Things to do before you die.

I've bicycled through Europe with strangers, climbed mile-high mountains, eaten a snake and drank its blood in a bar in rural China, served my country, jumped out of an airplane, swam in several seas, even buzzed along a zipline through a rain forest. I've been to Ozzy Osbourne's house for a party, sipped water from a glacial stream, done a TV commercial in exchange for beer and jack cheese, gone to college, dropped out of college, and one time I drove a dogsled. I've bought and sold many a thing, driven fast cars, bottle fed baby zebra, had my heart stopped by the sound of a floor to ceiling organ in an 800 year old cathedral, operated a D-9, planted a farm, swam with mermaids in a natural spring, caught a fish and fried it up by the river that night, and changed my mind about a thousand things at least a thousand times. I've fired fully automatic weapons, bailed a sibling out, needed bailing out, been up, been down, been detained in a third world country, learned a foreign language, taken pilot lessons, sang karaoke, put myself through law school, run my own business, sold a tv show option, buried a friend, gone a round or two in the ring, fallen in love, eaten quiche on the Champs Elysees, and skinny dipped under a waterfall or two. Yes, some would say my life list was already quite complete - that I've been lucky to have taken every opportunity and lived so fully and I would've agreed until I learned what I learned at 6:21 pm on Tuesday, October 16. That being, of course, that the greatest adventure, the most overwhelming feeling you'll ever have, the biggest accomplishment in any life, has to be seeing your child for the first time and knowing that your life has just gotten bigger, fuller and way more meaningful.Yep, that's me and the Lentil Bean. Q was fortuitous enough to capture my expression when she (that's right, SHE!!!) was first shown to me after 18 hours of induced labor (about 10 of it very unpleasant) followed by the emergency cesarean section by which the extremely large (8 lbs, 3 ounces) Lentil Bean was wrenched from the womb and shown to me. How a person can look that happy after nearly 24 hours of nothing short of misery goes to show how powerful the moment is. Ionly wish I'd have captured his face as they first held her up to him - it was incrediblly happy as well.

Here she is at about 10 muinutes old.
Note the nice, round head and lack of old man wrinkles. That's because she's already so stubborn she refused to even attempt entry into the birth canal.

And here's another nice shot taken by Q as I carried my own urine into the operating room. Catheters sure are fun!
Lentil and I both ended up staying a little longer than expected. I spent six days trying to get my blood pressure stabilized. Of course, the cause of my high blood pressure was most likely the sad fact that they took a feverish Lentil from me on Thursday and put her in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It's not cool to take a baby from a mom and not tell her anything. Luckily, she only spent five days there and we were allowed to visit frequently. It was sad to see her all hooked up with needles, though:
Alas, all is well that ends well and Lentil came home yesterday and, as you can see, things have returned to normal in the McQ household (identity withheld lest child protective services reads this blog)...Oh yeah, we didn't name her Lentil Bean. Her official name is Sarah Addison McQ. By the way, Sarah means "princess" and Addison means "awesome". Princess Awesome. No, we didn't know that until I was released and we found the baby name book. How cool is that?

The Lentil Bean Cometh...

Thought I'd let you know that tomorrow (October 15) might be the day Lentil Bean arrives.

Had some elevated and abnormal levels of things during my doctor's visit last week, they ran some tests, then called me Friday afternoon and told me to stay in bed, on my left side, all weekend and watch for a plethora of symptoms, which, upon experiencing, I am supposed to rush to the hospital immediately. If I make it through the weekend I'm supposed to go directly to the main lab at 6 am Monday for further testing, have breakfast and relax, then go to the doctor around 10 am to see what the results are. Oh, and since I live 45 minutes from the hospital it might be wise to bring my bag and car seat, "just in case".

I think the doctor had a wine tasting weekend planned and just didn't want to ruin it by having to induce me or do a c-section on a Friday night. The good news is that Lentil Bean is full term and if he or she does come out tomorrow there are no issues with development or being premature or anything like that. If Lentil doesn't come out tomorrow I'll probably be on bed rest until it's time. That would suck as I don't do well sitting still and lying on your left side isn't as wonderful as one might think.

So if you don't hear from me for a couple of weeks it may be because the Lentil Bean is out and Q and I are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out what to do next. Or it may mean I'm just lying around ignoring you.

Something to scare you this Halloween....

Woo hoo!!! October is here! That means Lentil Bean is coming soon. I'm officially "full term" so it could be anytime in the next few weeks. Let's hope for sooner rather than later because the last month or so of this ordeal is pretty much crappy.

Anyhow, since I'm not sure how much longer I'll have this orb attached to me so I thought I'd better immortalize it here and give you all a good scare with some photos sure to make you double wrap in the future. Sadly, this is what I see when I look down...
Perhaps even more sad, just six months into married life, this is what Q sees every morning:
I don't know, but I think I kind of resemble Demi Moore's Vanity Fair preggo layout...except maybe she had better lighting and no granny panties as an accessory:
Oh, and for your further amusement and enjoyment, some of you will be pleased to learn I have now topped the 170 lb mark on my latest weigh-in at the doctor. Good friend B said she's delivering the baby jogger next week so I can get back in shape right away. Thanks, B.