Yesterday was my first outing away from 7 - I had only bought one nursing bra before he was born, and decided I really needed to go get another. We planned the whole afternoon out - Kyle's parents were coming to visit around 1pm, he'd be ready for a feeding around 2-3pm, and immediately afterward, my mom and I would run to the closest Motherhood store to get fitted and maybe pick up another nursing shirt or two. I knew I had at least 2 hours, possibly 2 1/2, to get out and back before it was time for 7 to eat again. Everything was going according to plan, until it was time to leave. Mom had walked down to Ashley's house, so I drove down to pick her up, but the car was on empty (no baby on his way, so no pressing need to keep the car above a half tank every day!) so we had to get gas. First gas station, the pump was broken. As was the next pump over. The rest of the gas station was full, so we left and headed to the next gas station down the road. It was packed too, but we finally were able to gas up and hit the highway.

We headed to the mall, and I swear, when we pulled up, I thought there must be some big event going on - the ENTIRE parking lot was full! I mean, it rivaled the weekend before Christmas traffic! It took awhile to find a place to park, and we went inside to figure out what the big deal was and hit the store. The mall was so crowded, we couldn't walk quickly without running into people. As I rounded the corner to the Motherhood store, I discovered that...it was gone. It was there two weeks ago, b/c Joe and I mall walked at this very mall in the week between the baby's due date and actual arrival, and now it was completely closed up, along with a bunch of other stores in that stretch of space. And no indication if it had moved somewhere else in the mall, or was gone for good. Mom and I split up and each took one level of the mall, trying to see if it had moved, and found out, nope, it was just gone.

By this time, I was getting rather frustrated. I'd been gone for an hour and a half since the start of the last feeding, and was running low on time. We hopped in the car, headed to Babies R'Us, as I knew I could at least get a few things there. It was packed too... but we had success and managed to get back with about 20 minutes to spare before 7 was hungry enough to eat. The last few weeks here have been really cold, and with the awful weather last weekend, I think this weekend's sunny, 40 degree weather brought everyone out.

And without further adieu, here are more pictures of the cutest baby in the world!

 

 

The little guy is still doing great. He's eating every 2-3 hours, with a couple of 3-4 hour stretches every once in a while. We're still figuring out our evening schedule, and Joe's been a big help trying to stay up till midnight or later so I can get to sleep early, while I take the rest of the night shifts. My mom is staying with us to help out, which really has been great for everyone (dogs included - they're going to gain 5 pounds each with the number of treats they're getting!).

We put baby Joe in his swing for the first time yesterday, and it was a great success. He was quiet and alert for a while, before dozing off and staying asleep for over 3 hours! We also introduced him to his Fisher Price seahorse, which I guess is the updated version of the GloWorm. It plays music and the belly lights up, and he seemed intrigued by it.

I swear I'm not as tired as I look! This is from this morning, along with the seahorse picture. I finally got a few hours of sleep and feel much more like a normal person today. I know the next few weeks are going to be rough, but it's so worth it when I get to be with this precious baby!

We're In Love

We now have our first full day at home under our belts, and things couldn't be better! Little Joe did fantastic during his first full night - we set up the pack and play in our room next to my side of the bed. One of the benefits of having such a small master bedroom is there's only a few inches of space to squeeze the pack and play in, so all I need to do is roll over and don't even have to get out of bed to check on him. The baby wanted to feed just about every three hours, and was quite content to fall right back to sleep. I don't think the first night could have gone any smoother! Joe had to go to work in the morning, so I took over all of the nightly duties.

We spent a rather lazy morning getting up and moving, and my parents came by a little after noon to visit and help out. Ashley is loving her status as aunt and the flexibility in her job to stop by, so she came over a few separate times to see the baby. (Amazing how when it's just Lilly, her dog, that needs to be let out she can't seem to find the time to get home, but things are plenty flexible with the baby! :)) Although who can blame her with a newborn this adorable right down the road.

After Joe got home from work and we ate dinner, we decided to give the baby his first bath at home. Big Joe had videotaped the nurse giving little Joe a bath in the hospital and spent a few minutes studying up on the technique while I fed the baby. We discovered that little Joe is not a fan of being washed while lying on his back, enjoyed it while he was on his belly, and loved having his hair washed! Afterwards, daddy wanted to spent some time cuddling with him on his chest to warm him back up. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more!

