Last Tuesday, John and I took a class at the hospital. It was about labor, epidurals and neonatal care. It was a really interesting class. I have not really decided if I want an epidural yet but I'm going in with a realistic mindset that if I am lucky enough to have quick labors like my mom, (2 hours with me and 1.5 hours with my sister) I will try to hold off, however, if the labor ends up being long, I will probably end up getting the epidural. The class made me feel much better that if I do decide to get it, it will not affect the baby. We also learned some interesting facts about how neonatal care became so prominent in the U.S. It began when President Kennedy was in office. His son was born prematurely at 32 weeks and there were not any neonatal care units in the U.S. at that time; they only existed in Canada. President Kennedy's advisors thought that it would look bad if the President of the most powerful country in the world was going to a different country to have his baby cared for. By the time they decided to take the baby, it was too late and he had passed. That sparked the start of neonatal units in the U.S. and medicine has come such a long way that a baby born at 32 weeks gestation has an equal chance of survival as a baby born at full term. I, for one, thought that was a very comforting statistic!
Anyway, this past Saturday was my Baby Shower. My Mom and I had been worrying that the weather was going to be too hot and uncomfortable for everyone. We had diligently been checking the weather forecast every single day and we kept seeing that it would be around 85 degrees. We were happy with that since 2 weeks before, it had been 106 degrees in Riverside. Well, Saturday morning comes around and we start setting everything out including table clothes and diaper cake centerpieces that my mom made herself and bingo cards for the game. The sky looked so dark and gloomy and we kept hearing thunder in the distance. We looked up the weather forcast and it said there was a 50% chance of rain. We had no idea how we were going to fit over 100 people + tables and chairs inside the house. Well, I guess we lucked out because it did not rain and the weather was absolutely perfect! It was neither too hot or too cold.
Everything turned out so perfectly. We are seriously so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. I cannot believe how many gifts we received. It took over 2 hours for me to open them all. This baby is not going to be lacking anything! I was exhaused by the end of the day, but it was so worth it and we could not be more lucky. John and I had a very exhausting couple of days to follow. My poor husband worked his butt off! I tried to help as much as possible but I was in quite a bit of pain from exhaustion, so he didn't let me do much. We had to borrow a truck to bring all the gifts home. John and my sister loaded everything up on Sunday morning and drove it 62 miles from Riverside to Torrance, unloaded it in the baby's room and came back to Riverside to pick me up. Then on Monday, he went through it and organized it. We have been doing baby laundry all week and finally got all the clothes put away into drawers and hung in her closet.
Here are some pictures of what it looked like when John brought all the presents home:
And this is what the nursery looks like now (Charlie felt the need to be in the picture):
And here are a couple more of the closet...thank goodness this closet is so huge because otherwise, I have no idea where we would have put all this stuff (yes, that's a Tiffany's box there...she already has an adorable Tiffany's piggy bank from my sister's best friend Michaela) It is currently sitting inside the Princess Carraige):
I also want to share a cute gift that our friends Katie and Adrian got made for us. I, in no way, want to leave anyone out because every gift we got was super special and we are extremely grateful for everyone's extreme generosity, but this one was very personalized so I thought I would post a picture!
Front:
Back:
Anyway, we are so excited and ready for this baby to come. I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves for the next 7 and a half weeks since practically everything is already done. But I am just so grateful for my family, for my husband and for our friends. I know that she is going to be so loved!
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