New Blog!!!

Ok, I"ve been toying with this idea for awhile now, and I"ve finally done it. I've got a new blog, themed around my love for cooking and experimenting with new recipes. Here's the url: http://elythra.wordpress.com/ I fully intend to switch over to this as my main blog, though I will still update all on random happenings here, with Jonathan and Chris. Let me know what you think!

Jonathan David...and TMI. :)

Ok, it's been nearly one month since Jonathan David was born. He's adorable, exhausting, and wonderful. Labor was insanely difficult, but we got through it, without drugs. (Not my choice, but labor progressed too quickly for me to be able to have anything.) He was born, after three hours of active labor, at 4:48 am, weighing 7 lbs. 2 oz, and being 19.75 in. long. He's now about 8 1/2 lbs, and longer, though I don't know how much. He's a very skinny baby, and apparently much smaller than almost anyone else's baby that we've encountered, at least according to the other mothers. :) "He's so tiny!" and "That's a brand new baby!" comments follow him whenever we go out, to which I want to reply, (in good humor of course) "He's baby-sized! They're supposed to be tiny!" Anyway, we are loving having him home, and learning to take care of him.

Warning, what follows is a bit coarse and uncouth.

On another note, I've discovered what exactly women are going for in respects to their breasts. Whether they're wishing for these, or actually go for implants to get them, they want postpartum, nursing breasts. Enlarged past normal size, rounded out with swelling, and quite solidly firm. Women, it's not worth it! They are incredibly uncomfortable until your body adjusts, and they get in the way, catching more food and generally not really fitting right. Thankfully, for those having second thoughts, they do go back to normal size, or nearly, after finished nursing...or so I'm told. Anyway, ladies, learn to love what you have got, and you'll be much happier in the end. :)

MMM...

Chris is an awesome husband. This morning, while I slept, he got up and made breakfast for us. He made eggs, and pancakes seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, vanilla, and filled with walnuts, topped with whipped cream and strawberries. DELICIOUS! Chris is such a good cook! Plus, he had a mug of my favorite (decaf) breakfast tea waiting for me when he woke me up. Yay!

Well, I'm officially at full term today. Baby could be born anytime in the next month. For those of you confused, full term is different from 9 months, because if every month had exactly four weeks, there would really be 13 months in a year. I'm past 9 months, but I am at 38 weeks, which is full term (38-42). Yeah. Confusing, I know. Anyway, I don't really look any different than the last picture posted, so we'll leave it at that. I'll let everyone know when Baby is born, and post lots of pictures then. Any day now!

Flashback....

Hi all!
So I got my hair cut again. I walked into the hair salon with pictures of me from high school, and said "Cut it like this." It's nice for the summer, and it's finally super simple. As in, I can wet it down and it will be fine for the rest of the day (granted I don't take a nap or anything on wet hair...then I have to start over). Chris took some shots of me with my new haircut, and I thought I'd share the one photo that actually shows my belly as well...I'm now at 9 months!

Hospital visit. (lots of details, be warned.)

Well, Chris and I had an unexpectedly crazy day yesterday. During the night, I thought my water broke. I'm only 32 weeks along, so this is not good news at this point. We stayed up for another hour to see if contractions would start and to be sure baby was still moving and ok. Nothing happened (baby was fine), so we decided to go back to bed and call my new doctor in the morning. He told us to go to the hospital to have some tests done, basically to make sure my water hadn't broken, so we packed a quick bag and left. Turns out it wasn't my water breaking (big relief!) but I was having contractions five minutes apart...just so small that I didn't really even feel them. I was also 1 cm dilated, and baby was in position for birth. They gave me a shot to stop the contractions, but that didn't work, so I had to have an IV put in my hand, as well as take a muscle relaxant pill. That worked, for the most part, so we got to go home about 8 pm, with a prescription for the muscle relaxant pill in case the contractions came back. We got to the hospital about 12:30, so it was a very long day...
I'm not on bed rest, but I am supposed to "take it easy". This means I'm basically on bed rest, except I can still get up and get a drink, instead of making Chris do the little things. He's doing pretty much everything anyway, which is sweet, but I don't want to overtax him either. That's all for now!

We've moved!

Hi all! I'm blogging from our new apartment in Lincoln, NE. It's way nicer than the one we had in Vermillion, though the office is a bit smaller....that's ok though, we have a third room now, and a much larger kitchen/living room. We even have a balcony now, on which we will soon be placing a new gas grill. (Lincoln has a ban on charcoal grills within city limits which "forced" us to upgrade grills...we just haven't purchased the new one yet.)
That's all for now, as I should probably keep unpacking, or be social with our family, or something. :)