things i will miss

today i've been savoring this, the last day of my first pregnancy.


here are some things i will miss:

• carrying a secret inside
• never being alone
• feeling every little kick and roll and hiccup
• being taken care of
• smiles and sweet conversations from strangers
  
• eating whatever sounds good (until gd of course)
• feeling more beautiful than ever before
• shopping, for me and for everything baby
• loving my big belly instead of sucking it in
  
• anticipation
• no period
  
• free ice cream or other food when servers see my belly :)
• experiencing the miracle of life

things i won't miss so much:

• pregnancy heartburn from all my favorite spicy things
• getting up 5 times a night to go to the bathroom
• not being able to sleep on my stomach
• not being able to have deli meat or sushi or caffeine
  
• watching what i eat
• my slow, slow walk
• feeling sick
• aches and pains

still inside

oops, i've been reminded that no blogging might seem like we have a baby in the outside world. not yet. so here is our update.

our baby is still cozy and warm in the womb. we saw my doctor and a nurse separately on thursday and they both commented that this one must be a boy because he is clearly stubborn. um, but then luke reminded me that i am pretty stubborn. :)

so far the baby is still in the right place, at -2 station. i am 50% effaced for those of you who do baby/birthing talk, but dilated to zero! so we are being patient and hoping and praying that things change soon.

our doctor is on call this weekend and on tuesday so there is a good chance we will be able to birth with her if things get moving. if not, we now have a set induction date and time of tuesday at noon. i'm glad they haven't pressured us to induce earlier. but if it does come down to tuesday then we won't be able to have the natural birth we've been hoping for.

apparently they will be giving me an oral medication called cervadil to ripen my cervix. if that doesn't work then i will be given pitocin. either way i will lose mobility. if it has to happen that way then we will be flexible of course but for now we are still focusing on the natural birth we have been hoping for. we are so excited to meet him or her no matter what.

we've been doing a lot of natural induction techniques. below are some photos from a walk around msu we took as we tried to work the baby down. it's finally, finally spring!

eggplant parmesan!

our good friends mark and alexis (the ones who just got married) brought us an amazing dish of eggplant parmesan for us to enjoy after the baby is born. it was still warm when they brought it over so we couldn't help peeking at it before putting it in the freezer. it looks and smells sooo good.

here is a close-up of their amazing culinary skills:

thank you!!!

our earth machine

so this is the awesome composter my grandpa gave to us. we've been saving it for 6 months waiting to finally have a yard of our own. we aren't sure if it is the brand or what but the lid says "earth machine" and we are digging that name. :)

we had the best intentions of walking a few miles to the farmers market, but before leaving we tried out our new rake and soon both of us were covered in dirt working on our backyard. it was full of fall leaves, trash, and pieces of roof so we got rid of most of that and tried to make the rest look better. and, of course, we set up the earth machine.

we'd like to make some sort of garden soon and maybe a place to put a table and chairs down the road. we didn't finish everything but we managed to put a lot of work in under the sun which later turned into clouds and later turned into an amazing thunderstorm just as we were finishing up.

unica, who has been acting a bit odd lately, jumped in these trees all by herself and just watched us work.

happy earth day!

happy earth day everyone!

the image above is of a heart shaped mangrove in new caledonia. it is one of the famous photos from the Earth from Above exhibit. this exhibit shows amazing images taken from the air by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. i stumbled into a small museum in 2004 in valencia, spain that happened to have this exhibit on display. luke also saw it a year earlier touring around paris. it was so amazing. it is still touring around so you should try and catch it if it makes its way near you. there is a beautiful book out as well, but i think it exceeded my study-abroad budget at the time. the photographer is good about promoting sustainability and now speaks about the changes he's seen himself in the earth since beginning the project 15 years ago.

we are trying to do our small part here. this year luke and i are going to begin composting! my grandpa gave us a composter, and we are just waiting for a free moment (and nice weather - it's been cold & rainy again these days) to set it up. we've been insanely excited about this for awhile now. we are also hoping to set up a garden in our back yard so we can really truly eat locally.

we were hoping for an earth day baby as well, but so far that part hasn't happened yet. :) we tried to sweet talk him/her into coming out this morning, then i swam my daily 30 laps at the pool, drank red raspberry leaf tea and am going to walk unica a mile to the library and a mile back after posting this. any other old wives tale techniques i should know about?

