Introducing: Addison "Sonnie" Elaine!!

Miss Addison "Sonnie" Elaine has arrived!!

Born June 22, 2011 at 9:04pm

7lbs 1oz, 19 inches long

Perfect in EVERY way!

Mommy & Daddy had the natural birth they were hoping for despite the induction. Mommy will be blogging all about this amazing experience in another post. More pictures to come later!  For now though, snuggles & feedings & kisses & diapers & the happiest tears are taking precedence. ;) 

Elite Club

Well, I've officially crossed into my 42nd week of pregnancy which in my extensive 5-10 minute search on google means that I've joined an elite club of which only 5-10% of pregnancies go into.

Lucky me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for her to bake in there and to be healthy. And I'm still holding out hope that she'll decide to make her entrance before the induction on Wednesday so I'm happy for 2 more days to give that a shot.

It just hurts. To walk. To sit. To stand. To lay down. I swear she's gained 5lbs in the last 2 days. And now she's doing this new thing where she's laying off to my left side and it just feels funky. Plus, since it's something new I can't help but wonder if it means something and wonder if she's okay in there. Fortunately her movements are keeping up so I think she's fine and I'm just being paranoid. She's pushed so far on my side,
 I can actually feel her little rump...at least, it better be that and not her head. She was head down on Thursday and I don't recall feeling a big flip! ;)

Well, since this will be one of my last posts, if not THE last post as a pregnant lady, I thought I'd finally get some belly pics up to show how I've grown through the last 9 months. I find it funny that the one I just took today actually looks smaller than some of the other ones. Maybe she dropped again! Maybe it's just the camera angle. ;)

Here I was pregnant and didn't know it yet. This was taken on a Saturday and I found out just 3 days later on Tuesday. I was about 6 weeks along at that point. Things were "late" so it was suspect in the back of our minds but I didn't want to let myself believe it. However, when Eric & I both came down with horrible head colds, he insisted I check before taking the cough medicine with codiene. I cried just knowing I was going to read another stupid negative but much to my surprise, God blessed us with a POSITIVE test result! 

21 weeks with the side view...ignore the jungle theme in the background of most of these. Roma's room is the only one with a full-length mirror! 

Here I am at 21 weeks shortly after getting a ton of maternity clothes from my dear cousin. She said this outfit would make me feel like a model - she was right. Be prepared to see it again in a couple more pics. ;)

This is me at 22 weeks. Boy, the iphone takes a fuzzy picture.

On our honeymoon at 26 weeks. I totally popped while we were gone! I went from no one saying anything to me about being pregnant to 4 strangers in one day asking when I was due.

At 27 weeks

At 32.5 weeks; I'm making a goofy I-look-like-I'm-trying-to-do-the-online-kissy-face-look-but-really-it's-my-I'm-concentrating-and-biting-my-lip-face but my hair looks great so I'm going with it ;)

At 33 weeks 5 days

35 weeks

If you read this blog regularly, you've already seen this one. This was taken at our shower with my family at 36 weeks.

At 37 weeks; a little disappointed that the pictures makes my cute shoes look like slippers. They're really an adorable pair of sandals.

And finally at 41 weeks and officially 1 day into my 42nd week. Notice the change of attire...yoga pants are my best friend these days. Helps I'm not headed into work either. ;)

You want me to come out of where?!

Seriously, Mom...I'm pretty comfy in here. Living space is getting a little cramped but it's nothing we can't handle. Just move an organ or two out of the way and I'll be fine...

I'm convinced this is what she's in there thinking because she seems as cozy as ever.

Tuesday I had all kinds of symptoms that had me thinking a completely natural labor was at least on its way and today I'm convinced of the opposite: that the doctor will yet again tell me that I'm 1cm dilated - just like last week and just like the week before and we'll be scheduling an induction to get her out before it's not healthy for her to be in there anymore.

I'm going to assume it means that you really love being close to Mama, Sonnie. Now if I can just convince you that I promise to hold you all you want and that you will enjoy the leg room on the outside. ♥   

UPDATE: So, exactly as predicted. Well, not exactly. I am still only 1cm dilated however she actually worked her way back up after she had dropped so low last week. Huh?!? Not sure exactly what that's all about but the induction has been scheduled for Wednesday, June 22nd at 8:30am.

