Hazen Philip Abbott Arrives

Cally is officially a big sister!

Hazen’s birth story:

After a few false alarms, at 4am on Sunday, January 30^th, I woke up with what would become my labor with Hazen. John and I stuck it out in the bedroom for an hour, timing the contractions and trying to come up with a plan for Cally care and our trip to the hospital. Not wanting to disturb anyone else’s valuable sleep, we did our best to wait to call the doctor and our dear friend Medora (who had volunteered to watch Cally until her grandparents could get up here). By 5:45am, when contractions were averaging about 7 minutes apart, I decided I couldn't really wait much longer and we called in the troops. Our doctor encouraged us to stay home until contractions were 5 minutes apart, but by 6:30, I felt like I just needed to be getting the ball moving towards the hospital. We woke up Cally and had Medora meet us at the Cumberland Farms in Richmond. Cally didn’t seem to miss a beat and was thrilled to be spending the day with Medora, Addy, Tanner and Spencer.

John and I arrived to the hospital at 7:30am. By then, my contractions were just about 5 minutes apart (some a little more frequent, some less). I was hooked up to a monitor for 20 minutes and told by the nurse that I was in “early” labor. Even though some contractions were 2 ½ minutes apart, others were five minutes apart and the nurse explained that my body still needed to “organize” the contractions. At this point a resident checked my cervix and told me I was 4.5 cm dilated (considering I had been 3cm dilated for the past three weeks, this was disappointing news). I was also told that I couldn’t get in the big bath that I was dreaming about because it could slow down my labor.

By 8:15, my doctor arrived and chatted with me for about 30 minutes, coaching me through a bunch of contractions. Eventually, she encouraged me to get in the bath, so by 8:45, I got in there. Within minutes of being in the comfortable tub, my water broke. By 9am, I felt like I couldn’t handle the intensity of the contractions and cried “mercy” to my nurse, claming I wasn’t sure if I could do this (without an epidural). She told me we could talk about it after the next contraction, a few times. A little after 9am my doctor came back in the room and checked my cervix by using a mirror in the tub. At that point I was 9 cm dilated and she informed me that I’d be having this baby very soon. In fact, she wanted to be sure that I was all right having the baby in the bathtub. I labored for a few more contractions and realized I didn’t want to be in the tub anymore, I was overheating and kind of grossed out by being in the tub……. The doctor needed to drain the tub enough to get me out through a door, have a contraction, and then scurry to the bed. So, about ten minutes later, Hazen Philip was born.

We didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl. Cally kept telling me I was having a girl, so I sort of let myself believe that. In any case, John and I were both really surprised when a little guy came out. What amazed us even more was the red hair! Not just the red hair, but the uncanny resemblance between Cally and Hazen. It’s pretty wild. Can you guess which photo is of Cally and which one is of Hazen?

Cally is so, so happy to be a big sister.

She was also so happy to have her Grandma and Bumpa around to play with her (they arrived on Sunday afternoon to relieve Medora and her family of their duties). They were incredible! Grandma got Cally up and dressed her for four days in a row…… letting her pick out outfits that clearly didn’t match and letting us catch a few more winks of sleep. She also must have done 10 loads of laundry and almost as many loads of dishes. Both of them made sure we were well fed, rested, and comfortable.

Cally really hasn’t missed a beat with the expanded family. She loves helping and she’s making sure she gets what she needs. It’s definitely a juggling game for us (especially, now that the grandparents have left), but she continues to make us laugh, express her love, and is learning to entertain her little brother.

And the parents are doing pretty well, too. We are getting some sleep, bonding with the little guy, getting great meals from friends, and John has even gotten some skiing in. And yep, that's me drinking a well earned beer!

Still No Baby.....

Two weeks later, and still no baby. But things happen for a reason, right? Maybe the baby needed to wait for Cally to recover from a rotten cold or maybe the baby is waiting to for us to get all our little "projects" done or maybe the baby is just taking his/her time to come into this world.

Last week, I got a huge sucker punch regarding what it is like to be a part of this world and its been a pretty emotional time. A student at the high school where I teach walked into school on Tuesday with a gun and ended his life in a bathroom. I feel like I've gone through the gamut of emotions in the aftermath of this tragedy-- sadness for the student, his friends, his parents, and our community; anger towards the media for their coverage of this horrific event and people in the region who want to blame schools and teachers for anything they can; frustration that our sense of safety has been shattered; and relief that this student didn't have the desire to bring anyone else down with him. The whole situation has made me think so much about what it is to be a kid today.......... relationships are so different. Instead of communicating with your friends face to face, you text, twitter, and state your status on public Facebook posts. Kids have so many more "friends" these days, but I wonder if they really have people with whom they can open up and talk? This whole week has made me scared for the future of my students and child(ren). But, waking up to the beaming smile of our little red head and then seeing the community of our school come together in the subsequent days has given me hope. I hope that my students will learn from this tragedy and listen to friends, ask for help, and open up a little more. I hope that Cally will have relationships with friends, family, and teachers where she feels comfortable opening up and being who she is. Right now, Cally is open to almost anyone and anything. She loves to talk, she loves her relationships with people of every age (and animals, too), and when I ask her if she's happy, she say, "I'm SO happy". That gives me hope.

