Baby Walker died on Friday, February 16th at about 5:50pm. He was snuggled in my lap and passed away peacefully.

Apparently his heart swelled up too big from a virus that crossed the placental barrier. They don’t know what or when. This caused his brain to not get enough oxygen, which killed his higher brain.

It is a blessing that he got such good care at the UCSD hospital. It is a blessing that we had health insurance and the money to cover what insurance won’t. It is a blessing that we know that nothing could have been done for him. It is a blessing that he went so peacefully and didn’t simply live in a coma. It is a blessing that we each got to hold him and love him sweetly. It is a blessing that we took him home, even though it freaked the doctors and social worker out and they would have preferred we let him die there. It is a blessing that he died in my arms so softly. It is a blessing that we had such strong support from our spiritual community. It is a blessing that I went through the labor and birth without drugs (and it wasn’t easy – I had back labor and it lasted 32 hours), so that I was able to be present and aware with my baby and husband through the whole thing. It is a blessing that I have glimpsed the miracle of life.

But yeah – we miss him so much.

This is the end of this journal. I’ll be writing letters to my boy on old fashioned paper for now.

Walker Samuel came into this world on Sunday, February 11th at 5:35 am, weighing 7 pounds 9 ounces and measuring 20 inches. He is a beautiful baby boy.

Unfortunately, he never opened his eyes or cried. He was immediately rushed to the ICU for care. The prognosis is unclear, as are the reasons for the problem. Nothing went wrong during the birth, his heart rate was strong the whole time. He looks perfect. It’s hard to understand.

We are shellshocked and sad and scared. We’re not up to answering a lot of phone calls and stuff, but people are still welcome to call or email or whatever – we just may not be able to get back to you right away.

It’s a terrible thing to find out in this way how much love we have in our lives, but there you have it. We are surrounded by love, and I’ve never seen it so clearly before. Thank you.

A good article that address pregnancy after 40-weeks. There are of course also many articles abstracted in Medline, but most of them are difficult reading and deal with specific studies rather than drawing broad conclusions. The results also appear to contradict each other wildly.

I’m not worried about the baby or myself – he’s kicking up a storm and all stats are fine except for my blood pressure, which remains reasonable so long as I don’t exert myself. He’s not gigantor. This trend towards induction didn’t start until fairly recently. And, if the sonogram lady was right, he’s not actually 2-weeks “late” until Thursday.

I am, however, a bit concerned for my sanity. It’s wearing me down to explain myself to people who would never ask so many questions about any other aspect of my personal life (colleagues, aquaintances). And, of course, I don’t want to worry family and friends.

So for the sake of my mental health, general health, and blood pressure, I’m going to hole up and rest at home. The world won’t fall apart without me. Friends and family will get phone calls and emails when there is news.

Just a quick update. No small monkey yet. He has a good heartbeat and is very active, so we see no reason to worry or induce labor. I am fine save for needing to lie around a lot to counteract an apparent inability to regulate all of this extra blood volume. Which works out fine because I’m too tired to do much.

Note: this will be the last entry for a bit, I think. Stay tuned for more interesting news.

OK, I’ve about had it with my two outfits. I feel slovenly and I fear that I will outgrow them if this goes on much longer. And last night I lay down while talking on the phone and had to swing my legs and use momentum to get up again. Hello, Universe? I’m about ready for this baby. Today or tomorrow would be good, or Friday at the latest. Whatever works for you in that time range is fine with us. Thanks.

Blood pressure was high again yesterday. Not high enough to fear a stroke or whatever, but high enough that it’s potentially damaging my veins, so there is that factor, too – the sooner I have the kid, presumably the sooner my blood pressure will regulate. Thing is, it varies wildly. I sit up, it’s 149/96. I lie down for a minute, it’s 100/60. Therefore, I am supposed to relax. Which instruction made Barry laugh. Apparently I’m not known in our household for being a relaxed person.

So, last night I began my first evening of enforced relaxation. Which wasn’t relaxing at all. In fact, it probably caused my blood pressure to go up. If there are things to get done, my instinct is to do them. I suck at lying around letting the house go to shit, even short-term.

Don’t get me wrong, Barry will do the dishes/laundry/whatever. It’s just, he may not do it right now, this second, while it’s bugging me. It’s not really within my rights to demand that he do things on my timeline – that would be controlling and bitchy, attributes that are generally not good for a marriage.

So, once again I’m working on lowering my housekeeping standards.

