Hurry up and wait....

This little guys is really testing my patience! We are now 12 days from our due date, and it seems like it will take FOREVER for the baby to make his grand entrance. Maybe its because the last two times we were in to see the doctor we were making progress, moving toward what we thought would be delivery- however it seems our little guys is content to stay put for the time being, which makes his mommy not only physically uncomfortable but mentally crazy.

Nevertheless, it could be that this baby knows exactly what he's doing. I do have about a week left of work to prepare for maternity leave both at my job in Stillwater and with CRTIEC, so by waiting one more week he's nearly assuring that his mommy will be able to totally put work down and focus on him when he arrives.

To bide the time I've been making lists and crossing things off, as I am known to do so well :). My to-do list this week is lengthy, but if I get it all done the timing should be perfect for baby Hollman to make an appearance by Sunday or Monday or so (likely wishful thinking on my part). We'll see when he decides to finally grace us with his presence. On Tuesday the doctor will be striping my membranes, and if it works, usually women see results within 72 hours (or so the doctor says).

This weekend we wrote the many many many shower thank you's after I created the thank you from the maternity photo images.




Then we put up the planes Drew made for the baby's room, and TaDa! The nursery is officially finished! All we need now is the baby.





We also finally brought in the cradle my dad made for the baby and put it in our family room in the basement. My mom made all of the bedding and my Aunt Chris made the quilt. The cradle goes perfectly with the furniture in his room, however its much too large to fit in there, so we put it in the basement, where I'm sure I'll be spending lots of my time soon after delivery.







We can't wait to share the new of Baby Hollman's arrival, but until then we'll continue to hurry up and wait.

38 weeks, pregnancy at its best...

We are now at 38 weeks and are so anxious to get see the newest member of our family. We've spent our last few weekends preparing all of the odds and ends so that when the baby does arrive our list of 'honey-do's' is small.
This weekend Drew's parents came to help out with some more preparations, we made freezer meals, washed the windows, put in the exit to our egress window outside, spring-cleaned our house and put all things in place for baby to be with the hopes that labor will be sooner rather than later (I think I may be nesting just a tiny bit :).

Our last appointment with Dr. Olson was on Thursday and she told us we are at about 2 cm dilated, 35% effaced and at -1 to 0 station. This means, in general he's ready to go and is as nearly as far down as you can be before actually giving birth. We see her again on Tuesday and are hoping for more progress (okay, who am I kidding, I am hoping she'll send us right over to labor and delivery). Then, if he's not here by next week she'll be stripping my membranes to move things along. Now, when I first heard the term 'stripping membranes' I was totally mystified? What the heck was that? It sounds sort of like you are peeling away some sort of skin or something, which paints just an awful visual, and sounds painful. So, just to clear things up, stripping membranes is not breaking your water, or removing any kind of skin or anything else completely violent that you may be dreaming up. Instead, its a process where the doctor attempts to loosen the bag of water from the sides of the placenta to get things moving. The idea is that by loosening things up the baby will start the process of labor and hopefully, it will send us into labor a bit more quickly than if we had left things alone.

Baby Hollman's latest trick, since he's moved down quite a bit, is stretching out his legs and maneuvering his feet between my ribs. This is SUPER PAINFUL, and in combination with the back pains makes me really wish for labor. At this point, I think the labor would be more painful, but at least short lived compared to these un-ending weeks of rib-wrenching.

In light of the end of this 10 month hoopla, we wanted to end the pregnancy with some great memories of this journey- how excited we were to find out we were expecting, how much we've anticipated the upcoming birth and how fun (albeit painful), watching him grow has been. We decided to get some maternity photos taken by our lovely, talented and amazing photographer Jenn Cress. Now, dear readers before you continue reading on be aware that there are photos included that you may or may not want to see. Some have clothes. Some have fewer clothes. You decide if you want to view them (and even with this disclaimer I am sure someone will be sure to let me know that they can't believe I put half naked photos of myself on our blog)- but to be honest I don't view them as half naked, I think they are much more artistic and deserve more credit than half naked, and to top it off they turned out great, so we are happy and excited to share what we'll call the last installment of baby watch 2009.




















Its hard to believe that baby Hollman will be here in a few weeks, or even days since we've waited for him for 10 long months. We can't wait to hold him and see just how he looks, who's eyes, who's nose and all the other oohs and ahhs that come along with being a new parent, as it turns out, even through all of the aches and pains I feel as though we are now approaching pregnancy at its best: the arrival of baby Hollman.

April Showers bring May babies?

We're sorry that its been so long since we've updated, but things seem to be getting busier and busier!

Baby Hollman has been especially blessed and has had four baby showers. That's right, FOUR! He isn't even here yet and he's sooooo spoiled. One in Milwaukee, one here in the cities, one in Michigan and one at one of the schools that I work for- from the fantastic staff at Stonebridge. Everyone has been exceptionally generous and we have nearly everything that we could ever need for the baby. The only things that we are going to have to buy are a few odds and ends that we plan to make one more shopping trip for this weekend. Here are some pictures of the many showers, beginning with Milwaukee, followed by Minnesota and then wrapped up with Michigan.

We received so many amazing and thoughtful gifts, including eight homemade quilts and afghans, a gorgeous ceramic cross, a beautiful homemade cradle that my dad made for baby Hollman and tons and tons of clothes. If nothing else the baby sure will be dressed well.

Milwaukee






Minneapolis/St. Paul










Michigan







So, we're hoping that now that we are nearly ready that April showers will really bring a May baby. We only have four weeks left and are getting tremendously anxious!

