45 minutes left until 2011…
No baby…
Not even in labor…
Goodbye tax deduction…
However, 1-1-11 is kind of a cool birthday, don’t you think?
Happy New Year, everyone!
Time’s Up!
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A Very Clean House
My goal for this week was to have a baby. Thus far, I have not accomplished my goal.
However, my secondary goal was that for every day I didn’t have a baby, I would get lots done around the house so that A) I would stay on my feet and hopefully accomplish my primary goal, and B) even if I wasn’t successful in inducing labor, I would at least have less to do once the baby does arrive.
So, no baby here, but I do have a pretty clean house, my hospital bag is packed, Christmas cards are almost ready to be mailed, I shoveled a wide path from our back patio door across the deck out to the grill, and I recruited Peter to help me with a variety of small projects around the house. Yesterday, we hung up the candle holders he gave me for Christmas. They look fantastic in the dining room above the buffet:
Eventually I’d like to get a mirror to go between them, but for the time being, we went with what we had, which was the School of Athens print that Peter brought me from the Vatican Museum during his trip there when we were in college.
It really feels good to have gotten so much done and also nice to to know that there is a deadline for everything. My midwife called and let me know that they were able to schedule my inducement for next Wednesday, January 5th. Of course, the baby could still come on her own before then, but one way or another, the end is in sight!
39 Week Check-up
Went to see the midwives today. I am now “definitely two centimeters.” The baby has dropped some from last week and my cervix “is favorable”. According to my midwife, all I need now is some good steady contractions and this baby should be on her way.
I’m off to shovel three feet of snow off the back deck…
Stay tuned.
Twenty Month Update
Yesterday was Alethea’s twenty month birthday. Happy birthday, Baby Girl!
I can’t believe how much Alethea has changed in the last month. She seems so much more grown up than she used did just a few weeks ago!
One thing I’ve particularly noticed is that she is getting more creative in her play and in associating things with each other. For example, the other day for lunch I gave her a cheese tortilla that I had cut into wedges. After eating a few of them, she held one wedge up and looking toward the Christmas tree in the living room, she said, “Tree!” I thought that was a rather abstract association since it must have been based on shape alone.
She also is getting much more direct in her communicating, even giving me commands like ‘up’ or ‘walk’ when she wants me to stand up or to go somewhere with her. Over the last week she has also told me ‘poop’ (as in “I just pooped in my diaper”) a few times. I’m wondering if that means we should start potty training soon.
Her new found communication skills do at times make it easier to know what she wants. She’s started to use the word ‘hurt’ which sure is a handy one. The other day she was whining at me and I asked her to use words to tell me what was wrong. She said ‘mouth’. After a quick peak inside I could see a bump on her gum line that would indicate that her two year molars are on the way in. That might explain why EVERYTHING is going in her mouth lately and why she’s constantly chewing on her fingers.
Another skill that we have been working on honing is counting. Alethea can now by herself recite the numbers from one to nine, although she always skips seven and eight is a little hit or miss. She does seem to really enjoy counting things though and is quite proud to tell you how many of something there are. Truth be told, she’s usually wrong, but she still likes to say a number!
She continues to enjoy her favorite toys: Dee (the puppy), Bunny (the giant pink rabbit), the swing in the baby’s room, the Little People farm, as well as her books and puzzles. She also has been playing quite a bit with her Christmas presents, in particular, her baby doll (who has to go everywhere with us), and all of the various toy food she received (she seems to like the cookies, rolling pin and eggs the most).
Other favorites currently include the color pink, the number two, Elmo, peanut butter, cereal bars, snow, taking baths, singing, dancing and playing the piano. She also loves being wherever I am and doing what I am doing, although I was impressed the other day when she took the initiative to go upstairs on her own to retrieve her bunny who had been left behind during the trip downstairs to get lunch. That’s the first time she’s ever made it all the way up without the incentive of having me waiting at the top of the stairs for her.
We are having so much fun watching her grow in her creativity and independence and as her days of being an only child come to a close, we look forward to getting to know her in her new role as Big Sister.
Christmas, Oh Baby!
Today is Alethea’s 20 month birthday, but because I haven’t done any blogging about our Christmas celebrations, I thought maybe we’d save the Alethea update for later and instead let you know that A) we haven’t had a baby yet, and B) we had a very nice Christmas!
