Still pregnant. 38 weeks, one day.

Doc says probably no baby today, but beyond that it's anyone's guess.

We are praying for her to be born this week. We want her to meet some very special people before they head out into the wilds of Austin, TX. And we want her to be here when everyone comes for graduation. Don't get me wrong; above all, we want her to be born at the time God has ordained for her... we just selfishly hope that that ordained time is now. :)

Come on, little one! We want to meet you!!

Update in pictures!

I finally got around to pulling pictures off the camera, so here is what we've been up to over the past week or so.

First - as I mentioned before, we went to Maine with our good friends Troy and Amy and little Audrey (and their adorable dog Nettie). We are so sad that they're leaving Boston, but we were happy to have a couple of days to just hang out with them before they leave!

Look at that beautiful little baby girl! Audrey looks so much like her daddy.


Here's us hanging out by the water. I'm a few days shy of 37 weeks on this trip, and The Belly is, well, huge.


Bryan and me walking across the bridge. So cute!


Troy and Amy and Audrey - what an adorable family!! I love this picture.


Troy and Bryan wearing funny hats in a shop. I love Troy's face in this picture!!


This is right after breakfast before we left Ogunquit. It was sooo yummy. We set the camera up on top of the car and used the timer. :)


Yesterday we headed out to the Red Sox game, to see two Sox grand slams (including one from my favorite player, Mike Lowell) and an 11-8 victory. It was a cold game, and I started having contractions in the sixth inning (which turned out to be pretty much nothing, but prompted yet another trip to the hospital... another story). But it was really fun. Here's a picture we got some security guys to take. My eyes are totally closed but everyone else looks like they're having fun! :)


Two last little treats. First, a few days ago I managed to get a good video of our little kicker. It's a lot stronger now than it was back in February (and, though you can't see it here, my belly button has all but disappeared...). Enjoy!




Finally, we got an ultrasound on Monday. Here's a picture of our little angel. In case you can't tell right away, it's her face, with her lips and nose very prominent at the center. We're sort of looking up a bit from her chin. I hope that makes sense. We think she's got Bryan's nose and lips (because she has big lips and a non-pointy nose). What do you think? We can't wait to see her in person!!

Random thoughts and a quick update

So... I'm feeling a bit strange today. School is over. And I'm a little bored. I suppose I'll long for this feeling soon, but right now I'm mostly just learning that daytime TV really stinks. So I'm blogging. :)

I think on Monday I'm going to start studying for the bar (I got all of my materials on Wednesday, when the UPS guy woke me up from my morning nap). I got the lectures on iPod, so I can study at home at my own pace. Supposedly you only have to study 4 hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks. I can do that over the next eight or so weeks, right? I mean, I can put in a few six or eight hour days or a few six or seven day weeks, and make up for the time I'll spend giving birth... Well I hope it works out anyway.

But before that we needed some relaxation. :) We spent the last couple of days just hanging out and relaxing in Maine with some really great friends and their little girl (thanks for the invitation - it was beautiful!), and I think it made us both ready for Eden to be here. We both (yes, Bryan too) spent at least half our time there staring at little Audrey, marveling at her expressive face and trying to get her to smile at us. And Bryan sat next to her in the back seat of their Jeep, stroking her forehead, holding her pacifier in, and blocking the sun so that she could sleep. It was so cute. I really can't wait to see him with our little one. And I'm ready to have her out. I'm getting really uncomfortable - I'm puffing up, my hips are hurting, my back is aching, and walking is not at all fun. It's hard to sleep. And I want to meet our daughter!! I want to hold her and kiss her and cuddle her and get to know her little quirks! I want to see her expressive face!

But enough of that. Sorry. I'm really ready, in case you couldn't tell. :) Anyway, we got back from Maine this afternoon, watched The Office season finale (awesome!) and then I got a phone call from my firm. My start date has been pushed back over a month - I now will be starting work on October 20. Eden will be nearly five months old. What a blessing that I'll be able to spend so much time with her before working full time! But it's also sort of hard because it's another month we hadn't planned on being without income (and health insurance!!). I know God will provide, and I honestly think we'll be fine, but it's sort of hard to swallow that pill right now. My constantly-worried husband is a bit freaked out. But it will be fine. I know it will.