 

 

 

 

Things are going better than we ever could have hoped and we continue to be amazed at how incredible this little guy is!

Home Sweet Home

*this is the post I wrote on Sunday, so sorry for the delay...more pics below! 

Today has been a big day for little Joe. We had a typical newborn night, with a bunch of feedings, some sleeping for dad, a little less for baby, and very little for me. Part of that is my own fault... this baby is just so incredibly cute and cuddly! As is par for the course this winter, we are in the middle of another bad storm today, that started out with lots of rain late last night and some big snowflakes, turning into freezing rain, ice, sleet and more snow all day today. We were concerned about being discharged during the worst of it, so our doctor made sure to swing by in the morning to check us out. A little miscommunication between us and the nurses delayed us a bit, so by about noon we were finally packed up and ready to head for home. Except the nurses and lactation consultant recommended I have a breast pump on hand, which I didn't, and we didn't want to be stuck in a snow storm needing to get out. So we quickly swung by Babies R'Us to pick up a pump, a mirror for the car to see his carseat, and a new baby gate that Joe had wanted to get. Being the paranoid brand new mom, I was hesitant to even bring the baby in, but we were in and out in under 10 minutes. So the little guy has already had his first shopping trip, and did really well - no fussing or anything!

We headed straight home, showed the baby his room, and got him all set to have his first meal in his own room. He is usually really alert while feeding, and while I know he can't focus on the images, he seemed really entralled by the big yellow boat and red dogs on the wall right behind our nursing chair. My family came over around 3 to visit, and the baby's been great with taking long naps, feeding on a somewhat regular schedule, and we haven't had any real issues (knock on wood!) with him breast-feeding. All in all, our first couple have days have been great!

I'm doing well - not on pain meds, and moving around slowly, but it's getting easier. I took my first post-delivery shower last night and was amazed at how much better I felt. We'll see how this week goes as we figure out life as the parents of a newborn!

 Dad's first diaper change

The attorney work product t-shirt Joe made for little Joe. He's definitely our biggest success thus far!

 

  

  

In the carseat waiting to go home!

How did the widgit know?

How did the baby widgit know that the baby was gone? Weird.

22 hours later, I have my computer

Checking in at the hospital

Hooking up the sensors

Hooray for epidurals!

Put me back!

In the nursery warming up. The nurses wanted to keep him warm with a heat lamp to start so that he didn't have to burn his own calories to maintain his body temperature. The foil sticker on his belly is monitoring the temperature.

Sleepy tiger. 7 was born to MU grads in the chinese year of the tiger.

I spy a family.

20.0 inches

5:00pm, 8lbs 12ozs. Everyone is healthy.

9cm. They're going to start getting things set up to deliver.

7+, almost totally thinned out, 0 stage

6cm

4cm, 90%, -1

Epideral is go. Lauren says the epideral hurt less than the IV.

Timestamp set to local time

IV drugs started for VII

7:40am: Dr. vs water. Dr wins.

7:50am: Paperwork. Apparently, we are not to sue them.

3:37am: Last time written down before Joe fell asleep.

4:30am: Lauren fell asleep.

5:30am: Wake up to go to the hospital.

7am: Arrive at the hospital

11pm: Repack the bag. Shower. Ready for bed.

12am: Labor starts on its own.

1am: Contractions are regular enough to start timing.

Case of the Sevens

Well, today was the last chance for the baby to decide to make an appearance on his own. Apparently he's quite the procrastinator, taking after his dad. I woke up this morning and realized that I was having stronger contractions, averaging about 8 minutes apart, for the first few hours of the morning. However, as morning turned into afternoon, they subsided and became very inconsistent. I'm still making some progress and think I'm probably in very early labor stages, but contractions aren't getting closer together - just a little more painful. I took the opportunity to get a manicure, pick up some dog food (I don't think they'd appreciate not eating because of their new family member!) and just relax today. Joe's on his way home from work and we'll take the dogs on a nice long walk, and take advantage of the beautiful weather - we finally hit 50 degrees today! So unless something changes, and quickly, it looks like we'll be heading to the hospital first thing in the morning to start the induction process.