First the baby part… I think we’re officially ready. Sure, there is more I could do, but I think we’ve got the main things covered – car seat pulled out of storage, hospital bag packed, baby book purchased. Now we just need the kid to take some initiative. I did do a purposely long ‘wondering the aisles’ trip to Target Sunday to see if I could get things moving, but no dice. Plan for tomorrow: clean the house from top to bottom and see if that does anything.
The good part about not giving birth is that we were able to enjoy all of our various Christmas celebrations. Christmas Eve we went to the service at church, which was just fantastic this year. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to really feel like we have a whole ‘family’ in our church, people who love and support us and would do just about anything for us. We are blessed to be a part of this church and celebrating Christmas together is just icing on the cake, so to speak.
After the service we enjoyed Chinese take-out (a long-standing tradition) with Peter’s family. There is a story behind the tradition, but even if there weren’t, it’s an easy tradition to embrace because take-out means NO COOKING!
Christmas morning came around and Alethea headed down the stairs in her Christmas jammies:
First up, the stocking:
Alethea was most pleased with the Clifford DVD and the bubble bath:
Next thing was opening presents. Alethea wasn’t very interested in the unwrapping process, but once she saw what was inside, she enjoyed her gifts. Her favorite by far was the doll:
Alethea has been a very attentive and affectionate new mother. We’re only just hoping that after months of telling her that a baby is going to come live with us, she doesn’t think this is it:
After our little family Christmas, we headed over to Peter’s parents’ house for more celebrating. We had a delicious breakfast and a fabulous dinner with present opening and family time sandwiched in between. Then today was Christmas with my family, also delightful and filled with good food and fantastic gifts.
We hope you enjoyed all of your Christmas festivities too! And thanks in advance for your thoughts and prayers over the coming days. This baby has got to come soon! (Right??!?!)
Busy, Not Giving Birth
It’s been four days since I last posted. Things around here have been a little crazy, but I haven’t gone into labor, so I thought I’d better post before people started wondering.
Here’s what we’ve been up to:
1) Monday & Tuesday – Making Christmas Treats
We managed to crank out some sugar cookies, cyclops cookies (aka peanut butter blossoms), cupcakes (from a box), caramel corn, puppy chow, as well as coated pretzels, which Alethea particularly enjoyed helping mommy make:
Taste testing counts as helping, right?
2) Tuesday – Party Prep
Tuesday night was my annual piano student Christmas party and mini-recital. Basically I have all my students over to our house and they play Christmas songs for each other and then we eat junk food and play music themed games. This year I tried something new – a build your own favor station:
It was a big hit with the kids, even with a strictly enforced limit on the number of pieces of candy they could take.
3) Wednesday – Errands, Check-Up and Lessons
I was fortunate to have lots of help from Alethea’s grandmothers on Wednesday, and thus was able to get to Target, go to my 38 week check-up, buy some more of Peter’s Christmas presents, and still make it home in time to teach several piano lessons.
Bad news is that my midwife said I’m dilated “one to two” centimeters. Basically, I think she just wanted to make me feel better that I’m not any further along, despite having so many contractions on Saturday that I briefly debated whether I ought to head to the hospital.
Good news though is that the lessons I taught were my last for December, so I am officially free to have this baby without having to do any make-up lessons or refunds. Woo hoo!
4) Today – Mommy and Alethea’s Fun Day
I’ve been feeling guilty that I’ve been so busy this week that Alethea has been forced to do a whole lot of self-entertaining, so today I planned to spend the whole morning doing Alethea’s favorite activities. We didn’t get as much time together as I anticipated though, because Alethea slept in ’till 10am (hope she’s not getting sick). However, Alethea did have fun taking a long bath with her tub toys and we also squeezed in some ‘art’ time. Our project – decorating paper gift bags with markers:
So that’s our week thus far.
On the docket for tomorrow: a little more shopping, then cleaning the house, followed by the Christmas Eve service at church, then hosting Peter’s family’s traditional Chinese take-out Christmas Eve dinner, and rounded off with a bit of gift wrapping and stocking stuffing before bed. Should be a delightful day!
How Quickly They Learn
Alethea has been a little clingy lately. I’m sure she senses that things are changing, being moved into a new room, a steady stream of new things coming into the house ‘for the baby’ and all of the hubbub surrounding Christmas are all probably a bit unsettling.
