Waiting...

So I woke up this morning with contractions, they were fairly mild and short, and pretty consistently ten minutes apart. I have continued to have them all afternoon, and they are definitely getting stronger and longer, but they are not getting closer together yet. I was told by the nurse not to go to the hospital til they are 5 minutes apart for at least 30 minutes....so now I wait. There was a period of time where they were around 7 minutes apart, but then when they got even stronger and longer they went back to ten minutes apart.....ugh. It is definitely taking FOREVER for this first phase to end and to get to active labor, we are going on 8 hours now. I'm defintely having to learn to be patient, and hoping they start to get closer together soon so we can go to the hospital and get this baby out!

Due date pics

Well today is Emmory's due date and so far he hasn't shown...and since it's only the 22nd for two more hours it is extremely doubtful that he will. After taking some pics of the nursery we decided to take some pis of us to mark this special day, even though his real birthday will be the real special day. You can also see that I have gotten quite large, there is no more room in my belly so it's good that he will be out of there very soon. Of course it took a few pics before we got a real smile from Mark, he isn't a big fan of pictures but for some reason the way he shows that is being difficult for them, which ends up prolonging the process for him which doesn't make much sense to me, but he has a good time doing it :) And we had to get a few pics with our "baby" for a few more days, poor lil Tillman's life is going to be changing any day now, so I hope he is soaking up all the attention now.

Before/After

This is the closet in our office turned nursery before, when the room was our office....

And this is the closet now, after clearing it out and organizing all of Emmory's things in it.....

Just thought I would share because it was quite the project!

Nursery pics

Finally, the nursery is completely done!!! It has pretty much been done for a while but there were a few finishing touches I was waiting on, and now it's completely ready. It feels soo good to have it 100% ready, now he can really be born :) I'm really happy with it, I would have loved to be able to add more decor and such but I did what I could with what I had to work with and I really like the way it turned out.

One more week!!!

I had my last dr appt today. Tomorrow is April 22nd, the day I've been repeating in my head and to others over and over again for the last nine (ten) months, and it is now finally here! I can't believe it! At my exam this time there was a slight change since last week, I dilated a "fingertip" since then; how much that is I'm really not too sure. The dr. said my cervix was still pretty far back, but I was just excited to hear that at least something had happened in the last week. She asked what I wanted to do, whether I wanted to go ahead and be induced or wait longer. After discussing the options, I decided I definitely wanted to wait through the weekend to see if I go into labor on my own, because it's usually a lil easier, and she said it would probably be a long inducement if we did it now because of the way my cervix is. We did set up a day for me to go to the hospital if it doesn't happen on its own though, I'll go in this next Monday night, and be induced Tuesday morning (the 28th). That means that I'll be holding lil Emmory in one week from today at the longest!!! I'm not excited about being induced and I really hope that I go into labor before then, but I definitely don't want to wait any longer than 41 weeks, and the doctors don't want me to either. If I do go into labor before then I'll try and have my mom put up an update on my blog so that at least everyone will know that it happened. We've been having a great time together going shopping and eating lunch out, just enjoying the time before everything gets crazy and we can't do those things anymore (for a while anyways). So I'm so thankful that Emmory has been stubborn up to this point, but now I hope he decides to show up on his own, before he is forced out!

39 weeks

Well I changed the name of my blog just in case you didn't notice, not that it really matters what it's called but I thought the name was appropriate, I am already outnumbered and am about to be outnumbered even more when Emmory is born...but I love boys and it is fun to be able to say that. I think Mark still counts as a boy even though he is grown...any of you who know him know that he is still very young at heart and likes to do boy things, and I am confident that especially when Emmory is a little bigger, it will be like having two boys around the house :) I know they are going to have so much fun together going fishing, camping, playing sports, and things like that, and it makes me happy to think about and look forward to that.
There really isn't much to update this week, I had my appointment this morning and still nothing had changed. The doctor said that is not uncommon, and he's definitely not saying that my cervix is so unfavorable that we need to start talking about inducement; I'll go back next week and we'll see if anything has changed then. He did say they won't let me go past 41 weeks though, so I'm really hoping he comes before then because I do not want to be induced. I don't quite understand the need for that anyways, I mean I do if there is a danger in continuing the pregnancy, but if everything is going along fine then possibly the due date was just off and the baby isn't really late at all and will come when it is the right time...at least that's the way I look at it, but I know they are professionals and know what they are doing so I'll just have to trust them. I continue to be thankful that I can trust the sovereignty of God in this situation, along with every situation in life, it is a HUGE comfort, I don't have to worry or wonder because it's all in His hands.
My mom gets here tomorrow! It definitely looks like she'll arrive before Emmory does, which I am very thankful for! And it looks like we'll have some time to spend together and do some things before he gets here, so that will be nice as well because I know it won't quite be the same once he's born, I definitely won't have the freedom and flexibility that I have now. I can't wait to be able to take him places with us though, I'm not sure if I've mentioned on here before or not but we have a busy summer planned for our little family and I am so excited about it, at the end of July we are flying to Seattle, and then driving to Cannon Beach, Oregon for vacation with my family. Cannon Beach is my favorite place in the world and I can't wait to take Emmory there, and I'm so glad he'll be able to meet my relatives so soon after he's born. Then after we get back from Seattle we are going to the opposite coast, to Pawley's Island, SC with some friends from church. It will definitely be crazy travelling like that with an infant but I'm so glad we are doing it, as long as we live here we are going to be travelling back and forth a lot so we might as well get used to it right off the bat, and hopefully starting Emmory early will just make it second nature for him.

38 weeks

This week marked the beginning of my 38th week of pregnancy, it's so hard to believe there are only two more weeks til the due date. I'm not sure why it's so hard to believe though because I honestly feel like I have been pregnant for a VERY long time, it's hard to even remember what it's like to not be pregnant, and I look forward to being reminded very soon! I'm definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore, but at the same time I don't want him to come before my mom gets here next Wednesday, and there are still things on my "to do" list that I want to get done before he comes...I guess it's just the nesting instinct that makes me feel like I have to have all these things accomplished and ready before he gets here, because honestly there isn't anything left to be done that REALLY has to be done before his arrival. I had my checkup on Tuesday this week and they checked my cervix again this time...and everything was still the exact same as two weeks ago, 50% thinned and that's all. That made me feel pretty calm about having time to accomplish more things, and about the chances of him being born before my mom got here. I'm probably the only pregnant woman near the end of the pregnancy who is relieved to hear she hasn't started to dilate at all. The dr. said again that she thought he would probably be born closer to the due date, not early. However I know that anything CAN happen at any time, he's going to be born whenever God has planned for him to be born regardless of what any doctor says. Yesterday was a great day, Mark surprised me by taking the day off, he needed a break because he has been going non-stop so much lately, and last week was especially busy as he had games almost every night and all day Saturday and he preached in church on Sunday, and he wanted to spend the day with me. It was a beautiful day and we took Tillman (our boston terrier) to the park downtown and just walked around and hung out down there. Here are some pics of our time at the park and of my 38 week pregnant self.

Falls Park, downtown Greenville

Mark and Tillman

Tillman finally stood still and looked at the camera

Trying to get Tillman to look

38 weeks!