Good Luck, Eli

Delivering Elijah
November/December 2012

Good Luck, Eli

Table of Contents

Delivering Elijah Small Universe 79 More Days Officially Popped Out Your Baby Shower Mount Pleasant Baby Shower December 2012 Heartbeat is good Remembering Your Baby Shower Air Baby Progress - Side by Side Comparison 32 Weeks Really active little guy 40 Days Left Doing the Baby Math 35 Weeks

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November 2012

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Small Universe

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79 More Days

Broke the 80 days barrier. So, much left to do (and get) in such a short time.

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Officially Popped Out

Theresa Morgan Doctors visit today with no doctor. He was called out on a delivery so I saw the PA. Measuring right on and heartbeat was at 134. I also gained 2 lbs in 2 weeks, where previously I was gaining 1 lb a month. Nurse took one look at me and commented on how Ive now officially popped out lol.

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Your Baby Shower

This weekend your Aunt Susan, Grandma Boyne, and Mom will be hosting a baby shower for friends and family around the Marlette area. If things work out, your Grandma Morgan will be there too although she has to drive almost as far as we do. Since youre a boy, its safe to say that you probably wont be attending too many baby showers because they are really a type of party that only women go to. The last baby showers I attended were for Kayla, and that was twelve years ago. There wasnt a baby shower for Josh because he was born two years after your sister, and we still had most of our baby gear. With you, things are a lot different. We kept the crib, the changing table, and a couple of the baby car seats, but sold all of our baby clothes and equipment. Baby showers are a way for friends and family to help out a couple who is having a baby, and in this case were having our third but need to get prepared again for your arrival. I dont know what your Grandma and Aunt have planned for the shower, but from what Ive heard about them in general there is usually some food, a couple of games, and then the mother-to-be opens up the gifts that people bring. During Kaylas baby shower, we set up a board where everybody could guess her sex, because at the time we didnt know if she was going to be a boy or girl. Your mom has been converting the closet in our room into a Baby nook. This is a fancy way of saying that youre going to be sleeping on our closet for the first year or so until we can figure out a better solution. The rest of our bedroom is taken up by my desks, the bed, and a bookshelf. Eventually, you might share a room with your brother or, if we can find a bigger place, you would get a bedroom of your own. We have also been trying to pick out a name for you. Im not sure why, but this seems almost harder than it was when we were naming your sister and brother. I hadnt heard the name Kayla before until I read about a girl in the news with that name. I suggested it, and it just stuck. Joshs name was on the short list of names for Kayla, back before she was born and we knew she was a girl. What this seems to boil down to is that we were so over prepared for Kayla that it just helped us to prepare for Josh too, but now were even starting from scratch when it comes to choosing a name. There are some candidates, so it really is just a matter of choosing something. As of tomorrow, Christmas will be 25 days away. During those twenty-five days, we will be putting up the Christmas tree, decorating the house, attending church services, and visiting family. It occurs to me that this feels like our first Christmas with you, even though you havent been born yet. I never thought that a due date in February would make me feel like youre practically here in December. Your mom says she has this feeling that you will be born early in January. Ive always found January to be the most depressing month, because it follows Christmas and New Years eve

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and is smack dab in the middle of both the winter and flu season. But, if your birthday is in January, I definitely will look forward to the month each year.

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Mount Pleasant Baby Shower

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December 2012

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Heartbeat is good
Theresa Morgan 31 week appt complete. Measuring perfect and heartbeat is good. Talked to doc about pain in my rib area. Thought maybe it was just pinched nerves because it felt like pins and needles. Alas no, apparently I have separated muscles over the bottom of my ribs. So, now I have 2 holes that arent supposed to be there. Lol. Good news is the muscles should be back to normal after delivery. Not so much the hernia. 2 weeks til next appt. (33 weeks) He said well talk holiday travel then.

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Remembering Your Baby Shower

As I was preparing to describe your baby shower, I began to wonder how many types of social gatherings or parties there are where people get together in celebration of someone in particular, without that someone being present. The only examples I could think of were funerals and baby showers. I (thankfully) havent had to plan a funeral, but my guess is that when one does put one together, they have the question in the back of their mind, How would <insert name here> want to be remembered? Or, maybe this question was answered by the persons will. This question is harder to answer when you are holding a baby shower, because the guest of honorin this case, youis not only absent, but we havent even met them yet. We knew you were going to be a boy, so there was a lot of blue around, and your mom has fallen in love with the idea of calling you monkey, so the cups, plates, napkins, cake, and even some of the clothes all had pictures of monkeys on them. I know that this doesnt mean that were telling you to like monkeys, but Im just saying that were at that awkward stage when we dont know what you like. This is something that you and the rest of us will need to figure out together, I suppose. Your baby shower was held at your Aunt Susans house at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 1 2012. That day the weather was unseasonably warm, right around fifty degrees, but a little on the rainy side. We left late in the morning that same day and ended up getting there just before your baby shower was scheduled to start. On our way there we stopped inside the Midland Mall to give your mom the chance to walk around a little bit, use the bathroom, and then we had lunch. (I guess in a way your presence is always felt by your mom, and we can tell just by looking at her that you are already with us) We were joined by both of your grandmothers, Sara, Rose, Connie, your cousins (Mea, and Allyson), your sister Kayla, and myself. Josh and Alex were there, but spent most of their time upstairs playing video games. Here is another strange fact about baby showers: You will probably never attend another one in

