New Additions

Steve and I have a Mourning Dove that has made itself at home in the flower planters outside our bedroom doors. We realized after a period of time that "our" bird had laid two eggs. For the last month or so, we have anxiously checked on her every morning to see if the babies had arrived. About a week ago I peeked outside our curtains and saw that she was feeding a new little baby chick! The other egg hadn't hatched yet so the chick must have been freshly born. When Steve and I checked on her the next morning she had another new addition! We think the whole situation is pretty special given that our little "chick" is about to hatch, too. So meet the newest members of the Mitzel clan……

Work Showers

Coincidentally, Steve and I both had work showers this past Friday. Steve was completely surprised by the ladies in his office. He thought he was going to a mandatory meeting at the country club on Friday afternoon and it turns out that everyone had planned a party just from him. He was very surprised and flattered by the whole experience. He left with a bunch of really great daddy gifts, beautiful silver baby accessories from Tiffany's, and a gorgeous handmade baby blanket.

My coworkers at PAR threw me a lovely shower complete with amazingly delicious food, wonderful company, and a cookie cake!!!! Cookie cakes are my favorite so I was super excited to have one at the shower. I was overwhelmed by the effort everyone put into the shower and all the wonderful gifts everyone graciously gave to Steve, Parker, and I. We are very lucky to work with such caring and thoughtful people!

Parker's (almost) Finished Room

Here are a couple pics of Parker's Room. We have everything in place except for the chair and ottomon we ordered. They should be here anyday now. Steve and I are so excited with how everything turned out. Thank you to everyone who contributed all the wonderful gifts that are part of his room!

5.13 oz

We had our regularly scheduled 36-week appointment and sonogram on Tuesday. Parker is estimated to weigh 5.13 ounces, which is at the 40th percentile. The doctor suspects that by March 3rd he will be just short of 7 pounds. I apologize that I don’t have any more sonogram pictures, but when they are this large it is very hard to get a good shot of them. Our tech did manage to get a pretty good footprint, which is what you see above. I had another exam with the doctor and she said that I am still holding strong at 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced. She doesn’t think I will make it to March 3rd because of the number of contractions I am having, but we are not going to reschedule the c-section date. If I do go into labor early I will get a c-section at time. She also confirmed that my pelvic arch is still abnormally narrow (about 2 inches) and there is no physical way I could deliver a normal size baby vaginally. So now the waiting game begins, we are currently at t minus 19 days until D-day!

False Alarm

Steve and I had a little scare Friday morning, which led us to the doctors in a hurry. I had some really intense contractions that were not like any I had experienced before. When I called the ob nurse she suggested I come to the office right away. When we arrived, they did a non stress test. This entailed being hooked up to two monitors which read Parker’s heart rate and my uterine activity. Turns out that I was having pretty regular contractions about every 2 minutes (the ones I experienced at the doctor’s office were nothing like those I had felt earlier in the day). The stress test was followed by an exam due to the regularity of the contractions. From the exam, the doctor concluded that I was 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced, which is more progressed than what is expected at 36 weeks, but did not mean I was going into labor! Hooray! I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my chest. We hadn’t had our prepared childbirth class, finished Parker's room, or fully packed for the hospital. Needless to say, this was a great wake-up call that we needed to get everything ready in case things happened early. Steve was great and kept me calm through the whole experience. We will have even more information on Tues when I have my scheduled visit and sonogram. Stay tuned.....

Thank Heavens for Great Friends

Some of my friends threw Steve and I an amazing baby shower this past Saturday. It was a wonderful and beautiful party! Not only did we get to catch up with many friends whom we haven't seen in a while, but we also got to spend time with some of their kids. It is at times like this that you realize just how lucky you are to have your friends. Steve and I are truly blessed and Parker is going to be one loved dude! Our friends showered us with some amazingly cute and practical gifts. We are so appreciative to everyone who came and celebrated with us.

Here I am with the amazing hostesses: Jen, Christa, Desiree, Sarah, and Jami.

Here is Steve with sweet little Crosby. He looks like a natural, huh?

Belly Shot-35 Weeks

For those of you that don’t think I'm "that big" in clothes here I am in all my glory. I appreciate everyone's sweet comments and reassurance about my appearance, but you must admit that I am pretty huge. Within the last couple of weeks my size has become even more of a challange. I have a really hard time bending over, sleeping is very difficult, and eating has become more and more unpleasant. I still do feel very fortunate to have missed out on some of the other unpleasantries I could be experiencing like stretch marks and varicose veins. I am happy to report that I don’t have either. I will try to post one more belly shot before D-day.

1-Year Anniversary

Steve and I celebrated our first anniversary this past Sunday (January 20th). We had such a great day with each other. We spent a lot time reflecting on all the exciting and monumental things that have occurred in our lives since we said "I DO". We even followed tradition by taking a ceremonial bite of the top of our wedding cake, which had been wrapped up in our freezer for the past year. I must admit that it was all we could do to swallow one piece, it was pretty terrible! Nevertheless, I feel very lucky to have met and married the man of my dreams and cant wait to celebrate another 75 anniversaries with him!

He is going to be a big one!

Steve and I had our 32 week visit yesterday and everything is progressing wonderfully. My belly is measuring at 34 weeks so my doctor is predicting that Parker will be a big boy or that I may go earlier than my scheduled c section date. At 36 weeks we will get another sonogram to get a more accurate idea of Parker's true size. From there, we may have to make some contingency plans if I go into labor early. The good news is that we are almost out of the "danger zone". The doctor said if Parker made it to 34 weeks than the coast should be pretty clear. Most babies born this early have minor problems. We also got our appointment schedule all the way through post-op which illustrates just how close we are to the big day. I cant wait! I am getting some maternity pictures taken next week despite feeling large and unattractive and I may or may not share them on the blog. We will see. Hope all is well with everyone and until next time...

Parker's Room

My dad came into town this past weekend to help us with Parker's room. Let me start off by noting that there was NO WAY Steve and I could have tackled this job by ourselves. We painted the top half of the room last weekend, which was enough of a challange. The wainscoting is a completely different story. With my dad's expertise and hard work we were able to get everything installed on Saturday and spent Sunday sanding, caulking, and painting. The final coat of paint went on Monday night when we were able to move the furniture into the room, hooray. We are still waiting for our chair and window treatments and plan to add shelving and pictures. It is a pretty blank slate right now, but we are very relieved to have this task behind us. A big THANK YOU goes out to my dad for all he did to make this room possible, we are very lucky to have him!!!

Here are a few pictures of our work in progress......