Abigail Jo Robison

So many of you may be wondering why in the world (or how in the world) Abby is here 8 weeks early. I'm still wondering myself, but I am glad she is here and is healthy and doing well! Not to mention she's the cutest baby that has ever lived, not that I'm biased or anything... Anyway, here's the story...

Sunday morning
2 AM - I'm peacefully sleeping when I awake to a "pop" and guuush (gross I know). My heart started racing when I realized what had actually just happened. Sean was still up watching TV upstairs so I grabbed my phone and called him without getting up. The conversation went something like this, "Hello", "SEAN MY WATER JUST BROKE!!!", "Seriously?", "YES, COME DOWNSTAIRS!", "Something something", "I DON'T KNOW JUST COME DOWN RIGHT NOW!!". It took him almost an hour to get downstairs or at least it seemed that way. When he got to the room I ripped off the covers and he realized that my water had indeed broken. We both got appropriately dressed for a trip to the ER. Meanwhile I'm trying to breathe and slow down my heart rate knowing that freaking out wouldn't do the baby any good. Sean called his mom, she said go to the ER. Called the doctor, and got the one on-call for the night. He asks how far along, I say 32 weeks, he says "wow that's early" (as if I didn't know this already). He says go to the hospital, I'll meet you there.

2:30ish - We get to the ER, and don't have to wait long for someone from labor and delivery to come pick me up and take me to their triage room. I should mention at this point, I have no contractions and am just fine besides being scared. I change into a gown, and the nurse takes my vitals, history, finds the baby's heart rate etc. She says their going to check the fluid to make sure it is indeed my water that had broken. When she comes back and sees how much liquid (probably TMI) there is, she says "oh yeah, I probably don't even need to check it, but I will just in case". She comes back a minute later and says it was indeed my water and they'd be taking me to a regular L&D room. Meanwhile, I start having little contractions.

3:30-4ish - I get to the other room, and they start an IV, give me a steroid shot for her lungs, and tell me they're going to try to keep me pregnant for 48 more hours. My contractions started getting longer and more painful, and closer together, but the monitor wasn't picking them up very well. Finally they got so bad, I told Sean I wanted something for pain, and they decide to see if I was dilated. After 2 people checking through the contractions (which was very painful) they decide I'm 7-8 cm dilated. This is when we alllll realize the baby is coming soon. They ask me if I want an epidural, I say "YES PLEASE" and that was the smartest choice I'd made for the last month. Before I got the epidural, I wasn't getting any relief between the contractions. Afterwards, I could at least relax and breath, which is a lot harder through contractions than I had ever imagined. My anesthesiologist was amazing and even let me keep laying on my side which they usually don't do. My doctor was also awesome, even though I'd never met him before. He was very helpful, calm, and caring.

7ish - I start pushing through the contractions. The epidural and the magnesium they had given me earlier had made it harder for me to feel the contractions, so they gave me some pitocin to make they more regulated. I should mention that through all of this, Sean was the most awesome husband ever. He rubbed my back and would have done anything to help me:)

9:02 - Baby Abigail is born! They took her straight away to the warmer to get her warm and check her lungs, which were a big concern considering how early she was. She scored 8's on her apgars, which made me quite pleased. Abby got a c-pap put on, and then Sean went with the nurses to take her to the NICU, while I got pampered with apple juice.

Later that afternoon I got to go see her. She is beautiful! Easily the cutest baby I've ever seen:) Sean, Aaron, and Jan were able to give her a blessing that night, which definitely made me feel better, and helped Abby's lungs get strong quick!

The next day they changed her oxygen to a regular cannula, and the next day she was completely off of the oxygen. She is continuing to get stronger and closer to coming home! She's off of her IV's, her pulse oxygen monitor, and is at her max for her feedings. She's surprised the doctors at how well she's done and how far she's come considering how early she was.

Sean and I are smitten and love to hold her and take pictures of her. We're hoping that she'll get to come home in a couple weeks and are so excited to have her in our family! Here's a few pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Brand new! Look at that hair!

