welcome to the world, baby girl!

2005-06-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

maya in trisha's dress with daddy

2005-06-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

trisha's first dress, now on maya...

growing every day!

2005-06-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

i measured maya yesterday- it was the first time i could really get her stretched out- and, while i am admittedly not as experienced as the midwives are at measuring a wiggly baby, i think i got a pretty accurate length.

maya is 21.5 inches long! she has grown two whole inches since she was born! we just can't believe how fast she is growing.

2005-06-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

goodbye kisses

2005-06-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

saying goodbye to grandparents mead and uncle ryan

2005-06-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

tiny maya hand

three week checkup

2005-06-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

maya had her three week checkup with the midwives at andaluz yesterday and is a confirmed strong, happy, healthy girl! her weight is now 9 pounds 2 ounces and her blood tests came back fine, so no horrible diseases lie in wait.

can you believe that she is almost one month old? soon she will be holding her head up (she already does for short periods of time- strong girl! she's working those muscles!), figuring out her hands and feet, and gurgle and coo at us.

she found her fists in full force this week, and is happy to suck away at them when she is quiet and alert. sometimes she is able to isolate a finger or a thumb, but right now it's mostly the whole fist!

oh, how fast she is growing! we keep looking and looking at her, reminding ourselves that she will only be this tiny once, and this is our time to enjoy it. babyhood is so very fleeting.

2005-06-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

maya and mama look at the world

2005-06-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

mama and maya

2005-06-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

maya and her grandparents mead

2005-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

grandpa and grandma mead with maya

2005-06-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

maya is a chubby cheeker!

2005-06-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

maya loves her daddy

2005-06-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

what a face!

2005-06-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

lucky gets up the nerve to say hello to maya

2005-06-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

a perfect little foot

2005-06-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

a perfect little hand

2005-06-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

maya is two weeks old. doesn't she look older? and bigger? she is just more grown up every day.

maya is two weeks old today!

2005-06-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

the best thing- we are being graced with fleeting smiles and intent gazes that we treasure. our baby loves us!

she has been a little fussy with gas, and mama and daddy try everything to make it better. some nights are a little hairy, but she usually sleeps from 10pm-1am, eats, sleeps until 4am, eats, sleeps until 7am, eats, and then takes a little nap until 8am or so. generally she is awake and alert for the 9 and 10 o'clock hours, and then more snacking and napping throughout the day. ah, the life of a baby!

she is also very strong, and works her legs and arms all the time! her grasp is amazing and she makes many attempts at lifting her head when she is upright on our shoulders. what a strong, healthy girl! we can't believe that she has only been on the earth for 14 days.

rob has been my lifesaver- walking her in the sling when i am exhausted and need to sleep, or when i just need a few minutes to take a hot shower! he brings me water to drink when i'm nursing and makes me meals (and spends quality time with maya so i can eat them!). he continually supports me emotionally. and yes, folks, he really does change diapers! he is a wonderful, wonderful father. maya adores him and so do i!

2005-06-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

nana cindy and miss maya

2005-06-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

the rose festival children's parade went right in front of our apartment building today! rob and maya and i went down to watch. there were lots of marching bands and more children than i i have ever seen together in one place!!! what fun! maya slept right through it all in her sling with her daddy.

2005-06-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

stop the paparazzi!

2005-06-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

rosebud mouth

2005-06-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

maya talking to her daddy

all we need is love

2005-06-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

i have to admit, there was something that was really worrying me about maya being born.

i was worried that rob would love her more than he loved me.

now, lest you think that this is a horrible thing for a new mother to think, remember that we have been married barely over a year. and i'm madly in love with him. and, frankly, i didn't understand the true nature of love. real love. love with a capital L.

because what happened the moment that she was born was that i instantly loved maya more than i had ever loved anything before. and interestingly enough, i loved rob more than i had ever loved him. my love expanded and grew and multiplied to cover them both with exponential amounts of love. love is everywhere in this little apartment. rob loves both of his girls to abstraction, and we love him abstractedly back.

in fact, i just love everyone more. my own mother, for instance, who has been absolutely invaluable to our little family in the days since my first contraction, supplying us with food, cleanliness, and yet more love. my father, who believes that maya is as perfect as rob and i think she is. everyone who has loved and supported and thought of us. strangers who look at maya and tell me that she is beautiful.

love is a little like silly putty. it stretches further than you think it will, bounces to greater heights than you think it can, and is able to pick up beautiful images that surround it.

as the wise man once said, love is all we need.

