Maternity Leave

Well, I am nearing the end of my maternity leave and am not sure how I feel about it. I am excited to be back into somewhat of a scheduled day, but will miss my little princess very much! She is finally getting a personality that is fun to giggle with and her bouts of crying at night have slowed in frequency and duration to the point of tolerance.

I can now tell when she cries what it is that she wants (most of the time). We have her on soy formula with daily packets of Probiotics and a treatment of Magnesium water. Also, we are going to the Chiropractor 2 times a week for now. Since we started the Chiropractor, she will actually lay on her back and sleep. She actually loves laying in her crib watching the mobile! Doesn't really care for her swing or playmat for more than 10 minutes at a time, but I'm hoping that will come with time.

Me, personally, I feel pretty good. Tired, but I have been told that will last until infinity now so I am not sure I can complain about that. I have been walking and trying to maintain my weight loss after Nora, but those darn cookies and ice cream keep calling my name!! One of these days it'll end and I will be able to lose even more weight. I think I am stressed out with packing, going back to work and having a newborn so I feel I can be off track for a little bit, right?

Our house is coming along very nicely! I am very excited to close on the 20th of August! Very excited to be out of the apartment living again and in our own home. It was very hard to sell my house 6 years ago and move back into apartment living. I have liked our apartment we are in because of it's nearly sound proof walls and flooring, but living on the 3rd floor and carrying the baby carseat to the car has proven to put much strain on my back and shoulders!

Well, I must go check on the princess! TTFN!

Baby life..

So, as sporatic as I am with this blogging thing...I figured 3 months update is better than the over a year one, right?! Maybe I will be better with this given time. :)

Before I begin... Happy Birthday to my dear friend Renee!!

So, my baby decided to come early! She arrived happy and healthy at 36wks and 5 days. Funny story actually. We were out shopping for houses with our realtor Lynn, who is a wonderful lady! We were in hope of finding a house before the little one came so we didn't have to be out looking with her once she arrived. It didn't seem to work that way though. On the night of May 5th, she was ready to come out!

We had two more houses to look at and it was about 7:30pm in Fridley, MN when I got out of the car and felt very wet all of a sudden. I leaned over and Lynn got out of the car and asked if I was ok, to which I said..."I think my water just broke!" She rapidly said "Oh my goodness, get back in the car!" So I did and I think I was in shock of what to do next. Matt is in the back seat and asked what happened....and said I better call the Dr.

I called the Dr. Office and crazily asked if this was an emergency where I needed to page the on-call doctor, lol, and they said "YES!". So the answering service took the message and had the Dr. call me back, but it wasn't my doctor since he was on vacation. (Of course) So the Dr. told me to get to the hospital when I could. I was 45 min away becuase Lynn had to drive us to get our car at Target the opposite direction first. That was ok, but if anyone has had their water break before the hospital visit...you may know that the water doesn't stop coming. (Sorry for the grusome details)

Lynn got us to the car and I stayed put. Matt got in our car and followed Lynn because we were coming from a direction that was unfamiliar with our planned route to the hospital. :) So she kindly got to the emergency entrance since it was after hours (8:30pm) and with the wheelchair, we got to triage safely and next thing I know they were admitting me to deliver our little girl. The nurse got me to the delivery room and said if things don't progress by 6am we will induce you. Well that was enough to scare me and Nora, so thankfully that didn't need to occur! After Lynn made sure we were all ok, she went home to her husband. What an ordeal for her books, huh?! :)

Since I hadn't had the Strep B test done yet in my pregnancy I needed to be on antibiotics to be safe. It took them 4 tries to get the needle in my vein, thank you very much! By 12:30am I needed some relief of the pain and had a shot of a narcotic and was dialated to about 3. By 2am I needed more, so I ordered the epidural. After 3 tries for the epidural to get in me, it finally worked! So by 3:15am I had relief and was dialated to 8-9. This baby was ready to come out now.. :)

They called the Dr. in to the hospital and about 4:30am the nurse had me start mini pushes to get her in position but the Dr. was not there yet....so had to wait. Thankfully I was in no pain due to the medication! Around 5am or so, the Dr. arrived and I was ready to push for good. When her head came out, the cord was wrapped around it pretty good so I had to stop pushing (a not so easy feat if I didn't have the medication again) and they had to cut the cord without daddy's help (Sorry daddy). Then a last push and she was in the world! No cries or anything, I was a little worried at first, but she was fine. APGAR scores were 7s and 8s and she was tiny! 18" and 5lb 8oz with very little hair. :) Mommy came through everything saying that was as easy as pie!

Nora Beth Ross was born at 5:23am at North Memorial Hospital. Welcome to the world, little Miss Nora! Mommy and Daddy Love you!

