My Second Week

Well, hello again everyone, I'm now a whole 2 weeks old and life just keeps getting more interesting. Lets see what has happened in week number two, well first of all my cord fell off last week and has been healing very nicely. Mommy and Daddy couldn't figure out where it was for a while after they noticed it fell off, but then Daddy found it in my onesie. Glad my furry friend Abbi didn't find it on the floor and eat it, yuck!!

On Saturday one of Mommy's friends, Kathy, came and took pictures of me and everyone said I was being so good. I didn't cry at all for the awake ones and once they wanted some pictures with my peepers closed I feel right to sleep. I only got a little frustrated at the end when they woke me up to put me in a Christmas dress for some Christmasy pictures, after a couple hours I decided I was done being a model :)

On Sunday I made my first trip to church and all the ladies loved all my hair and that Mommy could already put a bow in it. I slept in my seat for nearly the whole service, until Mommy smelled something a bit foul coming from my direction and determined I had a dirty diaper that needed changed. Mommy and Daddy did a good job scheduling so that I ate right before we went to church and was hungry right when we got home, we all worked together and it was nice for Mommy and Daddy to get out of the house for just a bit.

Other than that we have a ran a few errands here and there for Mommy and Daddy to finish some Christmas shopping or grab some groceries, but I always stay in my seat or we wait in the car so I don't get too many germies around me, being so little and all.

Yesterday we went for my 2 week check-up and I was supposed to have gained enough weight to be back to my birth weight. Well I had a surprise for Mommy and Daddy, even though I seem to be a great eater, I hadn't gained any weight from my 1 week check-up and still need to gain 9 oz to get to my birth weight. I think Mommy and Daddy were a little bummed about that, maybe I just have a good metabolism :) Dr M., my pediatrician, said this happens pretty frequently and that for the next week we need to breastfeed and then Mommy needs to pump and feed me that as a supplement. I go back next week and hopefully have gained quite a bit of weight. This new schedule is a little harder on everyone because it now takes longer to feed me and Mommy and Daddy are trying to get in more feeds a day, so sleep deprivation for them might be back for awhile. I'm a really good sleeper so they were kind of getting used to having some decent periods of sleep at night before starting this new schedule, I just like to keep them on their toes.

Well tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we are heading to Mamaw and Pampa Love's for the day, and then on Christmas, after we open our presents that morning, Grandpa and Nana Phillips and Uncle Matt are coming over for lunch. I'll have to fill you in more on my first Christmas in the next post.

My first week....from Leah's perspective

Hello everyone, this it little Leah and I have been out in the big bad world for a week now (actually a little longer, but it took me a few times of asking to get Mommy to sit down and type this). Things have been good so far; me, Mommy, and Daddy have gotten to know each other better everyday and are doing pretty well and are starting to get more settled into feeling comfortable with feeding and other things and getting faster at them all the time.

I've had a lot of family coming to see me, of course my grandparents are always up for a visit and like to snuggle with me. They only seem to complain about my little green friend, my soothie paci, they say its always in my mouth when they want to get a picture. Mommy and Daddy don't care about good pictures, like me, and are just glad that my paci and I are such good friends when other things don't make me happy!!

I have tried out my activity mat, my bouncer, and my swing. I like them all for about 10 to 20 minutes and then I'm ready to be with either Mommy or Daddy for awhile. I think I might try them for longer periods of time to give Mommy and Daddy more breaks.

I'm a really good eater and at my first Doctor's appointment on Tuesday I had gained back 3 oz from the weight I was at when discharged from the hospital, my Doctor was really happy with this. I am also making lots of wet and dirty diapers for Mommy and Daddy and I like giving Daddy the nicest gifts which usually require a new onesie and changing pad protector, he still loves me though. Mommy and Daddy take me back to the doctor next week and hopefully I am back up to my birthweight or more, if my eating is any indicator I don't think it should be a problem.

The last few days Mommy and Daddy have felt much better because I have been really good at going down after my night feedings and letting them get 2 1/2 or 3 hour stretches of sleep before the next feeding. Sometimes they have to wake me up to feed because I like sleeping so much. We figured out the trick was swaddling me in my Aden and Anais muslin blankets. Mommy is so glad she got those for me after some raving reviews by her mommy friends. I sometimes play tricks on Mommy and Daddy and sleeep a lot during the day so that they think I will never sleep at night, but I still sleep at night, I just like to make them sweat :)!!

Mommy and Daddy have an older furry child named Abbi and so far we get along just great. Abbi likes me and is somewhat protective of me. If I am crying a lot she wants to make sure I am ok and will follow Mommy and Daddy everywhere with me until she knows it is ok. She also checks out everyone that comes over to visit me to make sure they are OK. She likes to sniff me and sometimes her hair tickles my nose which makes me squirm. I think as I get older we will continue to be friends, she seems like a nice doggy.

