We are in the final weeks of waiting on Baby Arlo to make his debut. As of today I am officially 38 weeks & 3 days & feeling extremely excited to meet him. This is another wordy one which is expected when only three updates are recorded for an entire pregnancy ; )
A couple weekends ago my Aunt & Uncle took the girls for 24 hours while the boys went to Grammy & Papa's house. It was SO relaxing! We did our own thing for a bit then headed out to find something for Arlo to wear on the way home from the hospital. It is relaxing to shop with just the two of us. I got a Frappucino that I didn't have to guard from four other mouths & then I went home, showered, took my time getting ready & walked out the door without orienting a sitter & hoping that the kids would be well behaved. We went to our favorite Sushi place down the street for a long leisurely dinner. In one year & 4 months of date nights while in the current Nest it is the only place we have gone! We always talk about going somewhere else & then decide it's not worth it. I AM looking forward to eating raw fish again & enjoying some hot sake with my meal. What a great place though! Robby took my picture before we left saying that I have not taken nearly enough belly pictures this time around. True story!
Arlo is as healthy as healthy can be with all his wiggles & receiving an A+ with every visit to the specialist. The weekly ultrasound appointments have revealed up close views of his sweet face. We were all laughing watching him practice sucking. He was moving his head back & forth sticking his tongue out like he was ready to nurse. The sonographer said he looked as though he was ready to come out for a meal! I figured practicing the inside would be of great benefit...the earlier he can learn to eat quickly, the better it will be for all of us ; ) I have a feeling we are going to get really good at nursing in the Ergo while I am at the kitchen counter or pulling those big brothers off of things they should not be climbing on. What a great option this time around versus feeding two at once! 37 weeks he was estimated to be just under 7 pounds which can be off a bit in either direction. His head looked a little fuzzy like there might be some hair.We would be shocked if it was any more than fuzz like his older siblings. I think I love pictures of arms, legs, fingers & toes just as much as I love ones of the face. What a reminder of God's beautiful design....little baby tootsies....
As far as things go with this waddling mama, I am feeling surprisingly great & energetic most of the time. I do bump into things constantly & have contractions when the boys come within 2 feet of me. We had a little "is the baby coming?" night a couple weeks ago. I was just over 36 weeks & had a very low key day at home with the kids. Rob walked in the door around 3:45 & mentioned all of us going for a walk. I had been having contractions here & there but thought I was good to go. By the time everyone was ready he walked back into the kitchen finding me leaned over gripping the counter top. I looked at him & said "I don't think I can go on a walk." He took the bunch minus Eloise who helped me finish prepping dinner to put in the oven. I started having contractions every 5 minutes with most of them stopping me in my tracks. Eloise was thrilled to have some alone time with me & wanted to play a game. I reminded her that mommy needed to rest on the couch & drink a gallon or two of water. She said "Hold on mom, I have the perfect game we can play!" She returned holding up the Twister box....I laughed out loud. I told her that in a few weeks that would be a fabulous game to play when we were ready to get this boy out but that I couldn't participate. She said "No mommy, you don't have to do the part on the dots. You can lay down like this (as she demonstrates flat on her back) you can put the spinner on your belly & then tell me what to do." Oh my goodness she is sooooo cute! She opted to snuggle me on the couch instead which is on her list of top three ways to spend her free time.
The contractions continued & worsened over the next hour. Robby was feeding everyone & I said I was going to our room for a minute. I returned more like 20 minutes later & he asked what I was doing. I said "I just packed a bag to take to the hospital." He looked at me like I was crazy (with ear deafening screams coming from the next room) & said "What? Are we going to the hospital?" I said that I had called our friend Kate & let his parents know we would leave in about 20-30 minutes. I guess I forgot to relay that to my driver. It was pretty funny as we acted like it was our first baby, freaking out to get out of the house. We had not even talked to the kids about what to expect when mommy is expecting & had a speedy explanation of what would be happening in about three seconds. The kids know Kate but the boys were both crying as we walked out the door. We were checked into triage in no time at all & the monitor proved there was contraction after contraction. Over the course of a couple hours I changed 1-2 centimeters & was still really uncomfortable so I was admitted to Labor & Delivery, my favorite place : ) Over the course of the next four hours things slowed down enough I could snooze for a bit & by morning I was back to irregular contractions that were noticeable but not painful. My cervix was the same so I got to go home. We were thankful to be going home instead of considering the possibility of another babe in the NICU.
I was STARVING & had been talking about biscuits all night long so we stopped at Cafe Brazil where I ate three large biscuits with raspberry jam & two heaping portions of a hash brown casserole. I can only imagine how many carbohydrates that was ha! My belly was full though & after a a quick hello & snuggle with the kiddos I drifted off to sleep for about 7 hours while Bob & Jeannine hung out with the kids. I was awake for about 2-3 hours that evening & went back to sleep for another 10 hours. That was amazing! I should go to the hospital overnight more often ; ) It was funny though because that day I had a picture of me & Owen where I looked super energetic & by early afternoon I could barely hold my head up & said yes to many a show for these four while I joined them on the couch...then the contractions started.