So apparently Joe 7 didn't want to show up 7 days early, or on Feb. 7th, but has an excellent chance of being born 7 days late, if all goes well! Keep your fingers crossed - maybe this time tomorrow we'll have a baby!

At the end of my doctor's appointment yesterday, the doctor said she really hoped she'd see me back within 24 hours... 27 hours later, and I'm still sitting here, waiting. Time is running out to make your debut naturally, baby Joe!

The weather today was really quite nice for the first time in a long time - sunny and finally above freezing... a high of 38 degrees! After work I cleaned the floors, as they had quite a few dog tracks all over them, did a few loads of laundry, took the dogs for a walk, and now am settling in for another evening of watching the Olympics. I've been saying that I have a feeling the baby is coming tomorrow every day for the last 10 days... maybe tomorrow's his day! If not, we've only got one more day to wait - it feels unreal, since we've been waiting for so long.

Well, we had our 41 week appointment today. The good news is she didn't make us schedule a follow up - at some point before the end of the weekend we should have a baby! She said I'm a little more dilated (although we think she might just be trying to come up with encouraging words for us) and went ahead and stripped my membranes. Apparently in some women this initates labor, and others does nothing. Here's hoping we're in the first group and back at the hospital within the next day... I really want to avoid being induced, but if it comes to that, oh well. We'll keep you posted in case things change!

Baby Widgit

Apparently, it calculates days away from due date, not days before. The result, if you have noticed, is that it thinks there are currently 4 days before 7 is due instead of showing that he is 4 days overdue.

I wonder if the baby will get smaller if we leave the widgit up.

Thank goodness for the Olympics. Nothing like multiple hour blocks of sports that at any other time of the year you don't care about to keep your mind busy(ish). Still no baby, so I guess he agreed with us that Valentine's Day wouldn't be a good birthday.

Still just waiting.... and getting very impatient!

Fashionably Late...

Well, unless he shows up sometime in the next 8 hours, the baby is going to miss his due date. And I for one think it's not very nice that since 37 weeks my doctor has been telling us that she'd expect he'd be here by his due date! Oh well. Although I know he can't be stubborn for much longer, each day seems agonizingly long and boring. At this point, I'm assuming he's going to come on Sunday, just because I don't want him to have to share his birthday with a holiday.

Here are the 40 week, due date pictures. Although I feel like I can't get any bigger, I am thankful that my belly has managed the crazy weight gain and stretching well - no stretch marks so far, and my belly button is almost totally flat, but hasn't "popped" out.  Bending over is quite the chore, and getting laundry out of the machines is getting tricky, as my belly keeps getting in the way. And yes, I've reached the point where all of my shirts are too short to completely cover the bottom of my belly. You'd think the draft might get annoying for the little guy, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

Here's hoping that the next set of pictures we post is of a much cuter little baby, and not me anymore!

Mmm, Pancakes!

One of the things I love about weekend mornings is the ability to take the time to make things for breakfast that we don't eat during the week. Especially pancakes and/or belgian waffles. Except Joe isn't usually in the mood, so it doesn't happen very often. This morning I decided to take advantage of the fact that I have plenty of time on my hands, so after Joe left for a bankruptcy seminar, I decided that instead of the usual oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, I'd make myself pancakes! They were quite delicious, if I do say so myself, and the dogs thoroughly enjoyed the leftovers. It's the little things, right?

I wish I had something new to discuss but I don't. Still just waiting. The baby's movements have definitely slowed down this week and I'm still having irregular contractions. One of these days my body is going to kick it into gear; we just don't know when!

I'm beginning to think Joe and I may actually be able to go see the movie "Valentine's Day" that opens on Friday - it looks really cute and we were both kinda sad that we may have to wait for it to come out on DVD if 7 showed up early. We aren't making any actual Valentine's Day plans, hoping that we'll have our hands full by Sunday!