Just in the last few days Mommy has gotten out the Moby "D" wrap and Slingling for carrying me around hands-free, and I love them. I get all warm and cozy and plus I get to be close to Mommy and hear her heartbeat which puts me right to sleep. This is going to be a great help for Mommy once Daddy goes back to work and she needs to use both of her hands to do things around the house.

Well that is about all I can think of to tell you right now, but I'll be back to tell you more about my 2nd week and my first Christmas.

Leah Kate's Birth Story

As most of you already know Leah Kate P was born on Wednesday 12/9/09 at 6:40 pm via c-section. This is a little post (probably not little, probably really long) about what all took place to get our 8 lb 3 oz, 21 inch daughter here.



12/8 ~ 6:30 pm : After eating a nice dinner at Texas Roadhouse we headed to Clarian North and were greeted by the great staff by name as we buzzed in at the L&D entrance. We were then greeted by 2 nurses one that was just getting ready to be done with her shift but would be back with us in the morning and the other our night nurse. They had me put on the lovely hospital attire (i.e. the normal blue/green hospital gown) and then went ahead and started the port for my IV and I think took some blood, I can't remember for sure. They then started the cervidil (cervix softening medicine), and Adam and I started running through the channels to see if there was any entertaining TV on, we ended up settling on the Butler game. After that was over ,we stuck in "50 First Dates" that we brought from home. They recommended I take some Ambien to make sure that I got enough sleep for my "Big Day" on Wednesday. I took that about 10:30 pm and Adam said I was out in about 15 minutes and slept hard until about 6:00 am the next morning.



12/9 ~ 7:00 am: I was able to wake up and take a shower and order a light breakfast (thank goodness my Dr. allowed this, otherwise I would have been even more insanely hungry by the end of the day). I ordered a bagel and fruit and Adam got this awesome and huge breakfast sandwhich, can't say I wasn't a little jealous!



8:00 am: After 12 hours of having the cervidil in the nurse took that out and checked me. We were all hoping if nothing else I was at least fully effaced and hopefully more had occurred, seeing that I was 9 days overdue, maybe my cervix just needed a jump start. The nurse checked me and was still only 2 cm and maybe 50% effaced, which wasn't horrible but wasn't really a lot of progress from the cervidil. At this point they started the Pitocin and everything was really cool and calm at this point.



9:00 am: My doctor came in and decided to break my water. I was contracting every couple of minutes but they really weren't strong enough to feel or do much of anything in the way of progress. She also likes to break the water a little earlier with post-term babies b/c there is a decent chance that the baby has had a bowel movement in utero since her system was ready to go about a week before. When she broke my water there was a significant amount of meconium in it, so our sweet little girl definitely had already decided to make sure her bowel systems were working. Because of this they started me on something called Amnio-infusion, where they infuse fluid into the uterus to clean out the meconium as much as possible to get it away from the baby and also I believe helps keep infection at bay. This also allowed them to really get a good reading on the strength of my contractions which at this point weren't enough.



10:30 am: My parents had arrived in the meantime, they were trying to beat the weather and hung out with us for a bit. I think my Mom noticed that I was starting to grimace every few minutes and mentioned to my Dad that she thought it was probably about time to leave the room. Within about 5 minutes of them leaving I could definitely feel the contractions and moved to the birthing ball to help cope some and breathe through each one. They were coming every 1.5 to 2 minutes and although they were still not as strong as they need to see them to say they are doing much, I was not able to talk or function much as each one came. Adam was awesome and just kept reminding me to breathe and let me squeeze the bujeebees out of his hand.



12:00 pm: I was checked again and still contracting at the same pace, they were getting a little stronger but still not where they wanted them to be. I was still only 2 cm and maybe had progressed a little in effacement but not anywhere near 100% yet. They did tell me that they were by no means suggesting any pain medication but if I did want and epidural, they needed to know about 15 t0 20 minutes before hand because they had to get a bolus of fluid pumped into me before they could do the epidural.



1:00 pm: I started seriously thinking about the epidural, I was still contracting every 1.5 minutes and I was just thinking that if this continued and resulted in a vaginal delivery that I was not going to have any energy left to push. I felt a little bit of a wimp that I was considering an epi at 2 cm but the contractions with Pitocin just aren't the same as when your body does the process naturally.



1:15 - 1:30 pm: I informed my awesome nurse Sara that I was ready for the epidural and she started the fluids. About 15 minutes later the anesthesiologist came in and Adam had to leave since it has to be a completely sterile environment, so he took the opportunity to eat some lunch. They then began the epi which the anesthesiologist said I was a textbook epidural and that the way it looked everything should start to work soon and I should feel significantly better.