4.21.09

7 years ago today we officially became a couple. i wasn't sure how to go about finding out what exactly we were, so i had my girlfriends ask luke if he was my boyfriend as i left the room for some water. i think we'd just come back to my dorm after a day of hiking? so they asked him, without me there, and when i returned he wanted to talk about it. <3

happy 7 years, my love!

sparrow

no baby yet. 3 days after our due date. we are so excited to meet this little one. but in the meantime, we are still getting things done.

last thursday we went for a tour of Sparrow Hospital, where we will be delivering (above). it was really nice, despite my life long anxiety of staying in a hospital. they just make me nervous. luke is helping me with that. the nurses were really nice and we saw the triage room where we will go first, then the delivery room. there are 2 delivery rooms without windows. we are hoping we don't get one of those. :) then they took us to the mother/baby center where we will be after delivery. the rooms were nice and they had room for luke to sleep. we went by the nursery where the new babies were, but unfortunately, because of safety, they now keep the babies far away from the glass windows so we couldn't really see them. :(

this morning we went back to sparrow to have our car seat professionally installed. apparently most car seats are not installed correctly, and the service of using a certified installer is free so we thought it was a good idea to learn how to do it right from the beginnning. we were so glad we did! it was much more complicated than we anticipated. apparently the car seat is safest in the middle position, which is sad news for unica since that means (because of our small car) that she won't be able to lay down in the back seat anymore. but at least she won't be alone back there. :) it is pretty surreal to see our car now with a car seat in the back!

room for a baby

here it is. our baby's room. finally finished except for a rocking chair being delivered this week. and floors that will be refinished sometime down the road.

we are so happy with how it turned out. we didn't start out with an idea in mind really, but we knew we didn't want a theme and we knew we did want it to be somewhat peaceful. it came about pretty organically.

forgive us for the large amount of photos to follow. we couldn't decide what to share and had trouble narrowing it down. :)

we decided on the crib with the drop side

the quilt made by my mom, the mobile by me.

the lanterns are soft for night lighting. the rocking chair will be below them.

this shelf we bought new and still in the box on craigslist for $10.

my old roommate dawn from flagstaff gave me this heart crystal years ago. it makes little rainbows all over the room when the sun is shining (see below)

the changing table is the malm from ikea.

some fabric we liked and framed above the changing table.

a few little details.

we are definitely going to use cloth diapers, but are waiting to find out if we have a boy or girl before ordering all the super cute colors. :)

tiny little clothes.

the closet

and some sweet little receiving blankets for swaddling.

a mobile!

there are so many things i'd hoped to make for our baby before his/her birth but living in a studio for 6 months and moving into a house 1 month before birth made it difficult. luckily, i finally found time this week to start and finish a project! i made a mobile to hang above the baby's crib.

months ago i searched the mobile category on flickr and found this one that i loved. so this week i picked fabric, cut circles, starched and ironed them and finally sewed them together.

it might not be as perfect as the model i used, but we are really happy with the result!

here it is hanging in the room from the baby's point of view:

and here it is again:

our porch... and our belly

yesterday was the first beautiful day of the year here, and luke came home early to enjoy it. it was 70 degrees and all the neighbors were out on their porches or in their yards socializing, working and playing hacky sack. our new friend across the street played his guitar and sang for us all. it was wonderful.

luke swept and cleaned our porch which used to be covered with leaves and nasty carpet. i ran around finding things to decorate it. we had to compromise between one of us wanting minimal decor and the other wanting... more. it worked out in the end i think. we have new mexico chili pepper lights and twinkle lights tacked up. an elephant chime i've had since i was little, a paper lantern and a butterfly mobile from costa rica. oh, and some giant shells from puerto rico and st. johns. hmmm maybe it wasn't such a compromise after all.

the light was nice and the weather was perfect so we took some more belly photos. possibly the last belly shots we will take? so, this is me and our little one, at 40 weeks pregnant.

today is the day!

well, not the day, or at least not yet, but it is the day our baby is due. nothing really going on so far, or so it seems. it's kind of strange deciding how to spend the day when you have been anticipating it for so long.

