Photo Friday!

Relaxing in the boppy

Hi!                                                                 

Like my hat?

Ready to go!

Tummy time

Why are you upside down, mom? (She was playing with her new baby mat. She loves wiggle time!)

Big smile!

On her new quilt from Great Aunt Dotty

My favorite! :)

See ya next time!

One Month Update!

I can hardly believe it, but Emily is already one month old! (It was actually on Friday but we had some internet issues at the new apartment. But now we’re all set!) I hope to do a monthly update for her to keep track of how she’s doing. Here we go!

This is Monkey-Do, he’ll be helping us keep track of her size each month. She didn’t want to stay sitting up this time! So far, she and Monkey-Do aren’t the greatest friends, but I’m sure she’ll love him eventually. :)

At one month, Emily:

• …is starting to be more alert and has more awake time. She sleeps for 2-3 hour stretches during the day and then stays awake for an hour or so, and is usually happy and content to just sit on our lap and look around at her new surroundings. She has even started to give us some good smiles, especially when she hears her daddy’s voice. She loves him!

• …has just transitioned from newborn diapers to size one diapers, after two days of oh-so-fun blowouts and leaks from all sides. She still fits into most of her newborn clothes but some are getting too small. She’s not quite into the next size yet, but it won’t be long! We go to the doctor tomorrow morning for her one month check-up and we’ll get her height and weight then. She’s getting pretty big! ***Edited to add: She weighed 9 lbs 9 oz and was 21.5 inches long! They said she's perfect! But we already knew that. Ha. ***

• …had a few rough weeks, but finally seems to be a little happier. For a while she was very fussy and cried almost all day, but I’ve started cutting all dairy from my diet she seems to be doing a lot better. It also helps that she’s more interested in her pacifier; at first she didn’t want anything to do with it! If all else fails and she seems to just need to cry, we’ve learned that we can take her for a car ride to calm her down, and Rob loves that! It hasn’t failed yet. :)

• …recently decided that her swing is her favorite place to sleep. We sometimes put her in it for naps and she conks out right away, and at night it’s given us at least 4 hours of solid sleep! Hooray for that! She usually wakes up once at night to eat and get a clean diaper, and after that is out again pretty quickly, which makes mommy happy. We’ve all been getting a decent amount of sleep the last week or so, and now that we’re home and not at the hotel, I hope that trend continues. Please, let it continue!

• …went to church for the first time today! She pretty much slept through the whole thing, but the loud music did startle her once or twice. She also went to lunch with us both for the first time, and didn’t make a peep! I think she likes teriyaki!

• …has completely and totally stolen her parents hearts. We are so glad to have her here, and even though we’ve been through a LOT of changes this last month, it’s been one of the best months we’ve ever had! We are starting to settle into a routine and are getting used to all these changes, and life is good.

• We love you punkin and we’re very excited for the months ahead watching you learn and grow. What a blessing you are to us! We couldn’t ask for anything more. One month down, many more to go!

Pictures!

They say they’re worth a thousand words, right? Well that’s good because I really don’t have it in me to type that much tonight! 38 weeks pregnant is very tiring. Yes, I’m ready to be done. And no, we still haven’t decided on her name yet… Hopefully when we see her she’ll help us choose! :)

Anyway, here are some pictures for you. Enjoy!

Sitting on the exercise ball, getting ready!

38 weeks!

WOW, I feel huge.

Some pictures of the nursery. It’s finally done! Thanks to mom for all the finishing touches- the pillow on the chair, the lampshade, the ties on the curtains, it’s perfect. We LOVE it!! 

 

 

  

 

 

The bassinet where she’ll sleep in our room for the first few weeks. I love the teddy bears!  

Also, here’s the link to the pictures my mom and aunt took at the baby shower a few weeks back. They had better ones than I did!

Now we just wait. Hopefully it won’t be TOO long… we all know how much patience I have. Did someone say Castor oil? (JUST KIDDING.) Maybe.

36 Weeks and Counting…

And oh yes, I am counting! The handy little gadget on the sidebar there tells me we have 26 days to go, and I really hope that’s true! I know she can be a little early or a little late, but at this point 26 days sounds just about right to me.

Things I have been enjoying lately:

• Wonderful spring weather
• Time off to rest and relax
• Getting more of the nursery ready
• Chocolate brownie ice cream
• The thought that she’ll be here really soon!

Things I have NOT been enjoying lately:

• Feet so swollen I can hardly get my shoes on
• Braxton Hicks contractions every 5 seconds
• Getting up 4+ times a night to pee
• Super crazy nesting urges
• Growing out of my clothes (again)
• The thought that she’ll be here really soon!