(Cally with "the boys"-- Scott, Tom, & Dad)

(Giving hugs to Zephy)

(seeing the joy she gets from skiing)

(Cally recently introduced to the wonders of Skyping her Nana and Grandpa)

Maybe baby has been waiting for me to process these events with my colleagues, be there for my students, and be hopeful?

Cally's Going to be a Big Sister

Cally arrived 11 days past her due date. That waiting game was one of the most miserable mental exercises John and I had been through. The literature says you are "to term" anytime after 37 weeks and there we were well past week 41, twiddling our thumbs, doing everything anyone told us we should try to get the baby out before unnatural means/induction would be attempted (and trying not to have her birthday fall on Christmas day). But she came and she was healthy and happy. So, we just assumed that Babbott (Baby #2), will likely take his/her time, as well.

When John arranged his plan to teach his annual Winter Skills trip in the White Mountains for this week last summer (I'll be 38 weeks on Thursday), neither of us were particularly worried. But, as departure date got closer, I'm not going to lie, I did start to worry. In fact, last night, I grilled him about a) how I could communicate with him if I were to go into labor b)how long it would take him to get home and c) if he would be bummed if he missed the birth of his second child, he looked at me like I was some neurotic pregnant lady.

This is how the conversation went:

"What if I go into labor? How will I get in touch with you?" I asked
"You can call Pinkam Notch and they can radio up to the hut", he answered.
"Do they answer the phone at night? Does the "hut guy" answer the radio during the day? How do they find you if you guys are climbing miles away in a gulley?" I inquired.
"Good questions," he responded.
"And assuming they do find you at the cabin or on a climb, how long will it take for you to get back to Vermont?" I asked.
"Well, if I bring my skis, it'll take me 20 minutes to ski down and then 3 1/2 hours to drive back" he said calmly.
"But what about factoring in the time to get the word, pack up your stuff, etc.?" I asked.
"It's just not going to happen. You aren't going to have this baby early," he stated even more calmly.

So, when I went to my weekly appointment today, the nurse asked if I wanted to have a pelvic exam. During my pregnancy with Cally, folks advised me NOT to have the pelvic exam b/c it doesn't really mean anything. Of course, I had several pelvic exams before Cally was born (because I was late) and each time they told me that I had no dilation of my cervix. This time, however, I asked for an exam and explained our scenario. Upon examining me, the doctor, who had worked at the huts in the White Mountains said, "How important is it that your husband go on this trip? Because you are 3cm dilated and 80% effaced. Your body is ready to give birth and I wouldn't be surprised if you go any day".

At that point, John walked in the door. The doctor explained that some women walk around like this for a week, others give birth really soon, but whatever is the case, this second labor is likely to go a lot faster than the first (it took me 10 hours to get to 4cm with Cally). We all wish we could have crystal ball and could tell exactly when this baby is going to come, but our doctors words of advice were, "John, if you could live with missing the birth of your child, then go. If you couldn't live with it, then you should stay".

After some discussion, we decided that John will teach the class here in Burlington tomorrow and maybe go to Willey's Slide in New Hampshire for the day on Wednesday, but he won't be staying over night in the backcountry. There will be no radio calls, ranger hide and go seek, nor stressed out mothers.

Who knows, it may be another week or more, but you don't get to be there for the birth of your kid a second time. Plus, can you imagine the ammunition this kid would have as a teenager when he's mad at John and he says, "Yeah, but Dad, you weren't even there for my birth!"

Cally's Skiing By Herself

Everyday this week, Cally has asked to go skiing or simply put on her ski boots and walked to the door. It's been amazing to see her get so fired up and see how much better she's gotten in just one week!

Happy New Year!

Here's to a happy and healthy 2011!

We ended 2010 with some great visits with family. First, Nana and Grandpa made it up from the blizzard down south for a couple of days of celebrating with us. John and I both agree that we are knocked down to second and third draft pick when Nana comes into town. She indulges Cally in all the books she wants to read, adorable gifts, and lots of hugs. Meanwhile, Grandpa did lots of drawing with Cally on her new easel. And most amazingly for us, her grandparents indulged us by bringing up a home cooked dinner, letting us sleep in for two mornings in a row, encouraging us to go on a ski date, treating us to a celebratory dinner out, and later letting us go on a rare date to the movies!







Check out the new shrug that Nana knit for Cally:


On Thursday, Cally got to go back to the Swimming Hole with her cousins and exchange more Christmas presents. That afternoon, while she was supposed to be napping, before heading to Stowe, she was practicing singing "Happy Birthday" to Kesley. Kesley and Jameson couldn't be nicer to Cally. It's such a treat to be able to see them regularly.


New Years was spent at our house-- five couples, five kids, and four of the ladies are pregnant. The kids ate early and were put to sleep in every room available upstairs (including a bathroom) and the adults had a delicious meal which included salad, a rib roast, scallops, salmon, asparagus, various potatoes, and two delicious pies.


And most of us even made it up until midnight:

And the best news for Cally was that two of the families spent the night, so she got to play all morning with her buddies:


And, in between all these visitors, we've had some fun times in the snow, while it lasted.....

