Basket Weaver

Thursday evening I ventured to Brecksville for some old fashioned fun.  Seriously.  I went basket weaving.  My friend Amy and her family have taken a few basket weaving classes at the Brecksville Center for the Arts, and I got to tag along.  Amy's family is lovely, and they were fun to chat with.  The Basket lady, Karen, was super nice.  I think it was a combination of my self-deprecating attitude and the fact that I'm about to pop, but she looked after me a ton.  She kept doing all the hard parts for me, it was funny.  

I got to make a wine basket, and if you want it then you should head over to Mere's Blog soon.  She's having an online auction to help raise funds for her Ethiopian adoption!  The auction hasn't started yet, but keep an eye out - it's coming soon.

Whoa Baby

I was hoping this was going to be the last belly pic (especially since there's just no looking cute at this point), but it looks like our little guy wants to stay put for a bit longer. 

Also, my kiddos at work have been asking to see the baby.  They said he can come out soon, but when he does they're all calling dibs on getting to hold him.  My friends (the ones my age) have all been calling this babe "Moses" for a few months now.  Since it fits with the hints we've given out - Old Testament, Two Syllables.  It kind of stuck and so that's been his nickname.  It's even trickled down to my kids.  One of them told me on Wednesday that she wanted to meet baby Moses.  Too sweet.

I never knew....

I went twenty-six years without knowing that I have a freckle on the inside of my belly button.

I left my house at 6:30am Thursday morning, as per usual.  Went to my doctor's appointment at 4:30 to check on the little guy.  And an hour later I was in an ambulance speeding down Mayfield (With two hilarious EMTs).  

While in the office, the doctor thought our little guys heart rate decelerated a ton, and she thought I'd been in labor all day without knowing it.  (Side Note: if that's labor - I've got nothing to worry about).  She held the Doppler on my belly while completely freaking out and yelling for every single person left in the office.  Talk about panic inducing.  A very not calm doctor lends itself to having a very not calm Mama.  Luckily, when she went to attend quickly to another patient, one of my favorite doctors in the group took over for a  minute.  Night and Day.  He was so reassuring and calm, Dr. R definitely has a way with making you feel better and calmly explaining what might be going on.  (Sondra and I saw him once early on in the pregnancy, after one of my massive bleeding episodes, and he had the same demeanor.  So kind.)  

Luckily we only live two minutes away from the office and Steve was home for the day.  I made someone give me my cell phone and called him and told him to get up there right now.  He arrived about the same time as the EMTs.  Keep in mind that the lady doctor has been continuously freaking out these ten or so minutes.  Ack.  I definitely didn't want to take any chances with our baby's well-being, and had no objections to being carted off in an Ambulance, but if it had been just me and her in the office I would have thought our baby was dying.  Luckily there were lots of other people around to express (wordlessly) that she was, perhaps, being a bit over the top.  That helped. 

The nice burly EMTs (In bright pink breast cancer awareness shirts) loaded me up and off we went.  They were excited to hear I was from Zanesville (You know, all that wild animal stuff.) and we sat (Well, they sat) and we all chatted merrily down Mayfield and through Little Italy.  They even took me all the way up to the Labor and Delivery room, instead of just throwing me in a wheelchair down in the ER.  They were awesome.

As soon as we got up to the Labor and Delivery floor they hooked me up to a fetal monitor and tried to figure out why I was there.  Since I wasn't on a monitor at the office, and it was just the doctor speculating about what happened they weren't sure what to do.  The doctor on call said he wanted to monitor me overnight, get an ultrasound in the morning, and probably send me home after that.  So that's what we did.  Baby's heart rate never once dropped again, and every single test they ran came back perfect.  They checked his brain functions, blood flow and circulation, movements, and his heart rate had lots of nice accelerations in it.  Dr R. was on call in the morning and he was so wonderful again. (Seriously, I'm enamored with him and my actual Doctor.  Both are amazing.)  Dr. R said he had stopped in over night and checked on me, and was certain I'd have had the baby by Friday morning.  I was having contractions every two minutes for quite awhile, but they never turned into anything big. (Again, if that's labor, then I'm all about it - unfortunately I think it gets worse.)  

Dr. R. said they didn't know what to do with me (I got told that a lot).  He thought the baby would have been born already, and he explained all the possible reasons the lady doctor would have heard a deceleration the previous evening (one of which was that she didn't actually hear his heart rate go down).  He said if we really wanted them to they could induce me, but it'd be a really hard induction since my contractions had basically stopped and there were no signs of labor.  Or we could go home and wait.  So that's what we did.  If induction was the right thing to do we certainly would have stayed, but none of the doctors saw any reason to hurry things along.  I have an appointment on Monday afternoon to get monitored at the office again, and so we're just going with the flow now.  

