Post-Holiday Update

Phew. What a whirlwind this week has been! I have felt such an urgency to organize, clean, and then re-organize our house. Fortunately, I have a husband who is extremely helpful and likes a good project! I had a big long to-do list which is now rather short (hooray!), but still had "update the blog" unchecked on it. :)

This picture of me is at my parent's house on Christmas. 36 weeks! I am still really enjoying this pregnancy, but I am definitely at the point where after a while, being on my feet does actually start to hurt my back and belly. I went to the doctor on the 28th and our little girl has grown to an estimated 6 lbs., 12 oz. She looks so cute and I can't wait to meet her! After a lot of prayer and thought, we have decided that our best option is to simply follow the advice of our doctor and have the amniocentesis done this Tuesday. SO...only a few more days until we know for sure when our little one will be born. My doctor seems to think she will be ready and so she could be born possibly as early as the 2nd of January or we may wait until the morning of the 4th when I am scheduled. There is a chance that her lungs aren't quite ready and that we will need to wait until the following week.

My sweet Andrew shared with me tonight that he is "not quite ready" to have the responsibility of being a big brother. I think he has heard so many times what a big "helper" he is going to be, and I don't think he is very excited about that part. We spent a lot of time tonight talking about what we actually expect of him and that his life will change, but that it isn't going to include a lot more work. He is feeling a bit left out, he said, which makes me feel so terrible. Tim and I vowed to make sure to focus on him more and to make time to spend just with him. I am so glad he is able to express himself well and let us know how he is feeling. What an incredible kid he is. He told me also that he couldn't help but have a bad feeling and thought something bad might happen to me or to the baby. We talked about it for a while and he kept saying, "But you can't promise me that nothing bad will happen, can you??" I reassured him as much as I could while being honest, and he finally calmed down and went to bed. This is so hard for him, I know, and I wish I could make it easier for him (and for Tim and myself, too!). Losing Nathan has changed us forever and we will never stop remembering him and missing him.

Please keep us in prayer over this next week. We will make sure to let you all know when our sweet little one arrives. Thank you so much to all of you who hold us up in prayer so often. You have truly blessed our lives in ways you may never know.

Difference of Opinion

Whew. What a day. I went in for my routine appointment today and saw my cute little girl on ultrasound once again. According to the measurements today (how accurate are those really??), she gained an entire pound last week and now weighs somewhere around five pounds, fourteen ounces. What a little chunk for 35 weeks. :) I followed up with a non-stress test and she passed (good girl)!

Next, I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Rawlins, who some of you may remember is the doctor that was on-call and helped deliver Nathan when everything went wrong five years ago. He is not my regular doctor, but at Associated Physicians for Women, you can pretty much travel around amongst the doctors if yours is busy or overbooked for the day. He remembered me and remembered Nathan and said that everything looked good with our little girl, but that he didn't really see the sense in waiting to deliver her at 39 weeks. He said he thought given my history and my state of nervousness, it would be wiser to deliver at 37 weeks after an amniocentesis to make sure her lungs were matured.

SO...after a LOT of discussion and a ton of questions from me, I agreed to schedule tentatively and then pray about it and decide what the best thing to do was. Tim and I had a long discussion about the pros and cons of waiting and about the risks involved with an amniocentesis, and we prayed together for a while. I talked to a lot of different people about this at church tonight and kept getting the same response: delivery at 37 weeks by a doctor who was there at Nathan's birth and knows how unusual that situation was seems like a better choice than waiting around for delivery at 39 weeks by someone else. I am still praying. I do feel like the answer is to go ahead with the early delivery....but the amniocentesis still bothers me. I plan to make some phone calls in the morning to find out how necessary that step really is or if they can just do the C-section then without it.

My new date for delivery is now January 4th. Two weeks away!! I am excited, nervous, and honestly, quite scared. I would love to say that I am calm and feel reassured and have total peace about all of this....but at this moment, on this day, I am very much afraid. I solicit prayers from all of you who read this that God will calm my fears (and Tim's and Andrews!) about this birth and that he will protect our little girl so that she may enter this world safely and in good health.

