It's a photo explosion...

One day old-sporting her 1st 'NEER gear.

Daddy already thinks she has the prettiest eye lashes, just wait until she can bat them.

The 3 Afflecks before heading home.

They're letting us keep her.

I love when Daddy gets home from work.

I've started gripping onto things, mainly my Daddy-such a Daddy's girl.

Visit from Renee (fun fact: Renee grew up next door to Mommy & was her babysitter.)

Grandma takes such good care of me.

Nap time with Mommy. London never leaves our side.

Visit from Uncle Ryan

Yet another person I have wrapped around my finger.

Just home from the hospital. First family photo.

First bath at home.

Meeting my favorite aunt, Shelly

Meeting my Nana

With my Big Daddy

Just home from the hospital, London has no idea just how much I am about to change his world.

Snoozing with Pops

With Daddy's great friend Nate & meeting my first friend Elsie.

Meeting Elsie's Mommy, Britt.

Thanks for the outfit Ms. Katie!!

Pops, introducing me to roses.

Pops calls me Bug. I'm his Love Bug.

Who needs TV when everyone just watches me all day?

Add caption

Meeting cousin Curt.

Hanging out with Uncle "EE"

Got to meet Daddy's best bud, Lawrence.

"What'cho talk'in bout Willis??"

Meeting Nick, Kasey & Miss. Khloe

Funny faces with Daddy

Meeting one of Mommy's co-workers & friend, Ms. Becca.

Cheap babysitter.

Meeting another one of Mommy's co-workers & friend, Mr. Irv.

Hanging out with Nana & Curt during Mother's Day weekend.

Curt loves to hold me.

Curt even wanted to help burp me.

Finally meeting Ms. Judy. (the one who introduced mommy & daddy AND the one who provided the dirt)

Snoozing with Aunt Shelly & Curt

Napping with Nana

Meeting Ms. Kendal & Harper

Cuddling with Ms. Kendal

Making faces with Mommy

Mother's Day

Pops is helping sooth me during the fun evening hours.

Flying with Pops

Napping with Grandma

 Phew!! That is all for now...
xoxo - Baby G

Dirt

See it? Look closer. To the left of the wheel. There it is, a ziploc bag of dirt!

Allow me to explain...
Anyone heard of Colt McCoy? In no shape or form am I a sports enthusiast, but I do remember hearing a story years ago that caught my attention. Back when McCoy played for the University of Texas I saw a story about him on ESPN. Turns out McCoy was born in New Mexico, but his dad made sure he was born on Texas soil by placing a shoe box of Texas dirt underneath his wife's hospital bed. I thought that was awesome! (How I remember that story, but can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, I will never understand.) Fast forward 5 years.

My husband is from North Carolina, and I pretend to be from North Carolina. Both of our hearts are deeply rooted there along with our family and friends. I could go on and on about our love for the south, and particularly the Tar Heel State, but I don't have long before Baby Gray wakes up for her upteenth meal of the day. So, our new little baby was going to be born in Virginia (nothing against VA, it's just not NC) and that means one of my tasks to accomplish before her due date was to get ahold of some NC soil.
One evening I was on the phone with our dear, sweet friend Judy and she made the mistake of asking if there was anything she could do for us. Why yes there was! I told her we needed her to send us some dirt. She understood the importance of the task and was on it. And boy did she deliver. Not only was our baby girl born on NC soil, but Watauga County soil, and even better... Appalachian State University soil!! From what I hear Judy and a particular Vice Chancellor collected the dirt on campus.
You better believe placing that bag of dirt under the bed was the first thing J did when we got into the delivery room.

And there you have it Graycen, you were born on super special NC soil, ASU soil. Can you say scholarship? No pressure. :-)

Thank you Judy!!

- Lindsay

By the GRAYCE of God

Baby Girl is HERE.
Graycen Affleck made her debut on April 15th at 12:33pm. She checked in at 7lbs 7oz, 21" long.

Below is her birth story. I will try to refrain from the graphic details, but also want to do the whole story justice. Let me explain why...for everyone who knows me-you know that I am a conservative, realistic, often too practical individual. Before I ever became pregnant I was of the mindset and often vocal about wanting a zipper inserted in my belly where they could just unzip me, take the baby out and zip me back up until the next time. In the event that medical advancement was not practiced by the time I had babies then I would settle for being hooked up to the best drugs they had on tap. I mean, after all the "births" I have seen on TV & the movies, who in their right mind would want to feel the horror that these women appeared to go through?!?

Then I got pregnant...
I started reading everything I could get my hands on (mainly blogs & discussion boards on the internet.) So much reading that I am sure my husband will put his head through the wall the next time he hears me start a sentence with: "Well, a lot of what I read..." In doing all of this reading I became exposed to the world of unmedicated childbirth. A good friend of mine did a water birth (I thought she was insane) and two of my cousins have gone medicine free, but other than that, my exposure to people who have actually experienced an unmedicated birth has been sparse. So most of my reference came from stories I read or watched on-line. I am not sure at what point I decided I wanted to go all natural, but I came to love the idea of it. (Knowing full and well, it was just an idea, probably not a reality.) I didn't mention the idea to too many people because most thought I was nuts. If they didn't flat out tell me that, they would give me that look, smile & say "Oh that's great." What their look and tone were really saying: "Haha, you have lost your damn mind. You just wait honey." I would put my husband in that first group of people. Regardless, I had the idea & the desire, but as I told the doctor at one of my appointments: "It's just an idea. We don't have a birth plan because I there is no telling how this will all go down. I know that I am not in control of anything that will take place, but I can control my reactions." The way I saw it, there was no point in being set on having a particular type of birth and then being upset when it didn't happen the way I planned. One of the greatest things I have learned in life (and continue to learn) is that I usually have my plan and God has his-often they are not the same. And for that, I am beyond thankful.