I guess the practice trip to the hospital was good because we had an opportunity to review the items in our poorly thought out bags & repack the following weekend. We could actually have a conversation with the kids about some different scenarios of what could happen when Arlo is coming (for real). It also jolted us into prep mode. I pulled down the infant car seat thinking we would just throw it in the truck. It basically looked like I had fed one of the boys an entire back of goldfish they crunched up & left in their seat. SO glad I could remedy that with a good washing before we actually needed it! I got all of Arlo's things packed along with charging batteries to electronics. We felt better after that. One other thing I did that was frowned upon by Robby happened one night that he was working a bit in his office. I had wanted to set up the pack n' play in the guest room but also wanted all the furniture rearranged. My mom turned me down saying we needed more help & Robby agreed it would be smarter to move the bed with someone else mostly because it is old & needs to be moved properly.
Robby always laughs at me about two things regarding furniture. The first goes all the way back to college when Cheryl & I were moving into a new place. We were so excited to plan how to arrange our furniture but the only problem was that our furniture was not there yet. So being the extremely smart & creative girls we are, we measured all of our furniture with yarn, cut it to the correct lengths & brought it over to our new place where we laid it all out on the carpet & switched it around until we found the perfect spot for each piece of furniture. The night I was asking Rob to help me move he said to just wait & that he was sure I would have yarn all over the room showing him where to put things. Haha! I love Cheryl! The second thing that makes him laugh is how I can often be short on muscles to do things around the house but when I get in the mood to move furniture I get superhuman strength. I inherited this from my mother as well. I can't remember the circumstances but I am guessing my dad was out of town & we decided we were going to move an extremely heavy & awkward couch down the stairs. It got stuck or we couldn't handle it & we had to call for help.
Back to the superhuman strength mover of furniture & nine month pregnant mother. No need for details...bottom line, the room was perfect in no time at all. I closed the door & thought about keeping a secret till morning but spilled the beans at breakfast starting with "I did something last night but when I tell you, you can't be mad or lecture me." He was in disbelief & lectured with a smile on his face. I defended myself by saying I didn't even have any contractions. Plus there was no going back & the room looked fabulous.
There is still a lot of playing baby around here which I love. Eloise rigged up her own baby carrier with a swaddle blanket. I was impressed even though "baby Arlo" was strapped in by his neck. I love her face too. That day the girls were on my tail all morning long asking for bottles, burp cloths, Arlo's diapers, nursing covers & even swiped some nursing pads (without asking). I first noticed those nursing pads when the girls looked a bit more developed than I remember from breakfast time. Definitely not ready for that yet ; ) We put the boys down for naps so we could start our afternoon schoolwork. They came around the corner looking a bit nervous to ask if it was okay if they nursed their babies during math because they were getting a bit fussy. I said "I sure hope that's allowed because as soon as Arlo is here he will be spending quite a bit of time doing that along with other daily duties!" So they nursed & burped their little ones & we continued on with school.
I don't have a picture of the boys with "baby Arlo" & "baby Lucy" but they are excellent big brothers so far minus an incident here & there. They have watched an episode of Daniel Tiger meeting his sister Baby Margaret about 200 times in the past couple months. It is really cute but the girls now burst into tears when I turn it on for them yet for the rest of the day we hum the songs until Char pipes in getting ALL the words right. They spend all day long with their babies, nap with them, set them in a chair while they eat etc. I was sitting on the floor in the boys room the other day while they were in their beds which have now been turned back into cribs since we are moving backward instead of forward. Baby Arlo fell out of the bed & Anson screamed then he reached through the bars so he could reach Arlo's foot. He said in his sweet baby talk voice "Are you ready Arlo? Goin' up!" as he slowly lifted him up the outside of the crib while saying "don't be scared, I gotcha." until the baby reached the top. He gave him a huge hug & whispered "good job, you brave Arlo." Owen is really particular on how you cover baby Lucy up at bedtime & he panics randomly saying "She crying! Baby Lucy crying! Where is her?" We think we may just put Arlo in there once we are home from the hospital. That team should have things figured out in no time at all! Owen also got to feel quite the commotion from Arlo (the real one) last week. Since then he is very interested in my belly.
I mentioned in my last baby update post that my mom had come into town & we made Big Sister, Big Brother & Little Brother shirts but I failed to post a picture of them. You may notice a 6th shirt in the background. Rest assured we are not holding back information when we say there is only one baby in there. We just made an extra for Arlo that is more of a 0-3 month size instead of newborn so he can wear it longer.
