Get your vote in soon!

Here are the picks for the Brady arrival contest:

May 5, p.m. - Grandpa Rustin
May 6, p.m. - Aunt Jenn
May 8, a.m. - Greatgrandma Shirley
May 8, p.m. - Friend Beth (St. Louis)
May 9, p.m. - Uncle Mike
May 10, a.m. - Great Aunt Irene
May 11, a.m. - Grandma Joyce
May 12, a.m. - Greatgrandpa Gerald
May 12, p.m. - Grandma Robin
May 13, a.m. - Friend Jen (New Jersey)
May 13, p.m. - Friend Laurie (St. Louis
May 14, a.m. - Aunt Stacey (she said 6:42 a.m. to be exact!)
May 15, a.m. - Uncle Jeff (he said 5:30 a.m. to be exact!)
May 15, p.m. - Grandpa Don
May 16, a.m. - Greatgrandparents Waters
May 18, a.m. - Cousin Ryan

Nursery paintings

Brady's Greatgrandma Shirley and Great Aunt Toot painted pictures of Curious George for Brady's nursery. The pictures turned out GREAT!!! I think Shirley and Toot could have careers with Disney!

This one is hard to see because the camera flash washed it out a little...it's way cooler in person!

Flyin' high

Meeting the Man with the Yellow Hat

puttin on the pounds

We had another sonogram on Tuesday morning to check on Brady's fluid levels and see how big he is. This time they estimated he weighs about 7 pounds. His amniotic fluid levels looked better than last time so they think he's doing just fine inside his bubble.

We got to see his chest rising and falling, getting ready for breathing outside the womb. We got to see his mouth moving and his tongue moving in and out too! It was pretty cool to watch.

Every sonogram they give you an estimated due date, but the further along you are the less accurate they become. At about 20 weeks they estimated May 18 for the due date. Two weeks ago they estimated May 8 and this time they estimated May 12. So basically he's going to be coming sometime soon, but who knows when! As long as he comes sometime between the 8th and 18th our doctor will be the doctor on call which means she will definately be there for the delivery if it's after hours or on the weekend. Otherwise we might have someone else from the hospital.

We had a doctors appointment on Monday afternoon and everything looked good for me. My blood levels had come up from the previous test and I tested negative for Streph B which is something they test all pregnant women for around 36 weeks.

One more week of work

I've got one more week of work left and I couldn't be more excited! Jeremiah is going to be off for a month after Brady is born, but I am lucky enough to be salaried and able to take off some time before as well as after. Next Friday will be my last day. I am oh-so ready. Brady is still growing and stretching every day! And his kicks are getting harder and more painful.
I've been taking it easy...very easy this week. The dishes are piled up and the laundry is starting to collect and it doesn't really bother me! I spent 20 hours laying around over two days and it was awesome! My days pretty much go like this: get up, take a nap, go to work for a few hours, come home, take a nap, fix dinner (and by that I mean dial the pizza place or send Jeremiah out to get something), watch TV with J till he goes to work and then I go to bed. The way I see it once Brady is born there won't be time for any of this leisurely lifestyle so I might as well take advantage of it while I still can.

For now my biggest accomplishment will be to finish the dishes (this requires hand washing since our dishwasher is defective and our new one won't be in until Monday) and switch over the laundry...both of which can wait another day! I've got napping to do!!

Baby Rocky

This is baby Rocky Hafen. He is Jeremiah's stepdad Rustin's younger brother Rocky's son little Rocky. What relation does that make him to us? Who knows...it just means he's family!!!

He was born April 3 and weighed 6 lb 2 oz and was 17 inches long.

Getting close!

We had a doctor's appointment Monday morning and learned that Brady is running out of amniotic fluid. He still has enough to classify as "average," but it's at the low end of the spectrum. Because of this Dr. Bavishi wants to do another sonogram next week to check in on him. She had the results of his sonogram from last week and said everything else looks great. Brady is a little big, but that's ok. They estimated his arrival date to be May 8th, but Dr. Bavishi said he would likely still come closer to the 18th. So, as it stands now he'll most likely be here somewhere between May 8th and 18th as long as nothing changes.

Brady is still in the head down, ready to arrive position which means we should be good to go for a natural birth unless of course his head is too big to fit through my pelvis or something else would occur during labor. We're shooting for a natural birth though because I really don't want to go through the C-section recovery. I remember how miserable I was after the surgery and would rather not do that again!!!

We have one more birthing class left - next Monday. Last night we took a tour of the birthing place. It's awesome - a queen size bed for us after delivery, a jacuzzi tub and much, much more!!! If you are planning on being here for the birth there are a couple of nice waiting rooms and plenty of seating in the room for when Brady gets here!

We don't have much planned for this week, I have to start putting together a suitcase for the hospital and making a list of things we need to grab at the last minute like the cameras, but other than that this week we just work, rest and wait.

Baby Ava

Brady's St. Louis friend Ava was born last Tuesday. She had a bumpy entrance, but she and mommy Laurie are doing well now! What a cutie-patootie! She's supposed to come home this Tuesday, April 18 - one month before Brady's due!!!