2:00 pm: Adam arrived back to a new woman, it was amazing the difference and so quickly. I couldn't feel the contractions anymore but was able to still feel my feet and move my legs from the knees down. They said this was good for the time it would come to push because it would give me more strength and they just really wanted to make sure I couldn't feel the contractions. Adam and I were able to relax a little bit and figured we were in for a long day at this point.



2:30 pm: The babies heart rate started declining and of course my monitors started going a bit crazy. My nurse came in and asked me to start turning from side to side to just make sure it wasn't a positional thing and that Baby just didn't like a certain position. Her heart rate had gone from ranging between 120 resting and 150+ active to between 80 and 100 bpm. In the midst of this another nurse had come in to assist my nurse and a NICU or Peds doctor was suddenly in my room. After switching sides a number of times my nurse calmly paged my doctor, yet Adam and I knew things weren't quite right. Her office is in the building 2 floors up so she could be over in a few minutes if needed. After she wasn't there fairly quickly the nurse asked them to page her again. In the meantime my nurse had the Pitocin turned off and made the call to give me a short of something that started with a T to counteract the Pitocin and stop my contractions. A few seconds later my Dr. walked in and said she was trying to get an elevator when she got paged the 2nd time and was literally praying at the elevator that God would get one there ASAP. She came into my room and went to try and touch the baby's head to try and stimulate the baby to see if that would get her heart rate up, of course after all the other stuff her heartbeat immediately went up from the 100 bpm level to 130 and stabilized. Feeling less stressed we all laughed b/c it seemed like Little Miss just wanted some attention from the Doc and as soon as she got there the baby completely stabilized. My doctor went ahead and checked me and in the like half hour since I had gotten the epi, my body must have relaxed and the contractions became strong enough to get me from 2 to 4-5 cm in that short time. But it was too much for Baby and she did not respond well. Since we had no medicine at this point to get things moving along we needed to reevaluate and have a strategy about restarting things without bothering the baby and getting her stressed out. My dr was a little concerned that everything had pretty much come to a screeching halt and that my body wasn't doing any of this on its own. She said she would come back at 4:00 pm to check me and they started the pitocin back up at 1/2 of where it was when they had to stop it.



4:00 pm ~ The doctor came back to check and there was still no progress from where I was before and she was really getting concerned that my cervix was not effacing and just did not seem to want to get out of the way. Also they measure the baby's position in stations and she had been in a -1 station with zero being engaged and the +'s meaning she was moving through the birth canal and she was actually moving backward and was now a -2 station. This really puzzled my Doctor and she said while things were calm lets just talk about a c-section and that it might be something that needs to be considered if we don't start getting contractions at the strength we need them or if my cervix continues to stay unchanged. I went ahead and signed the needed consent for a c-section and then she said should would be back in a couple of hours to check one last time and then we would make the call.



4:00 to 6:00 ~Adam and I talked and at this point we both were getting to the point of just wanting to meet our sweet baby and didn't want to just keep pushing nature if that wasn't the way she was meant to come out. My doctor, who also attends my church, just put it this way. God is always in control of every single little life and the way they come into to the world and we would all like to see that happen as naturally as possible, but he has given her the knowledge of being able to perform a surgery and when the risks of continuing to wait start to outweigh the risks of a c-section then she is thankful for her knowledge and training to be able to help get this little life into the world. I luckily had gone into the entire situation knowing that flexibility was going to be my best friend and a "plan" was going to be my enemy. I have watched too many of my friends experience all different kinds of labors and deliveries and didn't want to feel like I failed at this b/c it didn't happen the way I "planned" for it to. I just wanted a healthy baby at the end and if a c-section was how that needed to happen then so be it.



6:00 pm ~ My doctor came back in to check me and still no progress from earlier. She said at this rate I could stay pregnant for another 7 days but at what point do we just make the call to get this baby here safe and sound and make sure I'm as healthy as possible. We all agreed that a c-section was the direction we were going and the whirlwind of prepping began. Adam made a mad dash to the waiting room to inform our parents what was decided and that we would be in the OR within the hour.



6:00 to 6:20 - Everyone was coming in and out of my room to cover all of the bases of things that needed to occur to get me ready and a different anesthesiologist came in to give me a larger dose of the epi as I no longer wanted to be able to feel my feet or anything else from the top of my abdomen down :) My nurse Sara was amazing and made sure we always knew what was going on and what the next steps were. My doctor, who has an almost 6 month old baby, said she needed to go pump b/c when my baby was born and cried she would have major "let down" and I would probably prefer that she was concentrating on my surgery and stitching me back up, I agreed :)



6:10pm: Everyone was ready and they wheeled me back to OR. Adam had to stay in a little recovery waiting area while they prepped me. The anesthesiologist did a little test with a needle to make sure that I was totally numb, which I was and then gave the go ahead to prep. At this point the big blue drape went up and my ability to know anything that was going on with the actual surgery was completely gone. Adam was then brought in and my doctor arrived. Everything was set-up to go.