I really, really want a natural labor so I'm a bit bummed that my body just isn't cooperating. The good news is that she still shows every sign of being super healthy, as do I. They did another ultrasound to measure her growth and it's on par with a healthy, reasonable weight gain based on her last scan; exactly the 1/2 lb a week they say they gain in the last month. I wouldn't mind a few extra prayers that my body at least preps more on it's own for the induction, even if I don't actually go into labor on my own. Doc said at this point, she wouldn't even be able to break my water easily. And of course, there's always the hope that I'll be the story of the person that goes from no symptoms to all of them in no time. Not really banking on it but you never know...

Oh the hormones...

Well, today is the day...the due date anyway. I've still got about half of June 12th left for her to make her arrival before I officially can be termed "overdue". I've come to accept that since I got so emotional after my appointment on Thursday. I've even pretty much assumed that I'll head to my next doctor's appointment this Thursday to find out the exact same info regarding my dilation & effacement and we'll be talking induction. Yes, yes...she could come any day but mentally, it's just easier to think that I'll be pregnant for another 2 weeks than to keep waking up thinking that today could be the day.

If I sound a little down, it's because I am. It all started in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I had been awake and at one point just started crying. Not tears trickling from my eyes, I'm talking CRYing. The kind you try to keep quiet but you can't. Eric calmed me down before I reached full-on sob but I'm still not sure what made it start and I'm not sure exactly what he did to make it end. All I know is that in no time I went from being a very sane, pleasant pregnant person to feeling irrational and it hasn't quite stopped. I managed not to cry yesterday during the day but felt like I was shortchanging everyone no matter what I did. No one acted like I was but I just felt like I was either harping on the kids too much or not keeping them enough under control, or that every moment I gave one of them attention, all I could think of was who I wasn't giving attention. I even felt guilty when I came home and the poor dog had been alone all day b/c we were at my parents. This morning, I cried over just about everything with ease; and after Eric returned from taking the kids back to their mom, he came in to find me googling "extreme emotions prior to labor" and doing nothing short of, you guessed it, crying.

So I don't know if this ball of emotions means anything as far as Lil Miss' timing of her arrival or if it's yet just one more thing to make me so done with pregnancy that I'll welcome the impending work of laboring this baby out, but I'm really hoping for the former.  In the meantime, the kiddos are all out of the house and while I adore having them around, I think Eric and I will take advantage of the free time and find some things to do to take my mind off this. It's a gorgeous day (as I sit outside to type this) and I'm excited to find something to do that the 90 degree heat that we've been having would otherwise kill for a 40-week preggers like myself. And I will attempt to do it without crying. ;)

Week 40 Update - A balance

My little tracker on my phone app reminds me that as of today, I have 3 days until Sonnie's due date. I've been watching that ticker since it said I had 20-something weeks left. Now we're down to days. I can't believe it's here! She's going to be here any day now.

I know that not all babies come before their due dates. Or ON their due dates. Or even close to their due dates. There's a lot of them that go well past their due dates. Yet, last Thursday when I met with the doctor and she said that if I hadn't gone by this Thursday we'd be "making a plan," I took her seriously. Especially since she told me that if I were farther along, she'd just induce me then. With the potential gestational diabetes complications, I thought that meant this is what would happen and that today I'd walk out knowing the latest I'd be having my baby (and that it would fall into next week at the latest).

I don't know why I held onto that so much. I want a natural labor. I do NOT want to be induced. But, even though it's been well controlled, I am concerned about the risks of GD and what complications could arise in delivery and it gave me a positive behind the induction. I'd be okay. I would do my best to go natural even with the induction. I've dealt with a lot of "womanly" pain thru the years; this would just be the whopper and I'd get thru it.

Then today, what does she say? The EXACT same thing as last week: wait until your next appointment and then we'll set a date. I wanted to cry right there on the spot. And on the way home. And when I called my parents. And when I texted my brother. And when I emailed my cousin. And at dinner. And right now. It's ridiculous. I know that after discussing the fact that my GD has been in check all along, it's like the baby didn't experience it. She's not measuring big in any way and there's no indicator at this point that she is too big for a natural delivery. This is what I DO want - a chance to wait her out for a natural delivery. A baby that's so healthy we have the luxury to wait. It's just another week and she said we'd schedule it for early the next week so we're talking about 10 days, tops. NOT that big of a deal. So why am I so freaking emotional about it?

