Bailey Anne Tyler

Pictures are out of order, but blogging is much harder with a baby in one arm! Getting ready to go home on Monday.






















Bailey ready to go home.

















Happy mommy to finally have her here! Taken Monday.

















Her first picture, in the operating room.

In the nursery getting checked out.

She is here! She was born on Saturday, December 27th at 9:23pm by c-section after a long day of labor. I can't type much now as she is occupying my left arm, but I will as soon as I get a chance. We are all doing well and adjusting to this new life!

The Plan

Well, I went back to the doctor today, and there was no change since Monday, and he did oblige me and schedule me for an induction, but it's not till January 2nd. That was the earliest next week they could take me. Apparently it's a popular time to be induced, what with the nice tax deduction on the line and all....

He did say they flagged my file so if someone ends up not needing an induction earlier in the week they can bump me up and try to get me in before the 1st. My hope obviously, is that she will come on her own before that time. I'm okay with being in the hospital on Christmas day, so keep praying people! :)

So anyways, I've decided I just need to not worry about it anymore, because I've done everything I can do to try to make this work the way I want it to. It's just up to God now how it works out. If I end up being in the hosptial after December 31st, then we'll just suck it up and have to pay the extra money and trust that God will provide that for us. So in the meantime, I'm going to try to enjoy Christmas and the time Anthony & I have left together with just the two of us.

Off to work on my Chex Mix now and then we'll be heading over to Kevin & Sarah's in a little while for the Christmas Eve party. :)

Bailey's Room

Here are some pictures of Bailey's room! We are all ready for her now.... just waiting on her. :) I just got the rocker tonight. My dad bought it for us, so that was really nice of him! I wanted to be able to use it past the time when I am just rocking babies in it, so I didn't get a white one to match the furniture. I got something I thought would go well with our living room furniture and floors. Enjoy!

38 Weeks Picture

Okay, so apparently Windows Vista does have kinks, but luckily I have a computer saavy husband who fixed the problem, so finally, here is the 38 week picture!

39 Week Checkup

Okay.... this ought to be the last or next to last one of these I have to write. Everything was good. My blood pressure was lower than last week, so I was pleased with that. Baby's heartbeat was good and she still likes hanging out over on my left side. I am about 1/2 cm dilated, so that was good to hear. At least we're getting somewhere and not having nothing happen!

I saw Dr. Ferguson today and this was the 2nd time I've seen her. I like her, she was very easy to talk to and just really friendly. She said of course, that first babies tend to take their time and once I was a week to 10 days overdue (if we get there) we could talk about scheduling an induction. She mentioned that obviously it's best to let "mother nature" handle things if possible, but once you are overdue, you have to start thinking about the fact that the baby is getting bigger everyday, so you don't want her so big that she won't come out anyways. I ran the January 1st/insurance deal by her and I get the impression that if I make it to my appointment next Monday (the 22nd) we might be able to schedule an induction for the point that I would be a week overdue (the 28th). So hopefully we don't make it that far (I am begging you to pray for that!) but if we do and things went like they should, I could still be out of the hospital by December 31st. And, the doctor I see next Monday is Dr. Hoover, who I believe someone told me is the one I should see if I want an induction. So maybe that is God's plan for us. Who knows?

But I would ask you to pray that we DON'T make it that far. Here is my ideal situation: I work till Friday and then things start happening over the weekend and we could be home, baby and all, by Christmas. Of course, I know God's plan is best, so we'll just trust Him, one day at a time. Anthony guesses she will be born on her due date, because as he says, "we are on time kind of people". Haha.

So anyways, that's the latest. I'm trying to get everything wrapped up at work, and it feels a little overwhelming, but we're doing the best we can. And Anthony is done with one of his grad classes (he'll get an A!) and he is taking the final exam for his other one tomorrow. So he'll be happy if I just make it past tomorrow. :)

30 Random Things

Okay, I have not done this yet, because I feel like I'm too boring to come up with 30 random things about myself, but I'm going to give it a shot. I may have to save and come back later to do it, but I'll give it my best.

1. I LOVE getting in bed when it is freshly made with a clean pair of sheets. Anthony & I actually count to 3 and jump in at the same time so we can share the wonderfulness!

