Happy New Year and the final clue!

It's the first of a month so here comes another clue, the final one. It's five letters long and four of the five letters are in our son's name. (If you don't get it by now....:) You can still guess but I cut the phone call "prizes" off at 5. Here are the winners. Nancy, who guessed the name after only 2 clues! Next is my mentor from Crosstrainers (a working women's discipleship group at church) Sarah N., then Krista, then Amy, and finally Patricia. There have probably been about a dozen correct quesses total. It's been fun seeing all the guesses. We are still going to keep the middle name a total surprise.

So we're going to have 2009 baby. No tax exemption but more time to prepare for her arrival. And no health insurance issues (we switched insurances as of today). I can now say that I've never been this pregnant before. I wonder if I'll notice any difference in how I'll be feeling from now until she's born.

Another update

I just got back from my 38 week appointment. I'm 2 cm dialated (normal for second pregnancy) but nothing else going on. My doctor said everything points to her being right on schedule. No guarantees but that was his best guess. Looks like she may provide support for my mom's theory that girls are either on time or late. My sister and I were just about right on time.

I haven't gain any weight in the last 2 weeks (how did that happen? with the holidays) but the doctor said that happens sometimes. I've gained a little over 25 lbs total this pregancy which is was my goal. That's just a little more than I gained with Dylan. I feel bigger though. Of course at this point in my pregnancy with Dylan I was going into labor.

Pregnancy Update

Here's a picture of me one day shy of 37 weeks which was last Saturday. (Yes, I got my haircut, about 3 weeks ago - it's so much quicker to dry now and it will be out of the way more. It's a mommy do.) I'm now (as of today) 38 weeks so, any time now. Dylan was born at 38 and a half weeks but every kid is different and some think that girls are either on time or late and boys are early. I'm just trying to be prepared at this point in case she comes this week. The most pressing thing is finishing up some things at work which I think I can do a lot of tomorrow. (I'm working my same hours this week (except the holiday) but I'm working from home. Dylan will go to Patricia's tomorrow since this is Bushra's one week off per year.) This weekend we got a lot of the baby prep things done. It's funny because I blogged so much about all the prep with my last pregnancy and there really hasn't been much prep this time except now at the end. We got a bunch of stuff out of storage yesterday (bassinet, bath tub, car seat, etc.) I moved Dylan's clothes out of the changing table into his dresser and got out the newborn diapers and moved all the girl clothes to the changing table. While I was getting the clothes out I showed Dylan this pink jacket and I asked him whose jacket it was. He said "Anna's." Anna is a friend of Dylan's from church. At least he realized it was a girl's jacket. Then he saw the new pacifiers we got and he said they were Aiden's (another friend of his who is 7 months old). Here are some recent pictures of Dylan with Anna and Aiden:

At my last doctor's appointment (tuesday, the 23rd) the doctor confirmed that the baby had dropped. I had been feeling like I was breathing a lot easier for about a week before that. My next appointment is Wednesday. I got a pre-natal massage yesterday which felt awesome! I went into labor 24 hours after I had a pre-natal massage when I was pregnant with Dylan. But nothing yet this time. I'll keep you posted!

Baby thoughts on Christmas

Every advent/Christmas I try to focus/meditate on one aspect of the Christmas message that God came to us in this world to be with us and then to die for us. This year, not surprisingly, I've thought about how Jesus came into this world as a helpless baby. Why didn't He just mysteriously appear on the scene when He was ready to start His ministry at age 30? Why submit Himself to humans to care for Him?

I, of course, don't have answers to all my questions but here are some thoughts - Jesus came into the world in this way so that His humanity was firmly documented and accepted. (Jesus' humanity is a key element of Him being an acceptable substitute for taking our punishment for our sin. For justice to be served, a human had to die.) If Jesus had just appeared, His humanity could be questioned. But we know who is mother and father were and people watched Him grow up (John 6:42). And the fact that He was born into a certain line of a certain Jewish family is key in the fulfillment of prophecy (Jeremiah 33:17). It is also key that Jesus experienced and suffered all that we do as humans (yet was without sin - Hebrews 4:15). That would include being dependent on others. He knows what's it like to grow up in this world.

