9lbs 8oz later...

Yea! Little Amy Jo is finally here. 6 days over due, but well worth the wait!

Saturday was like any other day for us. I still wasn't feeling anything prelabor like, so we went about our day as if nothing was going to happen. We did some work around the house, ran some errands, etc. We decided to go to Genghis Khan (Mongolian BBQ) one more time for dinner. It was the last meal I ate before Katie was born, so we secretly hoped it might do the trick for Amy as well. I was sure to make it plenty spicy. :) Still nothing. So, we went to bed around 9pm (yeah, we're old foggies). About 10, I woke up feeling some achiness in my back but rolled over thinking I was just uncomfortable. By 11, I couldn't sleep anymore. I still wasn't sure it was the real thing because it didn't feel like typical contractions at all. It was all in my back. I tried to wake Chris up, but he didn't seem interested in waking up until he heard me get in the shower. I guess that's been his warning sign with each birth. I figured taking a shower would make it stop if it wasn't the real thing. Chris quickly got up, scrambled to call everyone, get everything set up... and then the story kind of gets blurry for me from there because everything happened so fast.

By the time everyone got here and Sharon checked me, I was 9 1/2 cm. At 1:49am on January 27, little Amy entered the world. 9lbs 8oz. In attendence was Chris (of course!), my Mom, Chris' Mom, my sister Cathy, Sharon, Hope, and Irene. I also found out the next morning that Chris' dad was in attendence as well. He was asleep in our guest room just in case he needed to take the kids. He had no idea the baby was even born when he woke up the next morning.

The first few days have been better than anticpated as well. The kids have done great with her. Katie is so proud to tell everyone that it's her little sister. She wants to be right next to me when I feed her and is the first one there if the baby cries. Oh, and even better.. I might just have my wish of having a kid with blue eyes. It's still a little early to say for certain, but they're looking more blue by the day.

Praise God for yet another amazing blessing in our lives!

Eviction notice served.

The eviction notice has been served, but apparently the baby didn't read it. I'm a few days overdue now. Not a huge deal, but not quite what I had expected.

My sister Wendy came up to be here for the birth. When we planned her visit, we figured being here Sunday - Thursday would be plenty of time to be here for the birth and some time with the baby. But, here it Thursday and she is on her way to the airport to head back home. She tried to be here for Micah's birth as well a few years back, but he waited until shortly after she left to make his debut. I feel bad because I know it was tough for her to be here. She has not been away from her son for that long ever and she has a lot of stuff going on with the school they run back in Naples. It was great to spend time with her though. We did a lot of catching up, she taught me quite a few cleaning tricks (she is the queen of clean), she successfully bruised my legs trying to use accupressure to get labor to start, and she and Chris enjoyed trying to make me wet my pants several times by making me laugh too much. A full term pregnant woman, a cramped bladder, and laughter aren't always a good combination. Good times! Hopefully she enjoyed her visit as much as we did.

Sooo... now I go back to waiting. Hopefully the next post I have will have news of the baby!

Here I go again.

Here I go complaining about customer service again. I guess having been in that industry for my entire working career, it's hard for me to overlook crummy service.

So, Chris and I got new cell phones a couple weeks ago. We didn't change providers, just exchanged our old phones for new phones. After several people had inquired about my lack of response to their text messages, I realized this weekend that my text messaging had not been working since we got the new phones. No big deal, just call Verizon and have them fix it, right? Noooo. Chris spent 30 minutes on hold and talking to 2 different techs this morning as they went through several troubleshooting steps only to be told we needed to take it in to a store to have a technician look at it. We go to a store this afternoon and "sign in" using a kiosk to be queued up to see a technician. They only have one technician working, so it took almost 30 minutes for us to be called. At the counter, Chris explains the problem and the guy doesn't do much of anything. He just quickly writes a ticket saying he'd add it to a queue to have a technician look at it and we could come back after 8pm to find out the diagnosis. You can imagine our expression. We just waited in queue to wait in queue again? Huh? I quickly pipe up and let him know this is a brand new phone and it hasn't worked since I got it. He responds telling us we should go see one of the Customer Service Reps and just have them replace the phone because it would be quicker. Quicker. Right. So, he readds us to the queue so we can be seen by someone else. 20 minutes later (while we watch 3 guys not helping anyone), we're called. We hardly finish telling him the story when he tells us he can't replace the phone if we don't have the box it came in. The box? Why would we have the box with us when we thought we were just trying to get text messaging fixed? After some "polite" discussion back and forth, he ended up replacing the phone. So, 4 people, 4 queues, and an hour and half later - I have the ability to text message again. Am I crazy in thinking this is a poor way of handling customer service?

