Baby Photos Part 1

Daddy, Weston, and Mommy!
Mommy and Baby!
Little Guy
Another one (another picture, same baby)
Grandma Anderson (Genghi)

It's a Boy!

So, I don't have pictures yet... our wireless connection in the room is not too good, so I'm actually at the apartment, picking up Mom Anderson who just flew in from Philadelphia, and I figured I'd share the good news and promise pictures to come.

Weston James Anderson was born at 2:27am, Pacific Time, after 9 or so hours of labor. He was 20.5" long and weighed 8lbs, 7.3oz. Jean was spectacularly amazing, really indescribably great. She did such a fantastic job that I could go on and on and on, except that she's waiting for me back at the hospital, and Mom Anderson and I had better go over there. Both Jean and the baby are doing very well. More to come with pictures!

On our way!

We're off to the hospital! Wish us luck!

Something's Happening... Finally!!

So I had my 40-week appointment this morning, and hurrah!! I'm dilated to three centimeters!! Woohoo! Things are happening! Tim and I were overjoyed, and we shared an exuberant high-five at the doctor's office.

Although I thought I was having a non-stress test today, my doctor actually scheduled it for Monday (incidentally with another doctor, because she's going to be out of town for the next five days). Plus, I have an induction scheduled for Thursday the 28th, which is the same day that my awesome cousin Sarah celebrates her birthday! Woohoo! I may not make it that far, but now I know that I'm DEFINITELY going to have a baby within the next week. Crazy!!

So that's the update for now. Since I'm still not having real contractions, I still don't really know what to expect, but I'm assuming that the whirlwind may commence at any moment. Whoo! Exciting times!

Sigh

No baby yet! And no contractions either. I am now four days past my due date, but I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow where (I'm desperately hoping) I'll get some encouraging news. My doctor is also going to do a non-stress test, where the baby's fetal heart rate is monitored to make sure that he's still doing alright in there. So... we'll see what happens! I'm sort of assuming that my doctor may pick a date for me to be induced next week, but I'll letcha know when I know more. :-)

I've been thinking a lot lately of this girl named Dee-Dee, who I met at one of our childbirth classes. She was due on February 16th (one day before me), and I keep thinking that she certainly MUST have had her baby by now. Lucky. Maybe some day it will be my turn? Or maybe I'll be a new scientific oddity, the woman who was perpetually pregnant?? It's funny that I'm several days overdue now, because I sort of feel like T-L had up until my due date to decide whether he wants to come out, and he decided not to. Haha!

Anyway, in the meantime, Tim and I had a lovely lunch today of soup, salad, and breadsticks at Olive Garden. LOVE IT!! We played some Mario Kart this evening, and right now Tim is making cookies in preparation for a new episode of Lost. (Yes, Tim is the baker in the family, for which I am sincerely grateful. I am only able to make what he endearingly calls "cow flop cookies.")

Until later! :-)

Yay, More Photos of Jean and Tim!!

So, I've mentioned my awesome friend Lauri before, who recently started Lalee Photography in the Philadelphia area. Lauri and I have been close friends ever since elementary school, and she's the absolute best - if I could pick a few words to describe her, they'd be happy, smiley, upbeat, sweet, generous, sincere, understanding, and (especially) super-duper fun!!! Seriously, everything is ten times more fun when Lauri is there (which is in part why I'm SO excited about her upcoming wedding, in which I'm going to be a bridesmaid, yaaaay!).

When it comes to her passion and her career of photography, she's downright genius, and I am always so impressed with her creations. So, naturally, I was thrilled when I learned that Tim and I are the subject of her most recent blog post! I had a photo shoot with Lauri back in December when Tim and I were visiting our families for the holiday, and you can view a bunch of those photos at the Lalee Photography blog. WOW!!! She made us look REALLY cute, haha! What an awesome experience it was for us (Tim and I had lots of mandatory cuddle time, which was great), and what incredible fun it was for me to spend that time with Lauri, getting creative and just being silly. THANKS LAURI!!! I LOVE YA!!!

El Room-O del Bebe

So, my day-to-day life has become very different of late, now that I'm done with work, flush with leisure time, and thinking CONSTANTLY of going into labor. Seriously, I was not expecting this much free time, so I'm doing lovely things like reading and watching movies and forcing Tim to go out to lunch with me just so I'll have a few things to put on a daily agenda. Haha! It's fun, but I really want the little guy to come!! Was it Pippin in The Return of the King who said in that touching scene with Gandalf that waiting is worse than fighting? Well, I get you, Peregrin Took, I get you! The anticipation and uncertainty of having a baby are just gnawing at me right now, and I have to admit, I'm very eager for things to just happen. :-)

Anyway, I'll pass the time (and keep my friends' and family's paranoia at bay) by making more frequent blog posts of varying degrees of inanity. Today's topic is photos of the baby's room!! (Which continues to remain vacant. Did I already mention that?)

TODAY IS MY DUE DATE!

I've come up with a little ditty to honor the occasion:

Happy Due Date to me
Happy Due Date to me
Happy Due Date, dear Jean
OH WHERE'S THAT BAY-BEEEEE????

