Welcome Danny!

This is a very late announcement that our baby boy is here! He arrived at 4:40 PM on October 9th. He weighed 8 lbs. 4 ounces and was 22 inches long. He was a big boy!

This is his first picture:You'll have to excuse his mommy's very frazzled appearance, but it had been a rather long day. You can see how proud his daddy is in this picture! Arthur got to "catch" the baby. That was really special.

Warning: The following section contains birth details. They aren't terribly graphic, but if you don't want to hear them, skip this section.

I had the baby at Columbia Community Birth Center. That was a really positive experience. Even though it was a really long labor, I feel like it was the best it could have been (with the exception of some of the early parts of labor when I hadn't quite gotten the hang of relaxing yet). We got to the birth center late Thursday evening. The midwife said it was still early, so we should try to get some rest. She went down the hall to the other room to get some rest and told us to come get her whenever we wanted her, and otherwise she'd check on us in the morning. Things started getting really tough early the next morning, so Arthur went and woke her up. She came in and taught me how to relax and breath through the contractions and showed Arthur how to help me, and from that point on, I felt great and knew we'd make it fine. It really did not seem like it was so many hours later that he was born. I guess the focus I gained at that point made the time fly. I pushed for around three hours by Arthur's calculation (that was made so long due to a cervical lip), and the baby crowned for a full hour! He was born in water and started breathing on his own very soon after being pulled from the water by his daddy. For those of you who think they were crazy for letting things go that long, I was clearly doing fine and was making progress, and the baby's heart rate was excellent through the whole thing. I had excellent care. The midwife and doctor were both very helpful and attentive to my needs. With their support, and with the wonderful and invaluable support of my husband, I was able to do the whole thing completely naturally and drug free. I would do it again even if I knew it would be as long, though I hope it's not! :o)

Okay, that's the end of the birth story stuff. Here are a few more pictures if you're interested:
Holding Daddy's finger:

Arthur cutting the cord:

You can't really tell from these pictures, but he was a very alert little guy. He studied everyone's faces. Right after he was born, I was sitting in the tub holding him, and Arthur said something. He immediately got alert and turned toward Arthur. The doctor and midwife had been talking, but he didn't pay any attention to them, so he clearly recognized his Daddy's voice. That was really neat.

These pictures are at home the next day (actually, I guess the first three are from the day after that):

In his co-sleeper, and holding that paci in:

Watching Daddy:

Reading a story:

Being held by his cousin:

At the birth center shortly before we left:

My mom took some good pictures too, and if she doesn't use all of them, I may post some of hers. :-) I have a lot more recent ones on my camera that I'll get to eventually, but I don't have tons of computer time right now. :o) Thanks for checking in on us!

Hi! Yes, I'm still here, and the baby is still in there! In case anyone is wondering, my due date IS October 5th. The original date was Sept. 30, so that's why the counter is off. Add 5 days to that to see how many days until the due date.
There's plenty I'd love to write about, but for now, I'll probably just post a few more pictures. Maybe someday I will update. :-)
This picture was taken about a month and a half ago. For more current pics, you can hop on over to Crystal's website to see some of the pictures she took for us. I still haven't loaded those on my computer, but she did a beautiful job. I'm so glad to have a cousin who's such a great photographer! Thanks, Crystal!


Here's a new shot of the room now that it's a little more finished.

This is on the other wall, so you can't see it in the picture of the whole room. My aunt and uncle bought us this great organizer. I told Arthur, this baby has more stuff than we do already!
Arthur picked this shirt for the baby to come home in. We ordered it off the internet, and the lady would put anything we wanted on the back. I thought it turned out really cute.

My Grandma finished the quilt. She does such a great job! She called to tell me she finished the valance too, so when I get that, I'll have to put it up and post pictures of the finished bedset.

Here's the quilt on the bed.

And here it is hung over the side:

Here's a little activity mat. At first, you use it like this. Later, you can fold up part of the bottom and move the toys down for a "tummy time" mat. Then you can put the mat over the arches to make a crawl through tunnel.

Here's a growth chart my mom got with some other stuff at school. She laminated it for me to hang on the wall. If you can't quite read it, it says, "A person's a person no matter how small. Each month that goes by, I'll watch you grow tall!"

I took another picture of these guys because there's a new guy in the middle. Meet Sam-I-Am!

As you can see in the picture of the whole room, I hung these on the wall between the dresser and the bed.

My mom picked up this little seat at a Just Between Friends sale. If you've never been to one and you have kids in your life, you should go!

This is my diaper pail. I think mom got these window clings at school too. Since the baby's room actually has no windows (no we are not keeping him in a prison. There just aren't any windows on the side of the house), I put them on the diaper pail. I kind of liked the result.

