Showered with Love

Shower fun continued this weekend! The Davis girls threw us a LOVELY shower Saturday afternoon. It was absolutely darling!

Cooper will certainly have no shortage of love in this family!

Grammie and Nana. They are one dynamic duo.

Aunt Whitney and Aunt Kelly pulled out the red carpet for us! So much hard work! So much yummy food and precious decorations all around!
Aunt Dori (and Ludi Mae hiding in her tummy) and Aunt Wendy. See isn't Cooper one lucky fella? All these pretty ladies all just waiting to meet him!
Polka dot cake that was cute as a button and ABSOLUTELY to die for! They cut my piece waaay too big and instead of fussing over it, I simply sat and ate every. single. bite. Gracious, it was so so good!
Poor Cooper, he isn't going to have anything to wear.


Or anything to play with.

Deprived little guy.

We are so happy and so blessed. I feel like I say that far too often, but when I look around at my life, I can't help but be overwhelmed with all of the goodness that surrounds us.

Sure, the icky parts still exist. Choosing to focus on these moments is just simply not an option. For example, I thought for sure I was going to go right back into pre-term labor when we opened the mailbox today and received a letter from the TSA stating Chris' civil fine. I had to pull some Jesusness right into my day, as my initial reaction was to lay on the driveway and wail loudly until someone called the insanity police to come take me away.

Instead I took a deep breath, and then approximately 720 additional deep breaths, and decided that we will, once again, find a way. God didn't bring us here to leave us here. Apparently the civil fine has nothing to do with the criminal fine. Lovely. Just TSA's way of saying "Your apology was not enough. Please give us $3000 and give it to us in 30 days. Love, Wand-Waving-Weeble-Like-Wusses."

Regardless, we are blessed. We are loved. And we have a mighty fine tiny gift coming our way in a matter of days. Take that TSA people.

Now off to start the week! Weeks 35-36, here we come!

Party Panties!

...for the Lord made them joyful...Ezra 6:22

What an absolutely fabulous weekend! I can't remember being quite so content. So blessed. So happy. We spent the entire weekend surrounded by people we love, celebrating, well...life :)

On Saturday we celebrated little Cooper with an absolutely AMAZING baby shower thrown by 4 of my most wonderful girlfriends in all the world: Abby, Jennifer, Lori, and Colleen. Seriously. I am still speechless at how perfectly planned and thoughtful the entire day was!

From the tiny petifores nestled in safari themed goodie bags,

to the handmade monogrammed menus,

to the gorgeous hydrangea centerpieces,

to the precious polka dotted diaper cake,

to the pre-addressed sparkle purse preggo lady thank you cards,

to the surprise birthday cake and singing...

I spent the entire day in absolute awe at these girls and what they did for me. So, so blessed. So, so grateful.

We were having so much fun we forgot to take many pictures! Here are just a few...

28 of my most dear girlfriends and family members dined on a delightful lunch at the most darling restaurant, Grace 17:20 (lunch came complete with our unsuspecting 21 year old waiter who unbeknownst to him, learned about things like epidurals and water births, and mucous plugs...poor thing!). Lunch was to die for! I had the roast beef sandwich with, my all time favorite, stone mill grits. Holy yumminess!

The outpouring of love and mountain of sweet little baby gifts left me speechless. It was a day I will never, ever forget.

Sunday was cold and rainy, which was absolutely perfect :) Chris and I spent the afternoon building various baby contraptions like pack and plays, swings, bouncy seats, and Diaper Genies. Well mostly, Chris built various baby contraptions while I ooohed and aahed over tiny socks and bibs and onesies and blankies. It amazes me how loved this sweet baby is and he isn't even here yet!

We wrapped up the afternoon at Target. (Yes, I snuck past the bed rest trolls more than once this weekend...)

Oh Target! Oh bliss!

Usually our rule is that Chris is not allowed to go into my Target happy place with me. A little history...boys seem to think that you go into places like Target for a specific purpose. My dad is the same exact way. Girls go into places like Target to frolick about and spend the afternoon perusing the dollar spot and comparing brands of paper towels and bathroom cleaning products.