2005-06-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

papa james with his girl maya

white is the new black

2005-06-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

why my oh-so-practical black outfits are no longer oh-so-practical: baby spit-up. which, as everyone knows, is white. also, breastmilk, which is also white, and dries into some type of impenetrable crust, creating papier-mache cones out of bras and shirts. all of those very stylish black shirts that are so great at hiding the few extra pounds are about to be forsaken for any light colored, easy-access top i can find, and honestly, these are incredibly few in number. i have become, over the years, a nearly exclusively black-wearing person, so now i'm living in nightdresses (thank you, mom and karen!) and non-practical black outfits that once were so chic.

there must be a better way. and don't tell me those bi-level nursing clothes, which are just mommy geeksville. gah!

2005-06-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

maya in the sling with daddy

2005-06-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

sleepy maya

2005-06-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

taking a bath with mama

2005-06-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

beautiful girl

2005-06-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

maya at her one week checkup! maya had her one week checkup yesterday. she now weighs 8lbs 5 oz- up 4 oz from her birth weight! our midwife also said that she is advanced (we knew she would be ;) for a one week old in alertness and muscle tone. yay, maya!

2005-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

maya and daddy in the rocking chair

2005-06-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

fresh and clean baby girl

2005-06-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

maya's first bath!

2005-06-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

maya and mama snuggle

2005-06-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

big yawn!

2005-06-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

we just can't get enough

2005-06-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

rainy day walk

2005-06-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

snuggly maya and daddy

2005-06-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

hooray! i'm sleeping!

2005-06-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

kung fu fighting

2005-05-31T14:58:00.000-07:00

arrr! pirate baby!

2005-05-31T14:26:00.001-07:00

maya and daddy on our first walk

2005-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

maya's first walk!

a post from a proud papa

2005-05-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

"You may have met, or had, or have been, a baby you thought was the most beautiful and most perfect of all. I can only gently present my case to the contrary. Thank you for your indulgence.

She has golden brown hair, chipmunk cheeks, rosebud mouth, and almond eyes that are brown or blue or possibly both, or one of each, like David Bowie (only he wasn’t born that way). Time will tell in any case.

Maya already exhibits an array of facial expressions that range from the “faux smile” (a brief but heart-melting flicker which predates even the famed “gas smile” and which we can only at this point place in a file next to crop circles and constellations that spell out “We love you”) to the Robert De Niro sequence which speaks of impending somethin’ somethin’, to the 2-3 seconds during which her little head scrunches up and turns red like the fist of a kung fu tomato before cutting loose with her lack of amusement with the whole situation.

In between, she sleeps, snurfles and looks about with a wonder accompanied by the almost audible sizzle of new neural pathways.

Oh, this is just the best thing ever.

Maya shares her birthday with my hero, Miles Dewey Davis III (1926), whose “Kind of Blue” we played twice in the course of the birth.

Also born on May 26: Lenny Kravitz (1964), Pam Grier (1949), Peter Cushing, of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who and Star Wars fame (1913), Miss Peggy Lee (1920), Levon Helm of The Band (1942), astronaut Sally Ride (1951), Jackie Liebesit of Can (1938), Stevie Nicks (1948), Bobcat Goldthwait (1962), and Hank Williams, Jr. (1949).

On May 26, 1521, Martin Luther and his followers were outlawed by the Edict of Worms.

