Oh, the stress of it all..

I heard news that one of my other belly buddies (Alicia) just gave birth last night. That means two people out of the three that had a due date within a week of me has already given birth! My pregnancy ticker says 24 days, or 3 weeks and 2 days remaining to my due date. My official predicition is Feb 27th, as that is the last day my office is open, and my coworker gave birth on the first day the office was open so I just thought it would be fitting. Anyway, I'm starting to feel the stress of it all. There is so much to do, and Luke has been really great - but at the same time really stressing about getting everything done before baby is born. We still need to do a few loads of baby laundry, put everything away in the nursery (there are just mounds of clean baby clothes everywhere), pack our hospital bags, and we still are trying to finish up the video and photos from the wedding we did a month and a half ago. On top of all that, it sounds like some people have hurt feelings over our birth plan/preferences. The whole point of telling people was to eliminate stress, not create it!!! *breathe* Yes, I know I need to chill, I just thank God I have a three day weekend starting in about an hour. I would so love to come back on Tues, with 20 days left to go and nothing on our plates. Here's hoping...

Yes, I am HUGE

Okay, I've begun to notice a pattern here. I wake up, Luke comments "wow, you are big!" or "you are huge!". I go to work, every new customer I see says "You must be due any day now!" or "Has your water broken yet, you look like you're ready to give birth." Thanks guys. You know, it's really not that annoying, I'm just happy people realize it's a BABY and I'm not just obese. I think the waddle limp I have going on due to baby bearing down and sitting on my sciatic nerve helps people differentiate. What would annoy me is post baby, getting a comment asking how far along I am before I shed the baby weight. I guess I'll just have to hide out at home until I can fit back into my prepregnancy clothes... At this point I don't even tell people my due date, I just say "anytime now" because I really don't think I'll go the extra 3.5 weeks to my due date. It would be hard to imagine I could get much bigger then I am now, my skin already feels like it's stretched past it's capacity. Now imagine if I were carrying twins...you see, mom, why that wouldn't be a good idea???

One more down!

Baby has officially "dropped". I noticed this on one of my early morning bathroom runs, I looked down and thought "where did baby go?" He has moved about 3-4" lower then he was, so that means he's locked and ready to go! They say for first time moms, baby drops about 2-4 weeks before delivery, so that would mean baby will be coming sometime between 38-40 weeks likely. The following may be TMI, but I thought would be cool to document - here is the progress I've made towards labor from the common signs:

1) Nesting - check! I started nesting a week or so ago, cleaning and preparing the baby's room with a frenzy.
2)Baby Dropping - check!
3)Cramping/pelvic pressure - not so much, only a few times when I lay on my right side
4)Dialation/effacement - I'll find out on Thurs!
5)Lose mucus plug - check!
6)Bloody show - not yet
7)Contractions - on and off, but not with regular consistency and they rarely hurt
8)Water Breaking - not yet

So, I still have a ways to go, which is okay by me seeing as how I feel we have 1-2 weeks left of things that HAVE to be done before baby is born - such as packing our bags, doing a final thourough clean, and finishing up the wedding pictures/video for our pastor's daughter. So, I'll keep you updated!

Baby is almost here!

It's so hard to believe, but baby Seth could be in our arms in as short as 3 weeks from now! His official due date is less than 6 weeks away, and the time has just gone so fast. Some people say towards the end of pregnancy things slow down, but the opposite is true for me...though I do feel like I've been pregnant forever, at the same time I wonder how I will be able to cope with the upcoming events - labor and delivery, nursing, and taking care of a newborn. I have been blessed to have three baby showers - one from my family, one from my work, and one from my church. I got so many wonderful things to fill up the baby's nursery it is incredible. I'm now officially "nesting" and gathering up all of the things that he still needs, and hope to purchase them by nights end...then this weekend I will spend some time washing baby clothes and such and packing our hospital bags. I would rather be over prepared, then to not have anything ready when the time comes. As I read in a blog a week ago, I could go anytime now, though babies usually stay in their comfy home until around the due date. We had a friend that just gave birth at 33 weeks, and I'm at 34 weeks, so the reality does hit that it could be sooner than we expect. I'm really looking forward to the epidural after watching some of the birthing videos...I honestly can't see how people would go (or even want to go) 100% natural. No, thanks! I did a recent survey on yahoo answers posing the question what their pain level was with an epi, and all but two said a zero.

Updates on me - physically baby does feel like a huge watermelon, which is how big he is this week. He's weighing in around 5lbs, possibly more. I'm surprisingly comfortable, and haven't been overly tired however. Luke has commented more than once recently when looking at my prepregnancy photos that I was so super skinny before getting pregnant. Not that I'm fat now, but pregnancy does tend to make you look like a huge whale...large belly, face fattens up, and now I can't remove one of my rings...the great thing, though, is that within a few weeks of birth I should have my body back.

