I am writing this to you tonight in order to try to get in one place all the things we have been through during your time before you were born. We have loved you from day one and anxiously look forward to meeting you, whenever you choose to arrive.
Today we were scheduled to have an induction, your Daddy and I packed up the van bright and early and headed to the hospital. We met Sarah (our doula and Alex and Elijah's daycare provider) at the hospital and started to register to go up to OB. While I was in the process of registering a woman came up, who was visibly pregnant. She stood there calmly, breathing normally and not looking like she could be due anytime soon; however after she had been standing there for a little while another woman asked if they could help her, at that point she said she was there to have a baby, she was in labor and had almost delivered in that line in previous deliveries. I looked at the registration lady and said, Let her go first, she obviously needs to be up there, I can wait. We all sat patiently while the woman registered and once she headed upstairs it was my turn again. When finished they let us walk up on our own (in the past they have come down to get us) to the OB department. Once we walked up, they informed us that they didn't have any nursing staff for us at that time, but that they could take us to our room for the time being. We were walked down to room 5417 (the same room Elijah and Alex were born in) and were left to wait for further information. We all sat and chatted for almost 2 hours when Dr. Taylor came in to see us. He said it wouldn't be until noon that the nursing staff would be able to start induction. I hadn't eaten since prior to midnight lastnight and didn't have time to get anything to eat or drink prior to going to the hospital, believe it or not, I WAS STARVING! If I would have been induced around noon, most likely I would have delivered after 5 PM and this meant that Dr. Taylor would not be able to deliver, I talked with him about going home and waiting to go on our own (FYI: Dr. Taylor leaves on vacation Friday evening and will not be able to deliver unless you are born during office hours today or tomorrow). He said he was fine with this option, was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to deliver you (today at least, there's always tomorrow, if you go on your own! ;) and asked that I set up appts with him for tomorrow in the clinic. The charge nurse came in and gave us information on the appointments tomorrow and then apologized sincerely for the inconvenience that we experienced today, for that inconvenience she provided us with gift cards to Subway. We packed up our belongings, headed out the door with an OB staff escort and went on our way back home. I called Grandma (who was staying at our house with Alex and Elijah) as we were about a block away and told her that we'd be there shortly, she was surprised and couldn't believe that she wouldn't be able to see you today. When we walked in the door at home Alex said, "Mom, you're appointment wasn't that long." His next concern was that Grandma was going to leave him before he got a chance to play with her. We had breakfast together, sat around and played toys for a while and then I laid down to take a brief nap. After the nap we loaded up the van and headed out for some shopping and an attempt to walk you out! ;) We had a day out with Grandma, Kate, Erica, Alex and Elijah and found some awesome clothing deals for when your time comes!
I have had some interesting tidbits occur during this pregnancy that don't normally occur in a person's daily life, here are a few: When I was early in pregnancy (probably before we knew you exhisted) I fell down Grandma and Papa's stairs, we blamed it on Kate's shoes on the step, however I'm not convinced that my hormones didn't have something to do with it, Grandma Cindy says this is a sign that you are a girl, because she was more clumsy when your aunt was born. I had a patient who had shingles while I was working with them (as you'll learn, they tell pregnant women to avoid contact with shingles), I came down with pneumonia (when I thought I was struggling with a simple cold) requiring antibiotics, and had another patient I worked with who was diagnosed to have scabies.
Early in our pregnancy we discovered we had hail damage to our house that would cover replacing the siding on the house, when this occurred we signed with a contractor that in the end wanted to walk away with all our money and little work done. Due to this we canceled the contract and signed with another company, who has been wonderful to work with. We decided to put a little extra money into the house and replace the windows in all the bedrooms with the same company. Daddy and I have been through quite the predicament when it comes to the original contractors, some day when you're older (if you care) we can go further into detail about that. I'm just telling you about all this to lead up to my next point.
On Monday, March 21st, while on the phone with Grandma, I found that the dogs were barking at the front window, it had been a morning where we were all were fortunate to have slept in. I was still in my bathrobe and stood at the window to see that there were two men at the door and in front of the house was a trailer from the siding company. Last week your dad told me that they had contacted him and they'd be able to start the project this week, however he was going to reschedule, since we knew you'd be arriving and didn't want to bring you home to lots of pounding and excess noise. WE FORGOT!! I went to my room, threw some clothes on, hung up with Grandma and went out to talk to the guys. I initially asked them if it was possible to reschedule last minute, they called their boss and their boss called Daddy, through their conversation it was decided that they would do the job, hope to be done by the time you come home or shortly thereafter...Let me tell you, I thought the stress of this would put me into labor. Right now, they've got a good start on the house and we will be bringing you home to a brown house instead of a 70's yellow house (can you tell I'm excited??)