And here's the top:

I know some of you are totally uninterested in my nursery, but some of my family wanted to see all my stuff. Next time, maybe I'll have real news to share! If not, you'll probably get Labor Day pictures of another sort! (the kind with tents and fish and campfires)

Finally... the ultrasound pics

These aren't the greatest, but if you look, where it says leg at the top, you can see the bottom of his foot. the leg at the bottom is turned sideways at a right angle. His arms are folded up to the left, and his head is cut off. :o) The bottom one is his spine, and his head is tucked down where you can't see it. He wasn't willing to show his face. I think we woke him up. :-P

This is his heart (The dark spot is. Again, his head is hidden. If I couldn't feel, I might wonder if he had one!). It's kind of a boring picture, but you can see all four chambers. Can you believe abortion is still legal at the gestational age these pictures were taken? Someone at our church got the 4d ultrasound, and you can see all of the baby's facial features by this point and actually tell what he will look like. If you're interested in seeing a 4d ultrasound, there are lots of them on youtube. Most of them start out in 2d and go to 4d partway through, it seems, so you may have to skip forward a little ways, but it's incredible to see.

I finally got that switchplate cover, but I haven't taken a picture yet. Here's what it looks like though. It's cute.
Well, that's all folks! Two posts in a weeks' time... count yourselves lucky (or unlucky, however you want to look at it)!

Baby Report

For those of you who are still holding out for baby information, I guess I will oblige. :o) This may be long and boring for some of you, but at least it's a post!

We were in Grenada back at the end of March and the beginning of April. Arthur took this picture of me and my tiny baby bump while we were there. We really thought I was poking out there then!

And here I am in the middle of June wearing the same shirt! Talk about a difference! That was over a month ago, so I've gained a good 5 or 6 more pounds since then, I would guess. At the last appointment, I'd gained 19 pounds total.

The baby squirms a LOT! I tease Arthur that it must take after him, because they both kick me while I'm trying to sleep!

The new due date is October 5th. That means that the little counter up in the corner of my blog is 5 days ahead, which puts us at an estimated 68 days until Baby-Day. We got an ultrasound done, and it's a boy!!! (In case you haven't heard from facebook or me or my mom, or any of the jillions of other people that already knew that by now :-P ) Arthur chose a very special name for him. He'll be Daniel Quentin after both of his grandpas. I have a cousin named Daniel, and Arthur likes the name Danny, so that's what we call him most of the time. We are very excited about him!

The rest of this will probably bore most people to tears, so feel free to close the window if you'd like. I just thought I'd share some of the things I've got for the baby so far. Probably no one is half as excited about this stuff as I am, except maybe my mom. She might come close to half that excited, but I guess I'll put it here anyways. The nursery pictures are a bit more interesting if you want to scroll down and look at them.
One of my favorite new things is this mini co-sleeper I found on Craigslist. If you're not familiar with these, it's a bassinet that has a side that adjusts down to the level of a standard sized bed. Then it attaches to the bed with straps. This way, the baby is almost on the same level as the bed, so it's easy to see the baby or pick it up to feed it and lay it back down without getting up at all. I put a bear in it so you can see the level the mattress is at in the second picture.

My mom said she saw a round crib in a store when she was pregnant with Justin. She always wanted one but couldn't afford it when she had babies, so she splurged and bought one for me. She said she'd buy whatever crib I wanted (okay, within reason. We saw some cast iron cribs online for several THOUSAND dollars! Crazy!) We shopped and shopped and shopped and shopped... (right, Sami?) and finally decided that that was what we wanted to get.
Here's my wonderful hubby working hard to put it together in what was formerly the designated location for all of his stuff. Don't ask me where we put it all. It's scattered all over this house!

Here's a brand new Graco swing mom and I found at Target. It cost $20, I believe. It was a great bargain. Someone had bought it online and returned it to the store, and since the store didn't carry that particular swing, they DEEPLY discounted it. It was originally $60!

We also went to a subdivision-wide garage sale. There, we found this bouncy seat for $5, I think it was. The toys are off of it, but other than that, it's in perfect condition. The lady said, "I buy it for my daughter's baby, but he no like. He cry." Works for me. It was $25 at Wal-Mart. I also got a seat that hooks onto the kitchen table so a kid can eat at the table, but I don't have pictures of it. Yeah, I know, you're sorely disappointed!

Here's a shot of the inside of the crib. In case you can't tell, the nursery is going to be in Dr. Seuss. My grandma made the sheet out of a twin sized sheet. She's also making a quilt and a valance for the canopy out of blocks from the sheet and other material she had on hand plus some I found, and she says she'll probably have enough material left for a second crib sheet. I'm glad my grandma's such a talented seamstress, because we can't find Dr. Seuss nursery stuff anywhere, at least not for anything reasonable and certainly not for a round crib. The stuffed animals in the crib are from Kohl's. The two in the middle came with books my mom bought for her class awhile back, and the other two were leftovers that they sold for half off since not everyone who bought a book got the stuffed animal with it. If I remember right, they were $2.50. Yes, I will take them out when there's a baby in the crib. :-) The little Horton blankie lying at the bottom there is something my mom found online.

Here's another view of the crib. I hung the mobile up for the picture, but it's not quite finished. My mom found a cheap mobile at a discount store, and we bought Dr. Seuss finger puppets to replace the puppies that were on it and colorful fabric to cover the brown that was there. The fabric is only pinned on right now so I could get an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I think it will be really cute!