6:30 pm: They started surgery and it was the weirdest feeling b/c I could feel the sensation of what they were doing but I had no pain. They kept me somewhat informed of what they were doing and Adam later told me he watched some of the surgery (mainly post arrival). With his medical background (animal not human) surgery and stuff fascinates him more than grosses him out so he probably thought there was a little bit of a coolness factor in being able to watch the surgery.



6:40 pm: I could feel them pull her out and immediately heard the first whimper and then an all out cry. She let us know right away that she was fine with a great pair of lungs. NICU was brought into the OR in case there were complications with her breathing from the previous BM she had in-utero but she was soon okayed so they began bulb syringing and cleaning up our little miss Leah. Soon after this, the nurse told us that she was 8lbs 2.5 oz and 21 inches long. They flashed her behind the drape really quickly immediately after she was born but then Adam went and took some pictures as they were cleaning her up and brought them over to me so I could get a better idea of what my sweet baby looked like. We then announced to the room that her name was Leah Kate and got many compliments about the name. Everyone was commenting about the amount of hair that she had, which didn't really surprise us given the full heads of dark hair that both of us have.

7:15 pm: I was taken back to our recovery room with Leah in my arms and Adam went to the waiting room to share the news about Leah to our parents who were patiently (not really!) waiting for her arrival. Adam came back to the recovery room to get settled and have a chance to bond with our girl for the first time together as a family of three. My doctor stopped by and gave me a huge hug and said everything went perfect, she then offered to help me get started with nursing, she currently has a 6 month old that she is nursing so her real life experience and knowledge was very helpful. Leah did awesome and latched on perfectly right away< she has made breastfeeding so much easier than I expected.

8:00 pm: Our parents came back and got to meet Leah for the first time, which initiaed her into the world of camera flash like the amount at a professional photo shoot :) The nurse then offered to give her a bath since I still wasn't able to get out of bed. Leah screamed pretty much the entire time and Grandpa Love videotaped the whole thing. The part that took the longest was washing her hair, imagine that, but she actually stopped crying and enjoyed getting her hair washed. Then our parents left for the evening and Adam gathered up all of our things to move to our new postpartum room by around 11. Leah actually was very nice to her new parents and took a nice long 2 1/2 hour nap in her bassinet so that we could catch some sleep as well from our long but very amazing day.

--> Keep posted for continued updates on Miss Leah and the new adventures yet to come

The last 48 hours.....

Hopefully that is all we have or less until this kiddo gets here. Since to this point she had decided that she is not coming without being evicted, we are scheduled to go to the hospital at 6:30 tomorrow evening to check-in and start on cervidil, which is a medicine that helps to soften your cervix. We'll spend the night and then they will actually start what most people know as induction on Wednesday morning (pitocin and breaking my water), unless the cervidil somehow jump kicks my body into starting contracting itself. So this is our last night sleeping in our house as just the 2 two of us, and probably getting close to a full nights sleep for quite some time.

Today we did some stuff around the house, finalized some last minute planning with taking care of our dog while we are gone for a few days, and then tried to get some Christmas shopping done tonight. We also picked up my birthday gift to Adam for his 30th, which is a new grill. Our current grill is on its last leg and so this one is quite a bit nicer. And since he is the grill master of the house I knew that was something he would enjoy having.

I think our plan for tomorrow is to finish up some random things around the house, finish packing our bag for the hospital (I'm pretty much packed, Adam hasn't packed a thing), probably grab a somewhat early dinner before heading to the hospital, and then try to figure out how to entertain ourselves at the hospital and maybe get a little sleep. Between trying to sleep in a hospital and having our minds racing with the idea we are going to be parents so soon, I don't know how much sleep we will actually get.

And for your viewing pleasure, ha ha ha, this is what 41 weeks pregnant looks like. I think this child had definitely maxed out every square inch of room she has or at least I feel that way.

The things you do while waiting to have a baby

So for the last week we have been trying to occupy ourselves some while waiting for this little lady to get here. Well first of all we both kept working until late this week and I wouldn't have changed that, sitting at home and waiting would have made me crazy antsy. Adam figured out with his vacation, paternity leave, and company shutdown he didn't have to work after Wednesday. I worked until Thursday in the office and then attended an out of office Christmas party, I am now down working until after my Maternity leave, which will mean I won't work again until the 1st of March.

We have gone to the Mall a couple of times, more to walk in a warm place than to shop. Each time we've had store clerks ask if we were shopping or trying to have a baby :) I must have that "I'm about ready to pop" look at this point.

