welcome to spiceland.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve updated everybody about our lives! Christmas was hectic. Mike’s maternal grandfather passed away on Tru’s birthday this year (the 21st of December), so we had to cancel all our Christmas plans and go to Memphis to help Mike’s mother make funeral and legal arrangements. The funeral was a small, private affair. We had a nice Christmas with Mike’s mother and sister and also visited with Mike’s father and grandparents while we were there. Mike and I went out to a nice 5th anniversary dinner on the 28th while Bama and Jessica babysat. Tru had a blast. We were all glad to be home though, when we pulled into our driveway on New Year’s Eve!

I’m 4.5 months pregnant now (18 weeks), and I had my routine pregnancy bloodwork last week, including the initial screening for gestational diabetes, which I was diagnosed with with Tru. The recurrence rate for gestational diabetes is 85%, so I expect that I’ll fail the test again this time. My next doctor’s appointment is on January 22nd, and we should be able to update everyone with the baby’s gender at that point! We think that it may be a boy, but we’ll know definitively in 2 weeks.

We’ll be putting up pictures from Christmas soon, but in the meantime, you’ll have to make do with these portraits I took for our Christmas cards before Christmas. More updates, including video from Christmas, coming soon!

Intelligender.com has come out with a urine gender test that can be taken after 10 weeks of pregnancy. We bought one and took it today (11 weeks), and the result is in. Intelligender think’s it’s a boy! It’s important to realize that this test is only 85% accurate and can be thrown off by irregular hormone levels (among other things), so this is not a definite result. We’re taking this with a grain of salt, and we’re still waiting until our anatomy scan in late January (probably on the 22nd) until we start making major decisions. If it had been yellow, that would indicate a girl result.

I just got back from my first appointment. We saw and heard the heartbeat, about 165 BPM. They even did a 3D ultrasound! We couldn’t see much, only the top of the baby’s head, but it was very interesting! Only 1 baby. We had no reason to believe otherwise, but Mike was terrified it would be multiples. I got the OK to use Benadryl to combat my morning sickess, and my doctor also said that heartburn may be a contributing factor. I got a prescription for Nexium. I’m really optimistic about it helping. I hope it does! The doctor also confirmed my due date as June 10th, which I had already calculated. That’s also the week before Father’s day.

Tru was very excited! We talked all morning about going to the doctor to see a picture of Mommy’s baby, and she couldn’t stop talking about it. I think she understood. She saw the blob on the ultrasound and said, “Look! It’s Mommy’s baby belly!”

We got to spend 7 hours in the ER! What fun!

Erin called her doctor to ask about her pregnancy and she recommended we go the ER. Yeah, you heard me right, pregnancy. For anyone who doesn’t know Erin is pregnant. While we got a faint red line a week or so ago, we weren’t completely sure. Let me rephrase that, I wasn’t completely sure. Erin was. Tonight we got to unofficially see the baby on the ultrasound and it was for sure there! “Unofficially? Hospital? Why did you go the the ER to get baby confirmation?” you may be asking. Read on.

We didn’t actually head to the ER to find out anything related to the baby. When she called the doctor to ask about a few things to see if she should come in, one of the things she mentioned was a pain and tingly in her leg. They then asked if she was short of breath. She had been lately and when she mentioned it they said, “Head to the ER right away!” Their concern was that if it was a blood clot it could be serious stuff. She did have a really bad bruise on her knee with internal bleeding a few weeks back but it was the other leg. Also, she doesn’t move much since she’s a computer programmer. Maybe those two things combined could be not so good. Well, on that advise, off she went.

She IM’ed me to let me know she was heading to the ER. When I found out I picked up Truster and dropped her off at Abby’s (Adam and Mara’s) to play. Thanks for watching her by the way! The ER is never fun but it would have been impossible taking her. I then went back to work. I was taking care of some stuff and casually mentioned the doctor’s concern to another Engineer. He told me about his experience with a blood clot. He told me about his lungs shutting down. He told be about beating the odds and living through his experience. Holy cow! I had no idea it was that kind of ordeal. Heart pounding I rushed back to be with Erin.

Of course, when I got there Erin was calm as could be. All she could talk about is the TV shows she was watching while she was waiting. When it comes to trusting God, Erin’s got it down. Some blood tests, an EKG, and a doppler ultrasound later and the Doc had no signs of anything gone wrong. In a normal situation they would have done a radiation based scan to watch the blood flow but the couldn’t. Blood tests confirmed a little one in there that shouldn’t be exposed to such things. Also, the ultrasound tech snuck in a little tummy action after she got done with her legs (hospital folks, you didn’t read that). We weren’t able to see much since its so early but there was something there! What a wonderful bit of fun in an otherwise horrible day.