I had a very specific idea in mind about the style shirt & after my mom did some looking around she called me from the fabric store & said she was buying fabric to just make them....of course she decided to do that. She can do anything with fabric & a sewing machine. We found a quilting stack of fabric that had an equal amount of Cowboy & Cowgirl colored fabric. We figured we needed to carry on with the "buckaroo" theme since he will be a new roomie with the original buckaroos & is our only Texas born babe. We had two ideas on how to make these- #1 use the embroidery attachment to my machine making it extremely easy or #2 cut the fabric letters out on my Silhouette Cameo. Neither worked & we quickly decided to go on with a new plan. After looking for a text to print letters we could trace, I grabbed a sharpie & drew out my own. We ironed the fabric onto a fusible fabric, traced the letters backward on the other side & got to cutting. We have a hard time sleeping when we have a project going so we were tired during the day but it was well worth it. Once the letters were on we took turns sneaking into my room & doing a zig zag stitch around each letter. It was painfully difficult with curvy letters like the stupid "s" oh my! All said & done we really love them & couldn't believe we cut out & stitched around 36 letters. Glad that's over with!
Jenny has become my overseas doula. We are communicating through an app called HeyTell that has been great. Day after day she has written "how are you today?" & I fill her in on details. She asked me one day if I was tired of her asking. I said no & the next day she sent me her professional looking picture & asked again. I sent the next picture back saying "pregnant & great!"
From time to time when I think their family needs a little pick me up Robby records me dancing in the kitchen to some "rockin' music" as the kids call is & we send it to them. After 5 hours at the fair & learning how to do the "Whip Nae Nae" with Rob & the kids the night before, I did a three minute practice & had him record the real thing. I almost died & figured if that combo didn't put me into labor Arlo was staying put.
We had another "is baby coming?" moment yesterday when I woke up really early with contractions about 5-7 minutes apart. My doula was 7 hours ahead so I started messaging with her. In some ways I feel like this is my first pregnancy which I know sounds strange but it is my first following a cesarean. Jenny had a cesarean with her first due to silly Karis trying to come out bottom first. She then went on to have two successful VBAC's. Not only that but she delivered both without any anesthesia....like a rock star. That being said, even after years in L&D, she is my go to gal when it comes to natural labor.
One major difference for me this time around is that my body has to kick into gear & not need any help to keep contractions going all the way through delivery. So, being reminded of what I can do naturally once early labor starts or what I can do once in the hospital is important & my doula (pictured above) is the perfect supporter. So that early morning, we messaged back & forth about ideas. I decided to do some squats with contractions & take an extremely long walk which I had already done 10 hours before & the night before that. It certainly kept contractions going & for about 3 hours, I was thinking we would be calling in the troops again although I feared being "rejected" (as Robby called it) twice & sent home. Ha!
Once I relaxed a bit, they slowed down to every 15 minutes where they stayed the rest of the day. By the afternoon my legs felt like they were going to give out due to my 7-8 miles of walking & all the squats in the previous 36 hours. It's not like I was in fabulous shape before this pregnancy anyway. So, orders are to return to triage if I am having them 5-7 minutes apart and/or if they are painful. This is mainly because they want me monitored with a prior c-section due to the (low) risk of uterine rupture. Only time will tell as to when & how he will come out to meet us!
One of my favorite photos as of lately is this...what life looks like for me looking down & what life looks like for Anson looking up.
We as a family are SO enjoying this pregnancy & look forward to having Arlo in our arms but are resting in the truth that God has already picked the day & exit route for this little guy. Scripture tells us there is nothing to be anxious about but to bring our requests to the Lord & he will provide peace so great we cannot even comprehend that will guard our hearts & mind through Jesus. I so need to be reminded of this day after day.
When I think about peace & rest I pray that we experience that in the midst of daily chaos or the concerns during labor about how things will happen. I'm so thankful he knows our hearts & is not surprised by our requests or our fears. We are experiencing this in moving along with daily tasks & with him near asking us to call on Him. A tangible way we are experiencing physical peace & rest is through our parents. My mom is in town now for the long haul while Bob & Jeannine are a short trip down the road & are ready & willing to be here at a moments notice or to spend time with our family lightening the load (laundry or kids). Bob must have helped fold laundry the other day because he asked where on earth are all the matches to the socks. I had no answer that day but when I cleaned out the girls closet this week I found at least 15 random socks hiding, no kidding.
He knows each person in our family & is already preparing hearts to receive another sweet baby in our home. We are experiencing this in Him providing precious moments with our four to snuggle, talk & recognize the unique ways he has fashioned Charlotte, Eloise, Owen & Anson. We also see those hearts being prepared in simple ways like a 6 & 4 year old needing to care for their new baby during school along with Owen & Anson making sure all is well with baby Arlo & Lucy.
The days ahead are precious whether with our current bunch or that plus one.
Thankful to be where we are.
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