In lighter news - we were watching some of the all time most popular viral videos tonight on internet tv. Micah and Katie really got a kick out of the "Ok go - Here it goes again" video. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch. Not only is it hilarious, it's quite brilliantly done. It's funny to watch two little kids enjoy it as much as us. As soon as it was over, Katie piped up and said "Again, mommy!"

It's not even noon yet!

This morning started off with a bang. Literarlly. We were sitting on the couch watching our normal episode of Curious George first thing this morning when suddenly, Katie threw up everywhere. All over me, all over the couch, all over the floor. Who knew that much stuff could come out of such a small belly.

We get cleaned up and it was pretty obvious it might be a rough morning. So, I loaded the kids and dog up in the van to go for a ride. I find that a quick drive can help with mornings like that. By the time we got home, Katie was obviously very sleepy so I laid her down for a nap.

Micah and I went in the back yard to attempt to finish raking the leaves (I hope we don't have another tick episode today!). I got tired pretty quickly, so I sat down on the porch for a break. Micah proceeded to setup his "firetruck", aka the grill. He found a broken lattice from one of my plants which is now his "ladder" for the firetruck. He was quick to inform me that this was a ladder firetruck, not a pumper truck. He got a hat from his room to act as his fire helmet, got key chain to start the firetruck, and sat underneath the grill to drive it.

After 15 minutes of that, he was getting a little bored and asked if it would be okay if he put the leaves we raked in garbage bags. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as I sat in my chair reading my email as he busily scooped leaves into bags. He scooped over 3 full bags for almost an hour before I told him to take a break. He didn't want to stop! I had to convince him to stop by offering him some food. His response? "Sure mom, firemen have to stay strong!"

Only 1 shirt left...

It's a good thing that I'm down to around 13 days left. I have nothing left to wear. Unless of course it's okay for me to show my belly everywhere I go. I think the majority of the world would prefer I didn't do that. I hate to buy any other clothes for such a short period of time. It's too bad I can't just stay home for the next 2 weeks.

In other news, I performed my first "first aid" operation on one of my kids today. Micah got a tick on his head. What would we do without the internet and a father in law who is a pest control expert? Between the two of them, I quickly figured out how to remove the tick and treat Micah's head. Micah handled it very well, too. He thought it was pretty cool, actually.

In other, other news - cleaning help to the rescue! With baby number 3 almost here, I've succombed to the possibility that it might be a little much for me to keep up with the house cleaning for a few weeks. My mom and sister were nice enough to give me a Christmas present of some extra cash to help pay for a service. We met with some very nice ladies today who are going to start next week. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited!

Back to "normal".

The last 2 weeks have been a complete blur. Today was the first day that things were mostly back to normal. Chris went to work. I got up with the kids and watched our typical Curious George episode. We did our normal errands. Had a quiet afternoon at home. It was quite refreshing.

I had my 37 week checkup today. Only 2 1/2 weeks to go! As I left my appointment, I had a moment of overwhelming thankfulness for my situation with my births. Because of a birth class that Chris and I half heartedly took because our friends recommended it when we were pregnant with Micah 4 years ago, we crossed paths with one of the most incredible women I've ever known. Sharon has been my midwife for each of my births. We've grown to be good friends and I can't imagine going through a pregnancy and birth without having her by my side. She is more than just a care provider to me; she is like a sister. Between her, Irene, Kristin (Sharon's assistant and now good friend of mine), our Moms, and of course, Chris, I have the most incredible group of people present at the births of our kids. And to top it all off, we get to do it all in the comfort of our own home. I couldn't ask for anything better.

On another note, it's supposed to be 14 degrees tonight. In Florida? That's crazy. Maybe I'll actually get to sleep with some covers on tonight. I've been so hot at night that a little cool weather would be welcome.