The diagnosis: no signs of bad stuff from what they could see and pregnancy makes it too risk to do the real tests. Pray for Erin. She’s going to keep an eye out for any warning signs and rush back if anything comes up. In the mean time, I get to start talking to Erin’s belly again!

I’m filing this under Random Tidbits, because the pictures I added aren’t of Tru. They are maternity portraits that I took of my neighbor Adria, who is due soon with twin boys. Check them out here!

Pictures of Tru coming soon!

Congrats to our neighbor Adria who is pregnant with twins Ethan and Aiden! Pictures of the baby shower are here. Also, new pics of Tru up here.

Thanks for all the prayers, concerns, and comments on our blog/pictures! We’re home and safe now. We are all so tired that we may not be updating or checking emails for a while so stay tuned …

Tru was born at 5:38 AM today, December 21, 2004. She was 6 lbs 14 oz, 19 in. long, and very cute! I know it is cliche but it was like nothing we’d ever experienced! Definitely love at first sight.

Thanks to God for his blessings keeping Erin and Tru safe. Thank You for the opportunities to raise her for Your purposes!

We’ve posted initial pictures on our photo gallery here.

Michael and Erin

Here’s the official birth story for those bored enough to read it!

Mike and I went to the hospital about 7:30 pm to check in. They were supposed to give me one dose of cervadil then and one at midnight to prepare me for my induction at 6 am the next morning. We had family in town, and were late eating dinner and late to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, we were told that someone had changed our appointment from that evening to 1 am that night. They called my OB/GYN and verified that it was supposed to have been 6 pm, not 1 am. We finally got checked in and had our room about 8:30. They put the first dose of cervadil in then. Our nurse said I was 3 cm and 50% effaced at that time. About 11 pm I started having moderate contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. When my nurse came back at midnight for the second dose of cervadil, she told me that I hadn’t dilated or effaced any more. Fifteen minutes after the second dose, my contractions started getting stronger and closer together. At 1 am I was 4 cm and 90% effaced. By 3 am I was 6 1/2 cm and 100% effaced. I asked for my epidural at this point. The contractions were so strong that none of my breathing techniques were helping me relax. Mike kept encouraging me and helping me through them until the epidural took effect. When it did, I couldn’t feel ANYTHING from my chest down, and I really began to enjoy laboring. Mike would make jokes about how strong my contractions were getting on the monitor, but I didn’t even feel them! By 4 am I was 8 1/2 cm, and by 4:30 am I was 9 1/2.

My nurse told me at this point that I would start pushing soon. They got me ready and then told me to push. I did one good 10 second push and she told me to stop pushing, that they had to get my doctor because I had done enough. I was flabbergasted! When I asked why, I was told that their policy is to do everything possible to ensure that every baby is delivered by an OB/GYN. They didn’t have one at the hospital right that minute, so they would have to do what they could to wait until mine arrived. She called my doctor who was at home asleep on call. While I was waiting for the doctor to get to the hospital, Tru’s heartbeat dropped to about 70 BPM, and I had to go on oxygen. There were about 4 nurses walking around the room checking various things then, and they were very calm when they spoke to me, but they were frantically trying to get in contact with my doctor when they weren’t calming us down. She finally arrived about 45 minutes later and told me Tru was beginning to crown and that I could push again. I got ready for another 10 second push and started. I had only counted to 2 when my doctor told me to stop pushing. Tru was out! She was born at 5:38 AM, and she was 6 pounds, 14 ounces and 19 inches long. She cried a little, and they kept having to bounce her and tickle her to get her to cry more!

I couldn’t believe how easy it was. I sustained a 3rd degree tear that was 1 1/2 inches long. I kept asking how many stitches I had gotten, but my doctor wouldn’t tell me. I remember watching her stitch me, and I think I got about 20 stitches! Mike was freaking out because there was blood EVERYWHERE, but I felt fine.

My labor was:

5.5 hours from the start of contractions.

2.5 hours from the start of painful contractions.

1 hour and 45 minutes from the start of painful contractions eliminating the 45 minutes of waiting for the doctor.

Ok, so we are a bit anxious all couped up waiting for Tru to come. We noticed today that the birds must be stopping in Huntsville today on their way south. We took a few pictures but none of the turned out very good.

Well, we had a false alarm last night. The doctor originally told us that after you’ve had contractions for 2 hours that are 5 minutes apart and fairly strong that you should come to the hosipital and have the baby. Well, she did that last night, for 9 hours! When she called the doctor before we went they said in her case to wait until she’s having really strong contractions where she can barely talk or walk.. We decided to wait it out and the contractions stayed but didn’t get stronger. Eventually, we went to sleep.