2. I was in the World Trade Center shopping August 11th, 2001, exactly 1 month before the attacks. I bought a pair of underwear from the Gap which I actually happen to be wearing right now. How do you like that? I am 9 months pregnant and wearing a pair of underwear I bought when I was 16. It sounds disgusting but I actually didn't wear them for a while until my belly started interfering with my regular underwear. TMI? I had to steal this one from Laura since it is such an interesting fact that we share. The WTC thing, not the underwear. :)

3. I will eat popcorn shrimp but not the regular, big, unbreaded kind. I don't like their "bouncy" texture.

4. My knees pop when I bend down. They have done this as long as I can remember and my dad's knees do something similar. When you hear it, it sounds painful, but it's not at all.

5. I love playing school when I was a kid and would make up names and keep a grade book in a spiral notebook.

6. My all-time favorite toys were the Magic Nursery Dolls. Please tell me someone else remembers those?

7. Anthony and I went on our honeymoon to Caesar's Pocono Resort, Cove Haven in Pennsylvania. We had a heart shaped jacuzzi tub and had breakfast in bed almost everyday. It was an amazing time and I would love to go back sometime.

8. Alias is probably my favorite show of all time. Amanda and I used to cuddle up on her bed to watch it in college AND we gave ourselves spy names to match Sydney Bristow's initials.

9. I ALMOST took piano lessons when I was younger, but the plan was thwarted because we couldn't get the piano from my aunt's house in Georgia because we didn't have a hitch on our vehicle.

10. I have been on missions trips to New York City, the Bahamas, China, and South Korea.

11. My first job was cleaning the school part of my church. Bathrooms and all.

12. I only got in trouble one time at school, when I was in 8th grade because I got smart with the teacher. Funny part - now that teacher and Anthony work together at WHS!

13. I love Harry Potter. I have read all 7 books and am anxiously awaiting the release of the next movie. I don't like it when people judge it as "evil" before they have even read any of it for themselves. If you've read it and then don't like it, then fine. But don't knock it before you try it, as they say.

14. We gave away personalized Shasta daisy seed packets as favors at our wedding and I have them planted around our mailbox.

15. I once broke the head off of my sister's Jasmine Barbie Doll when I threw her across the room because I was mad about something. I shoved the head back on and stuff her back into our Barbie box. Later when my sister's friend came over to play she grabbed Jasmine by the hair to pull her out and the head came out while the body did not. I allowed Ashley to believe that her friend broke the doll for years before the truth came out! (I sound like a terrible person!)

16. I have a really good memory for people, and remember almost everyone I went to school with, even if we weren't friends. I feel like none of those people could possibly remember me for some reason.

17. My niece Zoe was born on November 17th, 2004, and came home from the hospital on my 21st birthday, November 19th. My best friend Amanda's niece, Ava, was also born 2 days before her 21st birthday.

18. My goal in life is to be a mom. I don't really care if I ever have a career again. I just want to be an excellent wife and mother.

19. I have the equivalent of a minor in math from Liberty. It's not called that because of the way the teaching program is, but that's basically what I have. It makes me feel smarter than I really am.

20. I wouldn't marry Anthony before we were both graduated from college, so he took overloads almost every semester so he could graduate at the same time as me. I think I got a good one. :)

21. I went all the way through the Awana program at our church and received the Citation award, and a scholarship to Liberty. That means that I learned and recited more than 700 Bible verses.

22. Anthony and I completed Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University this summer and because of what we learned in that will have our Jeep paid off sometime early in 2009, about 2 years ahead of our loan schedule.

23. During our first year of marriage, we won the chance to buy Red Sox/Yankee tickets, and we did purchase them, but instead of going to the game, we sold them. We made somewhere around $500 I think but I wish now that we would have gone to the game.

24. I already have my first "project" lined up for after Bailey is born and I am staying at home. Our office is in complete disarray, and has been the room we've paid the least attention to since we have lived here. I plan on doing some serious organizing!

25. I love the movie Dumb & Dumber.

26. I am the daughter AND granddaughter of breast cancer survivors!

27. My first car was a 1983 Buick Century. My parents bought the car new right around the time I was born, so we went way back. :)

28. My sister and I used to sit in the tiny linen closet at the end of our hallway, close the door, and I would read books to her by flashlight.

