We are so in love

I haven't updated the blog in a while for good reason...we have been busy with a new baby! Last time I updated the blog was a few days before we were scheduled to be induced, on Tuesday the 13th. My Mom flew in the prior Saturday so she would be there in case I went into labor early. On Sunday my Mom and I went for a long walk, hoping that it may spur on natural labor. While we were on the walk I felt what I thought could be my water leaking but was not sure. Later that day we decided to go into the hospital just to have it checked out. The hospital said that it was not amniotic fluid but as a routine they hooked me up to the monitor before releasing me. Everything was coming back normal on the monitor so they were filling out the paperwork to release me. Just as I was about to be released I went into a long contraction and Reese's heart rate dropped to a level that was not okay. All of a sudden there were 6 nurses hovered around me and they were paging the Dr. They started an IV and hooked me up to oxygen. Needless to say I was very freaked out and wondered if my baby was going to be okay. They said they needed to keep me hooked up for at least another 3 hours to make sure that did not happen again. About an hour later it did happen again and they said they were going to hold me over night to monitor me and let my Dr. decide what he wanted to do when he was there making his rounds the following morning. Later that night the on call Dr. went ahead and made the decision to induce me the following morning at 5, since it was only a day before I was scheduled to be induced anyway. Even though they gave me a sleeping pill I did not sleep very well...being 9 months and 3 weeks pregnant I had to pee every hour and to go to the restroom I had to drag an IV with me and unhook 4 cords and wear them around my neck to the bathroom and re hook myself before getting back into bed. Also, everytime I would shift they would lose Reese's heart beat and a nurse would have to come in and adjust the things on my stomach so that they could get her heart beat again.


The next morning at 5 a.m. they began pitocin in my IV to induce contractions. At 6 they gave me my epidural. By 8 I was 5 cm. dilated and 90% effaced, my Dr. came in and broke my water at that time. They decided to check me again at 10 and they said it was time to push. I could not believe it went that fast and thought they must be joking when they said it was already time to push. They spent about 30 minutes getting everything set up- they brought in so much equiptment and there were around 14 people in the room (my nurses, pediatric nurses, a nurse trainee and her instructor, some EMS trainee that had to watch one birth to complete his training, Neal, my Mom and Neal's Mom and later my Dr.). I began pushing at 10:35 and after pushing for about 15 minutes my Dr. got there and by 11:09 Reese was born! It all went so smoothly and I really never felt any pain, mild discomfort but no pain. The worst part was my heart burn.

The last 10 days of Reese's life have been amazing, tiring by amazing. She is such a precious baby that we love so much. She has her days and nights a bit confused but we are working on that. Below is a picture of our precious baby, I will post some more of our favorites later.

April 13th!

My Dr scheduled to induce me on Tuesday April 13th (at 4 a.m.!) I have already scheduled to start my maternity leave on Monday April 12th since I will have to go for pre-op that day anyways. I cannot believe that in 11 days, or less, Neal and I will get to meet our child that we have been waiting and praying for for so long! I am really excited!

As of Wednesday I am now 3 cm. dilated and 80% effaced so it is very likely that she may come before the 13th. We are now just anxiously waiting!

Waiting Game

I am 37 weeks today! If Reese were to come any time after today she will be considered full term. I am so relieved to have made it to 37 weeks and to know that she should be completely healthy at this point in the outside world. I know it is way too much to ask but I wish I could know when and how this whole birthing thing is going to happen. I am having a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing else to report. When I went to the Dr. last Wednesday I had no changes, still 2 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. He said I could have her that day or I could end up holding until my due date. He assured me that he will not let me go past my due date so he will induce me sometime around the 18th of April.

35 weeks

I am 35 weeks, almost 36 weeks. The Dr checked me for the first time today. He considered waiting to start checking me until next week but was glad that he decided to today because I am 2 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. He will be in Europe next week for Spring break and he moved me to the top of the list of patients that may deliver while he is out. According to the ultra sound they say that she weighs about 6 lbs. 8 oz. They said that I am far enough along that she should be just fine and they will not try to stop my labor, if I do in fact go into labor. I have been having a lot of contractions the last few days but they are not painful just an extreme tightening of my belly so I assume these are just braxton hicks...hopefully I will be able to tell when they are real contractions. They sure did seem to think that I will be having her soon but I have known quite a few women who have remained 2 or 3 centimeters for a matter of weeks...we will see. He assures me that with my gestational diabetes they will not let me go a day past my due date so at least I know that we will be meeting Reese soon!

Restroom Revamp

Most of our focus over the last 34 weeks has been on baby preparation but we have recently taken some time to re-do our guest bathroom. I so wish that we had taken some before photos but I do not have any. 5 years ago we thought it was a good idea to paint the bathroom bright red. Wow how our taste has changed over these years. We did this room very modern and we definitely liked how it turned out at the time but over the years we have become tired of it and have veered away from the modern style that we once really liked.

The new bathroom could not have turned out better. I am so lucky to have wonderful In-laws that volunteered to come up and paint our bathroom and laundry room for us since I am unable to paint being pregnant. This was not an easy project being that the bathroom was a deep, bright red. My Father-in-law painted the entire thing with a brush so that he could get it covered in one coat. Although he does not really like to paint I could not have picked a better person to do it since he is such a perfectionist and very handy. The plan was to take down the glued on mirror and I was going to put up two framed mirrors but he realized that they had applied so much glue that it would have really torn up the wall. So, plan B is that he has taken measurements and is building a frame to put around the glued on mirror to make it look better.

I really appreciate having so much help and could not be happier with the way that our bathroom turned out!

The most adorable big lips

One of the upsides to gestational diabetes is more ultrasounds. If I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy I would most likely not have any more ultrasounds after the one that I had at 21 weeks. I have posted some photos below of the ultrasound that we had just over a week ago, at 31 weeks. Neal and I could not believe how big her lips look. I think that ultrasounds slightly distort things and this photo does not show the full extent of how large they looked. I would be thrilled if she has really full lips just like her Daddy, we found it really cute and funny.

Cute little foot:They say (at 31 weeks) she weighed 4 lbs. 7 oz., this sounds large to me. My doctor said she is weighing about 10 days large. So I may be induced early or maybe her growth will slow some, we will see. Everything checked out perfectly healthy so I am grateful for that. The ultrasound technician was kind of snippy this time...I asked her where the baby was positioned and her response was "in your uterus". Neal and I kind of looked at each other like did she really just answer that question that way. The doctor warned us that she can sometimes lack in people skills but that she is excellent at what she does. We didn't see this during the first ultrasound but caught a glimpse during this one, maybe she was just having a bad day. I responded with- is she head down, head up, sideways??? Reese is head down and in perfect position, hopefully she stays this way.

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I will be 33 weeks tomorrow, only 7 weeks to go!!! I cannot believe we are this close and cannot wait to meet her. Being the planners that we both are we already have our bags packed and ready to go and Neal has installed the car seat. Now we just need the baby.

Reese's nursery is 95% complete...

We have all of the major projects complete in the nursery. We have a few more things that we want to do but for the most part we are finished so I thought I would post a few photos!!!