Update and Baby Shower Love

I've finally gotten around to uploading the pictures I've stolen from others from the baby shower two weekends ago.  Wouldn't you know it, I brought my nice, fancy camera to capture all the fun... but left the all-important memory card AT HOME.  So... I was thankful to borrow various cameras to take shots of the day.  We all know that I'm the best paparazzi around :)

A few pics from the fabulous event are below (click here for the album).  I think I've already mentioned how ridiculously spoiled Baby Larson was... but what I will never forget was how loved and supported I felt by every person there.  It was so much more than I could have expected.  And when things get tough (as they seem to do too often sometimes), I remember how blessed I am to have such an amazing group of people in my life.  How did that happen??  :)  My hosts (Bri, Keri, Rachel, and Kristyn) went above and beyond with their adorable (and very crafty) decorations, delicious food (with thanks to Kari and my stepdad as well, yum!), and generosity in hosting many of my nearest and dearest friends and family.  You ladies are such a HUGE blessing to me, I hope I never let you forget that. 

Also, we had what I was hoping would be our last ultrasound to monitor the whole bowel issue today.  Unfortunately, it will not be our last ultrasound, as the doctor did see the dilated loops still.  Long story short, they want to keep monitoring it in case they decide BL needs to come a little earlier than expected... Prayers for that are always appreciated!  Specifically, prayers that things don't change and that the "loops" don't get any bigger.  I suppose everyone goes into their pregnancies hoping for a joyful, wonderful time as the baby grows and you prepare your home.  Being caught up in the worry and questions of it all, I just wish I were able to do a bit more of the whole "joyful" thing sometimes.  It's hard not knowing if your baby will be healthy... and while I try to be patient, I can't stop my brain from wandering into all the different realms of possibilities which often keeps me from enjoying this amazing time.  Still, we are so excited for him to get here and finally get to the bottom of this stuff, come what may.

Mostly, Baby Larson, we are just SO excited to meet you and love you.  Try to slow down on the whole growing thing though, huh?  I hear you're about 4lbs 12 oz already...which is apparently a bit ahead of schedule for 33 weeks. :-)  Extra turkey for me tomorrow!

A few fun baby shower pictures:

Postponed...

Today's post is a fake post - a "this is not a real post but I'm putting something up to not be delinquent and remind myself that I need to come back to this stuff" post.  I had a crazy week (but did finally get to sub on Friday, which means I finally got a little ca$h for hanging out with my kiddos!), and I haven't had time to get to the baby shower pics and updates just yet.  Plus, our old friend Whit is in town from Indonesia, so we've been catching up (and he and Matt may be catching up on lost Nintendo time...). 

My 32 week (and uneventful) checkup was this past week, and I have no news to report other than that BL's heartbeat is still nice and strong.  We also finished childbirth preparation classes, so apparently we should be pros by the time BL wants to make his arrival (ha!).  And our next ultrasound is scheduled for Wednesday to check on the bowel issue, so keep BL in your prayers.  In more fun news, Matt's work surprised him with a baby shower at work on Friday, and if we didn't think BL was spoiled before (which we did!), he certainly is even more so now.   Twins stuff GALORE (oy), lots of toys/clothes and baby goodies, and our camcorder!  Wow, what an unexpected blessing.  Can't wait to use that thing for all our BL videos on this blog.  (Don't worry, I'll try not to go on baby video overload...I promise!)

HOWEVER, I will leave you with my favorite picture from the shower (though of course it's missing a few people that weren't able to stay til the end or weren't able to make it - but you're there in spirit!).  It was seriously a wonderful day, and I don't think Baby Larson could have felt more loved (or spoiled). Neither could I.

My favorite song

The past week has gone too quickly, but is one that I will never forget!  The time with old and new friends coupled with showering our little guy with LOTS of love and gifts was, well, amazing.  I'm not sure how else to put it.  A post on that will be forthcoming... (with some fun pictures!).

For now, as I sit at home during my only sick day of the year (yes, I made it to just about 32 weeks pregnant without missing any school!!), I am thinking about how blessed I am to have a wonderful family, awesome friends, and an amazing husband.  And speaking of my amazing husband, it dawned on me that we got engaged on a chilly November night in DC along the Tidal Basin three years ago this month!  That may have been the best night of my life (until our little guy arrives, I'm sure!). 

And in case you never heard the gorgeous song that Matt wrote for me and proposed with on that cold night in the moonlight and glow of some of DC's finest memorials, here it is.  It's my favorite song... I could listen to it over and over and over.  (And sometimes I do.)  Just a reminder of how totally blessed I am to have found such a wonderful partner in life.  (Plus, isn't it so HOT to have your husband sing to you?!?)  I love you Matt!  Our little guy is going to have a terrific father.  (Though I sure hope he's not tone deaf... what will that do to the family band??) :-)

"Song for Ali" by Matt Larson:

Update on Baby Larson - 30 weeks

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to know too much or too little.  And even if you don't know either, and feel somewhere in the middle, it usually feels like even that information is too much or too little.  That's kind of how I feel today. 

I wonder if we should have gotten tested for the cystic fibrosis gene.  I wonder if we should have gotten an amniocentesis to find out if Baby Larson is sick.  I wonder if we should stop worrying and just wait until he's here to figure it all out.  I wonder if we should spend the next two months reading book after website about CF.

