Long Overdue!

So, our bouncing, kicking, wiggle-worm of a baby girl was due last Friday, June 25^th. So far she has yet to make her debut, so we are resorting to nefarious means. lol By that, I mean that we will be getting induced so, so come hell or high water (crazy since we are having a TORRENTIAL downpour right now in Austin), our baby girl should make her grand debut sometime tomorrow!!!

For a while, I thought she would make her debut on Monday morning, but no luck. Zeus and I went to bed at about 11 pm Sunday night and at midnight I was up with contractions and couldn’t get back to sleep. For an hour they were 9 minutes apart, then for the next hour about 6 minutes apart and for the last hour they were about 3 minutes apart and were killing me! We had already been to the hospital twice in the middle of the night for false alarms so I was trying everything I could think of to avoid going in again. At about 2:30 am I finally got into the shower to see if the hot water would help. After about 20 minutes in the shower, Zeus got up to go to the bathroom and was shocked to see that I was in the shower, and then worried when I could hardly speak to tell him that I was not-so-okay and was leaning over against the wall of the shower. He helped me out of the shower and to get dressed and we headed into the hospital AGAIN. We got set up in a room and hooked up to the monitors, and the nurse checked me. I was 75% effaced and was dilated about a fingertip. I was so frustrated and in so much pain. They monitored me for over an hour, but nothing changed. They said we could decide to stay another hour and they would check me again, or that we could head home. The nurse was so sweet and I’m sure she could sense my extreme disappointment and frustration. She said that to her it seemed like I was in early labor, but that I could be that way for quite some time without making any changes. I was so discouraged and in so much pain! We stayed for a little longer and then headed home. Contractions continued intermittently all day yesterday, last night and then today. Though not as regular, they still hurt like the dickens and take my breath away. I am SO hoping that they’ve caused some kind of change over the last 24 hours. We’ll see tonight when we check into the hospital to be induced.

So, here’s the plan so far as we know it. Zeus and I will be checking into the labor and delivery unit at the hospital tonight at 7 pm. They will be inserting some kind of medicine to soften my cervix overnight and then will “officially” start the induction by giving me petocin via IV to start contractions at 7am. Not sure how long it will take from there, guess it depends on how my body responds and how long it takes to dilate all the way and then how long the pushing takes. We can’t WAIT to meet her and hope she comes sooner rather than later!!! J

Oh man, now we are having flashing lightning and BOOMING thunder along with power surges and spurts of the lights flashing on and off. Hope they don’t turn us away from the hospital because of too many women going into real labor on their own, or because of any power outages!!! Also hoping the roads don’t flood too bad, as it has seriously been POURING rain for the last hour or more.

Due Date

So, it looks like Mia's due date will have come and gone without the arrival of our very much anticipated baby girl. Rats! We are SO looking forward to meeting you baby girl and you are killing us with the suspense!!! However, my good friend Allison who I use to work with up in Utah (she taught 2nd grade at my school there) was induced this morning with her twin girls 6 weeks early because of preclampsia. Thankfully all three of them are doing great, and we couldn't think of 3 nicer gals to take over our due date for us since we, unfortunately, won't be using it. :)

Here's a picture of Allison and I from back in April when I went back to visit my old school. Can you believe there are actully 5 of us in this picture! :)

So, on the Mia baby news front, Zeus and I went to the doctor today for our weekly check up and I am (from what I remember) 75% effaced and Mia's head down (good girl!) and at station -3 which means not very low yet. Crumb-cakes!!! In the good news department, I now have an end-date for my waiting, aching, crowded body. If nothing happens by next Tuesday, we will be checking into the hospital on the 29th at 7pm to get ready to be induced the next morning. So, one way or another - barring a labor longer than 24 hours (please NO!) - Mia's birth date will be June 30th!!!

Hmmm... I'll have to ask my mom how that works with insurance and if we'll have to pay the insurance premiums on her for the whole month of June if she comes on the last DAY of June. That would be crummy, but so worth it to have her FINALLY in our arms!!!

