Letter to Baby, Monday, July 20

Dear Baby,



This morning I woke up when the day was still quite new. Our bedroom window was open, and I could hear sounds of our neighborhood waking up. My husband was still asleep and was tucked down deep under the blankets. I couldn't see our alarm clock, but somehow I knew I had about an hour of being awake before him. Even though I could really sleep as long as I wanted to - I am not working and have no morning appointments - I couldn't sleep.

I felt my face smiling and a lot of nervous energy in my stomach. I felt like I was eight years old and the first to be awake for Christmas morning. I remember feeling this way as a child, half of me wanting to sneak a peek at the presents under the tree, the other half contented to shiver with anticipation for the last few moments pre-Christmas. This morning I felt such excitement about getting you, a real present for my life.

I felt like it was a very special morning, and I know that according to our plans, this is the last Monday morning we will have, pre-baby, as a couple. We aren't just going to be friends or spouses or teammates, we are going to be parents together. We won't have the same relationship again, ever. We probably won't spend mornings together in bed like this for a LONG time.

When I got up, I wanted to see what the day looked like, to see if it looked as different as it felt. This morning was an unseasonably cool July morning, and I did feel a bit special. I ate Oreos and milk for breakfast, and did some house chores. I kissed your father goodbye as he left for work, and I knew it was the last Monday morning of my life without a baby in the house.

I have the same sort of feelings of ending a chapter in a book as I did on the last day at home before I moved to college, the morning of my wedding day, my first day of being a teacher, and now each day as I consider, "Is today the last day of pregnancy? Will I meet my son tomorrow?" I feel like everyday is sort of like the day before my birthday because your birth will be the birth of a new life for me.

Your father and I have a comfortable, happy, and blessed life. We have enjoyed 6 and a half years of love and 4 years of marriage. With these being the last hours we have as a duo, each one that passes is special. Somehow I know that we are going to enter an even better phase in our lives, even though now its hard for me to imagine that it can get any better.

I hope I let you know every day how important you are to our lives, and how you enrich them and make us into a new, improved family.

Love,

Your mom.

Letter: Jumping, Painting, Waiting

Dear Son,

Tonight we are watching the Dancing with the Stars season finale. Its been an exciting season, and I know your sense of hearing has really improved. When the band starts playing (or I start yelling scores), you really start to move.

I wouldn't really call it kicking. It feels more like a full body quiver or jump. Sometimes there is so much force behind whatever move you are doing that my entire abdomen experiences an earthquake. It is a very brief, very enormous movement. Too bad you really haven't jumped during an ultrasound so I could figure it out! Currently, you weigh less than 4 pounds and my belly is the size of a pumpkin. A large Halloween pumpkin.

This week we've started to get your nursh underway. It is my last week of teaching school and your father has only been playing sports two nights a week, so there is more time to get prepared. Here is a photo of him painting:

And here is a photo of some cute socks I bought for you that COMPLETELY match the decor. I'll have to dress you in them and take photos. Get used to it... you are going to have some ultra-great wardrobing until you are old enough to form your own fashion personality!

We'll see you again in three days for our weekly Fetal NST, ultrasound, and visit with Dr. G. Maybe this time he'll have more information about when you will see us!

:o)

Your mother

Movement

For about a week and a half now, I've been able to sense baby h moving. Sometimes the sensations are like a small cramp. I have compared it to an eye twitch - its not uncomfortable, you can't control it, and its like a spasm.

Lately, though, I've felt something a little different.

When I am driving our small car, my torso must put the baby at an unusual angle. The seat belt is pressed under my belly. I can feel the baby shift, move, maybe even roll around. Its hard to describe exactly, and I don't know exactly, since there is no internal camera or no clear viewing panel for me to see what is going on (both are cool ideas, though). My best guess is that the gestational sac is being forced down and up at the same time, and squeezing the baby a little tighter than normal.

It feels weird - like a water balloon being squeezed and adjusted, but I am not actually the one doing the adjusting of the water balloon.

I tried to explain this to my husband today, and he said, "Oh, great. He's already inheriting your sense of comfort and pickiness!".

Baby H is getting room in our hearts and our house!

Our current spare bedroom has been a catch-all room. It has housed a TV, air mattress, exercise ball and free weights, Dan's clothing, boxes of textbooks and school work, bins of art supplies, and an assortment of plants.

There's little or no room for an actual human being to inhabit this room.

That is, until this weekend. Dan set out to reorganize all the closets in our house. His mission was to get rid of all or most of the items in the nursery closet.

He began by sorting through his clothes and eliminated half of the total wardrobe volume by packing away summer clothes and selecting clothes to donate to charity.

Then, Dan installed more shelving on the sides of the closet. He used wire shelves to match the ones in the home when we bought it. This significantly increased the storage capability of the closet.

Next came the difficult task of sorting through the bins and boxes stacked three deep on the closet floor. He was able to consolidate cour art supply boxes into two well organized bins. It turned out that most of the boxes in the closet were my things from college apartments that were never unpacked. He helped me sort through these old memories... something I am not good at! I get tangled up in looking through the photos, reading old letters, and recalling past events. Dan helped to put these memories into more organized boxes and to throw out unneeded items.

In total, we recycled stacks of magazines, classwork, and misc paper products. We had another trash can stuffed with non-recyclable JUNK. So much stuff left that room and will be curbside come Wednesday that the neighbors will think we're moving!

I think I'll keep track of our preparation progress with photos on this site. I'll add a photo of the renovated closet when I get batteries for our camera.

Our Little Friend

When we walked into the clinic today, my husband said, "Honey, we are about see our little friend again!"

Trip to OB ER

I wasn't feeling well yesterday.

I was so unwell, in fact, that I went to the OB ER at a local hospital. My doctors at CFMFC advised me to go because I had a nasty case of gastroenteritis and hadn't been able to keep any food or liquids in for half a day.

When I arrived, I was so dehydrated that I had to have 4 bags of fluids! They also gave me some Zofran and Phinergan, which are anti-nausea medicines for cancer patients. The other blood and urine test they ran confirmed a case of dehydration and a potassium deficiency. It did rule of diabetes, which is great news.

On days like this, I feel like baby h is making me fall apart! Vomiting and nausea are ever present, as are extreme fatigue and grumpiness. Luckily my husband is a patient partner, ready to step up and take care of me.

Pregnancy Test

First message to the little one:

Your father told me, "Before you took the test, I was 100% sure that you were pregnant. Now, I think you probably aren't."



How could a positive test make him say that? Well, the test didn't seem positive. There was one dark pink line and then a second, faint shadow of a line. Three tests later with the same result, I decided to buy a digital test. Yes, you were conceived in a digital age! Everything is digital - from the reading of the gas tank in my Jeep, to our alarm clock, to our camera, to the pregnancy test.



It said only one word:

I repeated this word over and over for two days, getting acclimated to its sound.