In 1805, Lewis & Clark got their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1896, Nicholas II of Russia was crowned as the last Czar.

In 1924, Brazil was recognized by the United States.

In 1930, the US Supreme Court ruled that buying liquor did not violate the Constitution, thus ending Prohibition.

In 1961, the Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee was established in Atlanta.

In 1977, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope made its premiere.

In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were wed.

In 2005, one girl would blow them all away ."

i'm in love with a beautiful girl

2005-05-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

think back.

remember your first love? remember how it made you feel? remember how every love song on the radio seemed to be written for you, and you didn't feel the need to eat or sleep because you were on cloud nine?

welcome to parenthood.

granted, there is the equally strong feeling of absolute terror that comes with the territory, too. the alpine peaks of love contain valley chasms of fear. is she breathing? why is she crying? why can't we make her stop? doesn't she know how much we love her? how we can't live without her? what if something is wrong? worse, what if something is terribly wrong and we don't know?

your first love breaks your heart by leaving you, and there are ample love songs on the radio to get you through that, too. there aren't any songs, however, that could contain the wretched abject feeling that wells up when you hear your child cry, or the dropping out of your stomach when you look at her and she just seems too still (yes, i have been known, already, to poke my own child just to make sure she's still alive).

we never tire of looking at maya- that type of perfection stands up under great scrutiny- and we have come to the realization that this must be why parenting is said to be so difficult. because no matter what, we will always believe in and hold in our hearts this perfection, and in the end, that is what may hurt us the most.

2005-05-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

the new mead family

2005-05-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

brand new maya

2005-05-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

maya and daddy three minutes old

2005-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

maya says hello

2005-05-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

sleeping in the sunshine

2005-05-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

daddy and maya after our first night home

she's here!

2005-05-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

she made it! i began having contractions around 6:00 pm on wednesday night, and rob came home from work at around 6:30. the contractions were right on top of each other- about 2 minutes apart, and each about 45 seconds long, so we called our midwife. our midwife's assistant came over to check up on us an hour or so later, and then my parents showed up, and we all trundled over to the birth center at 9:00 or 9:30.

after that, we labored until sunrise, and at 7:47 am maya greeted the world with her first cry! both maya and i are happy and healthy- it was the hardest work that i have ever done, but it was so worth it! rob was an amazing support and joy to have with me through the process.

all three of us are still pretty exhausted, however, and happy to be home.

2005-05-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

maya on the day of her birth

2005-05-27T14:50:00.001-07:00

maya and mama

2005-05-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

maya one day old

2005-05-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

daddy and maya at home

d-day!

2005-05-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

well, today is the official due date, and still no action from our baby girl! we are dying in anticipation!!!

what's going on in there? week 39

2005-05-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

just one more week until her official due date!

however, did you know that only 5 percent of babies are born on their expected due date? so maya really could arrive any time now — or she could make us all wait a bit. rob and i eagerly greet each day, hoping that today is the day she makes her entrance into the world!

everyone has bets on which day she will finally get here- i was thinking that she would come last night (obviously not), rob thought she might turn up today, my dad thought by today, and i know that rob's dad is waiting for her to show up on *his* birthday...can we really wait until the 22nd? :)

2005-05-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

possibly our last pregnant picture! ten days to go!

it's the final countdown

2005-05-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

just ten more days until our due date, and maya could be here anytime. we had a midwife's appointment yesterday and she did a cervical exam- i am fully effaced and my cervix is very soft, though no dilation to speak of yet. also, the baby has dropped! our midwife could actually feel her head! so everything is in place and ready to go for, as the midwife says, a "very effective delivery." yay!

in other news, the acupuncture combined with walking and hypertension herbal tincture has brought my blood pressure down out of the danger zone, so all systems are go!

also, i've been keeping a keen eye out for signs of early labor, like backache, menstrual-like cramping, bloody show (boy, it all sounds like a horror film, doesn't it?), that sort of thing. and i have been having crampy backaches off and on. good sign that we are getting ready!