We are praying that she comes naturally on her own and/or that things go good with the induction and that we don't end up having to have a c-section, but we'll see. (Being induced ups the risk/chance for the need for a C-section, I learned this week at the hospital tour and also had re-iterated at the doctor appointment today.) That would definitely NOT be a worse case scenario, but we'd like to try and have her "regular" so that it doesn't makes for an easier (hopefully) recovery for mom. Also, hopefully it won't take me as long to heal internally before we start trying for baby number two. :) Now, don't get me wrong! There are no plans in the work as of yet for baby number two, especially in the immediate future, but we'd definitely like to have at least two kiddlets before we hit 40 if possible and would like to leave our "spacing options" as open as possible.

With Mia's birth rapidly approaching, mommy has joined a few groups on babycenter.com and is reading voraciously in order to be as prepared as possible in every area. :) I currently belong to three different groups - Cleft Lip and Palate (great info if anyone is interested in reading up on clefting), Exclusive Pumpers (since Mia most likely won't be able to nurse), and June 2010 birth club. It's been fun and very informative, as well as comforting to be able to have a support group to share feelings with and ask questions of who have gone, are going, or who will be going through the same things with their little ones.

Bring on the contractions!!!

Grandma's Here!, Hospital Tour, House Rented and pre-Labor Signs

Grandma's finally here!!! :) My mom flew in late Tuesday night and will be here for the next two weeks - yay!!! Zeus and I picked her up at the airport just before midnight and then headed home, tucked her in bed and crashed ourselves. Yesterday morning we all got up and Zeus dropped my mom and I off at Michelle's house on his way to work. It was our only way here to get there since my car is still in the shop from being fixed after the little "tollway incident". Hopefully it will be out of the shop soon so that we aren't stuck places and can come and go as we need! Having two cars is definitely a luxury that comes in very handy and one that we have definitely come to take for granted! Grandma ended up having to work most of the day at Michelle's and I was so tired that I took two long naps and slept for most of the day. Zeus came and picked me up around lunchtime and we went to meet Mia's pediatric doctor. Zeus dropped me back off at Michelle's and after my second nap of the day - preceded by tears because I felt so tired and worthlessly inactive, I felt much better and played with Nathan and Christopher and even got the boys together on the same lap for the first time ever - go Auntie Darcie!!! Even worked the magic enough to get Nathan to actually HOLD his baby brother which was a miracle in and of itself! Sure hope that I have that same "magic touch" with Mia, and not the same "curse o'screaming" that I have with my niece Sadie! :(

Zeus worked until 6 pm and then met us at Mish's for pizza before picking my mom and I up to head over to the hospital. No, unfortunately it was NOT in order to deliver Mia, but to tour the hospital maternity ward where Mia will be born. Nurse Ed who was the tour guide was awesome and amazingly informative as well as humerus. We got to walk through the entire process of labor, delivery and recovery as well as see where everything was and the different options for delivery and pain management, etc. I'm so glad we were able to make it! When I called a week and a half ago to see if they had any tours coming up, I was bummed when it was so far out. Part of me hoped Mia would wait so that we could make it, and the other half was hoping she would NOT take that long to get here! :)

In other breaking news.... I HAVE A RENTER FOR MY UTAH HOUSE FINALLY!!! WHOOOOOOOOOO RRRRRRRRRRAH!!! Okay, so it IS a month-to-month renter who may or may NOT be there very long, but there's at least a month or two of double mortgages that we will NOT have to pay. Hallelujah! Also, a fellow is going today to look at the house who seems interested in buying it. He doesn't mind that there's a renter because he won't be able to move in for 3 or more months. We are SO crossing our fingers that something happens with that! It would be SUCH a blessing to have that over and done with. Cross your fingers, send positive thoughts our way, and pray like crazy for us!!! :)

In gross pregnancy news, my body is finally working on letting go so that my baby girl can arrive. I won't share the icky details, but stuff's definitely happening that points to labor any time... of course, those same signs can also take up to two weeks to manifest itself into labor, but the nurse says it means I shouldn't have to be induced since my body is kicking into gear. Hooray!!!

Mia the Kick-boxer

Here are two SHORT videos of our little kick-boxer! Can't wait to see those moves on the outside!

Uhm, sorry about the bare tummy shots! :)

Boom!