Another road bump during this grand adventure was getting a vehicle that we all would fit in and be able to bring you home from the hospital in! Your daddy and I put off this adventure as long as we possibly could (you will learn quickly that your daddy and I are experts at procrastination). About a week before you were due, your Daddy and I drove to Luther Honda to test drive a 2005 Buick Terraza minivan, it was a beautiful van with leather interior, DVD, 17,000 miles and clean Carfax. We fell in love immediately, however felt that we shouldn't jump into making that decision without looking around for a little while at least...we came home debated about it and talked ourselves into it. We looked it up on Consumer Reports and found that they didn't recommend them at all, this swayed our opinion a lot. I called Papa and asked him to see what he could find out about them and let us know. Papa drove up and test drove it with us, he shared his acquired knowledge on the van with us and we decided to wait and drive a few other vehicles before making the plunge. The next day we drove through the lot and the van was gone! (Alex struggled with this because I had shown him the "gold van" and he was pretty excited about it). On Thursday of that week I had a doctors appt and Grandma came up to watch Alex and Elijah during that appointment, before the appt Grandma and I drove around to lots to see what options we had to look at. I went to my appointment and then we went on to further our search. We ended at Lagers in Mankato, where they had a bunch of 2010 vans for sale. After a short process of elimination we found that there were about 4 vans we were interested in, we looked at the 4 different vans, decided DVD wasn't necessary, leather was not at all needed, tail gate remote was a luxury and test drove a blue Dodge Caravan. Daddy joined us at Lagers after he got off work, test drove it with me and then drove a Toyota for comparison. We decided the newer year and the newer features were more important than the Toyota name and decided to pursue the dodge. Through a long process (that you'll some day learn all about) we were able to get our Escape test driven, appraised for trade in value and obtain pre-approval for a loan, which then led to us FINALLY purchasing a minivan. Alex got used to the color as soon as he saw all the fun he could have inside the van and the fact that the van had buttons in it to open the sliding doors. We love having the van and can't wait to take you and your brothers on a road trip somewhere this summer in it!
Other "pregnancy brain" type things that have happened:
- I left for work one morning, leaving the dogs out in the back yard and the back door wide open. As you will find out, the dogs barked and got interested in things outside of our yard, Ruby snuck through the gate and Bear sat there and barked at her. The neighbors behind us were kind enough to come over and catch the dogs, put them in the house and proceeded to be concerned that something had happened to me inside and checked throughout the day to see if there was any sign of your brothers or I in the house. They followed up by stopping in after Daddy got home to assure that everything was OK. Talk about being neighborly! Words cannot express how thankful we were for them that day!
- I attempted to back out this past week around one of the construction guys' vehicles and came approximately 1/2 an inch from Kate's car. It had just snowed, I attempted to pull forward, but the van slid on the snow/ice/slush combo and didn't move for me. I put the van in park and went to get Kate's spare keys, I started her car up and the whole time prayed to God that the car move forward and not slide backward at all. I put the car in drive and it drove forward with no contact between vehicles, this was amazing! Even more amazing is that the stress of this did not put me into labor either!
- We have had 2 ultrasounds thus far, the first showed us a gender and the second made the gender prediction less reliable. I have little faith in ultrasound prediction and currently only have your clothing and room partially prepared. I will be doing laundry when I bring you home! :) The 2nd ultrasound also predicted that you will be 9 pounds 2 ounces plus or minus a pound an a half (the same as what they predicted for Eli, who was born 10 pounds 6.2 ounces)
- I have been to the doctor quite frequently in the past few weeks, and the question has come up for the last 3 appts of whether to induce or not, as you will find out, I did induce with both of your brothers and want so badly to not induce this time around to know what its like to go naturally, however your size prediction and the risk of shoulder dystocia and C-Section weigh heavily on my mind. As well as the fact that our doctor will not be able to deliver due to his vacation falling the week following your due date. Dr. Taylor has not been pressuring me either way and has been completely supportive of my decision to continue ti to hope for a natural initiation to deliver.
- Your brothers are excited to bring you home. They decorated some white onsies with hand prints and paint for you to wear as you come home to be with us. Alex is quite proud of his and he did a great job of making a red heart with his hands. Eli picked pink paint and loved putting the print on the shirt, however greatly dislikes having his hands dirty, therefore washing his hands was his favorite part.
- I have been on maternity leave since March 20th and have cleaned and recleaned things, as if forcing myself to nest, thinking it would put me into labor. The funny thing is that by the end of the day you can't even tell that I had things cleaner earlier in the day. I stay up until early morning hours cleaning because this is the time that I'm able to do so without having it undone shortly after being completed (this has led to some crabby days on my part).
Love,
Mommy
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