A Christmas to Remember

We decided to hunker down and stay in Vermont this year for the holidays. With the second baby coming in a little over a month and family feeling like they wanted to stick around their own homes, it ended up being just our nuclear family. It did feel somewhat strange to be so close, yet so far away from family, but we managed to arrange for various engagements with friends and were really looking forward to the variety they would add to our traditional holiday repertoire........ This was to include a fun gathering of folks for a seven course fish dinner prepared by our friend Lauren who is a professional chef on X-mas Eve and a Turkey feast at our house with our friends Chris, Rebecca, and Chase.

As is often the case, it's always good to have a plan B........ It turns out, our gal Cal got her first stomach bug on Thursday night. She was as thrown off by the whole thing as we were. It needs to be explained that it is these such incidents that scared me the most about becoming a parent. Years ago, I basically made John sign a "pre-nup" that stated that he'd be the one to deal with these messes when they come. Alas, the time came and it became glaringly apparent that it helps to have a two-person roster on the clean up team--- one person cleans up the kid while the other cleans up the "site". So, even at 35-weeks pregnant, I managed to just deal with the situation with a lot less squeamishness than I imagined I would have had and John willingly dealt with more than his fair share.

Kids are pretty amazing. Cal woke up on Friday and she was pretty much good to go. She said she wanted breakfast and seemed to have her sense of humor and energy. Even so, we called our hosts for the 7 Fishes Dinner and told them we'd sadly have to decline the invitation. Later in the day, after consultation with a friend in the medical profession who said that if Cal was asymptomatic for 24 hours, she'd probably be good to go to the party and a call from the hosts saying they really were fine with us coming if Cally seemed all right, we decided to go for it. We loaded into the car, drove 40 minutes south, settled into their cozy house, accepted a glass of wine, and within 15 minutes, poor little Cally had barfed on the counter of their gourmet kitchen.

To say that we felt horrible is an understatement. We felt so bad for our little gal who was clearly not well and was so looking forward to hanging out with other kids, but we also felt like J.V. parents for having brought a sick kid to a family gathering. We deserve any razzing that they had to throw our way after that one.

Fortunately, I'd purchased a chunk of wild salmon at the store earlier in the day (thinking we weren't going to the party) and that was still in the fridge. So, upon putting our sick little girl to bed (but making sure that she left some cookies and celery for Santa and his reindeer before she retired), John and I actually had a lovely, intimate X-mas Eve dinner together.



Cal woke up early in the morning and asked to come into our bed. We had our reservations, but she was just too darn cute and snuggly, so we acquiesced and she slept until 8am. Even when we told her that Santa had come and asked if she wanted to see what he had for her, she seemed nonplussed and even uninterested. But we riled her up and brought her downstairs to see the loot. Poor thing had a hard time getting all too excited about things.


We figured a little breakfast would make her feel better........ But that didn't turn out to be the case, she got sick while eating her breakfast, told us she was hungry 20 minutes later, and then got sick again (yes, we officially are J.V. parents for feeding a kid right after she gets sick). With that, we officially postponed the feast planned with our friends and hunkered down for a lazy day:


trying hard to hydrate:

Alas, after a nap, Cal was back to herself and took some time to enjoy the loot that she could hardly acknowledge hours earlier.



While it wasn't really the Christmas that had been mapped out in our heads, it turned out to be very special and intimate indeed.

Oh, and here's Cally singing about one of her many gifts, a pair of red ski boots:

I'm Two!

It's hard to believe that this girl is two! She's been acting like she's two for months, but now it's official! Already, we struggle about how we will honor her special day which falls so close to Christmas. We worry that she'll feel gypped by the fact that she only gets presents one time a year, that it'll be hard to gather friends for birthday parties so close to the holidays, etc. etc. But so far, she doesn't seem to mind at all. Especially when she gets to help bake her cupcakes.


This year, we decided to combine her birthday celebration with a welcoming of the winter solstice, the holidays, and her father's doctoral degree. So, we invited a bunch of our friends and their kids over to sled, eat cup cakes, and play. Cally didn't know what to think about all these people singing happy birthday to her. She actually looked sort of embarrassed.






I think one of her favorite parts of the party, was getting to hold Baby Milo (9 weeks).


Today, we celebrated with a birthday raisin bran muffin and presents in the morning.



Here's a clip of her opening a present from Grandma and Bumpa........ please note, no one was injured by the bike seat being a bit too high:




This afternoon, we picked "Little Miss Sunshine" up from Meike's and drove through a snow storm to Stowe so she could go to the Swimming Hole (she only asks us about 10 times a day if she can go back there). She was in heaven........ I think she took twelve trips up and down the slide:


We met up with her "Uncle's" Scott and Tom for dinner in Waterbury, but within minutes of being in the restaurant, it was clear that "Little Miss Sunshine" was not feeling all that sunshinny......... she snuggled up with her daddy and actually fell asleep in his arms for most of the meal (which is pretty much a first). To bed, our birthday girl went with a 101 degree fever! Hopefully, this spunky little fire cracker will be back on her game tomorrow.