On the Move (again)

I know it's been a couple of weeks since I posted any baby updates. That's mostly because we had no news. And the good news is, we still don't have much. Baby is starting to be on the move again and I am now more effaced and dilated to a whopping 2. We have no idea how long/short it will take again for her to keep moving on down at this point. Since we made 37 weeks, we are technically considered "full term." This is truly a feat nobody (not even us nor the doc) thought we would make. Any time this little diva decides to grace us with her presence, we are ready and willing! Our anxiety is now turning from worrying about keeping her in there to an anxious excitement getting ready to meet our baby girl.
We are both glad that she stayed in and getting a little impatient for her to make her next move at the same time. Grandma Braska and Aunt Kari are in town this week. We were all hoping that she would make her appearance while they are here so they get to meet her before going back to Omaha, but it's any body's guess at this point. The doc still thinks I'll go into labor on my own soon. But he also says at 39 weeks we will talk inducement. That's only a week and a half away! I can't believe she'll be here either way between now and the 17th. Can't wait!

Up on the Wall

Last night was Back to School night at Caleb's school. He really wanted us to go meet his teachers, so we decided to go. On our way to his classroom, walking past the office we noticed some new pics they had hanging on the wall of about 15 students or so. Right at the very end of the hall before we turned the corner, bam! Guess who popped up? It's Caleb!

I asked him if he knew it was there and of course he told me, "yes, it's been there all year (all 4 days of it so far)." Well geeze, thanks for letting mom and dad know that you'll be gracing the halls for a while. It's really fun to see him there and have proof that yes, he does pay attention in school. Look at that concentration. We are so proud of our student.

2nd Grader!

It's official. Caleb starts the 2nd grade today. Isn't he one handsome lad? He's very excited (and so are we) to be going back. He got up by 6 this morning and has already had breakfast and gotten ready to go. I can't believe I am old enough to have a 2nd grader. But I also can't believe I am old enough to be the mother of 4 (here shortly). Where does the time go?

Here's hoping for a great first day of school and another great school year!

Art Show

Feeling a little bored and in a semi-creative mood today we headed to Michael's to find a craft. The boys all picked out a toy to paint. Zaden picked out a snake and the other 2 picked out spiders. We came home and set up shop on the counter and let them at it. It started out pretty well.

And as soon as we weren't looking the twins took a more modern approach to painting. Body Art! They painted their arms and Zaric painted his hair.

Picasso has nothing over on our little artists. Even the tub water was pretty afterwards.

Eat your heart out Michaelangelo.

She's Teasing Us

I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful. Hurting everywhere, having some contractions and feeling like I got hit by a mac truck. I told Mike and my sister that this was going to be the week....I just knew it.And truthfully with school and everything starting next week, it would be a great week (not baking-wise, but schedule-wise). Well little girl must have already caught on that she's coming into a family that loves to tease each other and is already showing us what she's got. After all of the headaches, worries and grief she gave us weeks 31-33, she's decided to tease us and do what she should be doing and staying put.
It seemed like an eternity to get to our Dr. appt this afternoon. When we were heading to the back with the nurse we passed the Dr. in the hall and his exact words to us were, "Wow, are you still pregnant?" Seems he was/is as surprised as the rest of us. He did a quick check of everything and wanted to take bets on when she was coming. He said he would be surprised if we go another week, but that's what he's said the last few weeks. So the next baby-step goal is one more week to 36. He joked with us once that maybe we'd go past due. I think I will go crazy before that happens, but we'll just see what little girls plans are.

Hold Out

I'm happy to report that (at least for a minute) little girl is holding out and staying put. As of this morning's Dr. Appt there was no change. We still don't know how much longer this can hold, but that restored our confidence a little. We asked the Dr what he thought time- wise and he really couldn't say. He told us not to have her this week since he's out of town the rest of the week and he'd really like to be there. We replied with "yeah next week is better for our schedule too." He said with a patient like me it could be tomorrow, days or maybe even another week before we see a change. So our next goal is 1 more week (35 weeks). We go back again next Monday to check again. It was a short, sweet and happy appt. He mentioned possibly making it to even 36 weeks, but for now that seems a little too far out (for us and him) so we'll stick with the 35 weeks. The contractions are still there but so far less again so that's helping us keep our sanity up and our paranoia down a little.
I don't know why I ever doubted (if even for a few days) this little girls name. Really given all of the ups and downs of this pregnancy, every time we seem lose our Faith in things she does something to surprise us and remind us what having Faith is all about. So yeah, I guess that's my way of saying we are sticking with it. Still fighting over the middle name/names issue. But we'll figure it out eventually. Hopefully she gives us a little more time to think about it.