Bryan is actually employed right now - so that is good. The job is such a blessing in our lives. He's working at the church, doing big projects that the pastor doesn't have time to do because he's doing more direct ministry (and the associate pastor is in chaplaincy school for the summer). Bryan LOVES the job. It's really perfect for him - it's the type of thing he likes to do - AND he's allowed to work at his own pace, and for the most part do things the way he'd like to do them, and wear shorts and t-shirts to work!! :) It's a great job and a great environment. It's a really amazing thing for him, and it's helping us with some of our summer expenses. Wahoo!!

Anyway, I've got to go... we have a dinner to go to tonight, but I wanted to fill the space between Oprah and dinner, so here you go. :) (Pictures from Maine forthcoming).

Keeping the cat out of the crib

Read online about how to discourage your cat from sleeping in the baby's crib or bassinet, and you'll almost always get the same advice. Line it in foil. The cat will jump in, be annoyed by the foil, and jump out, and he'll not do it again. Turns out our little Nino doesn't so much mind it, apparently (sorry the picture is rotated funny. Blogger keeps turning it and I'm not sure why):

All it does is wake us up when he jumps in. Any other ideas?

The weekend!!

This was a really awesome weekend, but so incredibly busy!! I'll try to capture all the awesomeness in one blog post, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be impossible.

Event #1: Baby Shower!

First of all, on Friday we had an amazing baby shower. Meg and Kelli (and their minions) did an amazing job transforming the church sanctuary into what they called Eden's Garden:


It was a really great time. So many of our friends came together to share a meal, fellowship together, and celebrate our little girl. I keep saying how lucky she is to be surrounded by people who love her so much, even though they haven't yet met her. What an amazing community. Here's a picture of Meg, Kel, and Kim cooking up a storm at our place Thursday night in preparation (they made pasta and dessert for at least 50 people...):


And here's the three of us at the shower. (The Belly is much too big to not be counted at this point):


I can't say enough how perfect the shower was. I'm pretty easily choked up these days, but looking out over the tables of our dear friends, it was hard to contain the tears of joy. We are so blessed here. Yes, sometimes it's hard to be so far away from family, but we know that God has us here for a reason, and we feel so loved in this community.

Event #2: Bryan's Graduation!

Saturday morning we got up early to head up to the north shore for Bryan's commencement exercises. He was really excited, because it marked the official end of his studies. It was really great. His time in seminary was not always easy, and there were certainly times that we wondered how it would all turn out, but he stands here today with a Master's degree, by the grace of God. I am so proud of him for sticking through all of the troubling moments (and there were some very stressful moments) and coming out at the end with a really great GPA, a sense of real accomplishment, and a much better understanding of theology and especially the church's role in this postmodern world. He's glad to be done, and happy that he did it. Look at that adorable man:

Doesn't he look happy? :) This is the recessional. After the ceremony we went to lunch with John & Kelli and Kel's parents, and then came home and hit the hay. Bryan just relaxed, I slept for 3 hours! We put together some of Eden's things, and organized her bedroom a bit. But mostly we just had a very relaxing evening.

Event (sort of) #3: Mother's Day!

It's a bit strange to celebrate Mother's Day before the baby is even here, but I wasn't going to argue with breakfast in bed. Bryan made me bacon and eggs and toast, with juice and milk! It was yummy! And if Eden's kicking was any indication, she enjoyed it as well. :) After breakfast we headed to church, where neither one of us had to do anything during the service. That was nice - we were able to sit together the whole time. That hardly ever happens! (Thanks Kim!)

After church we got to go to lunch with some good friends who were visiting from Nebraska. It was great to see how they have blossomed as parents. They had little Evan just a few weeks before they left Boston, and now he's huge! He's six months old, and very interactive. It was so interesting to see him next to little Audrey, who seems so little. And it was fun to hear the conversations especially between TravDaddy and Troy about being a dad. Bryan was very interested. He sat next to Audrey and just about every other time I looked over at him he was staring at her. He was asking questions like crazy - it's great to see how interested he is about baby care now. He really is learning a lot, and he is going to be such a great dad. I can't wait to see him with Eden!