I'm reminded of an email a friend at work sent to me earlier this week. She just had her first little one last spring and she reminded me to cherish this time right now. It's special getting to be the one that carries her, feels her every move, knows when she's awake and when she's just hanging out. When she comes out, I'll be the only one that will know "so that's what you were doing in there!" I've been waiting for this feeling for over 8 years and it is more amazing than I ever could have given it credit for.

And this is where the balance needs to come in. Am I bummed that I don't have a more concrete date? Sure. But on the flip side, I will also cherish that I may have 10 more days (or who knows, maybe more!) to feel her flips and kicks and rolls and jabs and it just be the two of us. I get to have her with me anywhere that I go; I will enjoy it because I also know time will fly and it won't be long til I'll be crying because it'll be the first time I have to leave her.

So even though I'm going to let my emotions do their thing today and cry when I feel like it (hey, I am in my 40th week of pregnancy...I've earned the right to be irrational!), it'll be coupled with a joy of knowing her this close for a few more days and knowing that it won't be long at all until she's in my arms.

It feels good to grow...

I was just reading through one of my old journals this morning. It was from the hardest time in my life and while it's been on the shelf in the same spot for months, something about it caught my eye today. I picked it up and looked through it cover to cover - some reading in full detail, some just skimming it.

I just can't get over the differences between now and then. I mean, I could acknowledge the concrete differences which is pretty much everything in my life but that's not really even the part that stuck out to me. It was the differences in how I feel and who I am. Much of that time I felt so very torn - doomed to feel one way but to act another. An incredible amount of worry was directed to what everyone else thought of me - of making sure i's were dotted and t's were crossed. God forbid I do something that people didn't think was perfect. That journal was the beginning of letting that go and I was scared to death. And now, just a few years later, it's hard not to shake my head at myself then and say to the me of that journal: "if you only knew then what was waiting for you on the other side, you never would've let fear reign in your heart so heavily..."

It was a rocky time. I lost friends & respect through it. I believe though (and am grateful that) with some who took the time to look and that I let in, I gained a deeper respect and deeper friendship as a result. But what's made the deepest impact on me has been the ability to feel like my head & my heart match up - no more trying to believe one thing in my head while my heart is screaming something else. I think people will try to read more specifically into that statement than what I mean...it encompasses everything: my relationships, my beliefs, my day-to-day interactions. It's the letting go of over-analyzing everything to death, trying to figure out if it's the "right" thing or not without acknowledging that God speaks to us much more clearly than we're giving him credit to. Learning not to give everyone else's opinions more credit than I give myself.

It almost feels daunting to try to describe the difference in what peace and calm overrides my life now vs. then. I'm not saying this to vent about the past - I'm so far beyond that. But when I read the emotions I penned on those journal pages and knowing exactly what it all felt like, it's hard to not acknowledge the vast differences between then and now. It seems the only way to give the full credit to where I am now is to recognize how far I had been from it. I do recognize a conflicted heart vs. a peaceful one because I've lived it. I could tell in those pages that I was getting a taste of what it meant to live without the stress & conflict in my heart, and that I wanted it; but that I also seemed to have an inherent belief that life was just doomed to be so. My ability to believe in it needed a lot of work. And work I did. The evidence was so bold as I was able to read through the journal and recognize how far I'd come. Not only did I now believe that life wasn't doomed for hopelessness but I also believe in the peace & calm that comes with letting go of so much of the garbage that I finally evicted from my mind.

And I couldn't help but to be proud.

It felt good to see first-hand what I'd accomplished through a lot of hard work & prayer (and I have to give credit to Eric for a lot of hard work too...he listened to and worked through so much that I had questions and doubts about). It's made me a better person. I'm more confident and with that confidence comes less fear. With less fear comes stronger decisions that aren't based in insecurity. What a gift to pass on to my children. I cherish parenting without the veil of insecurity clouding my every move. Not to say I'll be secure in everything I do, but I see a hopeful difference.

So while most blog entries lately have been more light-hearted, I felt the need to reflect on all of this today. While I don't necessarily want to put out all the nitty-gritty details of my life for all to read, it does sometimes feel cathartic to get some big stuff out there. To acknowledge where I've been and where I feel like I'm headed. It feels like someone else may need to hear it. Why go through all this growth and change without sharing the amazing impact it's had? Well, today I was overwhelmed by it and had to share.

Here's to growth. Here's to change. Here's to the wisdom that comes with it. May it never stop.