I keep going back and forth between the Holy-cow-I’m-excited-just-be-born-already feelings and the Holy-crap-are-they-really-going-to-GIVE-us-this-baby-when-we-leave-the-hospital-WHAT-DO-I-DO-THEN feelings. I know we’ll be great parents, but we’ve never done this before and there’s lots we don’t know about raising kids. Obviously. Also, the potential moving across the state thing isn’t helping. (More on that later…) Really though, I’m so excited to meet her I can hardly stand it! I’m sure the anxiety is temporary and we’ll be fine. And to any of you who may get a frantic call from me at 2 AM- I apologize in advance. :)

Anyway, enough crazy rambling. Who wants to see pictures??

34 Weeks

36 Weeks (and exhausted!)

The carseat we installed in the car today. And our favorite helper, recently dubbed “Monkey-Do”, trying it our for us. Looks like a good fit to me! :)

Hopefully the last touches will be done in the nursery this weekend, and I’ll get some more pictures posted soon. Lets hope this weather keeps up, too, I’m loving all the sunshine!!

Getting There…

Here’s what I’ve been doing the last few weeks! We still need some finishing touches, like ties for the curtains, a pillow for the chair, and a lampshade (all things that my mom is making to match the set!) and we need to put sheets on the mattress and hang the pictures. But we’re really getting there! Tomorrow the 14th of March marks 8 months. That means our baby girl could be here in a month! WOW!! :)

Night lights

Laundry hamper

Best glider ever!  

Crib (and my diaper bag!)  

Her closet

Dresser

This is a picture my mom made for me before I was born, and she had it re-matted for the baby. It’s perfect in the room, and very special to us.

More to come when we get done!! :)

Tummy Update!

I know It’s been a while since I’ve posted tummy news, and lots has changed in the last few weeks! Here are a few recent pictures.

31 weeks:

32 weeks:

33 weeks in the nursery:

33 weeks up close:

And here’s where the punkin is this week: A pineapple!She should weigh about 4 pounds now, or maybe a little bit more. Only 7 weeks left to go!!

We have been doing LOTS of work in the nursery lately, and really we only have a few things left to do before we’re all ready to go!

Yesterday my mom, may aunt and I all went to the mall to get curtains for the nursery and a few other things. It was fun! But after about an hour or so of walking the mall, I was POOPED!! Gone are the days of all day shopping- at least for now. I was more than ready to come home and take a nap!

The nesting fairy has come and showered me with her magic nesting dust BIG TIME. It’s all I can do to sit still and rest these days; it seems like there’s always something else that I need to do, or clean, or re-organize! Poor Rob, he gets caught in the tornado sometimes, but he’s been a pretty good sport so far. We even got into an argument about how I’ve been keeping the house too clean. Yep. TOO CLEAN! But, he finally gave in, the smart man that he is, and no one was injured in the battle. But it was close.

Speaking of nesting, I should be going now. Time to clean out the kitchen cabinets! Or wait, should I re-organize our closet first? Or maybe I should re-do all the fabric on the shelves in my sewing room… 

Warning: Spring cleaning and nesting are a nasty combo! :)

Baby Shower!

As promised, here are a few pictures from the baby shower at Mom’s house last weekend. She has most of the good ones on her camera, and I’ll add those when I can.

We had a wonderful time! Good food, pretty cake, fun games, and friends! What more could anyone want!? :)

The gift table. My mom made a whole set for the baby’s room- a quilt, diaper stacker, burp cloths, and receiving blankets, and then she framed some of the matching fabric for decorations on the wall. We love it!!

A close-up of the pictures. So cute!

The quilt and receiving blankets.

The food table (before half the food was out, hehe)!

The cake! “Welcome to the World, Little One”

Mom in the kitchen, still preparing. :)

The theme was Sweet Pea. I loved it!

Napkins

Me with the diaper bag my sister Rachel got for me. It’s the one I’d wanted FOREVER, but gave up on because we’re trying to pinch our pennies right now. I LOVE IT!!! Thanks again, Rach. :)

All the gifts we got are very much appreciated! We have lots of clothes now, and diapers and a changing table and mattress for the crib. What great friends and family we have! We are truly blessed. My mom, sister, and Aunt Darlene put a lot of work and time into making this perfect for me, and it couldn’t have turned out better. Thank you all very much!!!

And now, I’m off to finish putting things away in the nursery! Yay! :)

Yes and No

Yes! - We had a great time at the shower yesterday! Lots of good food, friends and fun.