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your life time, unless the doctors are all wrong and youre a girl. Thats because guys usually dont go to baby showers, unless they are the father-to-be, and even then Im willing to bet that its considered optional. Your Aunt Susan had arranged three tables in her dining room where we could sit and talk. Each table had a centerpiece made up of flowers. One of the centerpieces was a baby bottle which contained flowers. Each table had a bowl of peanuts and mints. They lasted a while until your brother found out about them, and then spent the rest of the afternoon devouring just the mints. Once we were sure that everybody who was coming had shown up, Susan announced that she was hungry so she was going to just dig in, so the rest of us should too. Dinner was sloppy joes, nacho chips and cheese, and salad. Kayla, Mea, and your Grandma Morgan sat together in the kitchen. I sat with your mom and Allyson. Our food was served on plates decorated with monkeys, and the cups had pictures of monkeys on them. I guess you could call it a theme. (You dont have to, but that saved me from having to also point out that the napkins were decorated with monkeys) Your cousin Mea had created a sign which hung above the bay windows in the dining room. It was a chain of letters which formed the phrase, Its a Boy. Below the sign was a rocking chair and an assortments of gifts for you. Some of them were wrapped, and some of them werent. Another strange thing about baby showers is that the gifts are often for the baby, but in a way they are also intended to help the parents. For example, once you arrive there will be a bouncy chair and a jumperoo waiting for you to play in. Im hoping that you enjoy them, but in truth the hope is that we, as the parents, will enjoy watching you enjoy themto the point at which we will be able to snap cute photos, run and use the bathroom, or maybe grab a snack. Your mom sat down in the rocking chair and began to dig in to your gifts. Im happy to say that, thanks to our friends and family, you will not be limited to just wearing your birthday suit during the first couple of weeks of your life (sorry, but that sounded way funnier in my head). You will be clothed from head to toe in cute looking onesies, and shirts that say things like Daddys biggest fan. It would be hard to tell you about everything that you were given, so Im going to upload photos of your mom opening up the gifts.

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Air Baby

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Progress - Side by Side Comparison

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32 Weeks

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Really active little guy

Theresa Morgan 33 week appointment this morning. Given the clear to travel for the holidays, provided there are no surprises this week. Right on schedule for measurement and heartbeat was 143 today. I mentioned to OB about how Im feeling the monkeys movments more than I did with Kayla and Josh, and wondered if it was just because he was more forward on my body than they were. Doc looked at my chart and said to my surprise that my placenta is actually in front of him, which usually muffles the movements a bit, so I must just be blessed with a really active little guy. I dont know whether to feel blessed or scared. LOL!

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40 Days Left
Theresa Morgan Im 34 + 3 weeks, which means I have 40 days left (or less) According to my app the Monkey is 17.75 inches (cantaloupe size) and weighs about 4.75 lbs. A few minutes ago I think he was performing full body calisthenics, as my entire belly was shifting in multiple directions at once. Definitely a weird sight (and painful too!)

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Doing the Baby Math

Last week when we were setting out the stockings as a part of our Christmas decorations, it dawned on me that were going to need a new way to hang them up on our bookshelf. For as long as I remember, weve used a set of weights shaped like letters to hang up our four stockings. The letters spell Noel, so there are just enough for our family of four. But, sometime between January and the middle of February we are going to become a family of five, so Noel wont work for us. The simplest solution might be to hang my and Theresas stockings in a different way, or dont hang them up at all, but this would break tradition. During the Christmas service on Monday, I saw that the spelling of Noel in the hymn book was Nowell. I was relieved to think that there might be a variation of the word that we could use. Wed just need a w, and an additional l, and wed be all set. The truth is that Ive spent all of my life in a family of four, so when our son is born this will all be brand-new territory for me. Growing up, it was just my parents and my sister, and for the longest time weve been the parents of one son, and one daughter. As I think about it, the world seems to be optimized for four people. Booths at restaurants, for example, are just roomy enough for four people. This is true for most fast food restaurants. At the fancier sit-down places, anything bigger than four prompts the waiter to take you to a larger table. A lot of the discounts that are offered to families also favor families of four. If the kids redeem a coupon for a free ice cream cone, for example, the small print will say that it is only valid with the purchase of an adult meal. It used to be a novelty to announce ourselves as a Party of Five, mostly because it reminded me of the show that used to be on FOX a few years ago. Now, it is a phrase I will need to get used to saying, just like referring to Josh and his little brother as the boys. Additional calculations show that the boys will outnumber the girls in this family. This was something that never happened when it was just the four of us. Focussing on just the number of kids in our family, my thoughts are that three isnt such a bad number. There are actually a lot of great things that have come in threes. The Star Wars Trilogy consisted of three movies, for example, and there are the three Lord of the Rings movies. The recent series of Batman movies was a trilogy, and it was pretty good too. Aside from movies, there are Donald Ducks nephews, the Three Musketeers, and the Three Stooges. Earth, by the way, is the third planet from the Sun and my favorite place to live. One thing that I know for certain is that there wont be a way to measure how much I will love our son once he is born.

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35 Weeks
Theresa Morgan 35 week appointment down, which means Ill now be seeing the doctor weekly. 36 days or less til Monkeys arrival.

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