Stella Rae Frisby

Baby has arrived! I'll have to post about the whole process later when I'm feeling more up to it, but I thought a photo was in order. She was 8 lbs, 4 ozs, 21 inches long, and she's got lots of strawberry blond hair. She's a cutie and already seems to have a mind of her own.

An Update

As we have recently been inundated with phone calls, texts, and emails asking about Baby, and we had an appointment with our doctor this morning, I've decided it's time for an update.

First of all, everyone always asks me how I'm feeling. Well, I'm two days overdue, we're having a week-long heatwave, and Baby is as big and active as ever. I think that should be all the info you need to deduce how I'm feeling.

Second, everyone wants to know when Baby is coming. Well, so do we! Our ideal day of last Thursday came and went without incident. My due date of Monday came and went without incident. My sister-in-law's predicted day of yesterday came and went without incident. So, what exactly is going on? Well, here's what we learned at the doctor today. When the doctor checked me two weeks ago, I was dilated to 1.5 cm and 50% effaced. In addition, the baby is sitting very low. At that time, the doctor said this was a great place to be in for 38 weeks. Well, two weeks later, it appears nothing has changed. I'm not sure if it's still a great place to be in for 40 weeks. The doctor didn't say, but I'm thinking that since I'd rather the baby had come by now, it's not. Essentially, as pretty much everyone knows, labor can start at any time. So, although nothing's changed in two weeks, I could theoretically go into labor today and have the baby tonight or tomorrow. Or Baby could just continue happily lazing away the days in my belly with her foot in my ribs as she has been. And, that's about all we know about when baby is coming. She's got her own agenda and seems to have no regard for what would work best for us. Surprise, surprise.

Now, on to what we discussed with the doctor. Induction. The doctor said we should come up with a contingency plan in case Baby is too comfortable in my belly. She said they usually start thinking about induction when you're at least a week overdue - this coming Monday in our case. But, if I wanted to wait a little more to see if Baby will come on her own, we can go up to two weeks over. I told her that I would rather not follow my sisters' leads of going two weeks over and having 9 or 10 lb babies, so the sooner the better. She said she could try to get me into a 9pm spot on Monday night or the next available time was 7:30 am Wednesday morning. She told me she preferred the Monday spot for selfish reasons - she's on duty Tuesday morning, so she would probably be able to deliver the baby. That sounded good to me, so she got me the Monday evening spot. Great! If Baby doesn't come before then, we'll get things going Monday for sure.

So, what if Baby decides it's time to make her appearance and things start moving along before then? Well, now comes the tricky part. There is a one-day nurses' strike happening tomorrow at Kaiser. Which means that, although there will be nurses working, they will be short-staffed. Should I go into labor tonight, they may have to send me to a different hospital so they don't get overloaded. While we thought tonight might be a good night because, once again, my doctor is on duty, it's not so ideal if they have to send me to a different hospital. Now what? I would prefer not to have to be induced, but Monday evening is sounding like an ideal time. So, maybe Baby will finally listen to us and get things going on her own on Monday night. Or maybe Baby will do her own thing and come when she wants. Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, since the weather is less than comfortable and I'm feeling very ginormous, I think it's time for a swim!

A Room For Baby

Finally, I have taken some photos of the nursery. It's nearly done. My mom is still finishing up the bumper pads for the crib, but she's almost done. I figured that I don't need to worry about pictures of them now, though, because soon I'll be posting cute pictures of our baby sleeping in her crib, so the bumper pads will be shown in those pictures in all their glory. I also still have the blank wall above the crib, but that will probably remain blank until after the baby comes, so for now, it is what it is. Anyway, without further ado, I present the nursery:

 Here it is, looking in from the door.

Here's the feeding corner

Here's the crib corner

Here's baby La-A (pronounced Ladasha). This little guy was created by my nieces to go on top of a present at my baby shower. They insisted that I place this little baby in the crib until the real baby arrives. So, here she is, keeping the crib warm.

Here's the bookshelf/lamp/toy corner

Here's the diaper changing corner

And here's a close-up of what's hanging on the wall. The white dress is one that my mom wore as a baby and I love having it hanging in the room.

And that's the nursery. I took some pictures with the lights on and some with them off, but I think you can get a good idea of the colors we used and how it looks. I'm very happy with how it turned out and I'm so excited for Baby's room to no longer be empty!

Living It Up

This baby is due in a week. But, we're planning on her coming this Thursday. Thursday would be an ideal day for a few reasons. First, it's my niece's birthday and she really wants us to have the baby on her birthday. Second, my doctor is actually on duty that night, so as long as I have the baby after 6pm, my doctor could deliver it. And, finally, Thursday is only a few days away. So, that's what we're shooting for. In the mean time, I've decided that with the impending birth of our child and our subsequent loss of freedom and care-free living, I should live it up while I can. So what have I been doing? Well, Saturday morning we took a trip to the movies. We finally saw the new Harry Potter. It was a great way to spend Saturday morning and did you know that morning movies are, like, half the price of regular time movies? Totally lived it up that day. Also, I got a pedicure. And by pedicure, I mean my niece came over and painted my toes. Lap of luxury, I tell you. And, today I went for a little swim. Not for a workout and not to battle algae. I just got in the pool to paddle around for awhile. It felt fantastic. Okay, so maybe my 9-month pregnant self is not up for living it up like I used to. Still, I think I made some good efforts. And, I've still got a few more days...

