Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  I'm exhausted with work, all of the family get-togethers and hustle & bustle (not to mention being in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy!) but I really enjoyed the holiday.  My mom came in town from Minnesota to spend Christmas with us and it was really nice to have her here.  Jeff had some cousins in town so it was good to see them as well...I think fun times were had by all!  Baby Shay made out like a little bandit with the Christmas gifts and she's not even born yet!

Here's a pic of some of the stuff for Baby Shay and this was just from my side of the family!

As a special surprise we took both of our moms out to lunch at P.F. Chang's and then over to get a 4D ultrasound on the 23rd.  They were really excited to be able to see the baby live and we walked away with a DVD and some photo prints.  Baby Shay pretty much slept the entire time but she woke up long enough to give us a good yawn.  Here are a couple of the color pics with close ups of her sweet face:

29 Weeks: 4D Ultrasound

29 Weeks: 4D Ultrasound

This year, I have a special appreciation for all that Mary went through to bring baby Jesus into the world.  Might sound cliche but there are some things I never really thought about or understood until this point in my life.  While I'm reading up on all of the health care pregnancy issues, Mary had no modern prenatal care.  While I'm trying to figure out what to pack for the hospital, she and Joseph were traveling to Bethlehem (and certainly not by car).  While I'm worrying about what labor will be like even in a hospital that has all of the modern luxuries (electricity, plumbing, soft beds, pillows, temperature control, state of the art medicine and machines, doctors, etc.), she  gave birth in what was basically a dirty cave stable at night.  While Jeff & I put together a pristine, beautiful new crib, Jesus was laid in an unsanitary manger. 

And Joseph...I don't forgot about him either.  He stuck by Mary despite all of the judgement and criticism thrown his way for being engaged to a pregnant woman.  After all, how many people really believed that she was a virgin and carrying the Son of God?!  Jeff has taken on an active role taking care of me and committing to being at every OB appointment but I know he feels a little helpless in not being able to do anything when I don't feel well.  How must Joseph have felt?  When Mary was giving birth in that stable, was he running around just trying to do whatever he could not to feel helpless as she laid there in pain?  While most new dads just have to worry about raising a baby in a typical upbringing, Joseph was charged with being the dad to God Himself!

These are just a few of the thoughts that crossed my mind over the last couple of weeks.  And how much more of a miracle it seems that God would choose to show His love to us in this way?  By coming to Earth as a baby...wow!

Well, the tree is still up, but Christmas is officially over.  Usually this time comes with a little bit of a let down but so much is ahead of us in the coming year that the end of the holiday season is bringing a new sense of excitement and purpose.  January kicks off a busy month at work and for the Burton's as classes start in full swing.  Beginning on the 16th, we have a series of Lamaze classes every Saturday.  Scattered throughout the coming weeks will also be a Newborn Care class, Infant CPR & Safety and some others. 

Just had our 30 week check up yesterday and everything looks good with baby and with me.  At this point, we'll be seeing the doctor every other week until I hit the 36 week point at which time we will go in every week until I deliver.  I have no idea why but both Jeff & I think Baby Shay will arrive a little early.  He's thinking Feb. 28th.  I'm thinking Mar. 5th.  No rhyme or reason why really...we're probably both way off but we look forward to whenever her arrival is.  Can't wait to see and hold our baby girl!

Happy New Year everyone...may it bring lots of happiness and many, many blessings!

I'll leave you with some photos from the last week:

Jeff & me...I wish him luck giving birth to that one!

Forget "Goodnight Moon."  We have "Goodnight Minnesota!"

Mom, me & Jeff at New River Fellowship after the candlelight Christmas Eve service

Big huge tree at the Opryland Hotel

Jeff's dad Larry & his "Grandpa Larry" t-shirt

My mom and her "I'm Too Sexy To Be Called Grandma" mug

The baby carrier Nana got us (and the goofball wearing it!)