Yet it is still hard to fathom that God loved us so much that He would and could be a little baby. And imagine what it was like for Mary - I particularly like the verse in the song "Mary did you know?" that goes something like "when you kissed your little boy, did you know you were kissing the face of God."

I hope you all get a chance to marvel at the awesomeness of the incarnation this Christmas!

A whole new world begins today

No, I haven't given up on the blog and no I haven't had the baby yet. I just got really busy with preparing for Christmas. We also went to NC to see Martin's brother and his family. It's been a fun month but I do miss the blogging.

Today is my last day in the office before my maternity leave. I feel like things are going to be so different when I return. Not only will I for the first time in my career not see a picture of W when I walk into the building in the morning, but also my work content will probably be a lot different. What I'm working on now, which is something I've worked on, on and off, since I started in June, will wrap up next month (presumably) and in this environment things come up and priorites change so quickly that I can't imagine what I'll even be doing when I return to work in April!

My other thought for the day is about how I'm mentally preparing for our little girl's birth. I'm remembering how things went with Dylan and so in some ways I'm feeling more prepared (like, okay, remember this is what happened at the hospital the day after Dylan was born and then remember how we have to go to the pediatrician and oh, then there's the support group I can go to). I have a mental picture of what the places look like and that's somewhat comforting. But of course there are so many unknowns that challenge me to trust God - how labor will go, making sure Dylan is okay, life with two kids, what the baby will be like (temperment, eating and sleeping challenges), timing of her birth, which doctor will deliver her, etc. It's really hard to prepare for a big life change other than telling yourself, within the next x weeks my life is going to be completely different. It's hard to believe. Although being in town for Christmas is change for us so I feel like the new territory/phase starts today. And I'm excited. I couldn't fall back to sleep this morning after my 4am bathroom run.

I hope you all have a great Christmas! I plan on updating more soon!

Another fun summer get-together

On labor day weekend, my pen pal Kelly was in town with her husband Jake and we got together for lunch and some site-seeing. I met Kelly in Yellowstone Park when our families were on vacation there in 1987. We wrote to each other a lot during middle school and while we wrote less and less over the years we always kept in touch and sent each other Christmas cards, etc. Until Labor Day, I hadn't seen her since 1987, over 20 years! Kelly contacted me over Facebook and said she was coming into town and gave me her cell phone number so we made a plan to meet up, we just had to recognize each other. We didn't have any problem. I was amazed at how familiar it seemed to spend time with Kelly. And I was amazed and how much fun we had and how much I enjoyed the time with her and her husband who is super nice and funny. Martin and Dylan enjoyed hanging out with them too. What are the chances that after 20 years we would still get along and have enough in common to talk for a few hours? And what are the chances that our husbands would get along? But we did and they did. Kelly lives in MN so I probably won't see her again for a while but we are hoping they move to DC in a few years after she finishes school.

Linus' First Birthday Party

(I'm catching up on posting pictures.) These pictures are from my friend Nancy's son's 1st birthday back at the end of August. Here's Nancy having fun trying to get the candles to light.


Linus is on the right watching all the kids from the party blowing out the candles...:)

Linus did get to eat his own cake...

Dylan had a blast at the party playing with all the kids and the neighbor's dump truck. This is also where I heard about the idea for the dump truck cake that I used for Dylan's birthday.

Photo #4 and Clue #4

Here I am at 33 weeks pregnant. I am now 34 weeks. It's getting close!

Three more people guessed the name this month. I'm still going to take one more winner for the phone call list and after that if you guess I will tell you if you are correct (and swear you to secrecy) but you'll have to wait for the email announcement..:)

With more people getting the name we are hearing about different associations with her name that I hadn't heard before. This is one reason we typically avoid telling the name until its too late to go back. But as I mentioned before, we are very sure about her name so these associations haven't changed my mind at all about how I feel about her name. But I have changed my mind about this month's clue. This month's clue has something to do with one of the associations I have heard this month about our sweet little girl's name....:) The clue is purple tattoos!