No - I don't have pictures loaded up to post yet, but...

Yes - I'll do that soon. Hopefully. :)

No - I'm not working anymore until after the baby gets here!

YES YES YES - I am grateful to have the opportunity to relax and prepare for her arrival! The nursery is coming along pretty well. I can't believe we have less than 8 weeks until her due date! (Yes, I'm freaking out a little!)

No - I'm not on bedrest or anything, just having a hard time working because of all the pressure the baby is putting on my lungs. It makes it really hard to breathe while I talk on the phone all day, so the doctor decided it was time to be done.

Yes - We also switched hospitals from Sacred Heart to Deaconess! It seems to be more in tune with what we want our first baby's birth to be like, and we took a (personal!) tour the other day and loved it. We're excited about the switch!

No - We haven't heard anything more about Rob's potential new job, but now there's actually another one we're looking into. So, twice the anxiety! Ha ha.

Yes - PLEASE PRAY FOR US!!! We need all the strength and guidance we can get right now. This is definitely a turning point in our lives and we're both a little nervous about the possible outcomes.

No - I didn't forget to post weekly pictures of the baby belly. I have a few weeks stored up on my camera, and when they make their way to the computer, I promise to share!

Yes - It's time to go eat lunch! Leftovers from the shower yesterday!

No - I don't have extra to share with you. Sorry. :)

Pictures pictures pictures coming soon!!!

Bradley Birth Class

Every Monday night for the past 6 weeks (and for the next 7 or 8, also) Rob and I have been attending a Bradley Birth class. It's all about natural birth and how to stay relaxed and in control during labor. I have every confidence that we'll be able to have this baby without drugs (barring any major medical complications, of course) and this class is a huge part of that. We love it!

This week the author of the Bloom Spokane website attended the class and wrote an article about it. I feel like she captured the class very well! Click here to read her article. But please, no comments about the less-than-flattering pictures! :)

Just Say No.

First of all, I want to say that we aren’t anti-doctors, anti-hospitals or anti-modern medicine. We are still planning to deliver at Sacred Heart. However, our recent experience at the emergency room there completely solidified our belief that choosing natural birth for this baby is the right thing for us, and there is no one out there that knows what we want (and need) better than we do.

So, last week I got a chest cold. I have asthma so of course the first thing that happens is that it goes to my chest and I get that horrible cough that makes people look at you like you’re going to kill them just by being in the same room with them. Needless to say, it was pretty hard to breathe with the cold and with the baby squishing things in there! Friday morning I woke up and it was bad enough that Rob decided we needed to head to the ER.

We arrived at about 9 am, and waited for a while after checking in. We told them about the asthma and of course the pregnancy, and the first thing they did was to give me a breathing treatment. I’ve had these in the past for chest congestion and they really work for me! That day was no different and after the treatment I was starting to feel better already. At this point I thought we’d be able to get me an inhaler and be on our way… Not so.

The ER doc decides that because I’m pregnant, and therefore more vulnerable to infection, I need to have a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. Hesitantly we agree, after checking (from Rob’s phone) the safety of those for pregnant women. It seems to be ok to do, so we proceed. That test comes back normal. We head back to my little room and wait to be released, but no such luck.

The doctor then says we need to do a blood draw to check my D-dimer levels, and she wants to give me an IV. At this point we’re seriously wondering why we’re still here, but she is the doctor, so we go ahead with the blood draw but decline the IV. I am NOT a fan of those, and I didn’t want to be there all day. She says I “look dehydrated” and brings a quart of water for me to drink instead of the IV fluids. I drink it (and have to pee every 10 minutes from there on out).

Of course, the D-dimer results come back very high, and she tells us the next thing to do is to inject dye into my veins and do a CT scan to rule out a blood clot in my lung. Ok, seriously? I was ready to just walk out of there. We ask for a few minutes to talk about it, because, as she put it, it “does have a significant amount of radiation that gets to the baby”. First of all, my mom literally DIED when they injected her with dye for the same kind of thing (years and years ago) so I don’t ever do the dye thing just in case the same thing could happen to me. And second, radiate my baby? REALLY?? I think not. I have asthma, people! You already gave me the medicine that helped me breathe better!! What more do you need to see?!?!

We declined the test, and she made us sign a form that said we were leaving against her medical advice, but not before she called our OB-GYN and told him what was going on. He apparently agreed with her that the test was necessary, and she even said that I was doing harm to the baby by skipping the test. Awesome, thanks doc. We signed the form and left. It was after 1 PM by the time we got out of there, and I have to say that it felt like we had narrowly escaped their evil clutches! That is not a good feeling. But it was the first time we’d ever turned down medical help or advice to make our own decisions like that. THAT was a good feeling!