On her C-pap machine. Day 1

Regular oxygen! Day 2

First bath! You can see how small she is.

Hanging out in her phototherapy lights

She loves it when Daddy holds her!

Hit by a...

Train. Or at least that's how I feel this last week, like I've been hit by the third trimester train. Pregnancy was going well and I was feeling good, until BAM, it's a lot harder and I'm not feeling so good. Mostly just uncomfortable. On Monday I will be 32 weeks. That means 8 weeks left to go, and 7 months down. It seems like no matter how I sit, it's always uncomfortable, and so is laying. Sleeping is almost not enjoyable since I wake up at least every 2 hours to pee and have to move around. My hips and/or back are almost constantly hurting, and it's hard to find relief from that. I've also freaked out several times this week because she's not moving around quite as much as she was before (probably because she's so squished!), but I just have to lay down and eat some sugar to get her going.

On a positive note, Sean felt her move for the first time this week. He was pretty excited but said that it felt weird. I also had my first Braxton-Hicks on Sunday. Not very exciting, but at least my body is getting ready to bring this little girl into the world. Also positive, we've started our parenting/birthing class, and last Monday I pretty much got a 3 hour massage from Sean in practice for relaxing techniques:) He swears the whole class is a ploy for him to give me a massage.

Unrelated to the baby, Fall is almost here and I'm so excited to start eating Fall foods, like my favorite, pumpkin. Tonight we're going to try a pumpkin pasta. Hopefully it's good. I'm also going to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies later this week. I was surprised when I went to Target that they already had Christmas decorations for sale, right next to the Halloween stuff. Are they forgetting Thanksgiving too? At least we have something in common. We also get the keys to our new apartment this Friday and I'm excited to start moving. I also have this thing for re-arranging furniture, so setting up our furniture in a new configuration is pretty exciting. Sean also gets to do a Crisis Intervention training this next week, which he was looking forward to. He had actually gotten approved for the training that was right around when the baby is due, so he was fortunate to be able to switch and get to participate in this one.

Summer, baby, Christmas

I think that it is trying to turn into Fall here in Colorado. It's getting cooler and terrifically more bearable. However, my mind seems to go through this sequence: Summer, baby, and then Christmas. Fall shmall. Or the other two big holidays that exist between now and Christmas. In order to get ready for the arrival of our new little one, it seems like nothing else matters. That alone is the biggest event until Christmas, and in my defense, Thanksgiving will totally overshadowed by the fact that a) I have a new baby at home, b) I'm in the hospital with a new baby, or c) I am feeling like I'm going to explode because new baby is late. On Monday, I'll be 30 weeks along. That's 3/4 of the way. 10 weeks left.

Anyway, as you can tell I have baby on the mind. In other news, Sean and I have been trying to expand our food horizons. We've tried several new recipes, which have not disappointed thus far. Some of the new ones we'll be trying this next week are orange Thai beef skewers, baked creamy chicken taquitos, and grilled cheese with pineapple. Sean also make his own chili from his own recipe the other night. It was pretty tasty! I also have a new addiction to food blogs. It's so nice to have people think of new things to eat for you. 

We're also excited to be moving at the end of this month/ beginning of next month. It's a little smaller, but I actually think the amount of storage space is bigger. It's also cheaper. and I'll finally be able to set up the nursery. That's probably 75% of the reasons why I'm so excited to move. We're also moving in next door to a family in our ward, which I'm also excited about. Also it has new carpet, which means no smelling like dog pee! (yes, our apartment still smells like dog pee occasionally).

Yesterday I canned peaches. It was the first time I have canned all by myself. Luckily, I was pretty successful, except having a sticky kitchen, but what's the fun in canning if you don't make a huge mess, right? Actually, our kitchen is probably the cleanest part of the whole apartment now because of the after-canning clean up. 