Alive & Kickin'

Chalk it up to one of those "Duh" moments, but a few weeks ago, I think I finally understood the phrase "Alive & kickin'."  Because the only way I know that baby Shay is alive is when she's kicking me.  So, although sometimes I want her to stop if I'm trying to go to sleep, I am glad when she gives me a few kicks or rolls to let me know she's okay.  And she's giving me bigger and stronger kicks by the day.  I think this baby thinks she's a Rockette or a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader in a kickline or something.

Really not a lot of news to report but I was feeling guilty that I haven't updated this blog lately.  Life has been really busy with work & preparing for the holidays.  Plus I get tired out a lot easier than I used to.  We had our 28 week check up yesterday and Dr. Mackey said that everything looks "perfectly healthy" and that she "has no concerns at all."  Baby is growing well and her heartbeat is strong, so we can't ask for better than that!  I did have to drink a bottle full of orange flavored nastiness for a glucose tolerance test which is a routine early screen for gestational diabetes.  Jeff found it amusing to watch me chug the stuff and make faces.  Won't get the results back until the end of the week but I'm not too concerned about it.  Although, after all of the Christmas sweets, perhaps I should rethink that!

A little crib drama update:  After all of the running around to get the crib & changing table, we tried to put them together the next day only to find that the big backboard piece of the crib was severly cracked all the way up one side.  So we contacted the company and they sent a replacement piece a couple of weeks later.  Well, Jeff opened the box and it was the WRONG PIECE!  Another phone call to the company and they said that they would send the correct piece and arrange for the other to be picked up.  Another couple of weeks later and the big box containing the wrong piece is still hanging out in our dining room.  Glad we didn't start this process a month before the due date or baby Shay might not have a bed!

Speaking of bed, Jeff has begun reading "Goodnight Moon" to baby every night.  Apparently, her ears are developed enough to hear sounds outside the womb and babies can recognize their parents' voices at birth and it can calm them.  My OB's office has a website with a link to week-by-week pregnancy timeline if you want to check it out.  The development on a week-to-week basis is amazing and I love reading up on it...truly a miracle!

Here's a couple of pregnancy portraits we had done for our Christmas card.  Please excuse the quality...we only had prints and our scanner isn't quite the best thing around:

Crib Craziness

This is my loooong tale of adventures in baby shopping today (begin reading at your own risk...you've been forwarned that it's long):

Buying a crib & matching changing table.  Doesn't seem like it'd be too big a task right?  WRONG!  At least the particular crib & changing table set I happened to get my heart set on came with all the features I wanted and an added dose of drama. 

It all started a couple of months ago when I found the set on Target.com.  It wasn't on sale when I first discovered it, nor did it qualify for free shipping.  So I decided to bookmark it on my web favorites and keep checking back.  No luck.  Upon adding it to a shopping cart the shipping costs alone came out to $173.98!  Of course I picked out the one model by Graco that is pretty much only carried at Target.  Not any other comparable store, Babies R Us or dept. store.  I did find it online at a couple of different crib sites with free shipping but the price they had on it would have been equal or greater to buying it at Target (and that's WITH the extravagant shipping).

However, it happened to be one of the few sets actually carried in Target stores (a lot are  available online only) so I thought, "No big deal...I'll just go to a Target store and pick it up.  Better call around and see who has it first."  So I called one store and they had the changing table but not the crib.  The nice sales person offered to check around at other local Targets and none of them had the crib in stock.  So I was told to call back every Mon., Wed. & Fri. morning as that's when the stores get new shipments in (although they apparently don't know what will arrive in those shipments).  This started my barrage of phone calls over the next week.  Once I realized how difficult it was to find either the crib or the changing table, I began phoning like a stalker.  I'm sure the Mt. Juliet Target is sick of me!

This all brings me to yesterday when my brother Ty emailed me and asked if I'd gotten anything from him in the mail recently.  Thinking that was odd, I told him no but that I don't check the mail every day.  I arrived home from work to find that Jeff had gotten all the mail and there was a baby card in it.  Upon opening it, three Target gift cards fell out.  One from my mom, one from my dad and one from Ty & his wife Jen.  The card said that they were for our crib.  We were floored!