these past few months have seemed to go so quickly...and now that we are in the final two weeks, the days seem to be dragging by at a snail's pace! we can't wait to meet maya!

what's going on in there? week 38

2005-05-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

just two weeks left!

maya has really fattened up- at our last midwife's appointment, our midwife guessed that she was about 7 1/2 pounds now, and she's probably between 19 and 20 inches long. she has a firm grasp, which we'll soon be able to test with our pinkies! her organs are fully developed and in place, but her lungs and brain — though developed enough for her to function now — will continue to mature right through childhood.

wondering what color maya's eyes will be? we may not be able to tell right away. if she is born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. if she's born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time she's 9 months old. that's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after she's born, but they won't get "lighter" or more blue.

we are so excited to meet our baby girl!!!

white house congrats

2005-05-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

did you know that you can get congratulations on the birth of your baby from the white house? all you have to do is send your baby's name, address, and birth date to the White House Greetings Office, Room 39, Washington, D.C., 20500.

2005-05-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

what maya looks like now: nine months

what's going on in there? week 37

2005-05-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

maya is now considered full term, meaning she is developmentally ready to handle life outside the womb. she probably weighs a little over 6 pounds at this point and measures between 19 and 20 inches, head to heel. at our last midwife's appointment, they were making bets on how big she will be at birth- one midwife thinks around 8 lbs, the other thinks around 9! i just hope that she comes before it's 10 or 11! :)

they say that many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long - and we know that maya already has a full head of hair, from seeing her at our last ultrasound! the question is, what color will it be? we're taking votes! most people think that it will be dark, but i'm betting on red. or blonde! we will see soon....

just 20 more days till her due date!

due dates

2005-05-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

i checked out a library book today, and guess what the due date is?

that's right, folks, my library book has the same due date as our daughter. wow.

i have much other news and lots more to post, but it will have to wait. these past couple of weeks have been crazy busy! i know, i know, just wait until she gets here, right? :)

a preview: there have been two baby showers, one in corvallis and one in portland. baby glee all over the place, and now baby glee all over our apartment, which has greatly been enhanced my my mother's presence, rearranging and reconfiguring and generally making things lovely. more later!

what's going on in there? week 36

2005-04-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

four more weeks to go!!!

maya is still putting on the pounds, about an ounce a day. she now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little less than 19 inches long. she's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the creamy substance that covered and protected her skin during its submersion in amniotic fluid. maya swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, which will stay in her bowels until birth. this blackish mixture, called meconium, will become her first bowel movement. hello, diapers!

at the end of this week, we're going to reach an important pregnancy milestone: maya will be considered full term! that means she could conceivably be here anytime - or she might not be here until june! we'll see when she decides to make her debut. :)

a post straight from rob

2005-04-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

rob says:

"There are a lot of things we can do for our daughter to help introduce her to this time and place.

I think that the first and most important is to honor her presence in our lives by honoring our lives, and to honor her entry into the world by honoring that world.

Among other things, that means not leading her into an acceptance of waste and empty materialism. To recycle rather than dispose; to make rather than buy prepackaged; to create rather than consume. We want her to know that she has the power to make her life with her own hands and her own mind, and we can't do that unless we provide ourselves as examples.

I know that I have no idea of the countless unexpected costs of childbearing. But I think a lot of parents are afraid that if they don't purchase all the latest products and follow the most mainstream and product-centered methods, then they are doing their children a disservice.

Much of this comes from the fear of transgressing their neighbors', or their society's, perceptions of their fitness as parents. Which is definitely a disservice. Worse, it passes that fear to our children.

We are lucky to have lived long enough to know that time is more important than money, that attention is more important than dictating answers, that love is more important than the "delivery of solutions."