Two Weeks

Or less, we hope. Well, I don't know if Mr. Frisby hopes that, but I do. I'm done being pregnant. I'm done peeing all the time, I'm done waking up every time I need to move at night, I'm done having my insides poked, prodded, and kicked, I'm done with heartburn, and I'm done waiting. So, I hope Baby comes early. We're pretty much ready, I hope. The nursery is just about done. I was going to go take some pictures of it so I could post them and then I remembered that Mr. Frisby decided to paint the shelf in the closet, so all of the closet contents are all over the floor. And that is not conducive to taking good pictures of the nursery. So, it will have to wait until he's done. I still have a blank wall above the crib. I'm kind of thinking I'll do something with Baby's name, but that means it will stay blank until she's born since we're waiting until we meet her to decide for sure. Our hospital bags are packed. We don't have the carseat in the car currently, but we did put it in a couple weeks ago to make sure we knew how. So, we should be able to put it in in just a few minutes. I've even downloaded a contraction timer app on my iPhone. Thanks to the Cutlers for that suggestion. I didn't even know they existed, but was not at all surprised to find out that they did.

As you can see, our lives have been consumed with preparing for Baby. It has been fun, though, and just adds to the anticipation and excitement of meeting our little girl (and, since our doctor did a quick ultrasound a couple weeks ago to check up on the little one and confirmed her girl status, we are quite confident in saying that). Aside from the baby prep, we have had other things to keep us busy. My sister and her kids came to visit for a week. It was fun seeing them and joining them for the various activities they had planned while they were here. Again, there was lots of pool time, a trip to the beach, a trip down to Big Sur, and a day in San Francisco. They also went to the Pinnacles, but since I'm not really into hiking these days, I didn't join them for that.

Here are a few pics of our day in Big Sur:

And, of course there is always yard work to keep Mr. Frisby busy and relaxing in the pool to keep me busy :) And, that's how we've been preparing for Baby!

Catch Up

It's been almost a month since I blogged. It's not that I haven't had things to blog about. It's just that most of them aren't very exciting things. So, I've been putting it off. But, I guess enough is enough and it's time to let you know what's been going on. First off, my brother and his family came to visit. This was actually one of the exciting things that's happened. They got here the day before we came back from our vacation, so we continued the busy summer adventures as soon as we got home. We kept very busy with them here.

We went to the zoo.


We went to Point Lobos where we saw lots of wildlife and the boys threw rocks.


We also spent lots of time in the pool. Please note: this is not the best photo of our pool time, but it's one of the very few photos with me in it, so I thought I should probably include it.


We also had other fun activities that I did not get pictures of, like going to the Exploratorium, going to the beach, going to the Jelly Belly outlet, etc, etc. It was great to have them here visiting.

After they left, it was back to business. We've been busy getting ready for this baby to come. Some of these preparations have been fun. Like buying really cute clothes. And getting the nursery all ready. And having a baby shower.



Other preparations have not been so fun. Like spending an hour and a half just figuring out how the carseat works and how to install it in the car. Or figuring out what to do with all the stuff that we used to have in the nursery before we turned it into a nursery.

And, as if that weren't enough to keep us busy for the last month or so, we've been battling an algae problem in our pool.



The algae came while we were on vacation. And, as we soon learned, this was not your normal algae that is taken care of by adding copious amounts of algicide and pool shock. This was black algae, which may as well be called the black plague. It's pretty evil stuff and very tenacious. Instead of going away with all the chemicals we were adding, it just continued to spread. To the point that I didn't even want to get in the pool (would you want to get in a pool like the one in the picture?) Fortunately, though, we've been battling it like crazy and, at this point, we've got it on the ropes. And, our pool doesn't look like the above picture anymore. So, I've been swimming again and getting a pretty wicked tan.

Mr. Frisby has been busy removing ugly juniper trees from our front yard and installing more shelves in the closets. And, of course, we've had doctor appointments, various baby prep classes at the hospital, including a tour of the Labor & Delivery department, and we've been trying to finish up other projects before the baby arrives. So, it's really been a whirlwind of activity. The good news is that the nursery is almost done. I just have to put the bumper pads in the crib when my mom finishes those and I have a wall above the crib that is currently empty because I can't figure out what to do with it. Anyone have any good nursery decorating ideas for a blank wall? Once I get the nursery all done, I will post some pictures.

And that has been our last several weeks in a nutshell.

Sewing

Much to my mom's delight, I've been sewing. Appropriately, my first project on my "new" machine was, indeed, hemming pants. But, I've since moved on to more fun and exciting things. Like curtains for the nursery. I'm super excited about how they turned out and I smile every time I walk by the nursery and see them.

I learned to do a blind hem. I imagine this will be quite useful in the future, but it's a little tricky and quite nerve-wracking. Fortunately, it turned out okay.


Scout supervised the process, lending her extensive expertise when needed


Sewing on the buttons. This was the last step and I was really excited to get them on, put the curtains up, and be done with it.


The finished product. Really, I think it turned out super cute, if I do say so myself. And look, you can get an idea of the wall color.


And a close-up so you can admire the adorableness.