awesome baby shower!

my baby shower was yesterday and my oh my was it a wonderful affair.  none of my family nor many of my oldest friends were able to attend since they are all so far away.  but everyone sent presents and books and i'm so appreciative that they were so thoughtful! 

you see. . .little did i know that there was a book theme to this party.  so guests not only brought gifts from my registry (and beyond), but each also brought their favorite book (or books) from childhood.  such a great idea, and i was thrilled to get so many great books for our little one's library.  up until this point, she had a fairly empty book shelf.  but now, like her closet, her bookshelf runneth over.  i've already had visions, when she's older of course, of reading books together at night before bed. 

anyhow, first things first.  the decor and food were awesome.  my business partner and friend Rachel coordinated most of this with the help of her sister (who flew in from Chicago for the occasion) and her mom.  knowing i see beyond pink when thinking about baby girls, they used an orange and green color scheme that i loved with gorgeous roses, daisies and tulips (my fave) and green and orange jelly beans in baby bottles.  here are some pics:

did you see the tiny baby booties handmade with frosting by Rachel's mom on top of the cupcakes?  the detail on the little laces is amazing.  my special beverage was a mango-apple mocktail that was delicious.  guests without a bun in the oven imbibed on orange dream cocktails which also looked delish.  the cute little party favor boxes included two delicious French macaron cookies.  have you tried these?  not macaroons. . .but macarons.  they are all the rage in LA right now. . .google them. 

so this is what i looked like on the big day.  everyone kept telling me to sit down.  this was my perch on the couch when i complied.

this is Rachel and me.  she was the hostess with the mostess!

 this was the co-hostess Josette and her new five-month-old baby girl Milana.  you might remember her from this past summer when i co-hosted her shower at my house.

these are some more of the girls, from left to right: Eunjoo, Tiffanie, me and Kathleen.  Kathleen is an old friend and roommate from KU days that lives down in Orange County.  i learned at my shower that she is five months pregnant with #2! 

this is Eunjoo, me and Rachel.  note i'm following orders and at my perch.

the ladies who made it all happen: Rachel's mom (far left), Rachel (middle) and Rachel's sister (far right).  the blonde in the middle is our friend Heather who is also our client and that's her baby girl Harper who is only 10 weeks old.

once we started the big gift unwrap, i moved over to a new perch.

opening all those presents sure was fun!  the two new mommies took it upon themselves to give me goody bags filled with all the stuff you need after giving birth that no one tells you.  some of this was a bit shocking to the ladies in the room who haven't had babies.

butt paste for baby's bum.

Tuck's medicated pads for MY bum!

and we can't forget the disposable underwear.  these got a lot of oohs and ahhs.  but as i mentioned, the books were my favorite part.

my sister sent these books, two of our favorites from childhood: The Pokey Little Puppy and the Saggy Baggy Elephant.

she also sent the Town Mouse and Country Mouse. . .well because that's us!  i was explaining the significance in this photo. . .and getting a little teary-eyed.  my mom sent Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes because she thinks all kids need a good foundation of traditional nursery rhymes to get a good start in life and because she is the mother goose after all!

towards the end of the evening, a group of us somehow ended up in the nursery.  this is from left to right: Janice, me, Josette (and Mila), Kym and Roz. and then Adam showed up and took advantage of a little baby holding practice.  he's a natural!  that's him and Harper.

and a good time was had by all.  thank you to all near and far who participated and helped make this such a wonderful event.  your thoughtfulness and generosity, but mostly your friendship, is very much appreciated and treasured.  i am blessed.

revelation

we had our final ultrasound today.  the report was good!  sweet little Baby H is catching up with her growth, although still a little small for her age.  but we're small people. . .so hey, only makes sense.  and all of her organs and parts seem to be growing just fine. . .especially her brain.  it's measuring slightly ahead of the rest of her body.  she's gonna be a little smarty pants.  

usually our ultrasound appointments involve Adam and I staring at the screen with the perinatologist explaining what each thing is, but us not really seeing much.  and then we walk out with a couple of blurry photos of bits and pieces of body parts that we can't really identify.

today was different.  suddenly the screen was filled with a face.  a real human face.  i got goosebumps and Adam's jaw dropped.  and we walked out of the office with this amazing photo of our baby girl.

and suddenly everything feels different. . . real.  there's a real little person bouncing around in my belly.  she's perfect.  and we are filled with love and excitement for her arrival.

multi-purpose!

well fancy that. . .this big ol' belly can come in handy after all.  who needs a night table when you can simply stash your water bottle on your belly?