So, I keep telling Mia that there's MUCH more room out here on the outside to try and entice her out! :)

Of course, I did feel bad not mentioning that she'd have to be squashed by contractions in order to do that and then squeezed out an orifice that is currently the size of a garden hose. Uhm, hoping the LAST part of that conversation doesn't convince her that she wants to stay in there forever!

Random Catch-Up

GOOD WIFE, BAD MAMA

So last weekend while Zeus was working his part-time job at the hospital, I decided to do some more "nesting" and tackle the master bedroom for clean up and organization. As you can see below, my husband had hung his man-version of a curtain by the bed - aka a ripped sheet tacked to the wall.

I decided to put up curtains, go through laundry, and organize so that we could put up the pack-and-play in or room for Mia to sleep in when she first arrives. See, good wife and mama, right!?!?!

Step 1 - Organize laundry and use hot pink post it notes to mark where the curtain rod should go. Stand on matching pink chair to hang sticky notes and position curtain rod.

Step 2 - hang rods and curtains. Yay! Looks a LITTLE better than the torn green sheet tacked partially above one window.

Step 3 - put away majority of laundry and set up pack and play for Mia. Hooray! Can't wait for her to be in it!

Step 4 - stand back and admire handiwork, skill and accomplishment. :) Grumble over pile of socks that need to still be matched.

Step 5 - ignore sock pile and position possible framed artwork over bed to decide whether or not it gets hung over bed (those vertical lines under the frame at the top of the headboard are rice socks so that the frame would stay and not scratch the headboard.

Step 6 - take pictorial proof of being a bad mama. :( The horizontal scratch mid stretchmarks is where I whacked my belly and baby girl on the corner of the dresser during the whole drape hanging process. So sad! Luckily she's still inside and had SOME protection and it wasn't her little head making direct contact with the corner of the dresser. If the darn belly didn't stick out so much, I'd have a better idea of where it was and wouldn't keep bonking it on stuff! I know. Bad mama already! :( I promise to be more careful with her when she gets here!!!

CLASSROOM CLEAN OUT PROJECT

The last week of May, my future sister-in-law Deena came into town. In true Austin fashion, Michelle and I put her to work immediately. :) On that last Friday or Saturday when Zeus was working at his part-time job at the hospital, Mish, Jeff, Nathan, Deena and Tiffany came to help me take down stuff in my classroom and start packing. Huge kudos to them and all the help they were - I couldn't have done it without you!

Deena helping with the filing and paperwork - the first grade chairs were the PERFECT size! lol

Mish and Jeff taking down boarders and wall items. Nathan was so great and loved to help throw things in the garbage.

Cover Girl Tiff grabbing the trolley cart to help load up boxes. Such a cutie!

Nathan loved the reading corner and climbed up into a lawn chair to do some serious reading. Love this boy!

3D ultrasound pics

We had our last appointment with the specialist yesterday. The ultrasound tech, as she was measuring Mia's head said, "Whoa, look at that hair!" In the ultrasound you could see her hair floating in the amniotic fluid off the back of her head. It was the craziest thing! Looks like our little one will have a full head of hair after all! We suspected as much because of the extreme heartburn I've had, but it was so fun to see! :) Oh, I forgot to mention that they estimated her measurement at about 7 and 1/4 pounds, but said that at this late stage in pregnancy it is hard to get an accurate measure and that they could be off as much as a half a pound either way. I guess we'll see how close they were when she gets here!

We were finally able to get to see little Mia's face! :) Usually she has her hands and/or feet up in front of her little face, and today was no exception. The last time we went in a month ago, she constantly had her hands in front of her mouth or IN her mouth and would not hold still long enough to get a clear ultrasound picture. Yesterday, however, even though our little acrobat had both her hands and feet up around her face, we were able to get a peek. As expected, she will be born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate.

These are the first pictures we were able to get where we could actually see the clefting, so though it was disheartening to see the actuality and severity of it, it was also reassuring to know what our baby girl will look like when she arrives. I had been having strange pregnancy dreams about her being born with no clefting, and then other dreams where her little lip didn't have any clefting at first but then she smiled and her little lip split open from the stretching of her tiny mouth. As a mom it's hard to have anything wrong with your child and you wish you could take it from them and go through it yourself. Though Zeus and I will not be able to take this from her, we will definitely be there all along the way with all the love and caring and support in the world.

