Showered With Love, One More Time

My Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

You are so incredibly loved, you have no idea!  This week (37), we were able to celebrate your anticipated arrival one more time with family and friends from your Daddy's hometown, Greenville, South Carolina.

Weren't the invitations precious!?

This fourth and final baby shower was hosted by your Great Aunt Cyndee and your Daddy's sweet friend from his youth, Amy.  The shower was held in Amy's home.  She was so gracious to open her home for your celebration!

This shower was attended by mainly the ladies on your Daddy's side of the family as well as your Nana's closest friends from church, school and social groups.  You did have one wonderful surprise guest from Mommy's old home in Gainesville, Georgia.  I had a very close friend in college, Stephen, who passed away from a rare illness called Aplastic Anemia.  During his decline in health, I became close with his parents.  Stephen's mother, Alice, was so kind to drive to be a part of this special time in our lives.  She knew the long struggle we had to have you. She prayed fervently for you as did her parents and their church.  Little one, many, many hours of prayers have gone before you.  I will always appreciate those prayers.  One day, I hope to be able to express in words, what those prayers mean to me and what your life means as a result. 

Amy's husband, BJ, was at the shower taking pictures of the excitement.  I love this overhead shot he took capturing the majority of the guests who were present.... and speaking of presents.... Look at all of the pink!

You were certainly showered with some beautiful and thoughtful presents.

Your Aunt Elizabeth got you this beautiful frame.  My Sherbert Grandmother loved to sing "You Are My Sunshine" to all of her grandchildren, and you better believe this will be a song that will sweetly be sung to you frequently.

Your Nana gave you a beautiful church outfit with tender smockings and dainty ribbons.  Gramma bought you a beautiful Vera Bradley diaper bag and a matching clutch for Mommy.  The pattern she picked was the annual breast cancer pattern.  Gramma wrote you a beautiful and very personal note about our family's struggles with this horrible disease and her prayer that the generational cycle has stopped with her.  Oh, no worries, I have saved this note and all of your other notes and cards for you to be able to look back on and read one day.  These words of love are treasures. 

We had a delicious spread of food to enjoy!

Yummy, yummy!

Pictured below is a good portion of the ladies on your Papa's side of the family; cousins Riley, Kaitlyn, Sally and Laurie, Great Aunt Gloria and Aunt Elizabeth.

Pictured here is Cousin Laurin and Great Aunt Cyndee with Ms.  Moreno.

Amy was pregnant with her fourth child in this picture and we didn't even know it at the time!

Your Grandparents love you so much that they drove from Alabama to make sure to attend all of your celebrations.  It was certainly a labor of love and a large effort for them to come.  I am so happy that they did.

It was important to take a picture with me, you and both of your grandmothers.

It was nice to get one with Aunt Elizabeth too.

Your Daddy and Grandpa drove up at the end of the shower so Gramma and Grandpa could leave to head home straight from the shower.  Because they did, we were able to get some nice family pictures with them before they headed home.

This week you are about the size of a bunch of swiss chard.  Hummm.... we will have to add that to our list of veggies to try!  I had my weekly appointment with Dr. Morton this week.  Next week we will be able to see how far along the pre-labor is or is not going.  

I am feeling much better this week than I was last week.  I am taking it easy to make sure you stay safe and comfortable.  We are getting down to the wire baby girl!  We only have a few more short weeks before we finally will meet face to face.

Showering you with all of my love,

xoxo

Mom

Mr. Grape Turned Mr. Raisin

Sweet Baby Kay,

What a rollercoaster of a week we had this week (week of 10/1/2013)!  I have been tired, but that is to be expected towards the end of pregnancy.  It is getting harder and harder to sleep comfortably at night and my morning sickness has really come back with a vengeance!  I have to roll a couple of inches, pause, roll a couple more inches, pause and repeat until I am able to roll over to get out of bed!

I have been keeping up the pace at work, but it really has taken a toll on me.  The other day at work, I started to not feel very well.