and the update for today:  tomorrow i will have reached the 34 week mark.  considering my mom delivered my sister (her first, but not favorite child) at 34 weeks, i've started considering that this baby could really come any day now!  so, for that reason, we installed the car seat bases this weekend.  we put one in each of our cars just in case.  i also started packing my hospital bag, but didn't get very far.  i have a very limited wardrobe at this point. . .so i really can't pack anything yet because then i couldn't wear it.  and then i'd have nothing to wear!  but i have a list and started putting some stuff in the bag at least. 

had another NST today.  my OB popped up and surprised me.  she does that if she happens to be at the hospital when i'm there.  it's always a nice surprise.  today she proclaimed that my baby has become "the best baby on the block!"  she said she's looking stellar.  a month ago when we started these tests, it would take up to 3 hours to get a good enough reading. . .but now we're getting it done in 30 minutes to an hour.  our baby is smart.  she just needed to know what they were looking for, and now she gets it done quick!  we go in for an ultrasound tomorrow and we expect that to go well as well.  will be interesting to see how much bigger she's gotten since i've been overloading on the protein.

Christmas and New Years were both very mellow around the Hamilton estate.  let's just say we proclaimed "Happy New Year!" at the same time they did on the East Coast (ie: 9 pm Pacific time) and we were asleep shortly thereafter.  but we did have a delightful dinner at Morton's just the two (er three) of us.  i have a feeling next Christmas and New Years are going to be VERY different.

very much looking forward to 2011 and the wonderful new adventure that awaits us.  and looking forward to all the visitors who will be coming from new and far to see our new addition.  feel free to start booking your spring travel now.  we'll still have a guest room. . .right next to the nursery complete with up-all-night screaming baby.  sounds enticing doesn't it. . .

pink and polka dots

i'm starting to think i should rename this blog "my pink and polka dotted world" because it seems to be what it's coming to.  i'm overflowing with pink and polka dotted baby clothes!  but i'm not complaining.  i've had so many wonderful people pass along wonderful baby girl hand me downs (shout out to my sister-in-law Melissa, my friend Amanda and Adam's good friend Craig).  and i've had a great time washing, sorting, organizing, folding and hanging them all.  our closet runneth over!

as for me, all is going well, but i'm getting huge! 

here are the stats:

weeks: 32 weeks on Tuesday; only 8 more to go!
weight: 145 lbs (about 25 more than I started out with)

waist: 38.5 inches!
belly button: still in, but much smaller and sometimes the top edge bulges out a bit
current cravings: everything! especially grilled cheese and soup, ice cream, smoothies and chocolate chip cookies
mood: overall good, but starting to get anxious
health: the acid reflux continues to torment me all day, every day, but since stepping up my water and protein intake, all appears to be good with Baby H.  i continue to visit the hospital twice a week for NSTs.  although it's tedious, it's always nice to hear her heartbeat and receive confirmation that all is well.  saw my OB yesterday and she said everything looks good, but wants me to remain on bedrest until further notice.
movement:  she moves nonstop!   her head is down and she's sideways with her little back laying up against my right side.  so i think i feel pretty much everything she does.  i also feel hiccups occasionally and i watch in awe as my stomach moves and transforms from the outside with what appears to be an alien trying to break on through.
footwear: no longer wearing shoes that require tying.
classes:  Adam and i have been taking a birth class on Tuesday nights.  we completed the series last night!  we also completed a breastfeeding class last Saturday. our hospital tour is this Thursday and our final class is next month and will teach us all about taking care of our new infant.
current tasks: with the quickly approaching birth, there is still much to be done!  i'm just working my way down the list.  (i come from a list family.) we signed up for life insurance this past week.  started our pediatrician interviews and have a goal of packing the hospital bag by Jan. 1.

in other news. . .just opened the Christmas box that arrived this week from Kansas.  my mom and sister always send us a big box of gifts.  and since Adam and I don't really exchange gifts, it's fun for us to have some fun little things to unwrap on Christmas day.  my sister included some of her special recipes all ready to go.  she had all the ingredients in each bag for french bread, bean soup and chocolate chip cookies with instructions attached. 

all i have to do is add the perishable ingredients (like butter and eggs), mix and cook.

i love this concept!  well we couldn't resist baking up the cookies and they are delicious!

and someone in my tummy is knocking around big time now right now.  i think she's requesting another cookie. . .so i better go get her one!!