Here are the ultrasound pics. I haven't gotten the scanner set up yet, though I think I finally found all the cords for it as I've gone through more boxes. So, these are some crummy low-resolution ones that we took with our cell phones until I can get the originals scanned.



These are the same photos - from different phones. It shows her little hand and leg/foot up around her face, with her mouth open to try and get those toes in! :)



Again, two photos from different phones. You can see her little hand and foot again up by her face, this was taken right before she realized her foot was close enough to tickle her cheek and before she decided to try and suck on her little toes! :) The white highlight on her lip is where they put the little pointer arrow to show the protrusion from the clefting in her lip.

Here are the last two of her little face. In the second one you can see her little shoulder and arm wrapped up around her little body.

Can't wait to meet you baby Mia and see how much you actually look like your ultrasound pictures. Your cousins Nathan and Christopher looked similar to their ultrasound pics, but quite different as well, so we can't wait to see you first hand baby girl! We also can't wait to rub that full head of hair and kiss your little face!!!

Baby Christopher and False Alarm

Part 1 - Baby Christopher

My darling nephew Christopher Austin Rankin was born on Friday and is the most precious thing ever! He's looks so little and smells so fresh and new! He weighed in at 8 lbs. 13 oz. and was just under 22 inches long I believe, so not a teensy baby, but still looks tiny to me! I can't imagine Mia being so tiny and new soon and she'll probably (hopefully!) be even smaller!

Here's Christopher and Mia's first pictures together. I think they're BFF's already! :)

Christopher and Mia hanging out together. Such cuteness snuggled up next to each other! They even look about the same size, don't they!?!? Yikes!!!

Oh my goodness, he could SO totally fit in there - oh me oh my!!! :)

Part 2 - False Alarm

So on Monday I went into work and worked on getting things cleaned out of my classroom. My sister Tiffany and little nephew Nathan came with to help out while Mish and Jeff were in the hospital with baby Christopher. Two good friends from work, Carrie and Stacey also came and helped - THANKS LADIES, YOU ROCK!!! :) We got a ton done and probably have just one more day to finish up. Nathan had fun playing with Stacey's cute boys and was no trouble at all.

Well, after we finished we dropped off Tiff and Nathan to Mish and Christopher at home and then I headed home and vacuumed, did the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, folded and put away laundry, sorted out the junk drawer in the kitchen, and cooked dinner. Yup, totally in the nesting phase.

Well, just before Zeus got home at 5 I started having contractions. I started timing them and they were coming at a regular 3-5 minutes apart and lasted between 20 and 60 seconds. So I'm timing them and timing them and timing them and starting to wonder what's going on with my body and wondering if maybe Mia's getting ready to come. I'd had the conversation with her earlier in the day that she needed to come before Friday or after Monday since daddy might be going out of town and we'd hate for him to miss her birth. I was wondering at that point if she'd actually been listening! :)

So, I called my mom and she didn't seem worried and since she's a nurse, Zeus wasn't worried at all either - which was SO not what I needed/wanted from him right then. I'm sitting there having contractions every 3 minutes and starting to freak out because my body's doing all these strange things that it's never done before and I start wondering if baby Mia's thinking about coming. I pulled out the baby book just before we eat dinner and it says that if you're having contractions lasting that long and that close together to go ahead and go in or call the doctor. Zeus had to go take his dad back to the nursing home and was acting like it was no big deal, so I'm starting to get frustrated and irritated and worried. I called the after hours clinic and they paged the nurse to call me back. She called me back after a while and asked me some questions and they says she'll page the doctor on call (which actually happened to be our regular doctor) and call me back. That whole process took about an hour and they said to go ahead and come in. At that point I realize that as excited as I am to become a mom, I perhaps wasn't AS ready as I thought to have her RIGHT this second! :) I still wanted to get so much done - pictures of Zeus and I with the prego belly, cleaning out the guest room for company, etc, etc, etc! :)

So I decided AT LEAST better get a belly pic before we headed in, so here's what we looked like on Monday.

Definitely getting better and more and more ready to make her awaited debut in a few weeks!