(we finally found a way to cool the espresso so it doesn't melt the ice - we use the martini shaker)

we woke up this morning and celebrated by making our first iced decaf coffees of the year. have i mentioned that my husband went off the caffeine with me in solidarity 9 months ago? it's actually been warm here the past two days so we made the iced coffees and two fat cow smoothies. i used to pick up a fat cow smoothie in the mornings at nau on my way to spanish class with luke. so yummy - bananas, peanut butter, chocolate sauce, yogurt, milk and ice. and we sat on the porch in the sun.


we saw my doctor on thursday and she said that while the baby is in the right place and at -2 station, my body is not so ready. she recommended that we wrap our heads around it being another week or so. if it doesn't happen, she will induce at 10 days past the due date which would be around the 28th. we are going to try some natural ways of inducing this week to avoid that.

something soft

my mom just sent our baby this absolutely gorgeous baby quilt. she's put so many hours of work and love into it and we adore it.

it's called a "biscuit quilt" because each square is filled with poof. we saw one like it together months ago and fell in love with it. it's super cozy to lie underneath, but perfectly padded for the baby to play on top of.

i love the colors she used. and how it is made out of flannel so it is super soft and cozy.
thank you mom! i mean, grandma!

on a side note, we are totally going to miss all the ups/fed ex/usps stops at our house. never have we ever been so frequented with delieveries. it has been so much fun to hear our old buzzer ring almost daily and run down the stairs and open yet another generous sweet thing for our little one. thank you everyone!

our natural baby!

tia sarah, my best girlfriend since the 5th grade, sent a few great things to baby plonsky yesterday. 100% biodegradable baby wipes with natural aloe vera! baby wipes were on our list to buy but now we don't have to. plus our baby gets to be pampered with these natural ones made in sweden. she also sent burt's bees baby wash, shampoo and lotion! burt's bees products are such a luxury and we have been eyeing them for our little one at the store. and lastly, a wooden elephant rattle. we love wooden toys! so sweet. gracias tia sarah!

where we are at

two more days until our due date. things are still quite crazy around here. luke has been working from home as much as possible so that he can help me out when i need him to carry something heavy or to help me stay sane while assembling yet another piece of furniture/pack'n'play/bouncer/shower shelf/etc... we've been checking things off our four page to-d0 list almost as fast as we are adding new items on. we've gotten the tires rotated and the oil changed on our car and then we also got a flat tire. we've been picking up things from craigslist. we've been organizing. doing laundry. cleaning. tomorrow i think we will be ready to share the baby's room with you. we are excited about it.

we still need to pack the hospital bag and install the car seat - two things you would assume that we would have completed by now. hopefully tomorrow.

i've been having contractions since last friday. off and on. we politely asked the baby not to come today (4/15) so that his/her birthday wouldn't be on tax day. it worked out. :)

yesterday luke turned in his last piece of homework ever in his phd career. now he has just two more final papers to turn in before the school year ends.

my lovely sister candy took me to get a pedicure and thai food tonight. thank you, candy! it was muchly needed since just this week i tried to give myself one and couldn't reach properly and gave up in the middle of painting.

we finished our taxes, thanks also to my accountant sister candy. the long wait for the house turned out to be a blessing in disguise. thanks to the first-time homebuyer tax credit built into the stimulus package, we'll be getting a chunk of money back on top of our tax refund. perfect timing.