On Thursday Adam went and got our real Christmas tree and we put it up and decorated it and put up a few other decorations, as well as hung all of our stockings over the fireplace. This was the first time in 3 years that we decorated for Christmas. In 2007 we were in he midst of moving into the house and last year it was still such a chaotic mess that we didn't get any Christmas decorating stuff out.

Other than that we have just been kind of doing what we would normally do and not getting too far from home. Although we have been dong more laying around just watching and tv and being lazy then we have done in the last 2 years. I guess it is filling our energy tanks for when this little one comes and we don't know which way is up and what day it is.

Tick...Tick...Tick...Tick....

This is what I feel like, a ticking time bomb, that could go off at anytime but no one knows when that will be. I had my 39 week appointment this last Wednesday at which time I really had made no progress in regard to dilation or effacement. My Dr., um helped me get to 1 cm, just to see if maybe we could get things going a little.

Thursday we were able to have both sides of our immediate families over, as well as, my aunt and uncle from my Dad's side, and had a great Thanksgiving dinner. My mom did a ton all afternoon and then everyone else pitched in so I really didn't have to do much at all. Adam was the Turkey preparer and he did a great job for his first Turkey, it was really good. He also made a homemade apple pie, he enjoys baking much more than I do! I would normally feel compelled that I need to make something but I really didn't at 39+ weeks pregnant. I did mash the 7lbs of potatoes so I guess that was my contribution. I think my mother and mother-in-law were about ready to strap me to the couch to make me sit down and stay, but its just so weird to not help prep stuff, especially when it is at my house.

Yesterday we really didn't do a whole lot, since I can't sleep past 6:00 or 6:30, I got up and did stuff until Adam got up. We then played some Wii bowling and tennis, I'm much better at bowling than tennis, Adam kicks my butt in tennis when he isn't even playing full force. Adam then played about 2 hours of Tiger Woods golf while I took a nap, guess that triptophane (sp?) was kicking in ;) We did have an indication that maybe a little more was going on in the labor department, no contractions or anything, so we decided we would go to the mall if for no other reason than to just walk to see if we could get this party started!! I don't really know that it helped and we didn't buy a darn thing at the mall, good thing we don't get up at 4:00 am with the crazies.

Today I'm pretty much feeling normal and don't really feel like I'm having any contractions or anything. I told Adam we need to go to a movie or something tonight because this sitting around and waiting thing is going to drive me crazy.

So there you have it, pretty much no news, and I guess she still has about 60 hours to get here and still be within the time of her due date and not considered late!!!

It could be a big one!!!

So we have less than a month to go and I had my 36 week appointment yesterday. All is still good in the blood pressure, weight, and position of baby departments. But I am now measuring ahead and enough ahead that my Doctor wants me to have an ultrasound next week to confirm how much is baby and how much is fluid/placenta. If it is as much baby as I'm measuring that would mean they would estimate at least an 8-9 lb baby at birth. I think I can mentally handle a baby in the 8lb range but anything over 9lbs makes me cringe. Guess she might need to wear those newborn clothes very quickly, good thing most of her stuff is 0-3 months and not a ton of newborn clothes:) When I told Adam he first laughed (not nice!!) and then reassured me that it could just be a lot of amniotic fluid and she might not be huge, thanks Honey!

The nice thing about it all is I get to see my little girl next week and I wasn't expecting see her again until she was in my arms, so that part if fun!

On the preparation front I think we have everything at this point that we were wanting to get prior to her arrival. We picked up the carseat last weekend and I think we are going to install it tonight so I can take and get it inspected soon. I put the bouncer together and Adam's co-worker who had twins let us borrow their swing. So we have a bassinet ready to go, a crib ready to go, a bouncer ready to go, and a swing ready to go, hopefully one of the 4 she will want to sleep in, at least that is what we are hoping. This weekend we need to make a Goodwill run to get some "crap" out of the house, do some last minute organizing of the nursery, and I should probably get her diaper bag ready and my bag semi-packed. Anything beyond that will just be bonus that we can accomplish.

And for your viewing pleasure, I'm doing a comparison shot this week:

15 Weeks , 20 Weeks, 27 Weeks

32 Weeks , 36 Weeks

1 Month to go and the Nursery is Nearly Done

Were on the home stretch both with the pregnancy and with completing the nursery, good thing, huh :) So I'll just label pictures and let them speak for themselves.


These need a little straightening up but these shelving units/cabinets were in our kitchen originally. We kept them and then refinished them and painted them white to match the nursery. I think they came out pretty cute and they were really cheap stable hardwood bookshelves.

Here is the nursery as you are looking in from the doorway.