My little round basketball baby belly. Kinda cute, eh? The reason I HAD to put these tummy tank pictures up is to reassure my 2 blog viewers that the picture below is just a fluke horrid photo, and that I actually AM looking and feeling good for the most part. *WARNING* Please prepare yourself mentally before scrolling down to the following picture. It is NOT cute, so prepare yourself for an extreme physical reaction! (Don't worry, no nudity or gore, just pure UG!)

Yeah, apparently Zeus will NOT be allowed to take pictures of the birth or delivery - at least of me! (One may wonder if he did it on purpose just for that reason...) Jeez Louise that's a horrid shot! Granted, I had these two monitors strapped on my belly under the blanket to monitor Mia's heartbeat and my contractions, but hot dang! Could it really get ANY grosser? The term "beached whale" comes to mind!

So, they checked me (OUCH!) and then we waited an hour and drank lots of water and then then my doctor came in and checked me again (OWIE!) but my cervix was still closed, so we got dressed and headed home. Guess Mia's not quite ready to come yet, so mama gets to go home and finish up some things and rest up for her upcoming arrival. :) Sixteen days to go until due date!

On the up side, Zeus is very solicitous now and wants me to take it easy and rest. Easier said than done, but I'm trying to take it a LITTLE bit more easy. It's so fun to do stuff around the house, and I have extra time on my hands now with school being out so it's hard to be too idle.

On the list of things to do today are to upload some pics to COSTCO to get printed and then in a few hours we head to doctors appointments. We go to our last specialist's appointment today and will hopefully be able to get a good view of Mia in the ultrasound, and then to our regular weekly OB appointment to get checked again - oh joy!

Mia's room 99.9% done!

So, Mia's room is almost done!!! :) The only thing left to do is put up the butterflies on the changing table wall. The little white butterfly in the picture below goes with the set that we got to scatter on the opposite wall. I can't believe it's done and now we are just waiting on Mia to arrive to make it complete!!!

This is the view from the bedroom door that we can see as we come in the house every day. It warms our hearts and makes us smile to be greeted with it every day as we come into the house! Can't wait for her to be in it!

This is the view from the closet. I'm proud of myself for hanging the drapery rod and blinds all by myself last weekend while Zeus was at work. NOT that a 9 mo pregnant woman should be standing on chairs with power tools, but I must say that I did a superb job! :)

This is the wall that still needs to have the butterflies scattered over it to be complete. I've got them all out of the box and ready to tack up, but want to arrange the various sized butterflies on the floor first to get a pattern down that I like. Hoping to get that done this week or at least before the little one comes. :)

Here's the last wall and her little car seat and closet. The round circle frames to the left of the closet doors are for her hand and foot prints. Can't wait to do them and hang them up there!

Baby Mia, we are SO ready for you to arrive!!!

Random Stories and Pics

Zeus' phone has this application on it where you can add "frames" to the pictures that you take of people. When we were over at our brother and sister-in-law's house for our niece Chayo's birthday, I got this great pic of Zeus with out his knowing. It makes me laugh so hard every time I see it and makes my day. It set off a whole rash of people taking pictures of people with different frames around them and we all got a good laugh. Unfortunately I only have this one pic of Zeus from our little photo shoot. I'll have to see if I can get some copies of the other ones to post as I find them totally hilarious! :)

So, my sweet husband was excited because our lawn was turning so nice and green from all the rain that we got in May. However, he was less than thrilled with the weeds that were ALSO growing, so he got a jumbo bonus pack of weed killer to spray the front and back yard with. When he told me he had bought Round Up, I mentioned that I thought that killed everything, but he was adamant about it being weed killer. Well, that hard working man of mine spent a good chunk of one dry weekend spraying down the front and back lawns to annihilate the weeds that were battling the grass. A few days later, this is the view of our front yard.

Apparently there was one spot in particular that he stood in while he was thoroughly dousing the yard with Round Up - which apparently DOES kill weeds, but also kills everything else that is trying to grow there. lol My poor sweetie was SO incredibly frustrated to see the thorough deadness of most of the lawn. It still makes me shake my head and grin every time I drive up to the house and see the lawn and I can't help but be grateful that it wasn't ME that sprayed it! lol He's a very smart man, and I'm glad that OCCASIONALLY he does something that reassures me that he isn't actually perfect! :)

This is a little flower that is growing off the edge of the green spot in the front yard. Zeus says it's a sign of hope for us and our little lawn. :) Too cute!