The rest is up to her, which is the most scary and wonderful attribute of this time and place."

i love my husband. :)

what's going on in there? week 35

2005-04-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

just FIVE WEEKS LEFT!

maya doesn't have much room to maneuver now that she's over 18 inches long and weighs over 5 pounds. in fact, most of her development is complete. from here on, she's mostly concentrating on fattening up. her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. mostly, what this baby growth means for me is feet in ribs and lots of bladder pressure. i'm sure that this is partly due to the fact that my uterus is now about 15 times its normal size!

what's going on in there? week 34

2005-04-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

good news! if maya were born today her chances of surviving would be excellent. by this week she weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is almost 18 inches long. her skin is smooth and she's layering on the fat she needs to control her body temperature when she enters the world. i'm a little tired these days from lack of sleep - if it isn't one thing (heartburn), it's another (potty breaks!) - but really, i can't complain. everything is still going swimmingly well.

only six more weeks!

2005-04-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

kyrie and maya at 33 weeks

i've been waiting all my life

2005-04-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

lately i find myself having feelings about the pregnancy that are eerily similar to feelings i was having about our wedding at this time last year. namely, is it ever gonna get here?

when i got married last year, i thought that i had been waiting for rob all my life and was so amazed to finally find him. now, with maya the jellybean jumping around in there, i smile my secret virgin mary smile and think of how rob and i have been waiting for this little girl all our lives, and am amazed that our bodies and souls could create this whole, live person.

at this point last year there wasn't really anything left to DO but a lot of anxiously, excitedly waiting- and again this year, although there are some things that still need to be done (clean out those closets!) and some things still to look forward to (baby showers!), i'm mostly simply eager for the big event.

46 days left, and this affair is catered, too! for rob and i, our choice of a meal- for maya, specially made breastmilk! :) wonder what i'll be waiting for with bated breath next year at this time? what else could i possibly be waiting for?

what's going on in there? week 33

2005-04-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

this week, maya weighs a little over 4 pounds and is approximately 17.2 inches long. she's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look (as you can see in her recent pictures!) and her bones are hardening. her skull, however, will stay soft until after birth, to make it easier to squeeze through the birth canal.

i'm doing great- except for this cold, which i've had for a week! other than that, my only complaint lately has been nightmares. i was having them every night for a while. thankfully, they have abated in the past few days. they say that you have more vivid dreams while you are pregnant, and i can guarantee you that those nightmares were very vivid! why can't i have fantastically vivid dreams instead?

just think- seven weeks ago it was valentine's day, and in another seven weeks from now, our maya will make her way into the world!

adventures in ultrasounds

2005-04-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

maya looks like a real, full-fledged baby! she spent most of our time in there opening and closing her eyes (i think that she was winking at us!), putting one, then both fists in her mouth, and yawning big yawns. she has a full head of hair already, which we got to see lots of, and a strong, healthy heartbeat. we also double-checked on gender, and yes, she's still a maya, not a miles :) she already has little chipmunk cheeks and was thought by both of us to be the most beautiful baby ever (no surprise there, i guess!).

she wasn't really cooperating with us enough to do good 3D, but we are rescheduled (at no extra cost!) to come in again and see if she will let us have a good look at her. so for now, all you get are the photos below, with hopefully more to come.

2005-04-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

sucking her thumb

2005-04-01T18:44:00.000-08:00

maya in profile

2005-04-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

one of many glimpses of her full head of hair

2005-04-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

maya's little foot

2005-04-01T18:40:00.000-08:00

maya's face- look at those chubby cheeks!

maya in three dimensions

2005-03-31T18:27:00.000-08:00

so tomorrow we have an appointment for another ultrasound at fetalfoto here in portland. this is especially exciting because we'll be able to see our maya in 3D! take a look at the website and check out the sample images. we're now at 32 weeks, so she will look a lot more like a baby and a lot less like an alien. :) i promise that we'll come right home and post those 3D pictures so you can see her, too.

diapering decisions

2005-03-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

at least there is one thing we haven't debated about, and that's using cloth diapers. for many reasons, we think that it's the best choice for us. the question now is...which ones? you'd be surprised at how many choices there are! right now, we're thinking of going with a diaper service in the beginning until we get the hang of things. cost efficient, and no laundry to do! here in portland, tidee didee is our choice.

but...i am very tempted to buy the trim, easy-as-disposable very baby all-in-ones. the only place to buy them is online at flutterby baby, and they run about $15 a pop, and then of course there's laundry. but they are so simple! no separate cover for the diaper, and you can just run them through the wash! and cute, too. there is also a pattern, which is more cost effective, and i can sew...decisions, decisions!