Here is the far wall and we are pretty much done filling the dresser for now, thank goodness we got a decent sized one!

Here is our beloved recliner/glider and the adorable owl pillow my friend Kim gave me at my shower last weekend.

The crib wall with a little decal saying above the crib "Dream on, Dream on, Dream until your Dream comes true."

This is the owl mobile that was my DIY project for the nursery. The little owls are made from socks. I then used an embroidery hoop and wrapped it in ribbon, and used the pink ribbon to attach the owls and attach the mobile to a ceiling hook (basically like a plant hook).

Our last free weekend EVER.....and 32 week belly

This last weekend I had a wonderful time going to Brown County with seven of my girlfriends and renting a cabin. We ate (a lot), fellowshiped, of course talked to the wee hours of the morning, went to downtown Nashville and ate at the Artist Colony, played games, and just enjoyed each others company. Below is a picture of our little group on the deck of our cabin. (Someone please remind me in the future that when pregnant do not be the only one to wear white and be standing sideways in a picture, seriously could I look any larger!!)


And as requested by my brother-in-law (since they are now in Boston), here are a couple of 32 week belly shots.

I keep telling Adam that I don't understand how I'm going to continue to get bigger over the next 8 weeks, there is not room. He just smiles and says, "I don't know but your are going to get bigger," thanks honey! She is definetly a squirmy one lately, I feel like most of the time I'm sitting still my stomach looks like an earthquake is occuring.

Shower #1 and the Nursery

Now its been nearly two weeks, but I had my first shower with mostly my family and several of the family friends we have known over the years. It was great seeing everyone and having our little girl blessed with a lot of people excited to meet her and clothe her :)

You know how everyone knows the "hometown" cake maker in small towns, well one of my aunts knew one, and that cake was delicious.

I'm sure her Daddy was happy that this onesie first of all wasn't pink and that she can wear her gear to cheer on the Boiler basketball team this year. I'm sure there will be bonding time with Daddy, watching games, Mommy will just have to make sure Daddy doesn't get too excited with special cargo in his arms :) I'm not even mentioning football b/c that might require we make it to a Bowl game and... um... yeah that isn't happening.

She did get plenty of "girlie" things including a bunch of adorable dresses one of my aunts found.

And this was all the shower goodies spread out on the nursery floor to try and organize after we got home. As you can tell this kid is really going to be doing without, especially in the clothing department!

And now for the Nursery, taaadaaa it actually looks like one!!! (please ignore the glass cabinet doors on the floor, that is for another project in another part of the house) Adam surprised me this weekend by going and picking up the crib and having it put together by the time I arrived home on Sunday, bonus points for Daddy.

And here is looking from the other side of the room, the crib is a little bare right now but I think everything is going to come together really well. We obviously have bedding to put in, a changer for the top of the chest of drawers, some decorative things for the walls, a couple bookshelves, and curtains to hang. And just in case anyone was wondering that recliner/glider is definitely suitable for naps, I tried it out for a few minutes on Sunday :)

And here is all that stuff that was on the floor in the previous picture actually organized in a closet. We got this organizer from Ikea and it really maximizes the space. We have a few more shelves and stuff to get up but its functional for now. We also need to get the doors painted and hung, I guess the list never ends, does it??

No Pictures....but hey at least I'm updating

Just realized if I didn't update this blog soon, I will have gone a month without an update. So what has been going on around the Phillips home well after our Ikea trip we have done the following:

1. I can't remember exactly when but we finished all but a couple of like 4 x 12 inch spaces of the wood floor in the dining and kitchen, I think Adam has mentally blocked that there is any more of that to do :)

2. We set-up our dining room table and chairs that had only been the boxes probably close to a year, and installed the light fixture above the dining room table.

3. We built the Ikea bookshelf for the office and started putting some stuff on it, but then I figured out I have way more decorative stuff (or crap as Adam would probably refer to it) than I thought so I kind of stopped that process until we are ready to actually hang pictures and do the fine detail decorating.

4. We finished the horizontal stripes in the nursery, we have a few places to touch up but no one else would probably even notice them, so I don't see that at the top of the priority list.

5. We got all of the plastic up off the floor and nursery clear of non-nursery items so that we could start filling it with the stuff Baby P actually could use.

6. One night Adam and our friend Cory cleaned everything up and built our closet organizer system (again from Ikea) and moved our recliner/glider into the nursery.

7. I had my first shower last weekend so once I got home I went through everything and started filling her closet and organizing everything else into piles based on where it should go (i.e. chest of drawers, kitchen, bathroom, car, etc)

8. This week we unpacked the chest of drawers from the boxes and assembled it, other than putting on the knobs it is done and ready to be loaded.