Here's the view from below.

The Cat in the Hat and Horton...

The Grinch and a star-bellied Sneetch...

This dresser was my mom's when SHE was a baby, so it's ooooooold (teeehehehe)! She used it for us when we were babies, then gave it back to my grandma, who passed it on to me. We found adorable little Dr. Seuss drawer pulls on Amazon, so she ordered some for me (there's a switchplate cover coming too, but it's not here yet). Then I bought new round wooden pulls to replace the rectangular ones that were there and some new paint and she repainted it all for me. I love how it turned out. (Although it probably could have used a sanding first, but who wants that job????) I think I'll probably put a changing pad on top of this dresser and use it as a changing table too. There's just not enough room in that tiny bedroom for both, but the dresser is just the right height.
The letters were a shower gift from Crystal. I haven't decided yet where I'm going to hang them, but they match everything really well. Thanks, Crystal!

Horton and Sneetch handles:

Things 1&2 and 1 fish 2 fish handles (I'm not sure how that one got twisted, but I'm going to tighten it right now!):

Arthur had some stuff stored in this old trunk, so we cleaned it out to use as a toy box. I moved the stuffed animals to it to make it match the decor a bit better. :-)

For some reason, I got sidetracked at this point and put the pictures of the new carseat and stroller here instead of finishing up the nursery first, so the nursery pictures are further down.

In the meantime, here's our new carseat! Some of the Finley relatives got together and bought us this great carseat and stroller. I love the triangular handle! The length of the shoulder straps adjusts with a button and pull strap at the bottom, which I think is pretty much standard anymore. Also, the seatback and shoulder straps all adjust up with the turn of a knob, so there's no rethreading. That may be my favorite feature. I've sat and played with that knob a lot, and yes, I do have better things to do! :o) It's a really nice cushy seat. A lot of the infant carriers are hard and seem like they'd be uncomfortable, but this one's well cushioned. I'm glad it's something besides plaid too. Plaid is cute, but I've seen enough of it to be ready for something different!

I like the canopy on this seat. The colors are nice, and it comes so far forward (further forward than in this picture). The only drawback is that it does seem to get a little caught on the handle so you have to move it back after you move the handle, but I still think it's great.

Here's the stroller that came with it. I did not originally intend to get the two together, because I didn't think it was usually as good of a deal to buy them together, and I wanted to choose the carseat I wanted and stroller I wanted regardless of whether they matched, but I actually decided on the carseat and stroller independently. I was originally looking at a stroller I'd seen in Target. I liked that it was narrower than most of the travel system strollers so might be easier to manuever in crowded spaces. I got online though, and the reviews for it were awful. I went back to the store and pulled it off the shelf. It pushed forward just fine, but when I tried to back up, the wheels just drug. I spotted the Baby Trend stroller, which I'd looked at some online too, so I pulled it off, and it rolled very well. I played with it awhile then compared it to the other stroller, and they were the same width. The height was better on the BT stroller too.

As it turned out, the Travel System ended up being the best deal for me. I wanted a slightly bigger carseat than the typical infant carrier so we could use it longer, and with this system, I could get the stroller I wanted and the bigger carseat for about the same price as I could get the stroller and the smaller carseat separately. Arthur liked this one too. It has a tray and cupholder for the back too, but we haven't put it on yet.

Okay, now back to the nursery! I got this little hatrack at that garage sale my mom and I went to. It was already painted like this. It's missing the topper though, so we need to find a little topper piece so the screw doesn't stick out the top.

And back to other stuff! Here are the diaper bags I got at my shower. They were the ones I registered for, and they match the carseat and stroller, which was totally unintentional. I guess I just like the colors! I like that it came with a big bag and a smaller bag. I have them packed to take with us to the birth. I think I might have overpacked a bit...I got this nursing pillow at the shower too. Exciting picture, I know.
Thank you to my great sister-in-law, Valerie, for the wonderful shower you threw for me! I got many other nice things, clothes and such, but I didn't think you'd be able to contain your enthusiasm if I posted any more pictures than I already have!

Here's a shot of the nursery from the door. Ignore the antlers. They are going away as soon as I figure out where to put them.

Here's another view. The kite up in the corner came from Grenada. I think I'll leave it there because it's out of the way and adds to the cheeriness of the room.
Here are my fancy schmancy bookshelves. As you can see, we could use a little bookshelf. These very sophisticated boxes will have to serve the purpose until we find one.

Okay, shifting gears here...

My very thoughtful husband came home with these today. I asked him what they were for and he said no reason, just because. Isn't he sweet?

I thought they were beautiful! Thank you Arthur!

If you're still with me, congratulations on your excellent attention span. I'm so sorry to have subjected you to my very scattered pregnant brain. Maybe now that you've seen what can happen when I start posting, you'll be glad that I wait so long between posts! I do want to post a few pictures from Grenada (a bit late, I know). I also should probably post the ultrasound pictures, although there's not a whole lot to see. He kept his hands in front of his face the whole time. They will have to wait for another day and another post if I get to that. No promises, though!