed door for the past three days. We've been here for two of them. Claire sleeps right through the noise. Sarah can tune it out long enough to nap. I have to flee to the house across the street, which our neighbor Bev has kindly left us while she's out of town for the weekend. Thank heavens.




They do look nice, though.

Yes, just as the baby arrives, we find the subcontractors cramming in all the last-minute jobs. The last light fixtures go in Monday. The kitchen floor Tuesday. The cabinets and trim get painted Thursday and Friday. Our bedroom floors get finished all Thanksgiving weekend, also earlier than expected. We'll be staying in an extended-stay hotel for at least a week beginning Thursday. CeeCee, too. Thankfully, my parents have graciously altered their schedule to come help. And friends and colleagues have kindly rallied to deliver dinners each night through Thanksgiving. This experience has shows us how blessed we really are.



Claire is a nurser extraordinare. She's learned just what to do when placed before the boob. She and mom are becoming quite the dynamic duo.

An equal-opportunity infant, Claire likes her father's chest, too.





With nursing in full swing, the poop is flowing as well. Here's a conversation you might hear in our house during nursing:

"Have you heard anything yet?"

"No, have you?"

"Nope. ... Oh, there it was! That sounded like projectile poop."

"Yeah, it did. Let's see what color it is."

"Oh, yeah. Nice consistency, too."

Claire Elise

Claire Elise Hunsberger came into our world at 8:25 p.m. Tuesday, a healthy 8 lbs., 6.5 oz and 21-and-a-quarter inches long. Sarah says Claire has the square head of her mother and the lanky frame of her father.



I cannot describe the admiration and awe that Sarah evoked in me and the staff of Willamette Falls Hospital yesterday. After waking with contractions at 1 a.m. and arriving at the hospital at 8:30 a.m. on the verge of delivering, Sarah endured the difficult "transition" stage of labor for eight hours, then pushed for nearly four hours before finally birthing Claire with the help of a vacuum. Not once during her 19-and-a-half hour ordeal did she complain or request an epidural. She cracked jokes right to the end. Claire and I are lucky to have her around.

Machinations

Delivery day has come and nearly gone. No baby.

Yet.

There are signs.

Sarah's mild Braxton-Hicks contractions have given way to stronger ones that actually sorta hurt. They happened almost every hour last night. Now they're occurring every half hour, or less.

This afternoon, she went in for her regularly scheduled checkup. The midwife examined her and declared her to be progressing quite well (she used the word "ripe" at one point). Then, so as not to get our hopes up, she cautioned that Sarah still could be a week-and-a-half away from giving birth. She could also deliver sooner. You know as well as we do.

Before we left, the midwife ordered a quick ultrasound to verify that the baby was head-down in Sarah's uterus. The technician quickly found the head. It was indeed pointing down. Then the technician moved the ultrasound wand to check the back. A spine appeared on the black-and-white screen like some large, skeletal ghost. It was elegant and healthy. A sight to behold, Sarah said.

Speaking of sights, a strange thing happened to me tonight. My right foot kept cramping up. These weren't quick lock-ups that disappeared when I curled my toes up. They lasted for a good minute. I had to rub them down. Never had them like that before.

Sympathy cramps?

They got so bad, I found myself groaning and cursing aloud. Then I realized: They weren't half as bad as what my wife would soon endure.

So I put a sock in it and shut up.

Six days to D-Day

Sarah's still well with child, as evidenced by this photo taken Sunday.



Sarah's otherwise textbook pregnancy has been marred by a pregnancy-related rash known as PUPPP, a really really itchy rash with no known cause. It starts on the abdomen but migrates to the legs and arms. It is not a kind itch. "Treatment of the rash is at best a mask," says Allthingspregnant.com. Sarah would agree. A stinky pine tar soap seemed to help. Interestingly, emedicine.com notes a study that found women suffering from PUPPP gave birth to boys two-thirds of the time.

These days, Sarah gets tired more easily. Doug & crew made too much noise Monday for her to nap, but she got a massage at the midwife clinic! She battles nausea and other general blahs. But all in all she's holding up quite well for being 39 weeks pregnant.