So, all of that to say this: I realized that day that doctors aren’t evil, horrible people, they just have a different view of things than we do, especially for the birth of a baby. They NEED to find a solid, undisputable reason for a symptom, and sometimes the easiest answer doesn’t seem to be good enough. We’re planning to go without an IV, or epidural, or constant monitoring, or being stuck in the hospital bed the whole time for the labor and delivery. I don’t want to be drugged or have the baby be drugged if I can help it. Medical emergencies aside, childbirth is not something that a doctor even needs to be involved in, if you ask me! But, that’s a topic for another day and I could go on for HOURS, so I’ll just leave it at that. :)

We hired a doula this week also and she’s great! She’ll definitely help us do this the way we want to, and not be to pressured by nurses and doctors that are just used to doing things the same way each time. Our Bradley Birth Class is really helping with that, too! Both Rob and I have learned SO MUCH it’s amazing, and we both feel much more empowered to be able to do this! First time parents that we are, we want to be as prepared as possible. We’re getting there, slowly but surely!

OK! Enough of that. How about some pictures of the last few weeks! Baby girl is getting BIG!! Unfortunately so is my rear… but it’s for a good cause. :)

Here I am at 29 weeks:

And at 30 weeks:

And here’s the punkin at 30 weeks! I can’t believe we’re 75% of the way there!

30 weeks: a cabbage. She weighs about three pounds!

The baby shower is coming up in a few weeks, and I’m very excited! Friends and family will be there that I haven’t seen in a long time. My mom and sissy are throwing it for me, and it’s all a surprise! I can’t wait! :)

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and stay healthy! You don’t want to end up in the ER… Heh heh.

Sunday Update

So, not much to report over the last few weeks, but I do have a few pictures to share!

26 Weeks:

27 Weeks:

It feels like I’m getting bigger by the minute! Here’s where the baby is at 27 weeks:

27 weeks: a cauliflower!

I’m feeling pretty good lately! We’ve started taking Bradley Birth classes, and we LOVE them. I’m really learning a lot about why so many people have complications during birth, and how to (hopefully) avoid those complications. We’re going to try and bring this baby into the world without drugs, and this class is really helping to prepare us for that.

On Tuesday we have an appointment with our doctor and we plan to discuss how they feel about natural birth. Last week we toured the hospital where we plan to deliver, and they seemed very open and willing to work with us there; I hope the doctor feels the same way. Because it’s a whole “practice” that we go to and not just one specific doctor, it’s been hard to get a feel for that kind of thing at each of our 5-minute doctor visits when we’ve gone in. So this time we’re just going to ask a ton of questions and see what we get! So many people have scoffed at us for our choice of having a natural birth, be it friends or acquaintances, unfortunately I’m kind of getting used to it. If the doctor turns out to be the same way we have no problem finding a midwife or different doctor more in tune with our expectations. I just hope we don’t have to go through that!! Wish us luck, I’m not really looking forward to that part of the appointment.

Also, I took the glucose test for gestational diabetes last week and passed with flying colors. I am SO GLAD I don’t have to do that again- whoever decided that making an already dizzy pregnant lady drink some overly-sweet, syrupy, sugar-high-inducing drink and then drawing her blood, was a cruel, evil person. Oh, and did I forget to mention that they don’t want you to eat anything other than toast before the test?? It was awful! I thought I might pass out in the lab as we were leaving, and I think I scared another pregnant mom walking in after me… oops! But at least she knew what she was in for! YUCK, I don’t look forward to doing that again for the next baby. But, lets not get ahead of ourselves there… :)

In other news, we started the Dave Ramsey envelope system for our money this month, and so far it’s working pretty well. It will take another month or so to get used to it, and get out of the habit of just handing over the plastic card all the time. Even with debit cards it’s too easy to just spend and not think about it, so this cash-only system seems like it will help us immensely. So far so good! My sis-in-law Katrina sent me a link to a really neat site that has templates to make your own envelopes to use (go here to check it out!), and I got out my craft stuff and went to work! I’ll post pictures of how it turned out later, but I’m pretty impressed!

And now, I would like to highly recommend you all go out and get a new bed. Not just any bed, THIS bed. We were blessed with it as a Christmas gift (THANK YOU MAMA AND POP SHANKLAND!!) and until we slept on it for a few nights I really had no idea how bad our other mattress had gotten. So go. Now. Go out and get one! It will change your life. I promise. :)