Update

Today was my appointment with my midwife and just wanted to give everyone an update.  I've been having contractions (on and off) but pretty regular since this past Saturday.  At one point on Saturday they were every 5 min. and this lasted for about 45 min.  Then, on Sunday they seemed less frequent, Monday during dinner I had another 1/2 hour or so at regular intervals and then yesterday, not much. So it seems to be an every other day kind of thing for me.  Of course, I know that this is all just "warm up" for the big event, but I am grateful to be contracting so early! Hopefully (Lord willing) this will help to make my true labor shorter! HA!

Anyway, Ronni did check me today and said that part (the first part) of my cervix is 1 cm, but not the whole cervix.  She actually whipped out some playdoh and made a fake cervix out of it to demonstrate! Jeff's comment afterward was, "I've seen too much...." :-))  

Of course, being only 1cm (sort of) is not much, but in my mind...it's something!!  To me, it means I'm not imagining things and we're starting to gear up!  Yea!  

I'll officially be 38 weeks on Friday (in 2 days), but as a comparison, I had M at 39wks, 1 day.  I also don't remember having so many "practice" contractions before going into labor with him.  Sooooooo, it may be anytime now!

Keep us in your prayers! 

Big News!

No, H hasn't arrived quite yet, but I do have other, exciting news to share with all of you.  For some time now my parents have been praying that God would open the doors that would allow them to move up to this area.  My Dad is originally from N.Jersey and my Mom is a Baltimore native.  They've lived in Florida most of their marriage and have spent the last 6 years in North Carolina.  They, of course, like any good Nana and PopPop have longed to be closer to their grandchildren and have been looking for job opportunities in the area.

Well, two weeks ago we learned of an opportunity for my Dad which he applied for and accepted which means they will be moving to the area!!  Praise God!  I'm so excited to have family close by again especially now that we have children and I know my parents are thrilled.

My Mom is currently researching nursing positions in the area as well.  

The biggest short term effect of all of this for Jeff and I is the fact that Dad has moved in with us temporarily.  He started his new job today, while my Mom still has to work out 30 days notice with her current employer AND the lease on their current apartment doesn't expire until mid-June.  Of course, they didn't want to have to pay for two places at the same time, so we offered to have Dad stay with us!

Boy are we about to have a full house! :-)

Please continue to be in prayer for all of us (especially for my Mom,  who is now by herself until the end of June).

Lots of exciting things happening around here!

Sick Day

For those of you that follow my hubby's blog, you know that Jeff has been feeling under the weather lately.  M, too, ran a fever a couple of weeks ago and now has a cough.  For myself, I've had a sore throat and what I thought were allergy symptoms, but now I'm not so sure.  All of my head congestion has moved to my chest, and I've been coughing so bad the last couple of days that it hurts to talk and my voice is just about gone.  YUCK!!

So, with all of my symptoms coming to a head today and just generally feeling physically run down, I took the day off and am going to try to rehydrate, rest and sanitize EVERYTHING!! :-)

Please be praying for the health of our family.  Of course I feel like this baby could come any day now and I certainly want to feel better before going into labor AND definitely want to bring him home to the healthiest home possible!  Thank goodness the weather has been pretty pleasant here lately and we've been able to open the windows and get some fresh air in the house.

We appreciate all of your prayers for us!  Now, it's on to a large glass of O.J.!

Friday Night Nesting

As I type this Jeff is on his way to watch the Phillies game with some friends and believe it or not, my "nesting" is so bad, that I chose to stay home on a Friday night to CLEAN instead of go to the game!  HA!  So, in order to keep myself on track (and to ensure, hopefully, that I don't spend the night on BLOGS) I am going to write down my goals for the night:

(By the way M stayed home with Mommy too and is happily watching Disney's "CARS" movie for the upteenth time!)

• Finally pack our bags for the hospital!
• Finish washing, folding and putting away the washcloths and hooded towels I dug out of boxes yesterday
• Wash and then sterilize all of the old bottles, pacifiers and "pump" parts that I also found in boxes
• Put a change of clothes in the car (just in case)
• Clean the kitchen
• Give M a bath and put him to bed
• Sweep the dog hair (the bane of my existence) off of the floors!!
• And for good measure...If I have ANY time left, clean the fish tank! 

Doesn't this sound like an exciting Friday night?!   

Now, too bad I wasted 20 minutes looking for a picture to go with this blog...

UPDATE:

It's now 10:00 and I've completed NONE of my tasks for the night! (*Sigh*)  Jeff, who's been suffering from weird cases of dizziness all week called me from the game not long after I signed off to ask me to come and pick him up. (You know he's not feeling well if I have to take him from a Phillies game!!)  Please pray for him, he's really been struggling to feel well lately. 

Better luck tomorrow, I hope...

Luminosity Photography

Updated: Sorry to say this link no longer works!  So bummed.  But seriously, check out their site HERE

Original Post:
No, that's not MY belly, but I did want to post a link to the slideshow of the AWESOME photos we had taken this past Tuesday night. Stephanie and Tammy did such a fantastic job, and I think you'll agree they definitely have a gift! We had such a fun time taking them and I'm thrilled to be able to share them with all of you! We are counting down the days till we can hold our precious new little boy!

Here's the link:

http://www.photobiz.com/slideshowbiz/slideshow.cfm?slideshowID=16729&photographerID=1589

Sorry it's so long, but this will take you directly to our slideshow. The pictures scroll thru pretty fast; if you want to view them slower just pause the show (bottom right) and then you'll be able to scroll thru one at a time. Would love to get some feedback of what you think!

