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!!!