Back to 2 Hands

Well, at our doctor's appointment this morning, we discovered that there's no change in my progress. Boo. She's still optimistic that he'll come on his own and she won't need to induce, but we went ahead and set another weekly appointment for next Tuesday. She did say things were favorable if we wanted to go ahead and be induced, even before then, but Joe and I figured it's best to wait at least another week to see if I go into labor naturally. Joe's books fill up about a week out and we were hoping to set something that would work best for his schedule, so we confirmed that we could schedule the induction for a week from this Friday, when I'd be 41 weeks exactly. So at least we know that at some point within the next 10 days, we'll have a baby! Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

Back to waiting...

Every Day

So for those who have commented that the frequency of our posting leaves something to be desired, I'd like to point out that we've been much better lately - at least one post every day so far in February! :) Of course, it's much easier when there's something to talk about... or not.

My job is a Tuesday-Saturday job, so I have Mondays off. The last few I've gone to work with Joe so I'm not sitting at home bored, but have decided in case I do go into labor, I'd rather be at home than trying to deal with contractions and being pleasant around his clients. So today, with the little bit of snow we've had, I'm stuck inside. And very bored.

Joe and I decided that one of the dogs, probably Molly, needed to step up and be useful. There's seeing eye dogs, service dogs that detect if someone's about to have a seizure, why not dogs who detect when labor will start? We've tried to convince her to work some magic and convince the baby to come, but so far she's failing in her new "labor dog" duties.

Tomorrow morning is our 39 1/2 week doctor's appointment. I guess we'll find out if all of the contractions I've been having this week have resulted in any more progress, and determine when she wants to start talking about an induction date, if it comes to that.

One hand!

We can now count the days on 1 hand. Some friends of ours from school had their 2nd kid 2 days ago. They were due 1 day before us.

That's crap.

And we're still waiting...

Snowy Friday

I wanted to practice sending pictures from my phone to the blog, so the first two are below. This is the view out of my kitchen of the snow falling today. They predicted 2-3", but the snow is still coming down so we'll see what we end up with. It's so pretty, I wish the baby would decide to come out and see it for himself! BTW, today is 39 weeks - so 7 more days until the baby gets served his eviction notice. Hopefully it doesn't come to that! :)

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Still Waiting

Waiting on the baby to arrive really is tons of fun. Tons. I'm about to take the dogs on a nice long(ish) walk to see if that changes anything, other than the dogs' level of energy. With snow in the forecast, I imagine we won't get out much in the coming days, at least not for long walks.

I wish I had more to update, but the house is practically spotless, the freezer is full, the dogs are lazy, Joe's working as much as possible to stay ahead and I'm working from the couch with my legs up, trying to pay attention to whether any of the contractions I've been having over the past two days are turning into anything more, which they don't seem to be... there's nothing left to do but wait!

Single Digits!

I can hardly believe we've made it to single digits! Now that we have a snow storm headed our way tomorrow night, and another early next week, I'm assuming the baby will decide to come in a few days, right in the middle of the snowy mess. We'll just have to wait and see!

All of this nesting and subsequent cleaning is starting to rub off positively on Joe, which is great! I don't think our house has ever been this clean for this long. I'm doing the last little bits today, with washing pillows and our comforter, since both needed to be done. Also, I've been feeling like eating pumpkin bread, so I made a batch this morning. I have to use up a few perishable ingredients, so I'll probably spend some more time baking this afternoon.

7 is being a punxatony

At this point, I think I have concede that 7 is unlikely to be born today. He must have seen his shadow.

I didn't even realize today was groundhog's day until Lisa suggested adding to the cross-stitch so that it said birthday, weight, length and whether or not he saw his shadow. That would have been hilarious.

Who knows, maybe he is holding out for sunday. I could go for VII on the 7th.

Eggplant parm check. Currently doing laps around the train tracks.

02/02/10?

Last week, the Dr. refused to say the word, "early." She said that given Lauren's progress, that she did not expect him to be late, but would not say early.

At the Dr. today, Lauren was almost 100% effaced. I guess that made the Dr. comfortable enough to declare that he should be here this week.

At our baby classes, one of the neat things that we learned is that a surge in the nesting instinct can be an indication of impending spontaneous labor. Often, moms will get an urge to clean and organize the day before she goes into labor.

Lauren just IMed me to let me know that in the last 3 hours since I dropped her off, she has cleaned out the garage, organized the basement and cleaned out her car. She is on her way to vacuum it out and get it washed.

02/02/10?