That’s why I’ve been trying to be extra sensitive and let her have more cuddling, hand holding and being picked up than usual. However, I think perhaps she’s starting to be take advantage of the situation.
Tonight we did our bedtime routine, said our prayers, sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and then I gave her a hug, tucked her in and told her goodnight. She said ‘hug’ and stood back up. I gave her another hug, laid her back down and told her good night. She said ‘hug’ and stood back up. We repeated the sequence. She said ‘hug’ for the third time and stood back up. I said, “You’re stalling, aren’t you?” She said, “Yeah.” I told her that she needed to go night-night and she laid back down without another hug and without complaint.
In this case, I feel that I handled it well, but in general, I wish it were easier to know when she really needs emotional support and when she just wants to get away with something by making me feel guilty. Sometimes I think she’s too smart for her own good.
A Trip to the Mall
Tonight Peter and I took the plunge and made our one and only trip to a shopping mall during the month of December. Given the nature of our errands, not just any mall would do, we needed one with stores no other mall has. Thus, after dropping Alethea off with Grandma and Grandpa, we headed to the Mall of America.
Neither one of us had been inside the MOA for years, so we were pleasantly surprised to be able to get a parking spot right near one of Bloomingdale’s front doors and find that the inside of the mall wasn’t too crowded.
After a trip to the LEGO store, we hit up a few other shops and then headed to the American Girl Store:
We walked in…
My reaction: “Oh wow, I would have loved this when I was a kid! They have everything here! It’s so different to see this stuff in person rather than just in the well-worn pages of the American girl catalogs we used to have at our house. I’d spend hours drooling over all the doll accessories!”
Peter’s reaction: “Every surface in here is pink.”
Fortunately Peter was able to hold the bright yellow bag with the big LEGO logo in front of himself like a shield to ward off all of the estrogen and we made it out of the store with only our intended purchase, a Bitty Baby doll for Alethea’s Christmas present:
Someday I’ll have to go back with Alethea. It’d be nice to spend a little time browsing through the displays with someone who has a little appreciation for the magic of it all!
A Lovely Gift
Tonight one of my piano students brought me a Christmas present…
A half-pound box of Godiva Belgian chocolates!
Now I never turn down chocolate, but there is chocolate and then there is CHOCOLATE!
I like chocolate, but I really love CHOCOLATE.
However, in this case, what was even better than the CHOCOLATE, was the note inside the card:
“Hope you have a faboulouse Christmas and New Year!”
Followed by:
“P.S Hope your baby will be smart, good and sweet!”
“Enjoy your holidays!”
The Magic Word
Today was a big first for me, because today at my 37 week check up with my midwives was the first time outside of the hospital that I’ve ever heard the word ‘dilated’ used in the context of, “Yes, you are dilated.” What a beautiful word!
You see, despite carrying Alethea to 42.5 weeks, my body never began dilating on it’s own. It was finally forced into it in a successful last ditch effort to avoid a c-section. Of course, Alethea did eventually arrive and was healthy and strong, so it all worked out in the end, but I have to say that it was so depressing to go to appointment after appointment (and spend 2 days in the hospital going through failed inducement attempts) and be still told “Sorry, we don’t know why, but you’re not dilating, not even a little bit.”
Thus, you can imagine my relief when the midwife told me today, “Hey, you’re dilated to one centimeter.” I know it’s only one tenth of the way there, but at least I’m guaranteed that whatever else happens, I won’t have to go through everything that I went through with Alethea. Whew!
The baby is still sitting high, and there isn’t any indication that she’ll make a sudden appearance in the next few days, which is good, because we are SO not ready yet. Funny how I went from being nervous about going way overdue again to being nervous that Baby B will show up before we get everything prepared for her.
I did ask at my appointment whether they would let us induce at 39 weeks, which is the week between Christmas and New Years and I was told that since my last child was so large, the midwives would let me be induced, but unfortunately the hospital doesn’t allow scheduled inducements during that time frame. Something about hospital staff wanting time off for the holidays. What’s up with that?!?! Don’t they know we want our tax deduction?!?!
However, they can’t turn us away if B decides to come on her own, so I’m already looking into ways to get her to come early. For sure I need to get the treadmill cleaned off, so I can do a whole lot of walking that week. Of course, with Alethea I even tried sprinting on the treadmill at around 41 weeks and it did nothing except make me exceptionally sore. But this time is different… this time I’m dilated!