Waiting for Baby

Basically the first half of May was spent just waiting for our baby boy to get here. I was so sure that I would deliver him early because I could tell he was pretty big and Norah was born 5 days early.

As the due date got closer, I kept getting more anxious and miserable. I asked my doctor his opinion about inducing at 39 weeks, but he told me he would rather wait it out. I decided to just keep on waiting.

Not doing that again.

But we'll get to that in a future post. For now, here are some pictures from our waiting days.

Rich and I decided that we needed to officially make ourselves Utah residents before baby came. So, we got our Utah driver licenses, and we got Utah plates for the car, which meant safety and emissions testing. I am not a big fan of doing car things because I have no idea what I'm doing. Thank goodness for coupons and nice/honest repair shops.

Norah kept me company while we waited for our car to be aligned and to do safety and emissions. Check our her drawing here! She's getting pretty good!

We also found as many places to walk as possible. We hit up so many malls, trails, pathways, sidewalks. Anything to get labor started. Didn't work.

Station Park in Farmington, waiting for the water show (happens every hour on the hour).

Having lived in Kentucky for 10 years, my family grew to love celebrating the Kentucky Derby. We used to have a Derby Party every year in Kentucky where we would invite the neighborhood over for breakfast on Derby Day. My mom tried to keep the tradition going when they moved to Utah, but she was often out of town that weekend. This year, though, my mom was going to be here and was going to make it a big party. We all got together on Derby Day (the first Saturday of May) to celebrate with food (including Derby Pie), a fancy hat contest, an outside viewing of the race, and even pony rides.

The pony rides were really kind of...interesting. My mom scheduled to have this lady bring her pony for rides, and we thought that meant that she would be there the whole time, too. Nope. She literally unloaded the pony, told us that it's okay if it ate party food, and said she'd be back in 4 hours. What?!

My cousin Callin ended up being the pony master for a lot of the afternoon.

Norah was a little afraid on her first ride. She didn't want to smile or let go. By the end of the afternoon, though, she asked to ride again.

 We discovered this trail on the benches of Bountiful and decided to give it a shot with Norah. We didn't get very far, though, before she needed to go to the bathroom and we were too hot climb back up the hill. We'll have to try it again once things cool down, since most of it (not the part pictured, though) is out in the sun.

A glorious nap. This was a TERRIBLE day for us. So many tantrums, two potty accidents, and I was absolutely miserable with pregnancy. Doesn't she look so peaceful? Oh, how I miss nap time.

This is the same day Norah took a nap. I texted Rich that day and told him that I couldn't even think about making dinner because it had been such an awful day. He knew just what I needed - a good burger.

My sister Carrie also knew just what I needed, a pedicure. She took Norah and me to a nail salon one day, where I got the super deluxe pedicure package, and it was glorious.

Norah also got her fingernails painted, after she dropped her first bottle of purple nail polish where it shattered on the floor and got everywhere. Including all over my favorite of Norah's outfits. Sigh.

Again with the sleeping. Norah went through (and still kind of is going through) a streak where she took forever to fall asleep at night and would be completely exhausted the next day. One day, we went to pick up Rich from work and she fell asleep in the car. So jealous that he got this wonderful, sleepy cuddle from her.

On the waiting for baby front, I finally gave up on him coming on his own, after three weeks in a row where my doctor reported no real progress. At 39 weeks and 5 days, my doctor and I decided to schedule my induction for the next Monday, one day after my due date.

Since we pretty much knew baby would be coming after the weekend, we tried to make it a fun one for Norah in her last days as an only child. Too bad she was too cranky for it to be any real fun. Here, we bribed her with a ride on the carousel to get her to behave in the mall, only to have a HUGE fit when it was time to get off. Yikes.

And here is our last picture of us as a family of 3. On Mothers' Day (my actual due date), my mom and dad picked up Norah to watch her while we were in the hospital. Poor girl didn't understand how much her life was going to change.