But, I suppose that knowledge is power (I am a teacher, after all), so in the end, I have to believe that we know some things about this situation that we're in for a reason.  I walk a fine line between wanting to learn everything I can about CF and wanting to put it out of my mind altogether for the next two months... somehow it feels like if I know too much, he'll be sick (yes, I know that's not logical).  But somehow, it feels like if I know too little, I can ignore it all and it will eventually go away (yes, I know that's not logical either).  Still, here we are.  And like our childbirth coach says about labor and delivery, whether we like it or not, or if we think it will be too hard or not, that baby will get here.  One way or another.  While we don't know yet if BL is sick, I know that sooner or later we will know.  And one way or another, we will deal with it. 

(That doesn't mean I have to like any of this)

At our ultrasound on Friday, we heard many terrific things about how BL is growing perfectly average in size, weight, measurements... his head isn't even overly large (something we're bracing ourselves for since Matt and I both have extremely huge nogens)!  :)  At 30 weeks, he looks SO much different than he did at 22 weeks (when we last saw him).  His cheeks are chubby, he opens and closes his mouth, and he just plain looks like a little baby waiting to come out and say hello!  For as much as the unknown stuff sucks, it is pretty awesome getting to catch a few more glimpses of him on ultrasound than we would have without any of these CF concerns.  I'm no ultrasound-reading expert, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna be a cute little guy! 

The doctor didn't see any brightness in BL's lungs or intestines (which is one "sign" of cystic fibrosis due to the type of mucus CF babies produce), but because that's only found in a small percentage of CF cases anyway, it didn't mean all that much.  (Still, I will take it!)  But then the doctor told us that she's seeing some dilated loops of bowel which a) could be nothing to worry about (some babies get it from swallowing amniotic fluid) or b) could be something related to cystic fibrosis (CF babies often have bowel issues as a fetus; many get perforated bowels that are repaired with surgery after birth).  SO, after all of the good news, we still need to go back in 2.5 weeks for yet another check on little BL.  Honestly, I would have preferred to simply hear, "Everything looks okay right now, we'll see how things go once he's here!", but of course, that's just too easy.  And apparently we don't like things easy.

Being the worrier that I am, I foolishly took to Google this weekend to see what I could find about this whole dilated loops of bowel thing.  I don't really understand medical jibberish, but a few of the studies/articles that I came across certainly were not making me feel any better.  So, I had to put an end to that (maybe too much information in this case is a bad thing).  For now, I am just sending up some prayers that little BL is developing well and that God is working some crazy miracle magic on him to help him be healthy when he gets here.  Some babies (without CF) have bowel issues in the womb that can be fixed with surgery... so I'd even take that! 

Baby Larson - we are so anxiously awaiting your arrival.  While we have much to learn as new parents, I know that we will love you like crazy!  We think even the Stinker (your new brother) will love you (if he can ever stop howling at you).  We're getting ready for you to come home and can't wait for you to give us cuddles and coos.  Someday soon your little nursery will not be a giant, disorganized mess filled with boxes and paint cans, but a safe, cozy place for you to love and grow while we feed you, read to you, change you, and put you to sleep (and I hope you'll like baseball!).  Lots of people are looking forward to meeting you and are rooting for you to be a healthy and strong little guy.  Dad is excited to turn you into a Twins fan, and Mom is excited for you to change the world someday.  :)  Get here safely!

Cars and a Murder Mystery

Well, I wish the murder was of a car, but the title of this post is actually referring to our weekend events.  Aside from catching up on sleep and schoolwork, the weekend was made up of a fun murder mystery party with friends, and a lot of talk about used cars (not as fun).

First off, the murder mystery party.  Rachel and John hosted our first mystery party, and it was a great time!  We didn't know quite how it worked at all the turns, but it was a fun way to get "dressed up" over the Halloween weekend without getting too dressed up.  Everyone looked great, and low and behold, Keri and Joe ended up being the murderer and victim - pretty crazy for having been randomly assigned characters!  And the pictures turned out pretty fun as well:

As for the car part of the weekend... we received the bad news from a local mechanic that our poor Hyundai needs a lot (read: $$$$) of work put into her, so we were presented with a dilemma.  The car itself (her name is Dixie), is not worth much money at all... like not even half of what the repairs cost... so do we put the money in and hope she keeps running, or do we put that money towards a cheap, used car that could potentially last us longer?  After visiting many many dealerships (and one pretty sketchy used car lot perhaps run by some type of mafia), we still don't know what the right answer is.  Apparently there is a shortage of "cheap" used vehicles out there for sale, so the decent cars we could find were still pretty pricey.  Our only options seemed to be a 2001 Altima with a solid record, or a 2004 Civic with two accidents on its record... and actually, the Civic isn't "technically" in our price range yet, we're just hoping we could talk them down a bit. Oy... And if you're wondering, we did not win the Powerball jackpot (yet), so we'll still have to ponder this for a bit or until the Hyundai completely poops out on us (which could be any day!).  I suppose cars don't like to take into consideration their timing.  Not the best for us, at any rate.

And, that was our weekend... nothing too crazy, a couple early nights in bed, a scary movie (Paranormal Activity), relaxing, organizing a boatload of baby clothes we have inherited from extremely generous friends (ahem, I'm looking at you Mackenzie - our little guy will be stylin'!  And I think he'll be set for quite some time...), handing out Halloween candy to adorable neighborhood kiddos, and me planning lessons and preparing some lectures.  The weekend always goes by TOO fast!  Thankfully, we have some excitement this week to look forward to - we get to see the little guy for the last time before he arrives!!  We have an ultrasound scheduled for Friday (and our 30 week checkup is the day before - 30 weeks?!?).  Can't wait to see you little guy!