In other updates: The boys loved their camping trip and came home dirty and tired- a sure sign of a good time. They've already been asking to see Papa again and Zaden tells me, "fun at camping." I'm glad they had a good time.
The rest of our weekend was really mellow (in an effort to stay down) here with no boys. We watched a couple movies, I kicked Mike's butt at Monopoly on the Wii and we just hung out and did laundry. We did make it grocery shopping and picked up some gifts for baby girl to give the boys when she arrives. Otherwise, we just enjoyed the silence and found ourselves completely bored a few times with no boys to keep us busy. Today I'm not sure if I am loving or hating the chaos being being back in the house. I think it's mostly love, but they are driving me a little crazy already. I sure miss them when they are gone though. So yeah, let's go with love.

Red Light, Green Light

Disclaimer: If this post sounds like a downer, I apologize in advance. It's not meant to be, mostly I am trying to be completely open and honest about what's going on with us and this baby. Really we are happy and excited about her joining us whenever she arrives. This has just been a rough week. Life isn't always as happy and simple and blogs sometimes portray since we tend to always write about only the good/fun stuff.


This has been a long, long week full of mixed emotions and tons of contractions. I decided yesterday that this baby girl is playing a game of Red Light, Green Light with us. It seems like every time things start to move quickly, she then throws out the red light and we slow back down. After our appointment on Monday, we were emotionally vexed. We were both disappointed and scared and I had myself a good cry. Knowing that no matter what ( going another week or 3) this baby is coming early. I spent some time feeling bad for myself that the odds are she won't be coming home with us and I will never have the experience of actually leaving the hospital with my child in tow. While I know she'll be fine at this point and the hospital will take great care of her. I've never even had a child be able to be in our room with us at the hospital, even for more than 3 minutes. While there is a chance still that things will slowly, slowly progress from here on out and I may get my wish, it's hard for us to imagine at this point.
Monday night-Wednesday night were filled with tons of contractions and taking meds every day to stop them. On Wednesday night they were terribly painful. I got them to go away long enough to get a few hours of sleep. On Thursday they started back up bright and early. Thankfully not as painful but consistent throughout most of the day. So I called the Dr office and luckily the on-call Dr there (my doc was out) was nice enough to slide me in quickly and check me real quick. He reassured me that at this point they weren't changing anything and warned me to keep staying hydrated and off my feet as much as possible. This lead to an array of mixed emotions, ranging from relief and happiness to almost a disappointment and a "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", attitude. At one point we were both feeling (if even for a couple hours) that we we ready to give up the nightly fight with the meds and just let her come.

My sister was up here for a baseball tournament and ended up taking the boys home with her on Thursday night so they could go to the reunion/camping with them and Papa this weekend. So Friday was a lot more slow paced for me and Mike had the day off. We did some low-key errands and went out to a couple meals together and really took it easy. The result was more low key contractions as well. This renewed our spirits a little that if nothing else, we WILL beat our all time record and make it to tomorrow and we will continue the fight for a little while longer. So the pessimism is fading a little at least for a few days and we are feeling refreshed and happy. Time to celebrate meeting our original goal!

We are receiving tons of encouraging words from friends and family and we appreciate it, we really do. Something that people don't know about us is that every time in the past when I've even had 3 consistent contractions we have gone into full on labor. So this slowly progressing, effacing, dilating stuff is completely NEW to us. I've never once been sent home from Labor and Delivery once I went there. We are trying our best to stay upbeat and positive so keep them coming. They may not help at that exact moment (while we are feeling down) but they do help later on to keep us going.
We see the Dr. again bright and early Monday morning. We are thinking we should take him a cupcake to celebrate meeting our first goal of 34 weeks! But we are afraid that might weird him out as well. :) I'll try to post a quick update after of what the doc says and let you know how the rest of our kid-free weekend goes and how the boy's camping trip went. Until then I fully plan to keep baby girl baking at least a little longer.

33 Week Update

Because of scheduling conflicts, we went to our 33 week checkup early in the week this week. We thought things were going pretty well as I had had relatively few contractions throughout the weekend and really stayed off my feet a lot. The Dr. decided to check me again and boy were we surprised to hear him tell us that she has moved on down into my pelvis and I am 70% effaced. I am still only dilated to a 1. But going from not effaced at Labor and Delivery last week to 70% in one week really makes us nervous. The doc is still shooting for at least next week or even the week after, but anything after that is probably NOT going to happen. Since we can't and don't want to schedule anything this early (with hopes of keeping her in there), it's going to be really hard to find someone to sit the boys when she decides it's time to go for sure which makes us even more nervous. The Dr. also strongly suggested that I not travel to my family reunion this weekend in Huntington Canyon since that would put us nearly 3 hours away if something happens. So I am disappointed in that, but know it's for the best.

Keep crossing your fingers and toes for us and maybe she'll surprise us all still and beat the odds. We are trying to stay optimistic, but truthfully the pessimism is getting the best of us. We are fully expecting to meet baby girl in the next week or 2.