Nothing like spending a week in the hospital

It's been a long, hard nine months (OK so it wasn't that bad) but my wife finally had our daughter. Last week was probably worse than the last nine months combined. Last week we went in for an appointment and the doctors convinced us that she had to be induced. The wifey felt fine and the baby seemed to be OK but they were saying that the ultrasound was measuring low amniotic fluid. Her due date was still a week out but I wasn't going to argue. Anyway, a couple of days after starting the inducement they broke her water (where the midwife was vocally surprised by the amount of amniotic fluid). A few hours later they said that it was OK for her to start pushing. She had an epidural so she couldn't feel a thing. We were basically just watching the monitor and she was pushing when we told her to. After four hours they called a doctor in. We could see the crown of the baby's head but the doctor was skeptical that the baby was going to come out on her own. He was actually surprised that she had started pushing at all because her contractions didn't seem like they were strong enough to him. After a few more pushes and a couple of rounds with some kind of vaccum thingy he convinced us to go for a c section.

Anyway, the baby is healthy and mom is recovering. We spent four more days in the hospital after the baby was born. Now I'm just waiting to see the ridiculous hospital bill. Asking how much this or that is going to cost when you're having a baby is akin to asking how much extras cost when you're planning a funeral. Next time I won't be so quick to take the doctor's and nurses word for anything when they're being wishy washy. When they start saying things like "just to be on the safe side" or "this is a little unusual" it probably translates to something like "we want to do this on our schedule" or "we can charge you more if we do it this way". If it's actually serious then they won't beat around the bush. I'll know better next time.

So far the baby's been great and everything has gone smoothly since I got her home. The whole sleep thing isn't a big deal to me since I don't sleep much, anyway. At least now I have something to do when I wake up in the middle of the night. Now I've just got to start working her into my preps. The basics like stacks and stacks of clothes, diapers, food, and most of the other basics are covered. Mom's good to go in the milk department. I've been so busy getting the house ready and brushing up on the basics that I haven't done a lot of thinking about "preps" for her. Me being me I've probably got most of the basics covered without even realizing it. If anyone has any glaringly obvious, easy suggestions I'm all ears, though.

If you're in the Colorado area Dave over at Our Happy Homestead is doing a bulk grain order. You can get details and pricing on his website right here. All orders are due by March 5th. He does these bulk grain orders fairly regularly so if you can't jump on this one then you can submit your name and email address and he'll let you know when the next one is coming up. Both conventional and organic grain is available. Delivery to a limited area is also available for a small fee.