Unto Us a Child is Born

Hello all. I am sitting next to Elizabeth looking at our sweet daughter yawn and sleep for a little while. Katherine Noelle was born at 8:06 a.m. via c-section. She weighed 5 lbs. 14 oz. and measured 18 1/2 in. Her other most important stat is her extreme beauty and adorability. She is the loveliest little girl I have ever seen. Hopefully pictures will be posted later. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

C-SECTION, ahhhh!

That's how I felt when, in less than 4 minutes, I went from thinking generally about c-section, to having mine actually scheduled for Thursday, December 21st, 7:30 a.m. :-@ I had a momentary shock, but have recovered my equanimity. So, we know little Kate's birthday (unless she decides to a. turn or b. come BEFORE Thursday) will be in one week. Pretty amazing. I can't wait until she gets here. If you can believe it, it's still a bit unreal that my child will be in my arms very soon. It will be a relief, believe you me, but a bit unreal. Thanks for your prayers, my faithful blogfans, and we still need them! Also, let me know what you think of Katherine Noelle Bailey. . . sound yummy?

For the picture starved

The changing pad is covered with chamois and is SOOOOOO cozy, I think I could take a nap on it!

This adorable little dog's name is "Spunky." Josh has posed her climbing INTO the crib.

Her cute crib! I don't think you can see it, but the crib skirt has adorable birdies & flowers on it (same as the valance).

FYI to those who care -- PB's blackout curtains REALLY work. Unfortunately, I didn't look closely at the width of those panels, so I need to buy another in order to cover the entire window during naps.

Yes, in response to everyone's queries. . these are announcements. I uploaded the pics yesterday quickly before evening church, and I didn't get a chance to add any comments. I knew the rest of the pics were self explanatory, so I wasn't too worried. I've been working on these announcements for a few days. I was so proud of their collective beauty, that I wanted to take a pic and post. To counteract the sad truth that each person can only receive ONE of these, I decided to share my joy at the cuteness of the combined effect with my blog readers. :-) I haven't done any "crafting" in a long time, so this project has been a lot of fun.

By the way, I have a cute "story" on Josh. He is soo proud of his work in the nursery that every time he passes by (the door is right across from our bedroom), he peeks in just to bask in how cute it is!

Blue Lament

Josh and I seem to have the WORST trouble picking out colors that do not come from Restoration Hardware. Set at sea in a bevy of choices at Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, Home Depot, or Lowe's, I come home with swatches upon swatches hoping that one will do the trick. When we first moved into our beautiful home, we painted 3 of the rooms right away: master bedroom (Celery), upstairs bathroom (Buttercream), and the office. The office was supposed to be this gorgeous tiffany blue, very subtle and amazing -- well, RH doesn't have a subtle and amazing tiffany blue, so I was left on my own. I chose, Josh bought, we painted. Some of you may remember what I referred to as our pool room. The room actually GLOWED! into the hallway, it was soo blue! The effect was that you were entering an indoor pool, without any water in it. Well, we quickly repainted with the more sedate Sage.
Fast forward to the present. When faced with the choice of what color to paint little Kate's room, once again, RH did not have the perfect option, so I was left to my own devices. I chose a color that SOUNDS demure (Harbor Fog), but when painted above white bead board lost all fogginess and became more harbor. Fortunately, the mistake was not as grave as last time, but it did give Josh and myself NIGHTMARES about our last painting faux pas. One complication was that we were looking at it in the flourescent light of one of Josh's work lights. Once we got the regular bulbs in there and a little sunshine, things looked up. Then, last night, Josh added a little more white to the color before he put on the second coat. The color is more muted, and I know that things will be different when we get all of the furniture, bedding, and curtains inside. I feared that we had another Pool Room on our hands, but we teetered back to the safety of a bright, but not TOO bright, blue. Why, oh why, does not RH have a line of blues that are perfect for MY needs???

Beddie Bye

Today, on a marathon shopping trip, I quelled some of fears about not being ready for this baby should she come early. I bought 3 pkgs of diapers in varying sizes (critical, I was told this Thanksgiving by several experienced mommies). The other most important and exciting purchase I made was . . Kate's crib & a dresser! I spent HOURS wandering around New Baby Products in Snellville. I was by myself, and I just had so many choices to make. I'm sure that the employees were really wondering about me. Here's a link to a picture of the crib: Kate's Furniture. Click on the Peyton collection. We bought the 3 in 1 crib (not the Lifestyle) and the combo dresser. I chose the chestnut color for various reasons. Firstly, because the bead board is white, we thought that a white crib might be too much white. Also, a darker finish might transfer more easily to a boy's nursery than white. Lastly, white could show marks more easily. While I was wandering round and round the mulberry bush, Josh was really getting stuff done at home. He painted the nursery! It's not quite done, but we can at least get the basic idea. :-)

I always thought of myself as a beach baby. .

Little did I know that my little Kate would want to be a Breech Baby. :-) At least, she is at this point. Her buns are down in my pelvis and her head is up by my ribs. She has 6 1/2 more weeks to flip around so that she's lined up PROPERLY with her runway, but I'd appreciate your prayers about it. For those of you who aren't up on your obstetrics, neither doctors nor midwives deliver breech babies vaginally anymore (for lots of good reasons), so if she's holding on to her position for good, it'll mean a C-section. That's not the end of the world or anything, it's just a very different outcome than I had even considered.

The midwife gave me a handout that included some "excercises" to do to ASSIST the baby to turn. There's little excercise involved; they are more like positions. Basically, you lay on the floor and elevate your pelvis. This is supposed to make the baby uncomfortable and encourage them to move. Other aspects that they suggest are visualization. This is where it got hilarious. You're supposed to talk to the baby and tell her, "Kate, move around, point your head down toward my cervix." Yes, it got that explicit!

Other slightly less corny tips were placing headphones with music low on your pelvis or a flashlight to give them something to move towards. Look to the light! Apparently, babies are more attracted to Baroque music than to Romantic music. . So, play Bach, not Debussy. :-) Isn't that hilarious??? The last thing the midwife suggested was putting some ice on the top of my belly, once again to encourage the discomfort and help baby to move! Well, we'll see how devoted I will become to cooky methods of un-breeching babies.

Mommies, keep reading. . I have some questions for you.