Updates on baby - He's definitely got a personality, he loves music, especially Pillar. His favorite song is "reckless youth" and if I'm ever concerned that he's not moving around like he should I'll put it on and in a matter of moments he'll start bouncing around, even if he was asleep. I can also feel more body parts, it was cool the other day we could feel his leg, where the knee was and everything. He's still transverse and mighty comfy that way, I'm just hoping he'll turn into the proper position in the next two weeks. If he doesn't, I will possibly have to have a c-section. We'll see, though.

That's pretty much what is new, at this point it's a nesting and waiting game...I have 24 days left of work (less if he comes early) and then he should be here!

45 days left!

The time sure has flown by, and before I know it, little Seth will be here! I have been blessed to have three showers, thrown by friends, family and coworkers. I had the last of these on Sunday, and now baby's nursery is almost complete.

The Miracle of Seth

I was pondering the circumstances around Seth's birth, and can see God's hand and plan at work in a mighty way. As you know, Luke and I had been trying to have a baby for the past 7 years. We had gone to multiple specialists and all said we were fine, that it was "unexplained infertility". I called it the "God factor." So, we continued to pray, that God's will be done and that things would come about in His perfect timing, not ours. We didn't feel right trying to force God's hand by taking fertility drugs or doing surgical methods to try and become pregnant so we just waited.

In our early marriage Luke and I set down with a "goals/wish" list for what we wanted in the next five to ten years of our lives. We listed things such as: buy a house, pay off our car, pay down debt, buy a new camera, and have children. We also had a list of our top five dream vacation spots, among them were: California, New York, the Carribean, and Colorado. As we waited for our little bundle of joy (impatiently at times) we slowly began to check things off of the list of desires. Our car was paid off and we had gone to Colorado and California in the first few years of marriage. By our five year anniversary we had a substantial amount of debt paid down, took a trip to NY and the Carribean, and by the end of the year - bought a house. Now, the only thing on our list left was children. Amidst my prayers for a baby, I told the Lord He could have our first child, and even (foolishly) prayed for even a miscarriage to show me we could have a baby. About January of 2007 I had a brief vision of a future son - he looked just like me as a child with curly brown hair and laughing eyes. He was so strong and beautiful, and my only thought was "this is not Gabriel." Strange thought, since Gabriel was what we had agreed to name our first son, but that was nonetheless my main thoughts about it. In March of the same year I found out I was pregnant - I awoke early one morning, at about 3 am with an urgent need to take a pregnancy test. It appeared as though it would be negative so I threw it away and went back to bed. The next morning I awoke and felt I needed to recheck the results, and to my surprise it was positive. However, I did not feel the elation I thought I would feel about getting a positive result, instead an overwhelming sadness came over me as I felt we were going to lose this child. The next day I started bleeding, and over the course of a month and a half we lost our first baby. Although we did not know the gender of the baby, I had a strong feeling it was a boy, and we decided to name him Gabriel David, our angel baby. Through it all I felt God's peace and love, He carried me through some rough months. I finally found healing on my birthday that year, November 25th, which was Gabriel's due date. I realize that even though it wasn't what I had wanted for our family, God was faithful, and He answered my prayers.

My grandma took a bad turn with her health when she had a stroke in late 2007. I felt strongly that we would have a child around the time my grandma passed away, to help my mom cope with the loss. Luke and I decided to start the adoption process, as we had been putting it off for a long time and felt the timing was right to start our family. After completing the majority of paperwork towards the adoption, and completing the first meeting of our home study, we anxiously awaited our child. My grandma passed away in June, and at the same time I took another pregnancy test and found out I was pregnant again. I felt a real peace about this child, and even though there were worries about loss again in the first trimester, Luke prayed about it and God pointed him to Psalm 113:9 "He makes a woman in a childless home a joyful mother." That has become the life verse for this pregnancy.

I received news yesterday that the credit union I have worked for the past five and a half years decided to close my branch. I am going to be laid off on February 27th, the very day I had requested to start my maternity leave. This is significant, because it means not only do I get the money that I was planning to get when leaving for severance, but they are throwing in an additional 5 weeks of pay, plus unemployment benefits. How perfect the timing for everything was, is just incredible! We are very blessed, and I just wanted to share this brief testimony that surrounds the birth of Seth Gabriel Erickson - "Appointed/anointed strong man of God" as his name means, he was definitely appointed for this time in history, and I can't wait to see what he becomes! May God bless you and I hope this serves as a reminder that we serve a faithful God. Although we often travel through life with blinders on, if we hold out our hand and trust God to guide us, He will allow us to accomplish much more than we would have done on our own.

Okay, we'll tell...

We are naming our baby Seth Gabriel Erickson. Seth means "annointed or appointed", and Gabriel means "strong man of God". Seth was the name of Eve's "replacement son" for Abel, and in the same way, Seth is sort of our replacement son for Gabriel. We wanted to tell our immediate family first before announcing it to the world, and I'm happy to say that everyone likes it. =) Just 10 weeks, 2 days, and 15 hours remaining...