It's so fun, her nursery is really starting to look like a nursery, I know pictures would be nice and I will have to take some and post them soon. We still need to paint and hang the closet doors, finish sanding and then paint the bookcases, pick-up the crib and put it together (hopefully our task for next week), and then eventually I need to get window treatments and hang things on the wall. So really not that much, I feel like we might actually be ready to bring this baby home sometime soon.

As for the rest of the house, it is honestly a bunch of little stuff that once the nursery is done we can hopefully check off the list pretty fast.

This weekend is what Adam is calling our last free weekend EVER! I think that might be a little dramatic, but I'm going with 6 of my good friends to stay in a cabin in Brown County from Friday until Sunday and Adam is doing.....well I'm not sure....but I will assume it will have a lot to do with watching football and weather dependent maybe visiting a state park and doing some outside activities.

Other than that we are just staying busy with Birthing classes and showers, and I'm very thankful that the sciatic nerve issues I was having a week or so ago have disappeared. I think I have a very obedient child or God had mercy on me, b/c after pleading that she please reposition herself somewhere besides the left side of my sciatic nerve she miraculously moved last Friday night and I was overjoyed to be able to walk and move like a normal person by Saturday morning, just in time for my shower. I'll be 32 weeks next week, so not much longer before she is no longer able to cause Mommy any pain, at least not from the inside :)

A once in a long while shopping trip....

That is hopefully what a trip to Ikea will be for us, because if we went and spent what we spent today, very often, we would be living in the cardboard they use to pack your stuff.

So our adventure started with a trip to Cincy to visit the closest Ikea we have and we had planned out what we were getting. I had a list, and with their handy-dandy website, I was even able to note the aisle and bin where the merchandise could be found.

Items on our List:

Hermnes 8 drawer white dresser for the Nursery
Expedit bookshelf and some of the storage containers for the office
Antonius closet storage system for the Nursery closet

Items we ended up taking home that were not on our list:

A glass front kitchen cabinet (Lindingo style with glass)to put above our kitchen cart, we planned to put a cabinet up there but we were going to either DIY or pay someone to replace the solid doors with glass fronts, now we don't have that project anymore!

A really cute and very soft golden retriever stuffed animal for Baby Girl

A little farm set for our niece for Christmas, she is obsessed with Horses and Cows right now and the set had both of those.

Very cool chair pads for all the dining room chairs and the 2 bar stools

2 drawer sets for the Expedit shelf system

A little kids table and chair set, we figured the other little ones in our life can use it now and our little girl will also be able to use in a good year or so.

There was also just a plain mirror to put on the back of my closet door, but in the process of removing stuff from the cart, the clumsy pregnant girl, knocked it out of the cart and it went crashing down to the floor. We were too worn out to go get another one, so I guess I just left with 7 years of bad luck and no mirror.

A nice surprise of the day was that our good friends Kim and Eugene had already planned to travel to the same Ikea today, so we ended up finding each other in the store. We had lunch with them in the quite yummy yet very inexpensive cafeteria area. Eugene also offered to help Adam load the truck with all the stuff, what a blessing that was, I am no help these days, and some of those boxes were pretty heavy. It was funny b/c before running into Parks we actually ran into another couple from our church, I guess it was Indy Common Grounders travel to Ikea day!

As if that wasn't enough damage done to our bank account, Adam thought it would be a fine idea to stop at L. Fish on the way home just to see if they had any glider or rocker recliners we might like. We actually did find one that we agreed was aesthetically pleasing, wasn't huge and would be to scale in the nursery, and most of all it was super comfortable. So that was our final purchase of the day.

At least I can now say that we have virtually everything we need for house and nursery (with the exception of the crib which I'm ordering this weekend). Anyone really good at assembly??? We have more items to assemble then I think we are going to care to assemble :)

I guess next up will be pictures of all these things in their proper place in the house.

Hello 3rd Tri and Nursery Sneak Peek

I have officially entered my 3rd trimester, this little girl is making her arrival in hopefully no more than 3 months :) I have heard the comments "Ok, now I can really tell you are pregnant" or "I can finally tell you are pregnant" a lot the last couple of weeks. I didn't think this bump was hiding anywhere for awhile, but I guess I finally hit the large enough to not confuse weight gain with pregnancy spot?

Here is the honorary belly picture:



We've also made some headway on our little girl's bedroom. Adam got done with the insulation, drywalling, and drywall finishing on Friday and then my parents came up and helped get the nursery to a point to paint. On Sunday we did some paint sampling with the little samples you can get at Lowes (what a lovely little invention) and determined our initial wall paint was too dark so we decided on something a bit lighter and then tried out our idea for the horizontal stripes. Adam then went to town and painted the whole rest of the nursery walls last night. We have some touch ups to do and then need to put the stripes on the wall. After that we will put up all the mouldings (window, door, and baseboard). Then it will be time to actually get the real stuff into the nursery.