I have a few projects I want to finish before we move. One is finishing up the kitchen chairs. I painted another one last weekend so now I only have one left. I also need to redo the rocking chair, but that requires Sean's assistance to strip it. I also really want to redo the coffee table before we move in, but he needs to strip that also. They should be pretty easy once stripped, just a coat of primer, and a couple coats of paint, and stain for the top of the coffee table. Could it be that I'm starting to feel the nesting instinct? Probably. 

6 months!

Here I am at week 28. 6 months down, and 2/3 of the way done. My doctors appointment went well and I passed my glucose test. Thank goodness. I'm also to the point where my doctors appointments are every two weeks, making the reality that we are having a baby, just a little more real. She is moving around a lot and tiring me out! I've been working overtime the last few weeks to save money and it has got me realizing how much harder it is getting. Bending over is a feat, more like squat awkwardly to pick up whatever it was that was worth picking up.

And just for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of Sean. Sitting in front of our new desktop computer. We're moving on up in the world. Mostly out of necessity since our laptop got a virus and decided to poop out on us. My favorite part of the new computer so far is the sticky notes, and the 10 key:)

And here is a picture of Sean's head. Just so you remember how big it is. (For some reason this picture makes his head look HUGE... like an orange on a toothpick...)
This is a little rocking chair that Sean's mom bought and painted for us. Isn't it pretty?
Other than preparing for the baby, we've both been working overtime, and then spending our days off catching up on housework and hanging out with each other and family. I ordered a box of peaches (which are unfortunately all hard as a rock), which I will be canning tomorrow (so thankfully they'll be drowning in sugar). This picture is of a recent attempt to make calzones. Rather than making one big one for the two of us, we each made our own so that we could have slightly different toppings (or innards, whatever you call them in a calzone...), and had a major fail. First of all, the dough did not want to be round, so both of ours ended up being more awkwardly oval. Secondly, I made mine on the pan, which was on the heated oven. So when I went to flip the top over, the dough had started to cook and stick to the pan. Thirdly, Sean made his on the counter top, and filled it full, and had the most hilariously difficult time getting it off the counter and onto the pizza pan. This picture is of said effort. It was probably one of our worst dinner attempts, but the time we had laughing together made it all worth it:)

Our fun plans this month include a 4 week parenting class, going to see Les Miserables, and moving to a new apartment at the end of the month. and being one month closer to having our little girl home with us!

mini vacation

This past weekend my sister threw me a baby shower in Utah so that all my relatives and friends could help me celebrate this little girl inside me! It was so cute and such a blast and I got so many awesome presents. It was good to see everyone who came and thank you to those who did! Here are some pictures:

This is me at 25 weeks. Starting to get big!


I'm not sure what's with my face, but the onsie with the outfit says "pretty like mommy":) (Thanks Tahsha!)


I had to put this one up because of Carly's face:) That's a teeny tiny bathing suit from Beth.
This is me and my gals after everyone else left. Not the most flatter picture, but I just love them!

All in all, it was so nice to just get away, see family and friends, and prepare for the baby! After the shower, my mom and sister drove back to Denver with me and all of our newly acquired baby gear. They stayed a couple days and we had a lot of fun going to the new IKEA and to Jerusalem for dinner!

I'm starting to get nervous about the whole, being a parent thing. It's hard to believe that in 3 months we'll have a little baby that we're responsible to take care of. We're super excited, but it's a little scary! Physically, things are getting a little more rough. My feet are swollen after work, it's getting harder to bend over, and my hips hurt when I sleep. I've also noticed that my cravings have changed. Now it's root beer, Sprite, and fruit, and occasionally something sweet.

We're also trying to find ways to save money. Any ideas? We'll be downsizing to a smaller apartment (which equals less rent) in October, I've been using coupons to buy diapers cheaper and stocking up, along with using coupons for grocery shopping, and we've been trying to stick to our budget. But any other ideas would be awesome. Also, has anyone has experience with either Amazon moms or diapers.com?