Arrived at 9:30 am.
6 lbs 10 ozs
19.5 inches
Mom and baby are doing great. first photo in moblog

Today we are at 41 weeks, and more ready than ever. Yesterday featured some excitement. Amy had her weekly appointment with her OB, and the doctor didn’t see enough activity to her liking on the non-stress test baby monitor in the office. So off went Amy across the street to Piedmont Hospital for a more accurate test, which might involve dosing her with petosin as they did during our version a few weeks back. Amy called me at work, so I immediately left, swung by the house in a frenzy and gathered (a) the camera bag (b) her pillows and (c) her clothes. Just as I walked into the hospital she called and said she had the all-clear! Baby was doing absolutely fine, and they were glad to see a few mild but irregularly timed contractions with no ill-effects on our baby. Just another case of better safe than sorry.

After that experience, we thought we should try another Atlanta-area restaurant with a reputation for bringing on labor – McKinnon’s Louisianne in Buckhead. Amy had the fried eggplant sticks along with her eggplant seafood casserole. Here is their promise:

And speaking of dishes and traditions, Mckinnon’s stuffed eggplant (a casserole with shrimp, crab and eggplant to die for) is guaranteed to get an expectant and past due mom to deliver. Billy says, “if an expectant mom is a day over 9 months and has my stuffed eggplant, we will promise baby in 48 hours or dinner is “on the house.” Needless to say there is quite a parade of past due parents at the restaurant.

Yes, we are getting desperate!

So far, nothing to report, other than a very full belly for both of us.

So far, the eggplant doesn’t seem to have sped this along. We have until about 7 p.m. tonight until Scalini’s free dinner and t-shirt deal expire. Oh well. As I’m sure my brother-in-law Scott would attest, this is all probably just a conspiracy to make sure that our baby arrives right around 7 p.m. this Sunday, just as the Masters tournament concludes. I’m sure they have CBS on the hospital tv system, so hopefully Amy will find the azaleas and green grass have a calming effect. A guy can hope, right?

Several blogs I check out regularly (including BoingBoing and DaddyTypes) point to this posting at Debris.com telling the woeful tale of a company which has insinuated itself into the hospital L&D process, and seem to generally take advantage of a very hectic time in new parents lives by sucking your personally identifiable info (PII). They promise a ‘free’ portrait of your new child – but that’s essentially in exchange for becoming fodder for Growing Family’s list sales efforts. Growing Family’s privacy policy – you know, the one you don’t read ’cause your in freaking LABOR – gives them the right to share your private information with anyone.

Growing Family will use your information from time to time to promote additional products, services, rewards and special offers from Growing Family Network and its select Network Partners.

As Debris.com so appropriately notes – ‘My point is not that Growing Family was deceitful. My point is that, to my dismay, caveat emptor begins at birth.