Bryan played soccer in the afternoon while I took another nap, and then we hooked up for a Young Life committee meeting (our last one before Eden comes!!).

It was a pretty busy weekend, but gloriously so. We loved it! Thanks to our friends for making it so special. :)

We have a crib!!

I have been stressed out about one thing perhaps more than others lately, and I'm afraid Bryan has seen the brunt of the complaining. We did not have a place for Eden to sleep! And with all of the "scares" lately it's been troubling. We had a crib given to us, but we decided to sand and re-stain it black. That has been a project of many, many months!

Here's a picture from the first time we worked on it, at Meg's. (Look at that little belly! Heh - and I thought I was huge!)

And now, it's all sanded, stained, put together, and dressed! Bryan put in a whole lot of time over the last few days. And we of course couldn't have done it without Megan, or Greg, who came over yesterday and helped Bryan stain for several hours. Isn't it so cute? Such a labor of love!!






And just in case you were hankering for some big ole' belly pics, here's a bonus self-portrait I took two weeks ago, at 33 weeks. BAM! It's not very discreet anymore, is it? :)

I'm DONE!

Law school is OVER! School is over!

I took my last-ever final exam today. It was pretty crap - I know that the professor was looking for a lot more discussion than doctrine and I sort of just spewed doctrine. Honestly I didn't really care enough to put in the work for discussion, and I ran out of room anyway. And I gave her enough that I'll pass, and that is all I care about or need at this point. I have been over grades for a long time, but knowing that at this school all I really have to do is show up and put something on the paper and I'm pretty assured of a B- makes it even harder to care. Especially in my last semester of school, ever.

Especially because I took this 8-hour exam on two hours' sleep. Yes, that's right people. We made a lovely trip back to the hospital last night. I was having contractions all day (I pretty much have them all the time now - oh joy). Then we went to a dinner at the church and they started getting stronger. Bryan wanted to tune the drums, but I needed to get home and get off my feet - I thought that would help - and I didn't even feel comfortable driving. Meg drove me home and I took it easy for awhile, but they kept coming and coming. At 11:00 I started timing them, and they were every 3-6 minutes. So at midnight I dutifully called the doctor, and they told me to come on in. You know how this story ends - I took an exam today after all. False alarm. Absolutely nothing is going on except the contractions. They gave me some IV fluids, and the contractions spaced out to about every 6-7 minutes, and the doc (the same one from last time, BTW) sent me home. We arrived back at our casa at 4:30 am. Bryan had to be at the church at 7:30 am because he was playing the drums, so I just got up with him at 6:45 and had him drop me off on campus for my exam.

The good news is we were kept amused by Eden - she is always really active late at night, and last night was no exception. She kept rolling her knees and kicking the monitor - I kept calling her our little rebel, because she kept moving away from the monitor. Luckily it was pretty sensitive and still picked up her sweet little heartbeat. But we kept hearing the loud rustling of her bumping it, kicking it, etc.

So it was a crazy early morning, but we are both officially now finished with school! This week I have to finish my bar application and Bryan has to finish the crib, but I can read a book that has nothing to do with law. And I can not feel guilty when I take a nap, or go to Target with my husband, or watch a freaking movie. It is going to be glorious. And hopefully our little one will stay put for fifteen more days (at which point we'll be 37 weeks and she can come whenever she feels like it as far as I'm concerned!).

YAY!

One down, one more to go!

One more law school exam. Ever.

Yesterday I took my Admin exam. The Dean of Students' office let me start it early, in a private room (with a private proctor) so I wouldn't be a distraction with my frequent bathroom breaks and on the off chance that I started having contractions. (Turns out we did end up timing contractions last night, starting at about the time the exam would have been almost over). They let me stop the clock when I needed to get up. It was nice. The exam itself - a traditional law school issue-spotter - I think turned out OK. I think I wrote enough to pass it, and at this point that's all that I care about!!

The next one, Legal Profession - the last one EVER - is on Sunday. I know, that's weird. It's a take-home, so I pick it up Sunday morning and turn it in Sunday afternoon. I don't think it's going to be too hard though - the class was really philosophical and analytical more than doctrinal, so that's good. I actually haven't started studying yet - I need to get to that today!

I can't wait to be done!!