2005-03-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

speckled lamb

2005-03-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

more lambs and sheep!

2005-03-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

what maya looks like now

2005-03-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

black lambs

2005-03-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

we went to see the new baby lambs at the osu barns when we were in corvallis

what's going on in there? week 32

2005-03-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

week 32! could it be possible? that's right, folks, just eight more weeks to go!

on many levels, i am apprehensive about this. the looming date is making everything seem more and more real. just think if she shows up early- those eight weeks might only be four, or six, or any quantity in between (although i'm actually seriously doubting that- i think that she's going to mke her entrance right on time). on the other hand, rob and i are getting more and more excited to meet our girl. it feels like we've been waiting all our lives, somehow, even though it's only been seven or so months.

and i have to tell you, we're starting to get a little crowded in there :)

so what is she up to in there? let me tell you:

by now, maya probably weighs almost 4 pounds and is almost 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space. she has tiny toenails, and her fingernails have grown in, too. some babies have a head of hair already; others have only peach fuzz. i bet that maya has a head of hair! we grow thick hair around here!

what's going on in there? week 31

2005-03-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

this week, maya measures about 16 inches long & weighs a little over 3 pounds. she's also headed for a growth spurt soon. she can turn her head from side to side, and she's beginning to accumulate a layer of fat underneath her skin in preparation for life as a newborn. as a result, her arms, legs, and body are filling out.

2005-03-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

kyrie and maya- 31 weeks!

2005-03-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

this will be me soon! :)

the voice of rob

2005-03-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

some of my beloved husband's thoughts on becoming a father:

"...if I were to try to explain it all to you, you know what I would ask you to imagine? Silence.

The purest, richest silence rolling out from the heart of the universe, from the center of the tiniest flower.

It makes me feel like my heart has skipped a million beats. I don't want to miss anything.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh."

and now you love him, too, don't you.

diaper bag

2005-03-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

i didn't even think that i wanted a diaper bag until i saw this one: the henry brown mackie bag. in brown nylon with green seersucker lining, it's darling. ooh, but i adore the pink, too. i'm a sucker for things that are both fashionable and practical. it even has an option for- my favorite- monogramming!!! i think the most elegant is just to have your last name initial done. check out style #8.

2005-03-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

what maya looks like now

what's going on in there? week 30

2005-03-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

well, we only have ten weeks left, and maya is a bit more than 15 1/2 inches long, and weighs almost 3 pounds. a pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger. her eyes open and close, she's able to distinguish between light and dark, and she can even follow a light source back and forth. once she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. when she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have a visual acuity of only 20/400 — just good enough to see my face as i nurse her!

what's going on in there? week 29

2005-03-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

maya now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to accommodate her brain, which is busy developing billions of neurons. protein and calcium are major needs right now, as she develops strong bones.

rob brought home a surprise yesterday- a real live stethoscope! we tried to see if we could hear maya's heartbeat, but we'll have to wait a little longer. pretty soon we should be able to hear her with it, though. how exciting! rob used it to listen to lucky, who has an extraordinarily loud purr :)

warm beaches

2005-03-02T16:26:00.001-08:00

as a sidenote- we went to the beach on sunday and it was so incredibly beautiful! we could have been sunbathing (well, not rob, at least not without sunscreen :)! here are a few pictures after a glorious day.

2005-03-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

sunset at haystack rock

2005-03-02T16:25:00.001-08:00

rob at the beach

2005-03-02T16:25:00.000-08:00

kyrie at the beach