We got to the point where contractions were more intense and about 7:30 minutes apart around 3:30am. Auntie Erin was called to come stay with Belén and Andy packed our bags in the truck. Then contractions slowed down and even stopped for a period of time. A nice respite that allowed me to get a [...]

Is this not the cutest Save the Date card you have ever seen?

Today is Eloise’s due date and I am 40 weeks pregnant. I am not sure if Eloise was just waiting for this day to come or if it had something to do with the two acupuncture appointments Wednesday and Thursday or the third and final membrane stripping Friday around noon, but we finally have progress of the uterine kind. We are not headed to the hospital just yet but I am having contractions lasting about 45 seconds each about 10:30 minutes apart.

They hurt.

Andy appears to be sleeping sounding through them.

That is about all I am going to say right now. Wish us luck! Maybe our little girl will come on her due date!

If you would have asked me a week ago what I would do if the baby hadn’t come by next Friday, I would have told you I would go crazy.  I was still working the day before my scheduled c-section with Belén and I thought I would be doing the same thing with Eloise as [...]

Our Dearest Belén, Today we celebrate two years with you.  We cannot believe how quickly these past 24 months have passed.  It is not a surprise since every day with you is an absolute joy! From the day you were born, you have been a happy child with an ability to melt everyone’s heart and [...]

Belén’s Second Year in Pictures

After discussions and consultation with friends and some serious consideration, I came up with the following Plan B which Andy agreed to as well:

1. Get an appointment for acupuncture to see if that can help start labor.

2. Have membranes stripped again Friday, perhaps my body will be more ready for the effects then.

3. Schedule an induction for early next week and at least give Eloise the weekend to start labor naturally herself.

So now I have an acupuncture appointment (my first ever) tomorrow morning, a membrane stripping (likely my last ever) Friday and an elective induction scheduled next Wednesday morning, May 4 at 7am.

It was agony getting to this plan but it feels right, or at least as right as it is going to feel in a situation with so many options, no clear right or wrong and a lot of emotions involved. Even having a Plan B makes me feel a lot more confident about both my path forward and my ability to deal with whatever fork in the road that presents itself.

And I *hope* my intuition is right that if we give her the weekend, we can still go about this naturally. In the meantime, I am walking at least 45 minutes each day trying to do whatever I can to coax Eloise to kick labor off. Since I am not working, I have even been picking up more housework and cooking which in my case is probably more likely to start labor than walking.

The irony of this entire internal drama is that in the end, regardless of the method, the outcome will be the same and we will have a baby. It’s as simultaneously simple and complex as that. Unfortunately, at this stage in a pregnancy, nothing feels simple.

We spent Easter morning at my parent’s house where they had set up an Easter Egg Hunt for Belén and a couple of our friend’s kids.

I have been talking about Belén’s Big Girl Room for some time. It has been a very fun project for me because I have never in my entire life been able to design and decorate a room from a blank slate. There have always been certain pieces of furniture I needed to make do with or other items I could not change, so the blank slate made this especially fun.

The wall color was the existing color when we bought the house and used this room for our bedroom. It is very versatile and I really love it and thought it might make a good little girl’s room if matched with hot pink because the darkness of the walls helps make sleeping easier. I find out later, after the entire room was finished and Andy had repainted a fresh coat of paint using something very similar to the old color that not only does he not think the wall color is light enough but he thinks the room is strange. Might have been nice to know earlier, but I guess he thought better than criticizing the decor choices of a pregnant lady…

That said, let me introduce you to Belén’s new Big Girl Room.

Listo means “ready” in Spanish and ladies and gentlemen, “somos listos” or “we are ready.” Check out our TO DO list. We’ve done everything from planting the garden to sterilizing bottles to bringing in the swing from the garage. Belén wanted to try everything out with her baby to make sure it was still of [...]