Long Awaited Pictures of Calvin and Family

Calvin and Family (Click on picture to view album)

Here's the first batch of photos of Calvin in the hospital. Isn't he just the cutest! We are so madly in love with him. There are so many more photos and videos to share and as time (and energy) permits, we'll update the photo album.

Unfortunately, Calvin's still in the NICU at the hospital because he's still being treated with antibiotics. We're anxious for him to come home and expect him late Thursday evening or early Friday morning depending on his last round of antibiotics. Until then, we're visiting him in the NICU as often as we can.

He sleeps about 3-4 hours and then feeds like a maniac. He's doubled what he eats since last week and it's such a joy to cuddle and hold him. He can get a little fussy and when he does his cries sound like a Pterodactyl. He has the longest fingers and toes and he'll grip onto anything with his hands or feet like a little monkey. Because of this we call him our little "MonkeyDactyl".

Thank you so much to everyone for all the support, interest, and love. Tiffany and I really appreciate everything everyone has done for us.

month 9

month 9

Well I am now a little over nine months and have about 2 weeks left. In my last post I said I was uncomfortable, but never imagined it could get worse. I am unable to get comfy at night and have to go the pee pee every hour, so I am not able to get a real good night sleep (maybe my body is preparing me for having an infant). I also have heartburn pretty bad and it is now all day instead of only at nighttime. Scott also has begun complaining about not getting a good night sleep too, but this is because of my loud a** snoring. At first he woke me up to tell me to stop snoring, but that stopped very quickly when I gave him the death talk about waking me up when I was sleeping. Now he just wears ear plugs. :-)

I have been craving banana nut muffins and eat one pretty much every night. I also crave powdered doughnuts, milk, and hard boiled eggs. I guess I am going through a breakfast theme. I read that your weight gain is suppose to slow down these last few weeks, but between week 37 and week 38 I gained 4 pounds! Damn those powdered doughnuts! Overall I feel pretty good for being so close to the end. And another thing that is helping me feel better is that I am now officially on maternity leave. YAY!
Today I saw the doctor and am actually dilated to a 1+ and 40% effaced. Which is better than nothing. I am hoping and praying to go into labor some time next week, but since nature has a way of not following plans we have scheduled inducement for the 27th of March. This is because my doctor doesn't want him to be too big for me to deliver. But I am still keeping my fingers crossed about next week.

Calvin must weigh a ton because my stomach feels very heavy and I am having to wear a maternity support belt. At my 36 weeks ultrasound, he weighed a hefty 6 pounds 11 ounces (this is just an estimate by measuring some of his body parts). This made the U/S machine say his due date was one week earlier. My doctor thinks he will more than likely be over 8 pounds, which is around the same weight Scott was when he was born, but I guess we will really find out how much he weighs when he is actually born. Some of my friends think maybe he will be really skinny and long like Scott and me. Calvin is still moving a lot but I believe he is pretty cramped in there and so any kind of movement stretches my skin even further and makes me look like I have an alien growing inside me, worse than what the video showed. The ultrasound also showed us that he is already practicing his grip by holding on to the umbilical cord.

We are very excited and trying not to be too impatient for his arrival. The nursery is about 90% finished, we just have a few finishing touches. I am painting a little table to go by the glider and we will be hanging some pictures above the changing table.
This has been a very long post, I guess because I have procrastinated on doing it for a long time. I think the next post will be short but have some very cute pictures of a newborn Calvin!

Here's a little snippet of our family today. I took this video mostly so Calvin would get to see what things were like before he arrived. I thought he'd be interested in his mother, some of the things Tiff has gone through during pregnancy, the crazy green house we lived in when he was born, our dog Barkly, and most of all, how amazing it is to see him move and dance inside Tiff's belly. I should note, Tiff didn't appreciate the "night scene" very much but I had to capture the very rare occurrence of her snoring (loudly). I hope everyone enjoys seeing our family as we get ready to welcome Calvin into the world.