A blank slate:



Our little horizontal stripe project:



Nursery nearly completely painted:

And the Mommy madness begins

Last night I found my inspiration for the nursery and thus I came home and searched for all of my other items so that I have everything ready to go when Daddy gets done with that mudding and sanding he has been working on this weekend.

Here is what I think we will be using for furniture pieces:

Crib

Dresser (we'll put a changing pad on top of this for the changing station)

Glider/Recliner

And this was our $24.99 inspiration that we found at, of all places, Lowes. We are planning to paint the walls the green color and then do some horizontal lines in the chocolate and plum color:

This is what I'm planning to use for the bumper and crib skirt:

And these for the sheets, I think it is fun that since I don't have a crib set, I can kind of make things fairly interchangeable:

And finally possibly this wall decal somewhere on a wall, maybe above the crib, but I would do the plum colored owl and chocolate colored branch:

I had initially considered doing more of a shabby chic thing, and this is a complete divergence from that, but I really like the different pieces. I think it looks childish enough without being too babyish, and yet still being girly enough.

Now if I could just get in there and put my thoughts into action!!! Patience, Mommy, Patience.

Finally a house update...Bath #2 and Laundry Room

We haven't just been sitting around watching my belly grow, we actually have been trying to get this house done so that when the Little Miss comes along there aren't anymore projects (or at least big ones) to complete.

After finishing the pantry (our last house post), we took some old kitchen cabinets and sanded them down then painted them white and put new hardware on them. We then put them up over the washer and dryer for storage and added a clothes bar for easier hanging up of clothes as we take them out of the dryer.

For old times sake here is the original laundry area when we moved in, we had the gorgeous wallpaper, lovely carpet, and even the occupants paint and kitty litter.

And here is our handy work.....

The bathroom was a much bigger project. We had to virtually rip everything out, reframe the room and rerun plumbing and electrical since we were going from a tiny half bath to a slightly larger 3 piece bathroom.

Again here was the loveliness we got to start off with:

After Adam had ripped everything out and before the rebuild started:

And our final product.....it really did end up being a nice bathroom, but it is really hard to take pictures of a long skinny room so just use your imagination on where everything is :)

The only thing we are waiting to complete is getting a shower door ordered and put in, but other that we are done with this little area!!!!

We have since started getting the nursery to a place where I can do my Mommy duties and make it look like a nursery. Dad (Adam) is doing the manly stuff right now like blowing insulation into the walls and finishing some drywalling. The insulation is done and the drywalling just needs to be taped, mudded, and sanded and then we will be ready for me to do the decorating, wooohoo!!

24 weeks .....The second trimester is almost over

I can't believe it has already been 24 weeks and that we only have 16 weeks until this little one is going to be making her arrival.

I read somewhere that my uterus is the size of soccer ball this week and Baby Girl is getting close to being a foot long and is weighing in at a whopping 1.5 lbs. If at this stage, she were to be born, there is a chance of survival with modern medicine, we of course are praying that she stays put for a few more months.

I had my monthly doctors appointment and everything looked good:

Blood pressure - good
Weight - good
Measuring right on schedule with my estimated due date
No signs of pre-eclampsia or any of those nasty pregnancy things

At my next appointment I get to drink the lovely sugary nastiness and then get my blood drawn to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes, this is just one of the normal tests as all you Mom's out there know. After my appointment in early September I start going every 2 weeks and then we are taking our prenatal (birthing and breastfeeding classes) in early October. I have a feeling that this fall is going to fly by!!

Happy Wife....Happy Life

Isn't that how the saying goes? That is what I said to Adam at about 11:00 pm on the night he finished the pantry and I was finished unloading our lovely plastic tote of food into the blessed little pantry.

I then realized I had lived for over a year and half with all of our food either in this large plastic tote seen below or on our counters. If you know me I might be disorganized in other ways but a messy kitchen drives me nutso, so how I lived this long without organization in my kitchen I don't know.

I think Adam was a little surprised at my cat like reflexes (from a 5 month pregnant woman at 10:00 pm) to unload that tote and some of our cabinets into the newly finished pantry closet.

It has been so nice to see what food we actually have and to not be afraid of spilling an entire box of spaghetti into the monster tote while looking for a can of salsa! I think all in all I'm an easy wife to please if all you have to do is put a few shelves in a closet and call it a pantry!!!

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the bathroom and laundry room to put in the blog soon, they are nearly done. We have actually been refinishing and painting some cabinets that were in the old kitchen for the laundry area, that process has been much easier than I thought it would be. Adam's answer to that was that sanding and painting cabinets are things normal people do in their normal home updates, not our normal crazy shanangins, he's right!