Needless to say, I settled in for a 3 hour jaunt, while Chris quickly informed me that we needed to, ahem, pick up the pace. I became foul humored and sweaty while trying to sort through my coupons and make it down every single aisle looking for things we didn't need nor would ever need. About 23 minutes into the baby bottle aisle (why were we looking at baby bottles when we were just given a gazillion little baby items, I DON'T KNOW, WE JUST WERE!), he announced "We need to go NOW because I have somewhere to be!". Gracious day alive husband, where on earth is it that you have to be!?!

Turns out, we had to be at the surprise birthday party dear hubby had planned for moi. What!?!? *Shuffle in seat. Wring hands.* Wrap up unnecessary Target time wasting. Off we flew to my 2nd favorite restaurant establishment, Bonefish, for none other than a surprise birthday shindig! What a surprise! Hubs pulled it off, bless him. He showered me with so much love and frilly girly things all weekend (my favorite: a new Vera Bradley weekend duffle that coordinates with the nursery...lime green and brown--so sweet!)...so there you have it, an absolutely PERFECT weekend. I feel so loved and so blessed.

Thank you all who helped me to celebrate this weekend! I love you all so very much!

Cooped Up

5 things I have realized since embarking upon my bed rest journey:
1. Picture frames get dusty. Especially enormous ones that hang high above your bed.
2. I have approximately 43 pairs of shoes in the floor of our closet. I would try to downsize, but each pair tells a unique story (i.e. shoes I wore on our wedding day, shoes I ran 1/2 marathon in, shoes I wore to my grandmother's funeral, flip flops I wore nonstop during summer at Camp Seafarer in Outer Banks...). Solution: begin blueprints for expanding master closet.
3. Online Rummikub can make a girl happy. Losing 12 games in a row causes increased contractions.
4. Maddie Bug Baby has some mighty fine monogrammed treats. What can I say, online shopping is one vice that does not break bed rest rules.
5. 1000 text messages per month is not enough when exciting things are happening. Cell phone providers are more than happy to upgrade your plan once they gasp at the amount of text messages you have sent in 48 hours. Explaining that the line does not belong to a 13 year old teeny bopper was a little embarrassing.

So we made it through the weekend with lots of rest, love, and TLC from our friends and family. We feel SO incredibly blessed! Lori and Courtney brought over 5 Guys and Krispy Kreme Friday night, the Davis' showed up with Applebee's Curbside Saturday night, and the Knoll's blessed us on Sunday night with King Ranch Chicken casserole, salad, and buttermilk pie (holy yumminess). Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your kindness means so very much to us!

Seriously, we feel SO loved (and spoiled rotten!)

I decided that I was "fine" and went to work on Monday. Made it through the day with intense contractions and tons of pressure but was determined to make it 10 hours, as if my life depended on proving my stubbornness to the world. Contractions continued until 2am this morning. By 6:30am we were up and on our way back to see Dr. Sermons. Things had calmed down considerably so I figured we were smooth sailing.

Not so much.

Dr. Sermons informed us that best case, Super Coop will make it to 37 weeks. He wants us to make it at least 3-4 more weeks but said he wouldn't bat an eyelash if baby boy graces us with his presence sooner. He said to adapt a "modified bed rest" plan of action but that he would like for the perinatologist to make the final call.

He packed us up and sent us right over to Dr. Stone at Northside. I was greeted with girl scout cookies, as promised, for passing the 3 hour glucose test. So yummy!

Cooper is measuring 35-36 weeks across the board--yay, healthy boy! The close up ultrasound pic of his face showed a pouty face (apparently he does not like being placed in time out). Although my cervix is cooperating (still only 1 cm), my uterus is not. Dr. Stone insisted on putting me on the fetal monitor (despite my reassuring him that everything had calmed down) and within 20 minutes, we had 10 contractions. Bad Cooper.