and i thought all men got excited about boobs

well i stand corrected.  i just yelled out to remind my dear sweet husband that we had another of our many pre-baby classes tomorrow.  he asked which one.  i said breastfeeding.  he was silent.  i said aren't you excited?  he said not really.  i guess boobs aren't always that exciting, eh?  but he'll go, and like it, because i say so.  and because he's a good boy. . .er man.

the update

so i said i'd give you an update and i'm going to stay true to my word.  and it's good news, so that makes it easy!

so i went into the hospital for my first NST and BPP yesterday.  my appointment was at 2 pm.  i got there at 1:30 to be safe.  i called beforehand to see how long it would take.  they said only about 30 mins to an hour.  wrong!  i was there until almost 5!  this was particularly unfortunate considering i had an event i was working last night and was supposed to be there at 4.  factor in taking Adam home and then getting back on the freeway and diving right into the heart of rush hour traffic at the prime hour of 5:30.  correctomundo. . .i did not arrive at my event until 6:15 and that was actually making pretty good time!  thank goodness for my business partner Rachel who took the lead in my absence.

anyhow, here's what went down.  first off, the testing is done in the Women's Pavillion of the hospital where i will give birth.  we had never been there, so it was nice to start getting acquainted with the place.  and we had a good experience.  it's clean and nice and the nurses and staff are all very friendly and helpful. . .so far.  so after check in, we had to wait for about 20 minutes before they called us upstairs to begin testing.  as we sat waiting, who should appear but my lovely OB Dr. Perlow.  she was rockin' the scrubs and had just delivered a baby boy to a woman who was 37.5 weeks along and whom she said had been having similar issues as me.  the baby was perfectly healthy albeit a tad bit early.  so that was good to hear.  it was nice to run into her.  she gave me a hug and some additional reassurances which is always nice.  just love her.

so they finally get us upstairs and they put me in an actual hospital room in an actual hospital bed.  they hooked up a fetal heart rate monitor and also a monitor that checks for fetal movement.  the monitors track the baby's heartrate and movement at the same time to ensure that when the baby moves her heartrate also increases which is also indicative of her being well.  so we were well underway with this monitoring when the BPP guy arrived with an ultrasound machine.  so he unhooked the other monitors and did the u/s part of the test which checks for various movements, breathing and fluid levels.  in all, it checks four things and you either receive a 0 (bad) for each or a 2 (good).  well i received all 2s for a grand total of 8, the highest you can score.  hooray!  and my amniotic fluid had gone up from 8.3 cm to 11 cm.  double hooray!!  i guess all that water drinking is working.  good thing, because it's not much fun drinking all that water when you have acid reflux as bad as me and all the water keeps trying to coming back up.  blah!  but i'll do what i have to do.

so then we had to go back to the fetal monitoring and just wait while it collected all the data the doctor would need.  unfortunately it took way too long. . .but fortunately i at least had a TV to watch.

so now i just keep doing what i'm doing. . .drinking 80 ounces of water a day, eating 80 grams of protein a day, spending a lot of time in bed and spending as much time as possible on my left side.  it's a good thing i really like my bed!

in other news, my middle has expanded considerably.  it's getting pretty difficult to do everyday tasks such as shaving my legs and tying my shoes.  comfy slip on boots have become the most convenient shoe to wear and my lounge pants are the standard pant of choice.  as of yesterday, i look like this. . .at 30 weeks and 2 days.  only 9 weeks and 5 days to go!

today

headed to the hospital in a few.  ultrasound on monday showed my amniotic fluid a little on the low side and baby's tummy a few weeks behind in growth.  a little scary, but nothing too out of the ordinary considering how sick i've been throughout my pregnancy.  so i'll be doing NST (non-stress tests) and BPP (biophysical profiles) twice a week at the hospital to monitor little baby Hamilton and make sure she is OK.  also on moderate bed rest and have been told to increase my water and protein consumption.  so that's what i'm doing!  we are currently at 30 weeks and 2 days and everything else looks good, healthy and right on track otherwise.  we started our birth classes this week. . .3 hours each tuesday night from 7-10 pm.  definitely keeps me up past my bedtime, but we already learned a lot just in the first class.  and not to say too much negative about the other couple in our class, but let's just say they make me appreciate my husband and my relationship even more than i already do!  feeling very blessed about everything.  Adam took some new pictures of my belly today.  i don't have time to upload them now, but will try to do so soon.  now i've got to go eat some lunch and try to get this little peanut squirming up a storm before the testing (they say that helps).

toodaloo