Fly me to the moon

Or, maybe back to Mexico?!? I forgot to link to these great videos from Mexico. One is of Drew riding in the Spinnaker after snorkeling, another is me snorkeling with Drew and the last is of the resort. In both the above water shots you can hear my strangled laugh, which sounds more like a cross between a cough and a squeal. It sounds ridiculous! So I apologize in advance for you having to listen to it. You'll also get a taste of Drew's 'pretend accent' that he was using poolside. Underwater, you can get really seasick because I wasn't able to hold the camera even a little bit steady because of the current. Clearly, we were on another planet, or at least mentally visiting the moon. But, alas, thats what vacations are for!

Baby Bonus!

So, its been a little while since I've updated the blog, but that's because we have been busy! The nesting instinct I think is really kicking in, as I feel as though I need to have everything ready RIGHT NOW. What if he comes early? How will we get him home? We don't even have the car seat yet!?! Oh, the thoughts that have been running through my head. Generally though, I am just trying to while away the hours until we meet baby Hollman.

Along the way to 'being prepared' I've found myself in some pretty heavy conundrums. For example, what diaper bag to buy? This may seem like an easy 'just pick something and put it on your registry' task, but its actually much harder. See, the diaper bag will be used for at least two years. That means I have to like it for that long. Additionally, the diaper bag isn't just a bag- its a statement about your style and your baby's style. Then there is the question of form vs. function, or in a more perfect world, form complimenting function. All of my industrial design background has weaseled its way to the surface of my thinking and alas, I was at a loss for the diaper bag choice. On top of all of this we wanted to be at least a bit proactive and select a bag that would work for additional kiddos, boy or girl. My list of qualifications was growing quite quickly, while my ability to evaluate diaper bags seemed to be weakening like I'd been stuck with a huge piece of 'baby brain' kryptonite. After about a month of searching the internet, deciding on how much to spend and what we really needed in a diaper bag we decided on this adorable find from Room Seven:

Now, I realize that it does scream 'boy' a little bit, but I couldn't help but fall in love with it. I love that its whimsical and fun, but still super cute all at the same time. If I were another baby, I would likely see this bag and think "that baby is cool, he really likes to have fun!"
Now, to curb my necessity to be a bit more neutral I found the perfect compromise. Awhile back I bought a Coach messenger bag that is entirely 'neutral' with the Coach tan fabric and a stripe of colored panels that are sort of like a pastel rainbow. This is going to be our 'alternate bag' that we'll use for more 'formal' occasions when the 'hey lets have fun bag isn't all that appropriate'. Overall, I'm really excited to use both bags, so toting the little guys stuff around won't actually be so tedious, since I just love the bags.

This past weekend we also had our first shower, which was fantastic! Drew's mom, aunt Jan, friend Karen, aunt Sandy and cousin Shannel threw us a shower in Milwaukee. We were very fortunate to get to visit with lots of family members and everyone was SOOOO generous. Baby Hollman is incredibly blessed to have so many great family members and friends in his life. As a result of the great shower the baby's room is filling up quickly with gear. For the time being its all in his room, but as we get closer to his arrival we'll start putting away those things that need to go in our storage room and preparing those things that are necessary for his first few weeks. To see all the great stuff we got here are some updated photos of his room, which is nearly finished.





We put up some canvases in his room, one over the crib and a growth chart on the wall that are part of the transportation theme and we've hung up his quilt on the quilt rack Drew made. We're now just waiting for the new cherry curtain rods and the wooden airplanes. The planes will hang over the book shelf in his room when they are all finished.
As you can see the room is getting quite full. During the shower we received the baby's swing, the gyminini jungle gym, lots of clothes, the monitors, a handful of beautiful handmade quilts and afghans, all of the bath attire, the boppy and the list goes on... So much stuff! We don't have any pictures of the actual shower, as we were a little too busy to take any, but hopefully we'll be able to get some from friends and family who took photos and then I'll post them here.

By the way, for those of you who are still trying to figure out his name we were careful to cover up the letters on the wall and the name on the growth chart so we don't give it away before its time.

Drew's immediate family (Aunt Susie, Uncle Chris, Uncle Chris, Aunt Amy and Grandma and Grandpa) gave us a ridiculous amount of adorable outfits and the super cool pack n' play. Here are some pictures of it all set up:


We decided to get a pack n' play rather than a bassinet because we will have the cradle, which is much like a bassinet and we'll get a ton more use out of the pack n' play as a playpen after the baby grows out of the bassinet piece. Additionally, the pack n' play will be a perfect bed for baby Hollman when we take our many travels to Milwaukee, Michigan and Nevada to see family.

We've also been busy making decisions about what to do with this little baby once he gets here, and one of the few we have actually decided on with confidence is cloth diapering. I'm excited to use the cloth diapers because they are so much better for the environment than disposable diapers. Did you know the average kid goes through 5000 diapers before he or she is potty-trained. Its also ALARMING that the estimate for how long it takes a diaper to decompose in a landfill is 550 years!!!! Yes, you read that right! 550 YEARS! While diapers haven't been around 550 years to actually prove this, here's how they come up with that prediction.
So, we entered the world of learning how to cloth diaper and decided on the most economical of sort, using Chinese prefold diapers and diaper covers. They came in the mail the other day and they are sooooo cute! We chose Thirsties covers. Here are some photos of the cute little covers. I can't wait to put them on the baby!


If you are interested in learning more about cloth diapering, go here, its a great site that offers all the different types of cloth diapers and necessary accessories.

So overall, its been a great couple of weeks. This weekend in Easter and we're planning to get caught up with lots of odd and ends as this will probably be the last Easter for many moons that we'll get to spend on our own. We wish you all a fantastic holiday and hope the Easter Bunny brings you as many treats and bonuses as we've been blessed with in the past few weeks!