Hope you enjoy!

Almost There!

The countdown is definitely in full swing at this point!  I hit the 35 week mark on Friday, and as you can see, I'm running out of room!  I'm feeling tired a little easier these days and forget about tying my shoes or painting my toenails!! HA!

Actually I'm excited to be using a gift certificate that Jeff treated me to for a spa package this coming Monday!  I'm having some maternity photos taken by some wonderful friends of mine, Stephanie L. and Tammy L. on Tuesday--you can check out their site here:  www.luminosityonline.com   

They do awesome work!  Soooo, Monday night I'm treating myself to a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure.  At least my hair and nails will look good!! :-)  I'll have to post a link to the photo album once I have access to it.  Please continue to pray with us for continued health for both myself and baby H.  We are so anxious to meet him!!  Pray also for the transition for M.  He is excited to meet his baby brother, and we talk often of how things are going to be once he's here, but I'm sure his arrival will bring some new challenges for us all!  

Now, it's on to packing our bags!!

Answered Prayers

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to Phil and Jenna Bachetti on the arrival of their new BABY GIRL!! Phil and Jenna (and of course Grandparents Ray and Linda) have ferverantly been praying that God would bless them with a baby girl this time and HE has answered their prayers! Thank you God for taking care of this little girl and for blessing this family with her birth. Please take care of Jenna now as she recovers and I pray that Fellowship would shower them with blessings and support!!

Weekly Highlights

Ok, so I know I've been a total slacker this past week with the blogging...something that totally annoys me as well!  It's been a busy week with many events that I could have been blogging about, but as you already know, have neglected to do until now.....no longer!!  I have made a new vow to myself that from this point on:  I WILL blog even if I don't have pictures to go with my "stories", I WILL blog about useless, random musings that happen to only be tiny insights into my life, and I WILL sometimes combine the ENTIRE events of the week into one posting instead of feeling guilty for not posting for each one separately!!!  There, now I feel better.

Sooooo, to kick off my new resolutions, let me bring you up to date on some of the highlights of THIS week.  Sorry, no pictures as of yet, but I WILL try to post some later!

• Last Saturday (March 29th) the WONDERFUL ladies of Fellowship held a baby shower for our VERY soon to arrive little man, H.  It was a great time, and I am so thankful to Kathleen and Courtney for putting this together for us.  You guys rock!  I never really expected to have a shower for our second, so I've been incredibly thankful and humbled that you all wanted to do this for us!  We are so blessed by Fellowship and all of our friends!
• This shower also inspired me to FINALLY get out all of the bins I've had stored in the basement with all of M's infant clothing.  It was fun to unpack and wash all of his little outfits and relive the memories of when he was that small.  It also makes H's pending arrival seem that much more REAL!  I had fun this week getting everything clean and put away in his closet.
  
• The nursery is really starting to come together!  This is also very exciting to me as I am definitely in my "nesting" period and want everything to be just right before his arrival.  This week we bought the rug for his room (we have all wood floors in the bedrooms) and just today bought the changing table and put it together.  Thanks SOOOO much Nana and Grandma for helping us with this!  It's beautiful!  Next week we are planning a yard sale and we hope to use whatever we make from that to purchase a new glider/ottoman.  So exciting!
• This past Wednesday two very cool things happened.  The first was my 34 week visit with my midwife, Ronnie.  She is wonderful and makes me feel so at ease and confident about my attempt at a VBAC.  For any of you guys reading who don't want the details of what that means, you might want to skip to the next bullet point NOW!  Of course, VBAC stands for Vaginal Birth After Cesarean, as M ended up a "C" after 16 hours of labor, me being stuck at 5 cm, and his continual heart decelerations.  I was very disappointed of course after having a wonderful, uncomplicated pregnancy and knew that I would want to attempt natural birth again with our next.  Well, this has NOT been an easy thing to get support for!!  Most OB/GYNs and hospitals discourage it or are not very supportive (from what I've found) with the idea of a VBAC.  Ronnie is the fourth provider I've seen during this pregnancy and I just started with her at 28 weeks!  It took me that long to find a provider AND a hospital that would be supportive in this endeavor!!  Please be praying with me/us for a healthy labor and delivery and above all a healthy little boy!  The second cool thing happened Weds. night.  I had a staff meeting for my job that evening at 5:00 which ended up being another surprise baby shower for myself and another coworker who's expecting her second as well!  I was soooo surprised!  We had a great time and we each received $100 worth of gift cards for the babies!  How cool is that?!
• That brings us to today.  M started running a fever this morning and again this evening so I probably will be keeping him home from church tomorrow.  I'm disapointed to miss being able to be in the audience tomorrow for a couple of reasons.  God recently led us to a new sound engineer (who rocks!)  and I was looking forward to "hearing" what the music was going to sound like tomorrow from OFF the stage!  The band is also doing a new favorite song "Break Free" which is totally rockin' (M requests it now EVERY time we get in the car) and I was looking forward to hearing it for the first time at Fellowship.  I pray that in all these things that God will receive ALL of the glory!  

For now, I am sooo tired,  having worked this morning for four hours, and I am definitely ready for some "down time" with Jeff (who was wonderful enough to give our little boy his bath and put him to bed!)  Now it's onto some popcorn, chillin' and watching WHATEVER!  Well, that's it for all of my updates!  Hope you all have a wonderful week and a blessed Sunday!!