He placed me BACK on bedrest, lectured me, insisted that I quit my 2nd little piddly Wednesday job, and giggled at my stubbornness. When I do go back to work (please, please), I have to modify my hours/schedule. Thankfully I have been given a 1 day pass to attend my super fun baby shower on Saturday with my most favorite people at my most favorite place in all the world. Back to Northside next week to see what's next.

So it's just me and Judge Judy hanging out here at the Davis Den. Letting go of the work changes is going to take a small act of God (things are already super rocky with changes in the economy and overstaffing). Good thing our God is big enough to move mountains, even if they come in the form of workplaces like Children's Healthcare.

Tootles!

Time Out

Baby Cooper is in time out.

He tried to pull a fast one on us and sent us packin' to Northside where we spent the night, got 3 injections of terbutaline (some sort of anti-contraction and lung boosting medication), and landed ourselves on bedrest through the weekend. The best part of the whole experience was Cooper's bursts of, let's say, "personality", where he would kick the tar out of the fetal monitor and make it fall off. Lovely. The sweet 19 year old OB nurse handled it like a champ.

Turns out what I tried to convince myself were Braxton Hicks contractions for 2 days, were actually preterm labor contractions. When I was admitted the contractions were coming every 6-7 minutes and I was dilated 1 cm. Bad Cooper.

Daddy and I had a long talk with him and told him that he needs to stay put. Here's hoping he's a good little listener :)

Thank you all for your sweet thoughts and prayers!!

Squish Squash

Sometimes I wake up smiling at the thought of how much God has blessed us. Today was one of those days. I rolled over and just laid there counting my blessings one by one.

We are counting down the days until Cooper joins our little family. His bed is made. His diaper bag is packed. His little footy pajamas are washed and folded. His diaper baskets are full. His little books are lined up on his little shelf. His car seat is prepped with all sorts of totally unnecessary hanging ornaments like owls and lions and tigers.

Someone once told me that while you can be "prepared" for a little one, you might never be truly "ready". Ready or not, we can't wait for him to be here. Some call it ignorance, we call it bliss.


This weeks news:

Food cravings: stuffed mushrooms (I just ate my weight in these yummy little boogers), reese's pieces, crushed ice (chomp chomp all day long), blue diamond salt and vinegar almonds, mcalister's chicken tortilla soup (extra tortillas), carrot sticks n dip from buffalos, and banana peppers.

Emotional Basketcase Moments: church on Sunday. Our kickin' praise team led us in the song my sweet Mama Potts used to sing as she rocked me to sleep (when I was, by the way, waay too big to be rocked to sleep--legs dragging the floor, knees and elbows up to high heavens...) I sobbed my way through each verse and thought about what she would give to rock Cooper to sleep singing "this is my story, this is my song...".

Hormonal Rage Currently Directed At: toothpaste residue left in the sink. Totally ridiculous. Totally unjustifiable. Worst part, I'm the one who deposits said toothpaste residue. Remedy: Sams Club-sized tub of Clorox wipes. It makes me happy that this is the only bout of rage I can think of.

Currently Grateful For: clothes that fit (hey, it can make or break a girl's day), upcoming baby showers thrown with bookoodles of love and hard work by my most precious girlfriends and family members, and sunshine.

Sugar Sugar

Went for the 4 hour glucose test today. Except for the whole fasting and having blood drawn 5x deal, it wasn't near as bad as I had anticipated. Belch.

Had our 31-32 week appointment with Dr. Sermons while I was up there. We talked about my recent visits with the perinatologist and the Sermonator assured me that his prediction is that Cooper will not be any bigger than 8lbs on his birthday. Now we're talkin'!

After making a bee line for the nearest Chickfila and swinging by Old Navy to browse newborn seer sucker suits (totally uncalled for) I came home and crashed. For 4 hours. But not before eating a handful (or two) of Reese's Pieces...mmm :)

Thank you all for your sweet thoughts and prayers! Will keep you posted on the results.