I had requested today off from work some time ago, setting it aside as a baby registry day.  Only those familiar with the Nashville area will appreciate the amount of driving involved today, but here's what happened...

We started out the morning driving to the Rivergate area for breakfast at IHOP (the pumpkin pancakes are delicious, by the way).  Then it was off to the Rivergate Target to set up our registry.  After being scan happy for about an hour, we asked a sales associate about the crib and changing table.  She searched the system and found that the Nashville West store had our changing table but not the crib and the Hendersonville store had the crib but not the changing table.  Since most stores don't seem to have either in stock, we thought we'd better jump on it today and had both stores hold which one they had.  So we skipped starting our baby registry at Babies R Us in favor of heading to the Hendersonville store where we discovered the crib box was much bigger than we naively thought and wouldn't have a prayer of fitting into our Ford Taurus.  So down we went to Jeff's folks' house in Antioch and got their truck that they graciously let us borrow.  From there we went all the way to the Nashville West store (on Charlotte) and picked up the changing table.  Then we headed all the way back to Hendersonville to get our crib.  Finally just got home and we are exhausted but so happy we have them.  After the gift cards from my family, we only paid $17! 

Planning on putting them together tomorrow and put some of our decor up in the nursery.  I'll post pictures once that's done.  Jeff was initially dreading putting the furniture together.  Now I think he's sort of viewing it as a test of his manhood after I read a few online reviews about the crib stating that some 8 months pregnant women had managed to put it together by themselves in less than 30 minutes.  Hehe, I'll let you know how it goes later!  All that said, here's what everything is supposed to look like when they're assembled:

The Name Game

After much (and I mean MUCH) brainstorming and discussion, we finally have a name for our baby girl! Drumroll please...


Shay Seraphina Burton


So let me share how we arrived at this decision. I first heard the name "Shay" my freshman year at Belmont University. One of the girls who was in Hail Hall with me has the name. Cool name, cool girl. So I immediately fell in love with it. Turns out, Jeff loves it too!

"Seraphina" is the feminine Hebrew form of the root word "seraphim" which are the highest order of angels (higher than archangels and cherubim). Jeff has always loved angels so we knew we wanted to try to incorporate some sort of angelic name for our daughter.

However, we know that she won't always act angelic so we needed a multi-syllabic middle name for her as just yelling "Shay!" doesn't quite cut it. So yelling "Shay Seraphina!" has a little more kick...we know, we both tried it out, LOL!

Big News

This announcement comes a few days late as we got the news last Thurs. Oct. 22nd, but WE'RE HAVING A GIRL! It has been the strangest thing...EVERYONE has been telling us that they thought it would be a girl practically since I got pregnant. Guess it was meant to be!

Our 20 week ultrasound showed our baby girl totally bent in a pike position (she's already a gymnast!). She was awake, moving around a little and sucking her thumb. We actually asked to look at her feet so we could see if there were any tell tale signs of her Daddy's double jointed "monkey toes" and, so far, her feet look normal...woot! Everything else looks great too. She appears to be very healthy and growing well. We couldn't ask for more!

Here are some pics from the ultrasound:

Profile Pic of baby

Sucking her thumb
Looks like normal little feet...no sign of Daddy's "monkey toes!"

4D ultrasound pic

Two Steps Forward

Just an update today on two items of baby business:


1. Yesterday I had my PICC line taken out so I'm finally free of constant medication and from the medicine pack that Jeff refers to as my "buddy." The nurse pulled well over a foot of tubing from the hole in my arm. Yes kinda gross, but also kinda fascinating. I didn't watch when it was put in so it was really weird to see it come out. It sounds crazy, but I feel free! I've been attached to various needles, tubes, valves and the pack for over 2 1/2 months and am so grateful for little things that I can now do without that stuff. For instance, just moving anywhere without dragging it along and constantly watching that the tubing didn't get caught on anything. Taking a shower easily. With the PICC line in, you CANNOT get it wet and the line, snaps, valves, etc took up a good amount of real estate in my upper arm so I always had to wrap the whole deal with the Press & Seal plastic wrap and tape it up really well. I pretty much washed my hair and cleaned up using one arm (and if you know how much long hair I have, that is quite a task!). The medicine pack itself made a whirring noise when the medicine was dispensed every once in awhile and would loudly beep if the tubing was blocked in any way, the battery was running low or the medicine was almost out. It woke me up all the time. Just rolling out of bed this morning without having to unwind tubing from my blankets and grab the pack was so nice! Yeah, sometimes it's the little things in life!


2. When we went to the OB-gyn last week, they did a routine blood draw to test for any warning signs of things that could be potentially wrong with the baby or that would warrent further testing. Got a call this morning from the doctor's office with the results. Great news! Everything tested negative! It's always a little bit of a relief and celebration when things look healthy with baby. So until our big ultrasound appointment on the 22nd, I can just sit back and wait for my belly to get big and feel the baby move!


I'm going back to work on Thursday but for now off to enjoy this beautiful fall weather! I'm finally feeling better enough to get out a little so Jeff and I are headed to Lock Two Park (a few blocks from our house) to sit outside, let our dog Aslan run around and enjoy the beautiful site of the river. Picked the perfect time to come out of hyperemesis hibernation...fall is my absolute favorite time of year!

Heartbeats Out Loud

Today was our first appointment with our new OB-gyn, Dr. Susan Mackey. Part of me is sad to leave the friendly faces and familiarity of Dr. Jaime Vasquez and staff who have walked us through this journey, but since we trust Dr. Vasquez completely, we figured he'd put us in good hands. It's actually a good thing to "graduate" to a regular OB-gyn. Though there was a lot of waiting around during our first appointment with Dr. Mackey, we feel good about her having had the chance to meet with her, ask questions, etc. The nurse gave us a big bag loaded with all kinds of baby stuff...magazines, teething binky, water bottle, pregnancy calendar/organizer, samples, coupons, local hospital info and more. It's mind boggling the amount of information and STUFF is out there for babies! (Haha, speaking of stuff for babies, our home care nurse Brenda was so sweet and got us these Leapfrog maracas that light up different colors, count, play music, etc. I think Jeff is going to wear out the batteries before the baby ever gets to play with them!)


The exciting part about the appointment was that we got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time...it was loud and strong! Our next visit will be on October 22nd for our 20 week check-up and ultrasound where we will find out if we're having a boy or girl! They're going to record the ultrasound to DVD for us too so that'll be a cool keepsake. Can't wait!


Now we have to figure out which hospital to deliver at...decisions, decisions! Baptist or Centennial???


***On a side note, if any of you reading this in Nashville ever find yourselves looking for a great reproductive endocrinologist (fertility specialist) I really recommend Dr. Vasquez at the Center for Reproductive Health.


That's all I got for tonight. Off to eat...AGAIN!!!

Hyperemesis, Hospitals & Home Care

It's been a long time since my last post. So much has happened but I'll try to give an overview of the "highlights" of the last couple of months:


Jul. 19th thru 22nd - Jeff took me to the ER at Summit Hospital in Hermitage because I had been throwing up nonstop for days and was extremely dehydrated. Too many needle sticks and several hours later, we wound up at Dr. Vasquez's office where he immediately diagnosed me with hyperemesis gravidarum (think morning sickness on crack 24/7) and had me admitted to Centennial Women's Hospital (more IV's and needle sticks) in Nashville where I stayed for a few days to get some meds and fluids in...my first overnight hospital stay.


Jul. 27th thru Aug. 3rd - After an unsuccessful few days of trying to be at home with a low-dose subcutaneous medicine pump (meds pumped through a needle inserted into my abdomen) I would up in the same condition and had to be re-admitted to the hospital again, this time for a week. Dr. Vasquez upped the dosage of meds and tried different types of meds to see what would be most effective with me. I have never been so sick or felt worse in all my life.