:-)

My "Preg-ression"

Hahaha...haha...ha. Get it? Pregression? Hahaha. (The runner-up was "My Belly-volution.") Anyway, here is a compilation of my 9 months of pregnancy, which is an idea that I stole from Janelle (cutie-patootie new mom), because I thought it was totally neat. :-)

The "YAAAAAY I'm patriotic and pregnant on the Fourth of July" photo (5 weeks)

The "I FINALLY sort of almost look pregnant (even though I totally don't)" photo (22 weeks)

The "Hooray, I'm wearing a maternity shirt, take my picture!" photo (25 weeks)

The "Third trimester, finally I actually look really pregnant" photo (28 weeks)

The "Wow, we should probably start buying things and making arrangements to have a baby here" photo (31 weeks)

The "Haha... I'm starting to look pretty big now, haha" photo (34 weeks)

The "WOW, that belly is REALLY sticking out now!" photo (37 weeks)

THE END Photo (39 weeks)

(aka The "Look out, ginormous belly comin' through!" photo)

(aka The "Feel free to come ANYTIME now, baby!" photo)

That's a Big Sundae

Tim and I had a little date tonight at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy & Soda Fountain. Yay new places! We wanted to get ice cream, but in hopes of acting upon a modicum of healthfulness, we decided to split a sundae between the two of us. We had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into. Here are the "Before" photos:


And here are the "After" photos:


Can you imagine if we had each ordered our OWN sundaes??!!

Allow Me to Introduce Walkie Bits

Hey y'all! Did everyone have a good Super Fat Tuesday yesterday? Tim and I visited our local polling place, and we were hoping for some snazzy "I Voted" beads, but all we got was the regular old sticker. The lady there could not get over the fact that we're married but we're registered in two different parties. (Apparently that's not super common?) Anyway, after discussing it on the walk back home, we realized that our fundamental political apathy always overrides any possible disagreements that we may temporarily have about the issues. (Hahaha.)

I have nothing to write about. The baby isn't here yet (38.5 weeks now!), and I'm in the process of writing Thank You notes for the generous baby gifts that we've received, starting the Baby Book, and finishing the nursery. Finishing the nursery basically consists of hanging up the curtains and buying a little toy box (which I'm especially excited about, because Tim and I are going to Ikea tomorrow to get the Apa storage box for $14.99, and to eat delicious meatballs and lingonberries!). Oh, and if anyone hears anything about the Flarke DVD storage shelves (which have been out of stock for months and months now), do let us know. They're also only $14.99 each, but are perpetually unavailable. So, that's another one of my projects right now -- checking the Ikea website daily to see if the Flarkes are here. :-) Life is good when work is winding down!!

Anyway, as it turns out, I was able to conjure some inane things to write about after all! However, I still need to introduce Walkie Bits. Tim had a Man Shower on Saturday night at Dave & Buster's (the man version of the baby showers that I've enjoyed lately), and he won a wicked lot of tickets, and got me a little electronic toy called -- of all things -- Walkie Bits. (It actually says "Walkie Bits" on the little package! Go figure.) It's this little, orange, plastic turtle that walks around and makes buzzing sounds when you press its little plastic shell:



It's really quite entertaining (at least for those of us whose work is winding down and are pretty much just writing Thank You notes right now, anyway), and it's my new little desk buddy. If you happen to visit a Dave & Buster's anytime soon, I highly recommend that you aim for the 250 tickets needed for a Walkie Bits. It's bits of walkie fun (big bits, too).

Finally, (I'll stop after this and get back to work and Thank You's), Tim and I had our third and final childbirth class last night. Among other things, our teacher kept saying the phrase "soup to nuts" (which apparently means "from A to Z"?), and she also claimed that bellydancing used to be a form of childbirthing. Haha... what? I love it. We've done so much reading now, and seen so many videos, that we pretty much get the whole labor thing at this point (although still have no idea what to expect for us specifically), so, unfortunately, we ended up whispering jokes to each other the whole time. Don't get me wrong, we were generally very attentive, especially when she showed a video of the placenta (WILD). We also learned that the baby rotates in order to fit properly through the pelvic bones and what not during contractions. Very interesting. Flippant though we may be at times, it was a good class, and we're very, very excited for the weeks (days?) ahead. Still no idea when Tadpole-Leonard will actually come, but we're definitely looking forward with growing anticipation. :-)

Okay, back to my day...

Ahhhh My Precious Lost Returns...

LOST IS BACK!!! LOST IS BACK!!! YAAAAAAAAY!!!

So, how cool was the season premiere last night?? We loved it. I really want to discuss it, but I'll hold myself back so as not to ruin it for the DVDers. Tim and I celebrated the restart of one of our fave series in natural fashion with a Lost party, which included Tim, Jean, and two pizzas from Tarantino's. (Don't worry, we didn't finish both pizzas.) It was delicious AND exciting!!

Then I had my 37-week baby appointment this morning, during which (I'll spare you the details) I was informed that little Tadpole-Leonard will probably not be moving in with us this week (cue sad music). So, the waiting game continues! Here's the latest belly photo:

And if checking out cute and clever photos of Jean is your thing, then be sure to visit the Lalee Photography website! My awesome PA friend Lauri recently started Lalee, and her portfolio online includes a few photos of pregnant Jean from late December 2007. (See if you can find them! They're hidden in "Engagements" and "Portraits!") If you live in the PA area, I highly recommend that you hire Lauri for your various portraiting needs. She is really fun and highly professional too, and she is flush with creative ideas. Seriously, I am amazed by her incredible talent, and I'm so glad that I was able to have a photo shoot with her. YAY LAURI!!!