I attended my slew of meetings that I have first thing in the morning and began to do my daily case reviews.  Around lunch time, I began feeling really poor.  I was super tired, nauseated, I had a terrible headache and over all felt very achey.  Lucky for us, my doctor is right next door to the hospital where I work, so I called to the doctors office to let them know how I was feeling.  They wanted to see me immediately.  I called Daddy to let him know what was going on and he met me at the doctor's office.  We met with Dr. Lambert that day, and she was so wonderful and understanding with me.

She too was concerned about my symptoms, so she opted to have me sent to the hospital for further evaluation, where I ended up being admitted.  We rolled on over to the hospital to find that I was severely dehydrated and basically needed to take it easy, easy, easy so you can continue to grow in a comfortable and relaxing environment.  Dr. Lambert offered to write me out of work for the rest of my pregnancy, but I thought I would be ok if I just took the rest of the week off, so I did. I am so happy she let me go home so I did not have to stay overnight at the hospital.  Dr. Lambert was so kind to come to the hospital to check on me way past her 5:00 end of the day.  I am very pleased with the type of care we have received thus far.

I thought this picture was funny.  I was kind of like the grape turned raisin!

This week you are about the size of a crenshaw melon, whatever that is!  Maybe one day when you are older, we can go to where ever crenshaw melons are grown and see and taste them for ourselves.

Baby girl, I love you more than you will ever know.  I am sorry if I caused you any stress this week, but I promise to take it easy for the rest of my pregnancy to make sure you are well taken care of.

With all my love... and hydration.

Mom

Honey"dew" I Ever Love You!

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

35 weeks was a wonderful week!  It was one of the last weeks I felt my best.  I enjoyed all of my pregnancy with you, but there were times that I felt better than others.  This week you didn't have much room to maneuver because you were over 18 inches long and tipped the scale at around 5 1/4 pounds. Because it was so snug in my tummy, you were no longer doing somersaults, but you DID NOT stopped you rib kicking!  I could feel you get right up under my rib so high that it felt like you were in my throat! Your kidneys became fully developed this week, and your liver began to process some waste products. Most of your basic physical development  completed this week.  The remaining weeks you used to pack on some weight!

This week I had a wonderful shower given to you by the ladies at my office.  

You got some very cute clothes and other items off of your registry as well as gift cards!  One of the nicest gifts was from my team and upper management.  You got your plug in swing which turned out to be a critical item for you in your first weeks.

Isn't this cup-cake cake adorable!?  I have saved the little baby and the four cupcakes underneath.  They are in the freezer and we will bring it out when you turn one!

Marion and Stacey, some of my sweet Social Worker friends at work.

The gift table

Lisa and Therese, some more Social Worker friends

 Opening some adorable polka dot pants!

One of the Social Work Interns got this cute coat for you.  It had little kitten ears that stick up on the top of the head.

Opening some more gifts.

Such adorable pink outfits!

Some more co-workers celebrating your anticipated arrival.

I do have to show you how much you have grown.  Isn't it amazing to look at you at 35 weeks compared to you at 13 weeks.  What a miracle you are.  

You are clearly loved by so many already with the continued shower of support, presents and celebration you have had.  Sweet Baby Kay, my love for you grows every day.  We saw the doctor this week and everything is continue to progress perfectly.  

Forever your...

Mommy

xoxo 

Where Oh Where Have I Been?

I once was lost, but now am found.  I have been meaning to update my SBK blog for a while.  I got a little lost after 36 weeks and have been enjoying motherhood so much, that blogging got away from me.  I checked in on this little blog tonight as I have recently signed up to be a guest blogger for a fertility health forum, and much to my surprise, there are still people from not only all over the country, but from all over the world who have recently (as in recent days and hours) checked out my SBK blog!  I promise on all of my Girl Scout badges that I will make it a point to update this blog.

Julianna's birth story is truly a beautiful one and could only have been scripted so well by Our Creator.  I cannot wait to put her story in writing.

So, my dear blog followers, bear with me as I get back in the swing of things and try to capture the last 9 months of my beautiful, messy, glorious, beyond my wildest dreams journey of motherhood.  :)