Aug. 4th thru 13th - After getting released from the hospital, I went home with the same medicine pump but a much higher dosage of meds and the infusion through IV instead of subcutaneously. The IV felt much better as the needle in the abdomen thing stung and made my belly really sore. The downside is that my veins didn't hold up for more than 48 hours so every other day, my home care nurse Brenda (God bless her!) had to come and put in a new IV. I had hard lumps all over my arms and eventually ran out of places to insert a new IV.


Sometime around Aug. 10th - Jeff wasn't feeling well and had a bad headache and blurred vision. He called our regular doctor and was told to go to the ER to get checked out because he might have a TIA (not sure what that stands for). Turns out they discovered through a scan that he had a blood clot behind an eye leading to his brain and that he had had a mini-stroke. They think it may have been the result of a past injury. The ER doc wanted to admit him to the hospital but he begged not to be since I was so sick at home. So the doc agreed to let him to home and put him on blood thinning meds. Thankfully there hasn't been any signs of lasting damage and the clot broke up with the meds. Jeff is now done with the meds and none the worse for the wear. He'll have to go back on occasion for check ups. I'm so thankful he is okay. Blood clots have been a problem in my family and they are nothing to mess with!


Aug. 14th - Back we went to Centennial to have a PICC line inserted. This basically consisted of the doctor giving me an injection to numb a small area in my upper arm and then cutting a small hole in that spot and threading a tube through a deep vein running through my upper arm, across the chest and ending near my heart with the help of a small ultrasound machine. Isn't technology crazy?


Aug. 14th thru Present - I still have my PICC line in. Though it's rather annoying to have tubes and valves coming out of my arm, it is so much better than constantly changing out IV's. Brenda comes once a week to change the PICC line dressing. Jeff manages it the rest of the time. He has been so great with dealing with the doctor, insurance, Coram Infusion Services (the company that provides my medicine & all of the accessories for the pump and PICC line), Continuous Care Services (home care nursing), filing for work disability, communicating with my HR dept., etc. He's been taking great care of me...I'm totally spoiled now. He's even become a nurse of sorts as he flushes out my PICC line with saline and Heparin every night.


I'm now 15 weeks along. Still pretty weak and and tire very quickly but definitely better than how I was feeling during the hospital stays. I'm slowly weaning off of the PICC line meds so I'm hoping that I won't need the pump in another week or so. I've found so much to be thankful for during this time. I have had so much outpouring of love and prayer from family and friends. My short term disability has covered me at work so my income is still rolling in and everyone there has been so supportive. Our insurance coverage has been amazing, without which we would be tens of thousands of dollars in debt. We've had the best health care people to work with. There is so much to be thankful for.


Most of all, we have a healthy baby so far despite everything! Here's an ultrasound pic from last week.

Why in the world is it called "morning" sickness?

So good news or bad news first? I usually prefer bad news first so that the good news can overshadow it.


Bad news: I am so sick! I can't stop throwing up, have a constant headache and am tired all of the time. I wish it was limited to just the morning! I honestly don't know how I'm going to get through another possible 6+ weeks of feeling like this and working full-time but I know I have to somehow. I just hope I can manage to make it to the bathroom instead of throwing up at my desk at work...then I'd have a heckuva time trying to keep this under wraps until 12 weeks! The only thing to get me through is knowing that it'll be worth it in the end for a healthy baby. Oh and Jeff is being sooooo great...pampering me and running all the errands and everything. Thank God for him!


Good news: On Tuesday (the 14th) when I got home from work there was a UPS Express envelope at my front door. Upon opening it up, it was a letter telling me I had won a 5 day/4 night trip to the Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort & Spa, 2 round trip tickets on JetBlue Airlines, and a copy of the Bride Wars DVD! It was part of a promotional trip giveaway through Fox Entertainment & Women's World Magazine that I had been entering about a month ago. I had actually forgotten about it until I got the letter. We just have to send back the affidavits and get all of our information. Jeff & I spent our honeymoon in Jamaica so we were thinking that maybe we could spend our 6 year anniversary this year on this trip...sort of our "babymoon." Our anniversary falls in November so it's the perfect time to go. I'll be looking fat, but not full-blown pregnant so I'm sure a swimsuit will not be flattering but, as long as I don't feel the way I do now with the nonstop nausea, I'll be one fat, happy camper!!!

