As some of you may know Angel was entering the 38th week of the pregnancy yesterday and has been ready to pop for a little while. I was up in new Jersey all week, getting home at 10:30 Thursday night. We were in bed before midnight but up again just after two am... Angel's water broke!

After an exhausting 20 hour plus labor Angel gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 22:42 CDT on July 25th 2008. Both mother and daughter are doing well and will be returning home in the next couple of days. Before you ask, no we have not decided upon a name yet, but will do soon.

I will be spending most of my time over the next day or so at the hospital and can be reached on my mobile at 832.277.5211

Here is is a photo of a young, very curious girl, who as soon as she was born was able to make solid eye contact and who was intrigued by all the big folk looking in on, and looking after her...

Certainly a lot of photos to come in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Angel's department were kind enough to host a little shower for us yesterday afternoon. The last time I was there it was for the shower prior to the wedding and they are right in the middle of packing up for a move to their new building (happening this week/weekend).

Got some very nice gifts. Angel certainly has some very nice people in her department even if they were not all there!

Here are the photos of the shower... Baby Shower - MDACC

The showers are done, so we spent 2 hours at Babies R Us last night picking up the rest of the items we think we'll be using. Once home, after our lovely Chick-fil-a dinner, I finished up by shopping online at a Amazon, BabyCenter Store, and Target.

It was good to get all everything brought home or ordered, in the sense that we want to minimize our inconvenience to ourselves later, but for now, I think these things wear Mike and me out a little. Guess that means we're definitely not having any of that "nesting" craziness going on.

Our to-do list still has a few chores left: organizing what we had been using as a linen closet to use for the baby stuff (and putting all the linens somewhere elsewhere), doing the first load of baby laundry, setting up the car seat with Sherri, and maybe a few other things I can't remember right now.

Second of three baby showers was held in Beaumont on Saturday night. Hosted by Regina Rogers. We drove down with my mum as well as Randy and Leah (neighbours of my parents) on Saturday late afternoon, stayed until about 10pm then drove home... getting stuck in traffic on the way back because the highway was closed due to a serious accident.

Prior to the shower we (Angel and I) had dinner at Raven Grill on Friday, one of our local favourite places for a quiet meal. Oh, I did also get my hair cut on Friday afternoon, but no worries, I only had an inch or two removed from the back, and an overall cleanup on my hair.

Sunday Angel went out for a girl's lunch while I napped at home and worked on, some of the photos from the baby shower, which are now online...

Baby Shower at Easys

Throughout this Cammie has been stuggling through, feeling the weight of the world on her back! If any one has read any Discworld books, you will understand that the Discworld world is ultimately perched on the back of a giant turtle, but what you may not have known is that that turtle is perched on the back of Wabbles! Such a heavy load!

Shower in Beaumont this Saturday evening. Should be fun to see all those party animals down there, because it's really been a while, and some of them couldn't make the wedding.

Some Scipubs folks pulling together to throw a work shower for Mike and me, too, next Wednesday afternoon. According to one of the instigators, it's to reward us for our efforts in human repopulation. So kind, so kind. :D And another good reason to have Cake For All!

And we got some sage advice to get on infant-accepting day care waiting lists while we don't have the actual infant to tote around. So that's the main activity for this month. That, and keeping up with work when I'm more and more and more distracted.

Hiccups. Blobby seems to get a spell about twice a day for at least a few minutes at a time. Camila gets hers at least once a week. Her eyes turn all black, and she looks so confused and kittenish when she gets them.

General update on the weirdness of growing the alien...

Good news: Miss Blobs hasn't been kicking me as hard, and her best kicks are no longer aimed exclusively at my right lower ribs. She did give me a good jab or elbowing the other night and left the fist/joint fully extended for a few seconds. When I pressed on it, she retracted it immediately. Overall, she moves a lot, and that's supposed to be a good indication she's doing fine.

Neutral news: There are tons more strange and large-scale slidey and squirmy motions. Someone said to me that when she was pregnant, she thought she might be giving birth to an octopus. I can understand why. Also, I think the Blob-pod itself has become more teardrop-shaped instead of sticking-straight-out-hemispherical, so there's a lot more pressure on the lower abdomen, and the maternity support I tried using to offset that shift wasn't comfortable. Too lazy to try another right now.

Bad news: I occasionally feel jabs of pain when what I believe is Blobby's head jolts against my bladder. Also had one or two odd cramps (might these be the Braxton-Hicks ones?), and the belly-weight is making it uncomfortable to switch sides while lying down. Also, my feet seem to get swollen more easily.

Well, it's just about a month now, anyway!

Back from the doctor's appointment, and he confirms that Blobby is head-down.

Also, Doc explained his preferences and opinions on episiotomies and epidurals, and now that I know what his 'defaults' are, I am comfy with how things will probably go down when it's time for Miss Blobs to come out.

No further comments on my weight (up by 40 pounds). :p

Friday night was a quiet night I seem to remember as we were gearing up for the weekend.

Saturday morning we had the first baby shower (the Houston one... we will be having another in Beaumont in a couple of weeks) and it went really well. Lots of good people, plenty of fabuloustic gifts from people, good lunch from one of my fav places, and a great cake. Many thanks to Host Sherri, to Angel's mum who helped Sherri out and to everyone who came along. A selection of the photos that my mum took are now online... I am sure more will be posted when I get 'em!

Shower Photos

Went to the doc this morning, and although my stomach is the exact measurement it should be for my stage of pregnancy, to the millimeter, I'm getting a little heavy. Starches are the main culprit, doc says, so cut out sweet drinks and starches whenever I can.

Ehhhh, sorry Shipley's! (http://www.shipleydonuts.ws/)

The good news is that after jabbing into my lower womb with both hands, he deems Blobby to be head-down (good girl!). Also, I'm one of his few patients with no extra risk factors. In fact, he went so far as to say that I was NORMAL.

That's got to be a first! :p