29. I love visiting my in-laws and having the entire family together. Anthony & his 3 brothers are crazy and hillarious when they are all together.

30. Right now, I am 25 and Anthony is 23. I am about 1 year and 3 months older than him.


Wow - I made it! But it took me close to an hour, so I sure hope you learn something new about me!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

This morning as I was laying in bed, thoroughly enjoying what quite possibly has the potential to be my last Saturday to freely sleep in, uninterrupted, my phone rang. (The voices of Amanda and Jen came to my head when I woke up at 8:00 ready to get out of bed and get to cleaning, organizing, baking, etc. Perhaps I am nesting. But because of their advice, I decided sleep was more important today. So I stayed in bed/slept till around 11:00.) Anyways, back to the main story. I did not get up to answer the phone because I knew if it was important enough, whoever it was would call back. They didn't. :) So when I did get up at 11:00 I listened to my voice mail and it was Ashley saying that she wanted to tell me how I was being a bad influence on her daughter. ME a bad influence on Zoe? This oughta be good I thought.

So I call her and she said that this morning Zoe says to her "I want a baby in my belly". Ashley says "Excuse me?". To which Zoe responds, "I want a baby in my belly so my belly will grow big like Aunt Tara's". Hahahaha.

The funny thing to me was that I wasn't even sure if she had noticed or cared that my belly was big. She never says anything about it or really acknowledges "the belly" unless we tell her to put her hand on it, or say something to Bailey, etc. But apparently she is keenly aware, and jealous, of the size of my belly and the little one within. :)

38 Week Checkup

Still trying to upload that picture.... maybe I need to try from a different computer. Not sure what's going on with that, but until I am able to get it up here, just imagine a whale in your head. :)

Checkup was fine today. I saw Dr. Thompson who delivered Zoe and is apparently, from what I understand, the king of the circumcisions. :) (And I am waiting to hear Phil's impression of him, Courtney!). Anyways, he's the very nerdy type, but excellent at what he does, so I enjoy seeing him. I gained more weight in the last week than what I care to share with the world. Dr. Thompson says that often a jump like that is due to fluid retention, so that's what we'll go with. It would suffice to say that I have not done as well in the latter part of pregnancy with the weight thing as I did in the beginning.

My blood pressure was also higher than it has been, but he didn't mention it, so apparently nothing to worry about yet. I measured 38 cm and the heartbeat was in the "middle" range as he put it. He didn't have his normal heartbeat thingy and did not have a watch so he didn't give us a rate, but I'm satisfied with "middle" range. :)

And then, of course, the part you've been waiting for. I am still not dilated any, but around 75% effaced, so I made some progress from last week, so that is good. Dr. Thompson actually mentioned something about me hopefully having her by Christmas, so that made me feel a little better since I am worrying about being out of the hospital by January 1st for insurance purposes! Please continue to pray for that. I really am hoping that I can have her and be home by Christmas.

My next appointment is on Monday, so we shall see what that holds. Hopefully more progress and one step closer to having Bailey here with us! :)

Jennie

Anthony's Poppa's wife (his step-grandmother), Jennie, passed away this morning, so please pray for the family during this time. This was expected as she had congestive heart failure and her kidneys were failing as well. Anthony didn't know her very well and I had never met her, but she had children of her own and of course it will be hard for Anthony's mom and her brother and sisters, and especially for Poppa as he adjusts to life without her. Thanks for praying.

38 Weeks Update

Whoops.... it's been a whole week! Well I am 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant today.... 12 more days to go, or thereabouts anyways. That is hard to believe! My appointment last Thursday went well. Everything was normal and I was about 50% effaced with no dilation yet. I go again tomorrow so hopefully I'll be a little closer to the big day.



We are pretty much ready for Bailey now. I have my bag mostly packed, and the list on top of it of the things we would need to throw in there when the time comes. Anthony tells me everytime I leave him to make sure I call him if I go into labor. Like I would forget! :)



I guess the only thing I have hanging over me is work. Through a series of events, we don't have anyone to take Tina's place (the girl who is taking my place) when I leave. So she is still doing that job so it makes it hard as far as me training her goes. But hopefully, Bailey won't come too early and we'll be able to get enough time in for her to feel comfortable with my job.