6 Weeks and Heartbeats

Yesterday was the third time in less than a week that I went to Dr. Vasquez's for a blood draw. The purpose is to monitor my hormone levels to see if my body is taking to the pregnancy well. And great news...so far everything looks good! I could've told you the hormones are increasing without a needle involved though because I'm starting to feel some early pregnancy symptoms like fatigue and some nausea. But I'm not complaining...I'm just grateful. I hope I don't throw up at work...um, that would be a little difficult to explain to my co-workers! Can't wait another 6 weeks to tell everyone!


The baby's heart starts beating this week...so amazing! No one can tell me that this baby is not yet life...it has a heartbeat people! Next Wednesday (July 22nd) we go in for our first ultrasound and we'll be able to actually see the heart beating. We're both excited. Jeff is being so great, so supportive...he's determined that he wants to be at every ultrasound.


Fetal Development:
The first heartbeats have begun! The baby is now an embryo and is about 1/17 of an inch long. Growth is very rapid this week. The umbilical cord develops. The eyes and ears begin to form as well as an opening for the mouth. The heart has begun to pump blood and most of the other organs are well under construction. Buds form on the body that will become the arms and legs.

Ready, Set, Pregnant!

It's been a long journey to get to this day. Now that it's finally arrived, I almost can't believe it! After many years of knowing that Jeff & I were facing infertility issues, this is the year that we finally got serious about doing something about it. So, long story short, this past January, on the advice of a co-worker, we met with Dr. Jaime Vasquez at Nashville's Center for Reproductive Health. Many tests, a minor surgery and a good amount of prayer and frusteration (not necessarily in that order!) later, we find ourselves today with the news that we're pregnant for the first time!

Now, in case you're wondering, we choose to keep it quiet that we were going through the infertility journey as it is such an emotional thing that I didn't want to have to answer questions from anyone. We have been facing difficulties conceiving on both sides and at every level. The day we found out what we were up against, I cried for part of the day and was relieved at the same time to finally know exactly what was going on. We could not ask for a better place to have been referred to. Dr. Vasquez and his staff have all been so great, willing to answer every question we had and offering encouragement at every turn.

Knowing that in vitro fertilization was not the route for us based on personal reasons, July marked the month that we were going to try another treatment that would involve Jeff giving me shots of hormones that naturally occur in the body to support pregnancy. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to the daily shots. As it turns out, none of that is necessary as I finally took a home pregnancy test this morning after being over a week late. It registered that simple, wonderful word "pregnant" almost immediately. I called Dr. Vasquez right away and went in for a blood test today and got a call around 4:00pm confirming the results!

We are beyond excited!  I wanted to plan some great, surprising way to tell Jeff but instead shot out of the bathroom and shoved the pregnancy test in his face, haha!  He got a big smile and gave me the biggest, best hug of my life.  We celebrated the news by going to Barnes & Nobel and picking out the Great Expectations Pregnancy & Childbirth book.  We have a LOT to learn!!!

Below is some info. that I found on storknet.  I find the whole week by week fetal development fascinating.

Fetal Development:
The developing embryo has three layers. In the top layer (ectoderm), the neural tube will form which will further develop into the nervous system (brain, spinal cord, skin and hair). In the middle layer (mesoderm), the heart and circulatory system, bones, muscles, kidneys and reproductive organs will develop - eventually. At this stage, however, the heart and primitive circulatory system will rapidly form. In fact, the circulatory system is the first organ system to function. In the inner layer (endoderm), a simple tube will develop into the intestines, liver, pancreas and bladder.