It is interesting how different Tim and I are (as most husbands and wives are) about dealing with emotional issues such as this. I tend to want to call and talk to everybody, getting their opinion and asking for their help in praying for us. Tim, my sweet quiet husband, on the other hand, wants to crawl into bed and wake up when our baby gets here. :) At least we understand each other and know that we have to let each other deal with this in different ways. He lets me talk it all out and cry and panic. I let him stay silent and stoic and go to sleep. After ten years, we can finally let each other be, well, Each Other...without resenting one another for dealing with things differently. Marriage is good (and so are mothers and girlfriends who will cry with you)! :)

Belly Love

35 Weeks

Our little one is growing so much and my excitement is growing as well! I really do love being pregnant. I have felt good for most of this pregnancy, although the discomfort is starting to settle in. :) Tim looked at me today and said, "You are going to have a baby in four weeks and one day." This little life is still such a miracle to us and such an unbelievably wonderful answer to so many prayers. Praise God for this tiny blessing still growing inside of me!

5 Weeks and Counting!!

I can hardly believe how quickly this pregnancy is flying by. Five weeks from today, I will check into the hospital and meet our little girl! I have been blessed to have an ultrasound every week for the last three weeks and will continue to have one each week until she is born. I love being able to see her little feet and her tiny belly and all of her movements as she continues to grow.

I measured behind schedule about a month ago when my doctor checked my belly, so he ordered an ultrasound. Our daughter's size looked just fine, but my amniotic fluid was a bit lower than they expected, so I was told to come back in two weeks for an additional ultrasound to double check and make sure my fluid didn't decrease. During that waiting time, I got a stomach bug and got so dehydrated that I started contracting regularly. I spent the night in the hospital, hooked up to an IV until my contractions stopped and then until I could keep some fluids down. I was in the same room I had been in five years ago when I was in labor with Nathan...and although it was emotional, it was also healing in a way. My nurse came in and somehow recognized me from years ago and remembered I had been in that same room and wanted to know if I needed to change rooms. I looked at her incredulously and asked, "Do you remember me??" She said that there are some people that you never forget and that the day my little boy was born was very memorable. I cried and thanked God that someone who didn't know me at all still remembered our Nathan and was touched by his short life. What a blessing that was for me to be able to talk to her.

At my next ultrasound, my fluid level had dropped one point and so my doctor decided that weekly ultrasounds and twice weekly non-stress tests would be wise to make sure that our little one continues to grow and thrive. So far, things look good and she is growing and moving and passing all of the tests. :) She measures a bit smaller than my boys did, but ultrasound tests are not always accurate (as you moms know). My belly still measures about four weeks behind, but according to her latest measurements, she weighs in at a whopping four pounds, twelve ounces, and is in the 37 percentile for gestational age. She has cute little chubby cheeks and beautiful full lips and I love her SO much.

Please keep us in your prayers during these last weeks as my time for delivery gets closer and closer. I feel God giving me extra peace and reassurance through all of these tests and through my wonderful friends and family who continue to be here for support. Thanks to all of you who keep us in prayer and who listen to me when I have fears. God is so good!!

The Traditional Tree

Every year, without fail, we go out as a family and choose a Christmas tree. We have only one specific requirement: the tree must be taller than Tim. For the last few years, we have found the right tree at Fred Meyer. I realize that it doesn't sound like a very exciting place to hunt for that perfect tree, but it does have a very mom-friendly feature: a nearby automatic door that leads into the store where one can get warm....and oh yes, shop! Last year we were interviewed just outside the store by a local news station about why we choose to buy a real tree rather than an artificial one. They showed it on the evening news and Andrew was adorable. :)

Since this year I am feeling particularly large and pregnant, I had a hard time staying cheery as I attempted to place lights and beads on our beautiful tree. Andrew was as excited as ever, and it was fortunately contagious. :)

My energy disappeared just as Andrew's bedtime arrived, so we vowed to finish the ornament placing tomorrow and the boys went to bed. Somehow I know that the minute Andrew wakes up tomorrow morning, he will rush in to ask if he can plug in the lights on the tree. He said today, "We're really into Christmas, aren't we?" Tim and I chuckled and assured him that yes, we are big fans of the Christmas season.

(Our mostly finished tree)

Time to wrap some presents, I guess!