Hello world

Boy, oh boy.  Look what the stork delivered on Sunday, the 26th.

Archer.

Stories to come, once we're in a routine and more rested.

Fortune Cookie Madness

Admission:  I have gone out for Chinese food two times in the last three days.  (Of course that's only if you count Panda Express as Chinese Food.)  This was the fortune I received on Thursday:

I laughed out loud when I read this one and promptly emailed this photo to Zac.  (Which resulted in Zac laughing as well.)  My labors?  Yeah, I've been trying to get those to start for a week now.  But it was nice to know that when they did happen I'd bear sweet fruit, which I read to mean a healthy baby.

Today (Saturday) is one day past my due date.  I've been growing impatient for the aforementioned "labors" to kick in.  Impatient, frustrated and antsy.  So when I got this fortune this evening, all I could do was laugh again:

Seriously?  Is this some sort of coordinated fortune cookie joke?  

Waiting, waiting

I'm less than a week away from my due date.  I had an appointment last week with my OB to see where things stood.  He was happy that things were moving along and he didn't think we would make it to my due date.  Looking at the statement now, I wish he hadn't said that.  I've spent the last four or five days hoping that labor would kick into a higher gear but it hasn't happened.  As a result, I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do with myself.  I've already put myself on maternity leave from my job.  If I would have known I had almost another full week of work availability, I would have kept on earning a paycheck.  However, I didn't want to be half-way through an assignment only to have the baby and then stress out about finishing before the end of the month.  So without employment to consume my time, I've been using the last few days to "nest" which hasn't really been compelled by some sort of instinctual motivation but instead by simple boredom.  

Today I made scones for breakfast because at least that killed some time.  The house is prepared.  The baby's room is ready.  The Christmas decorations are back in storage.  (Save a few "winter" decorations that I like to have out that remind me of the time of year.)  The laundry is washed, folded and put away.  The bathrooms are clean.  The kitchen is tidied and mopped.  And I don't need to vacuum again.  In the evenings I've been working on a cross-stitch piece that has been an on-and-off project for a couple of years.  I finally cleaned, starched and blocked some crocheted snowflakes that have been sitting around.  I sewed some liners for the baskets underneath the diaper changing table.  I rearranged things in the guest room, knowing that we will have a parade of company starting in a few weeks.  I went through my clothes (and had Zac do the same) to purge things to be donated or simply thrown away.  

I'm actually at the point where I could attempt to organize or do something with the boxes of photographs I have stacked in the closet, but there really isn't any level of boredom in this mortal realm that could motivate me to tackle that undesirable project.  Maybe I'll just keep on working on the cross-stitch.

As each day passes and I get more and more impatient.  Last night a friend asked me if I was nervous about the process of having the baby.  No, not nervous.  Sure, I've had absurd anxiety dreams the last few nights (e.g. baby is born and for some reason Zac and I forget to feed the baby for 24 hours) but during the day I don't really think about the labor and delivery.  In this case perhaps ignorance is bliss.  You don't know what you don't know.  I have no reason to fear labor and delivery because I have no idea what it's like.  And even if this was my second or third child, each delivery has the potential to be an entirely different experience.  I simply want to come through the process with a healthy baby and a healthy me.  How we get there isn't really important to me.  I'm just ready to get there.

I wonder what else I can bake/cook this morning . . .

It's a new year

Back when I was in K-12, my parents, sister and I regularly went to our cabin to celebrate the New Year.  Some years our aunt, uncle and cousins came with.  Some years we asked a friend from school to come with instead.  Every year there was some junk food and snacks, card games, cold weather, and some possibly illegal sparklers and/or fireworks. The cabin was heated by a old Ben Franklin wood burning stove and often in the evenings we would sit around it for awhile, being cozy and warm.  I remember being at the cabin for New Year's Eve, 1989, and saying aloud, "1990 doesn't even sound like a year."  It was strange to my ear,  "The 1990s."  This is probably because my entire conscious life had been in the 1980s.  The recognition of the changing of a decade was new to me.  There have been a few decades that have passed since 1989 - heck, we even moved into a new century - but I feel like this New Year will be a bigger change than most that have come before.  My due date is in about two weeks.  Babies tend to show up when they're good and ready, but in the end there is no way we're completing first month of 2014 without becoming parents.  It is hard to wrap my mind around.

As I put together our Christmas Cards this year I spent time going through our photos and our calendar, reminding myself of what all we did these past 12 months.  Of course, just like the last three years, the wall calendar in the kitchen reflected the voluminous medical appointments associated with our journey towards parenthood.  We had done an IUI in January 2013.  It wasn't successful.  We spent the first part of the year trying to figure out when we were going to stop trying, how many more IUIs we were willing to attempt.  I started acupuncture around that time, my Hail Mary, my "at least I tried just about everything."  In April, Megan and Paul came to visit.  Right after they left, we tried another IUI.  This one seemed to work.  We waited, not trying to spend too much time wondering if we'd make it past the six-week mark.  Well, we're past the 36-week mark at this point.

On one hand I feel like I've been pregnant forever.  I remember those first weeks and months:
The first few ultrasounds, and steeling myself for potentially bad news each time but trying to be hopeful.  
Going camping, laying in a tent in the woods, wondering when (if?) the morning sickness would kick in.  
One of my girlfriends figuring it out early on when I waived off a glass of wine, and my inability (or desire) to lie to her.  
Zac coming home and telling me that he had told his boss about the pregnancy in order to make sure he was available as possible for doctor's appointments.  
Attending a family wedding over Memorial Day weekend, wondering if we'd be able to keep our secret - not wanting to distract from the focus of the wedding and not wanting to tell our families just yet.

The first few months were spent slowly disseminating the information about the pregnancy to maybe one or two people at a time, depending on the circumstance.  Finally we were able to tell our families, and announce it on Facebook.  The flood of love and support was overwhelming and I settled into being pregnant.  Weeks pass.  Months.  A full three-quarters of a year.  And now here we are, really any day from bringing this baby into the world.  A lot of life happens in nine (really 10) months - Zac and I went places and did things all while my body changed and the baby grew.  At this point I feel I have forgotten what is like to NOT be pregnant.

On the other hand, how can it be that it's already time to have the baby?  It went so quickly.  All of those events that happened on the calendar are still fresh in my mind.  Why does time seem to elapse more rapidly with each year?  That seems to be my adult life in a nutshell - I blink and months go by.  I can only imagine that will continue once the baby arrives, when every day brings something new and amazing.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2014.  May you know prosperity and peace in your lives and, most importantly, joy.  I wish you all the most joy that your hearts can hold and then some.