We had a good weekend, and we were pretty productive. Got the whole house cleaned, which does not happen every weekend these days! We also finished up Christmas shopping for Anthony's family and have a box ready to send to them.



Well, I think I am going to end for now and go spend some quality time with my husband while it is still just the two of us. :) I leave you with my 38 week picture we took this evening. I slacked for the last 4 weeks and did not take pictures. So maybe it's just me, but when I saw this picture I could not believe how huge I look! I don't feel like I look this big in the mirror! :)



Okay... maybe not. The picture thing seems to not be working at the moment, so I will try again a little later to post the picture. You'll just have to wait on the edge of your seat in suspense! :)

Heat Problem

When we got home on Sunday evening, our heat was not working correctly. It wasn't staying up with what it was set at. Of course, I get all stressed out and worried about how much money this is going to cost! Anthony called a heating company on Monday morning but they couldn't come until this afternoon. The house was still being heated but not properly, so at least we weren't freezing for an extra day.

So the guy comes today, and now, the problem is fixed, but I am ticked! Turns out it was just some wiring that was loose, thanks to the company who did a shoddy job of installing the heating unit apparently. There was another cord, some type of defroster thing that is supposed to be hooked up to keep the unit from freezing basically, and the wire was not even hooked up! And, there is about 2 inches of mud at the bottom of the unit, basically from someone being careless it sounds like. AND, if you needed more, we thought that there must be some kind of manufacturer's warranty on the unit, but I didn't remember seeing any information on that when we got all the other warranty type stuff when we moved in. Well, guess where it was? INSIDE the unit. I'm sure that's where they normally keep that when it is in the box, before it's installed, but someone should have taken that out and given it to us! So pretty much, we're lucky that we haven't had bigger problems besides some loose wiring.

It "only" ended up costing $90. I do think that $80 an hour is insane, but I was so glad that's all it took to get it taken care of. Hopefully, we will recover that money with lower electric bills this winter. Last winter our electric bill shot up more than double what it was during the summer, and the tech guy told Anthony today that it should not be that way. He also told him that the company that installed our unit (their name & phone number is on our thermostat) is actually out of business now (big surprise, huh?) and that there have a been a lot of problems similar to ours in our neighborhood. So anyways, now I'm excited to see what our bills look like for the rest of the winter.

Who could imagine I would be thankful for a $90 bill??!! I know that this is just another example of God providing for us and meeting our needs. $90 now will definitely be worth smaller electric bills and avoiding bigger problems later on because of sloppy workmanship!

Weekend

Quick Recap of our weekend:

Friday - Met Anthony at Chili's for dinner. I wanted to make sure we got at least one last free wing and free chips & salsa happy hour before the baby comes and we are too poor to eat out! Be forwarned though, the waitress told us that starting December 4th they were going to starting charging 25 cents per wing during happy hour. Then we went to Walmart and got a good amount of Christmas shopping done for Anthony's family.

Saturday - Did some stuff around the house, mostly cleaning and general tidying up of the house. Went to Walmart, again, for grocery shopping this time. As soon as we got home from that I went to Ashley's Pampered Chef party, which actually only consisted of me, Mom, Ashley, Zoe, and Jen, Ashley's friend, who was the host. It was fun though and we made some excellent pizza! After I got home from that I got the bathroom cleaned with the help of my wonderful hubby. It's getting harder and harder to bend over to clean that bathtub these days! Then Saturday evening I went with the girls from church to The Melting Pot in Charlottesville for Megan's baby shower. She is due about 2 and a half weeks after me with her 2nd little boy. I had never been to that place before so it was a neat experience and we had a great time.

Sunday - Church and Mom's. Also ran into town to go to Michael's and Target. We played with Zoe for a while once we got back. That kid loves Anthony. More than once during the day, she had to abruptly stop the playing and run to the bathroom before she peed her pants cause she was laughing so hard! Then Sunday night was Hanging of the Greens at church. That's one of the best services of the whole year!

It was a good weekend, but as always it went too fast!