So, again a little anecdote on the sweetness of my dear husband. On Zeus' birthday (May 27th) he got ME flowers - a dozen gorgeous HUGE buds that opened up and bloomed like crazy! That's the kind of sweet man I married. He's so amazingly good to me and I'm so very lucky to have him in my life. No, he's not perfect (he DOES leave his shoes and clothes around on occasion and occasionally mistakes vegetation killer for weed killer), but he's pretty close most of the time! :)



He was suppose to try and get the day off, but with his job and the time of year it was, he needed to go in for at least part of the day. I, on the other hand, ended up being able to take it off. :) The plan was to sleep in and then go to lunch and a movie since we haven't been on a "date" in a while. Well, I slept in and he went to work. He got home early afternoon and we went to PF Chang's (thus the horse statue). We had a delicious lunch and even got a decadent free dessert for the birthday boy that was bomb-bay delicious! We ended up missing the movie because we had to run to an alternative program graduation that Zeus works with. There were around 60 students from Zeus' campus that were graduating due in part to his hard work. Go baby! One of the student speakers was the first from her family to graduate from Middle OR High School! It was amazing. Good work sweetie!!!

Needless to say, we still need to do our big birthday celebration because he had to leave the next morning for El Paso for our niece Jessica's quincenera and was gone all weekend. I was bummed not to be able to go, but the doctor didn't want me making the 8 hour drive this close to the end of pregnancy. It makes sense, but I was sad to miss out on the celebration for Jessica. She's such a sweetie and looked SO stunning in her dress. The fabulous thing is that she's as gorgeous and sweet on the inside as she is on the outside! I'm so lucky to have such great family and extended family!!!

Jessica in her beautiful dress. A family picture without Mia and I. :( Can't wait to take Mia down and show her off to the family there! :)

Zeus woke up early one morning while he was there and took his nephews DJ and Carlos down the street to the track of his old High School to get their "exercise on".

While he was in El Paso, Zeus was able to go and visit his sweet mother's grave site. The headstone hasn't come in yet, but they have a beautiful marker there for now. She is buried next to Zeus' oldest sister Delia, so he was able to visit both of them. Rest in peace sweet Grandma Lina and Delia. We can't wait to meet your namesake, baby Mia Angelina, and are so glad you were able to find out about her upcoming arrival before you passed from us.

37 weeks tomorrow!

Tomorrow marks week 37 of pregnancy, which means there are only 22 more days until my baby girl's scheduled due date!!! This means that Mia COULD show up any time within the next 30 days or so!!! I can't believe that I will officially become a mommy SOME time this month - with a wiggly little baby girl in my arms!!! :) Zeus and I are so excited!!!

I don't think I really look ALL that pregnant from the side.

However, from the front, I think my belly more resembles a beach ball. :)

Wouldn't you agree?!?!

Also big in my life is that today was the last day of school with the kiddos! Back in February I never would have believed this day would arrive!!! :) The teachers still have another day tomorrow with a morning meeting and classroom clean-out, but can check out at 1pm if ready to go. This job has really been a blessing in so many ways and has made the time until Mia's birth go by so quickly!

That being said, today was one of the most tiring day ever!!! The last day can usually be a crazy one, but I think being in my 9th month of pregnancy made it even more exhausting than normal. I got home a little after 4 pm and decided to lay down for a "short little nap" which lasted until EIGHT PM! Oh my goodness! Can I just say it was wonderful!!! :)

It doesn't help that Mia's big enough now that I'm (just this last week or so, thankfully) started to feel more and more crowed and tired. I definitely have the pregnancy waddle now and my lower back is often achy. Another fun "side effect" of the last crowded month of pregnancy is that my acid reflux has kicked into high gear and I rarely make it through the night without suffering some sort of acid reflux problems. I also have to sleep propped up most nights which is NOT one of my favorite ways of sleeping.

As of tomorrow afternoon, I will have more time to put up my gross swollen pregnancy feet, which just started taking on that "elephant like" appearance this week and I am SO looking forward to putting them up and taking some time to BLOG! :) So much has happened this last month that I've been way to tired to post about.

Bring on summer and most importantly, bring on baby Mia!!! :)