This baby has basically run the show since day one.  We're on the lookout for stronger contractions, and any decrease in movement - otherwise we're waiting.  Basically: who knows.

Baking Day

Yesterday we made:

Thirteen Apple Pies,

Seven Mini-Lasagnas,

Ten containers of Pasta Sauce.

My freezer is getting full.

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  A day that I'm fairly certain no one thinks they might one day observe.  I certainly didn't.  Until last year, I didn't know such a day existed.  I've typed the phrase "Today we remember..." several times, but it doesn't quite fit.  I remember our first sweet babe on more occasions than this.  Sure, there are dates that stand out, ones that we've passed in the last year.  May 8th, when our little one should have been coming into the world.  The weekend of September 11th, when our babe left us.  And today, when those who have experienced losses collectively remember all that those losses mean.  This time last year a sweet lady invited me to vigil for women honoring their babes, at the time I was too defeated to even consider going.  I was broken and felt destroyed.  And while part of my heart will always break for what I lost, I am not destroyed and I am not defeated.  My first little love has made an indelible impression upon my heart, and I am determined to use that for a greater good.  In that vain, if you know anyone who has experience a loss This Organization helped me beyond measure.  Peace Bears.  A lovely friend sent one to me, and simply knowing that she cared, was trying to understand, and that there were people who had been there and were willing to acknowledge all that my loss meant - well, that meant the world to me.  Our bear sits in our living room, holding onto the word "Hope."  That's what our loss has turned into, what our loss signifies to me, hope for things yet to come.

Recap

I didn't think it would ever happen...but a few people have balked that there's been no legitimate updates on the blog.  So here we go...

Looking back, I haven't put pictures up since before the baby shower.  Here's a pic from that...it was super fun and I love everyone.  Mere and Sondra were amazing, as always.  And Ann avoided stabbing me with a pin while trying to attach my corsage.  I was clearly worried, as evidenced by my face.

Here's my belly semi-recently.  It seems so long ago that it was little.  It's giant now.  Again, my face clearly says "Argh! Huge!"  Also, I got a flu shot.  Yay!  Only it kinda stunk.  I completely, totally, and honestly love the nurse at work.  But out of the twenty-five flu shots she administered, mine was the only one that got jacked up.  I had to, in essence, get two.  That wasn't fun, but it's okay, I got a rockin' band-aid.

Daytona Beach! Steve and I are terrible at taking pictures.  I mostly mooch them off of other people and steal them from Facebook.  We need to get better at that, like right now.  We only took a few shots of me and my awesome maternity suit, because I loved the suit and was feeling pretty darn good about my belly.  That changed as soon as I got home and went to the doctor and the lady that weighed me yelled at me.  That part wasn't fun at all.  She was mad because I gained five pounds in three weeks, and I was kinda mad too.  But then I realized those five pounds took me up to a whopping 24lbs total, in eight months.  Not bad, eh?  So forget you, angry OB weigh-er lady.

Lastly, this weekend.

The city of South Euclid said we needed to paint our house.  So we did.  Well, Steve and my Mom did.  Have I mentioned how awesome my husband and mother are?  My mom is amazing, she's been helping out these past months so much, and to come paint my house - I mean come on! How much more amazing can you get.  And Steve, well he picked out the house paint almost entirely by himself, and was solely responsible for painting the front of our house.  It completely sucked and was super hard work, but he did a phenomenal job.  Also, we took a time-out on Sunday morning to go watch a friend run the Towpath Marathon.  It was as close as Steve or I will ever come to a marathon of any sort.  Unfortunately, we could only swing seeing Mike at the first checkpoint, he looked good at mile three (hehe.  But seriously, some people at mile three looked downright exhausted...not a good sign).  I was fun to cheer Mike on with his family, and we were a bit envious of the caravan action that was going to take place to see him and his running buddy Steve at all the other checkpoints.  We're kind of hoping he'll run another marathon in the future so we can tag along for a full morning of spectator fun.

The extent of our participation in a marathon. 

Our House Before...

Our Green House!  It looks amazing, 

way better than my inadequate pictures 

portray.  Stop by and see it for yourself....

So that's pretty much it.  Except I went to the doctor today, and this babe is nice and dropped.  Whoa, did I mention we're going to be parents soon?  Ack.

Autumn

I hate giving up Summer.  But I do love Autumn, mostly.  I abhor that it leads into Winter, if not for that small fact I'd certainly enjoy Autumn tons more.  As it stands, I'm happy to be back to drinking tea, eating oatmeal, and wearing slippers.  Yay!