One last peek at Brady

We got to get one last peek at Brady with a sonogram this morning. He's so giant now he doesn't fit completely in one picture anymore! The sonogram lady said he weighs about 6 pounds!!! He's running out of room in there so it's not easy to get a really good picture of him like some of the ones we've had previously. In the top one, Brady was grabbing his foot with his hand!
You can see his little nose sticking up!
The fuzzy stuff is his hair!
This one's kind of hard to see, but the dark areas are his eyes (he's on his side and his left eye is just above where it says face) and you can kind of make out his nose (to the left of the eyes) and lips too!

April showers!!

April showers bring May babies! We set up a horseshoe pit in the backyard and let the dogs entertain us! And we opened presents! Lots, and lots of presents. Brady got lots of diapers, lotions, blankets, clothes, toys and other great stuff! He's spoiled already and he's not even here yet!!!

Baby shower fun

We had a baby shower at our house Sunday for Heather's family and friends of ours. Jeremiah and the boys barbequed while the girls sat around and chatted. We had a good time and got lots of great things for Brady - including some cute monkeys!

Carpet for Brady

We got carpet installed in our living room a couple weeks ago so that we can play on the floor with Brady more comfortably. Plus, when he is learning to walk it will be a lot more cushioney to plop on the carpet than the hardwood would have been! Jeremiah did carpet angels to celebrate the new-found comfort!

Sonogram scheduled

We will have a sonogram Thursday morning (4/13) to look at Brady and see just how big he is getting. Dr. Bavishi cut me back to 20 hours a week at work starting this week since I've been having some issues with my ankles and hands swelling. I'm totally excited about having more time off! I know I feel a lot better and eat a lot better when I have time to relax and do so at home!!! My blood pressure is still good - Monday it was 110/60 - so there isn't a concern with that at least. So far I've gained 42 pounds which is a lot of the reason my hips and knees are hurting. Jeremiah has gained about 10 pounds! My tummy measured a little bigger than the typical size for this many weeks (35 weeks on Thursday), but it wasn't anything to be alarmed by. (Dad seems to think I'm going to have a 15 pound baby because he and Mom both swear I'm way bigger than Mom ever was with me and I was practically 8 pounds.) The sonogram will hopefully tell us how much Brady weighs so they can better determine how big he's going to be and make sure he can come out naturally.

The doctor said she doesn't expect Brady to come early - only 6% of births are early apparently. She seems to think we'll be good to go all the way to 40 weeks which is fine with me because I need all that time to mentally prepare for it and Brady needs to finish baking. Birthing classes are helping, but I still have an irrational fear of labor, much like my irrational fear of spiders (we have had four in the house in the past two days and I'm starting to freak out).

At any rate we are really excited about getting to look at Brady again with the sonogram. It's been 12 weeks since we last had one so we're curious to see just how much bigger he is now. He certainly has been active lately which is always reassuring to us that he's doing just fine in his little incubator in my belly. As soon as we get the sono pictures home we'll get them scanned in and onto this site. Check back Thursday afternoon and we should have them on here.

Brady's friend Ava born

Heather's high school friend Laurie, who still lives in the St. Louis area, had her daughter today. Her name is Ava and she weighed in at 5 pounds 9 ounces. She had to be taken out by emergency C-section (after trying naturally) and had some trouble breathing at first. They had to airlift her to another hospital in downtown St. Louis. She is doing a lot better now. Last report I heard said they are hoping to get her off the ventilators tomorrow already. Laurie was 37 weeks. She had been having trouble with high blood pressure so that's why they wanted to take Ava out early. For now Laurie is at a different hospital than Ava. Her husband and her mother got to go visit Ava at the other hospital, but no one has been able to hold her yet. We are praying they they are all doing well now and they get to see each other soon!

All boy

The nursery is going to have a Curious George/wild animal theme. Brady's great-grandma Shirley is painting Curious George pictures for us to hang on the walls and we've got George books, a George picture frame, and a few stuffed monkeys. The bedding is a Noah's Ark theme, but it goes good because it has jungle animals like giraffes, lions, deer (not so much jungle, but wild!),
elephants and alligators! It's very cute. Brady's going to love his room! Scroll down for more pictures!

Ready for Brady

The nursery is set and awaiting the arrival of little Brady!

Nursery photos to come shortly

We'll have nursery photos to put online soon! Jeremiah and his cousins Brian and Aubrey painted the nursery Sunday. We got the crib put together and the whole room pretty much assembled. We finally got some Dreft detergent and started washing his bedding and wardrobe! Keep an eye out for the photos, we'll probably put them on this weekend.

State-puffed marshmellow mom

We've got six weeks to go and I'm starting to swell like the marshmellow man on Ghostbusters! I haven't had too much swelling until just the other day when it looked like someone injected my ankles with botox! Today my ankles and my hands are swelling. If my feet were green they would kind of look like Shrek's feet. Other than that I'm feeling great and doing great too - with the exception of feeling kind of winded every once and a while when Brady decides to prop his butt up against my ribs and lungs!