It’s raining, it’s raining! Inconvenient as it is to trek the 1/2 mile from car to office in a heavy downpour (and to the gym at lunch, and back to the car after work), we really need this rain. It’s been a dry year. Plus, Barry will build me a fire tonight and we can have a cozy evening eating chicken ravioli with cacciatore sauce and watching (God help us) the many episodes of Arrested Development that we’ve rented. Man, that show is funny, especially if you’ve lived in or know people from Orange County.

I can’t remember if I wrote that last week Vickii said that she thinks the baby weighed between 7 and 7.5 pounds. So, by now he should weigh between 7.5 and 8 pounds. Sheez, I hope I have this kid soon or he’s going to be gigantor!

I feel good, though, much better than I did a month ago. My back feels great, my pelvis is fine, my tummy doesn’t feel overstretched, my digestion is good, my feet are pretty happy, and I’m not swelling at all. Oh, and if I had a cold, it seems to be gone. Go figure.

My throat still hurts and I’m a bit weary but I don’t feel like I’m getting a full-fledged cold (I hope I’m right). Barry, on the other hand, is getting slammed with one virus after another – first that flu-crud and now a cold. Usually one of us gets sick after Christmas break, when we have 45,000 students returning from vacation as hosts to fun new bugs, but he’s been ill more than usual this year. I suspect he’s more stressed about becoming a new dad than he lets on. Perhaps women in late pregnancy have enhanced immune systems, or perhaps it’s my prenatal vitamins, but I’m doing better than he is.

What else to report? I have occasional contractions but nothing regular, and maintain my less puffy only mildly elevated blood pressure status.  The kid is doing veritable sommersaults in my belly (stretching his legs out). I am feeling good for the most part, but am noticably hormonal. This morning a story in the Wall Street Journal about kids who die at age 11-13 from a rare aging disease had me bawling. It was the photo of the little bald 10-year-old that did me in.

Beh, my throat hurts. I don’t mind so much, except that I sure don’t want to get sick and go into labor. Hopefully it’s just a little bug and will clear up right away with lots of liquids and such. Anyhow, I can stay home from work if necessary.

A friend stopped by today to drop off more awesome hand-me-downs. She gave us a very nice high chair and a bunch of other good stuff. We’re sort of at the tail end of our friends having kids, and are reaping the benefits big-time.

Storage is difficult, though – gah! Our closets now look like a Tetrus game. I packed one closet so tight that Barry looked at it and said “you’ve just disproven everything that science thought it knew about women and spacial visualization.” Ha ha. I replied that if we could just figure out how to make things disappear, we could invent some really cool storage products and get rich. Damned space-time continium.

Oh – and happy birthday to meeeeee!

Well, my hands are feeling better, so here I am, typing.

I wanted to mention that I am grateful to Barry for being so nice about my raiding his closet. He has a thing about wearing out his clothes, so it can’t be easy for him to see me potentially putting wear and tear on all his favorite things, but he hasn’t made a peep. In fact, he’s even suggested a few items that he thinks I might like.

I’m just wearing his top halves – shirts, sweatshirts, coats, etc. that cover my tummy. I’m wearing my own bottom halves – either low waisted elastic or drawstring pants. Thank God (and Cybex), I haven’t grown a huge bottom half to match my immense belly.

I’ve spent very little money on maternity clothes – maybe $70 total on just a few things at resale shops and Old Navy. As Barry says (due to my general thriftiness and Scottish heritage) “call in the bagpipes.”

I can be sorta overly cost-conscious, but it beats having a spouse who runs up credit card debt, I suppose.

I am feeling way less puffy, and my blood pressure was only 130/72 last night, which is significantly less disturbing than 142/90. So, the dietary changes must be helping. Pshew!

We went for a long walk last night down by the convention center (which is on the big Bay, which is pretty), and my feet didn’t hurt at all, presumably because they’ve de-puffed. The dog loooooves to go down there and say hi to tourists. She’s so funny! Anyhow, I’ve been having little contractions here and there for 6 weeks or so, but on our walk I had my first ‘yup, that’s a contraction’ contraction. Very, uhm, refreshing. It hasn’t happened since, though.

I’ve been watching the occasional football game lately, as it’s that time of year. I’m getting better at understanding the game, which makes it more enjoyable. Anyhow, I always feel sorry for the coach of the losing team. He’s just standing there watching his team lose and there’s only so much he can do. He can’t participate, he can just give advice and support. That’s how I imagine that this birth will be for Barry. Not that we’ll be a losing team, just that it’ll be hard for him to see me in pain and not be able to do anything.

I likely won’t write over the weekend because I could use a typing break. My hands are achey and numb, which is normal enough during pregnancy – swollen tissues push on the nerves.