Update over due..

It's been a long time since I blogged anything on here! I guess I thought I would have more interest in this, but faded. I will see if I can try and pick this up again now...

Well, the newest happenings in life are that we are looking for homes now. With the stimulus and market how it is, we just can't justify spending as much money on our rent as if we were home owners. Bad thing about it, is that with the lease ending May 31, and the baby due May 29th, we are paying month to month rates until we can find a house. That adds $100 a month plus the annual increased amount they decided to raise our rent ... so in my pending maternity leave can present with some interesting struggles. If we find a house and close before July 31, we should be in the clear. If not, we will have to continue to rent until potentially Sept. 30 so I can prove income for the loan. Anyway, it's a lot to process to say the least.

We finished our 6 weeks of prenatal classes last tuesday and now I'm ready to have this baby! :) I think it was helpful for Matt, but some redundancy for me....since I have been hearing birthing stories from my family for nearly 26 years and was traumatized at an early age with them! Books are also very helpful, but my Doctor of all people is proving to be a big disappointment at this point. I am 35 weeks now and last visit he told me anything after 36 weeks to cause me to go into labor he will not stop. However, he is so conceeded about himself, overbooked, habitually 1-1.5 hours behind on his appointments -rushing through when I do get back into a room, and hung up on my health and lack of weight gain (praising me for that being overweight to begin with)....that he never asks how I feel, if I have any concerns, or help in giving me the signs of labor and what to do when it starts. Thank goodness for the birthing classes on this one! I don't see him now until I am basically 38 weeks because he goes on vacation and didn't address that maybe I could still see a NP inbetween. It's a semi-good thing I understand Doctors and their "God" complex sometimes, but I still want to grab him and shake him and say, "CAN YOU ASK ME HOW I FEEL?" Ok, sorry for venting.

Overall, this pregnancy has been fairly easy and my doctor says I am a "model patient". The baby is growing perfectly on schedule, heart beat is always strong between 140-165, although this last visit it had the hiccups right until the Dr. came into the room, so the heart was racing at 190 (!), and weight gain is still under 6 lbs. I have a lot of sciatic pain and swelling, which mixed with my arthritis isn't always a cake walk, but it doesn't really stop me from doing many daily activities so the Dr. (both RA and OB) are not concerned. Baby is VERY active though with it's foot in my ribcage to remind me to sit straight!

My only problem with this child coming soon is that Matt and I can not narrow down names. It's very sad! We have a list of 18 taped to the dresser mirror with Name, Origin, and Meaning and I told him we have to cross of 3 or more names off each week to get it down to a managable # to dicuss in the hospital when it's born. Well, no names have been crossed off yet and it was 1 1/2 weeks ago!

Had my first, and probably only, baby shower before the baby arrives on Friday at work. People are so kind hearted and generous! Even the ones that couldn't come, still brought presents! We got so much stuff that we need that I am so greatful! Before that, we only had a bassinet (borrowed from my cousin), car seat and a handful of onsies and outfits. Since I won't tell anyone the sex of the baby, ladies at work could buy gender specific colors if they gave me the gift receipt so I could return if need be. I think only one chose to do that, I'm so proud of people!

I guess, I've rambled on long enough now. I hope you are all blessed with health and spring fever right now!

Love,

Stephanie

Moved...

We have officially moved from Phoenix now and Matt has landed at job at the Minneapolis Convention Center, starting tomorrow. I am so proud of him! We also put in our application at an apartment in Plymouth, just waiting for the approval and then we can move in.

I have not been as fortunate with the job search. I have had multiple interviews with a specialty clinic and there continues to be more potential interviews in the future, should they still be interested in me. I also have had a couple of interviews with a consulting firm and that seems promising, but won't hear until mid week this week if I am the chosen one.

Pray for us and our new life together!

Moving...

Before the wedding we decided that our time here in Phoenix was done. Once we got back from our Honeymoon, we would start looking for new jobs in the Madison or Minneapolis/St.Paul areas. We would be so much closer to my family and his mother and out of the unbearable heat!

So, now we have put in our notices at work and just moving without jobs! We found that so few companies want to pay for relocation expenses, so they don't really look at people not in the area first. I have had phone interviews with 4 companies, but they all want in-person interviews as well, so I have 1 actual in-person inteview lined up the first Monday in May. It'll be rough because we will be leaving Phoenix Friday afternoon and just getting to WI on Sunday (if all goes well).

In order for me to be able to drive that long, I need to have someone to tag-team drive. Matt will be in his car and I in mine. So I have my niece flying to Phoenix Friday morning and riding back with us to help relieve when we need it.

We are both very excited about this move but please keep us in your prayers that the jobs pan out for us right now!

Until next time...