So I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday morning, the 16th. The weekend came and went, no baby. Sunday night J, my parents and I decided to go out to dinner. A "last supper" if you will. Sunday night we all went to bed. I had the hardest time falling asleep, just didn't feel well-a little too much shrimp sauce maybe? (PS in northern VA they call it yum-yum sauce.) I finally fell asleep at 1:30am after reading more blog posts about inductions.

3am Monday
I woke up with what felt like mild menstrual craps. Probably the little one's head-as this is what I have been told before. However, this time the cramps would come and go in waves. Just about the time I would doze off, it'd come back again. Hmm. Well, I still didn't feel great and these were annoying enough that I figured I just needed the TV or a book to distract me enough to fall back asleep so I crept down to the basement.
I tried watching TV, but couldn't ignore that the cramps were still coming and going. I started keeping track of them with the contraction counter on my phone, and google searched while bouncing on my exercise ball. What I was finding on line pointed more towards this being false labor since I didn't have any other symptoms. My contraction counter was showing that the cramps were anywhere from 5-8 minutes apart and would last anywhere from 30 seconds-2 minutes. This definitely was not labor.

7am
My mom woke up and came down when she realized someone else was up. I told her what was going on, but that it was probably nothing even though the waves had become more consistent and the cramps were stronger. Still no other symptoms. But the counter was telling me they were now closer to 5 minutes apart and 1-2 minutes long. She wanted me to call labor and delivery-just to run it by them and get their opinion. I finally agreed, but knew that if I made that call without at least letting J know what was going on, he would not be pleased. So I went upstairs, got back in the bed and filled J in on the past few hours. I figured it was premature to call the hospital so we decided to wait and call the OB's office when they opened at 9am. In the meantime, I could still talk through the waves, and the doctor had just told me I would know it is the real deal when I couldn't talk through them. Still no other symptoms-this is not it.

8:30am
The cramps got stronger, and while I could still talk through them, the talking consisted of "ouch, ouch, I feel like she is stabbing me-I'm being stabbed." At this point we are all awake. (Mom and Dad are helping me clean out our closet since we had a plumber coming in a few hours that needed access to the wall that is shared by the bathroom.) The group consensus was that I needed to go ahead and page the doctor on call. I explained to the doctor what had been happening and then answered a series of questions: had my water broken-no, was there any bleeding-no, was there any back pain-no, any pain above my belly button-nope. What was my level of pain on a scale of 1-10? (I hate this question because I have no idea...I've never done this before. But I figured a 10 must be dying-and I wasn't there yet.) I went with a 4.
The doctor said not to come in because I would probably be sent back home. Sounds like baby girl's head is just burrowing, and that things are probably in motion. I was instructed to go ahead and do anything I was wanting to get done, as sounds like labor may start today, and to call back if my answer became yes or a 6 to any of the above questions. I knew it-see-it was nothing.

9am
I decide to get in the bath tub. We have this great big one that would fit my whale self and I did a ton of reading that said this would help you feel better. So in I went. Not sure that it helped relieve any pain, but the water felt good and the change of venue was a distraction. That lasted about 15 minutes before I felt like I had to go to the bathroom, so out I got. There was the bleeding the doctor said to watch for. And at this point the waves were 1 minute long and 1 minute apart. This is when J decided we were calling the doctor back. He had to make this call because I'm busy working on breathing and not crying. She gave us the green light to go ahead and come in. When he hung up I still wanted to squeeze in a shower, after all, I had planned to take a shower, do my hair and make up all before giving birth. I have plenty of friends who all had time to do this and they looked great for all those delivery photos. And, to counteract my vain desires, I also knew I wanted to spend as much of the labor time at home instead of hooked up to machines. This is my first baby, I was mentally prepared for a 20+ hour labor, and by my calculations I still had at least 14 hours left- if this was the real deal. So J agrees to help me with a shower. However, it didn't take three steps from the bed for all of us to realize a shower was not going to happen. It suddenly became very clear to me that we needed to get to the hospital.

10:30am
We made it to the hospital after what was the longest 5 minute drive of my life. I remember being offered a wheelchair-but I also remember just needing to get where I was going-which did not allow slowing down for a wheelchair. I do remember telling Jamie I was so scared they were going to turn us around and send us back home. When we got to labor and delivery we told them why we were there-as if my current state didn't give it away. They started leading us to triage to check my status. Um hello-my status was I could barely walk upright and breathe at the same time. It was when J told them we were a week overdue and were being induced the next morning that they turned us around and checked us into our delivery room. J got me dressed in the Gownie that I splurged on. (I was determined not to forget it in the bag like most thought I would.) While the nurse was checking me, I kindly told her that if I was only 4-5cm or less, I did not want to know. Basically, I didn't want to be discouraged if I hadn't progressed any further than I was at last week's doctor's appointment. Well, this nurse chuckled and told me I was more than that. Another nurse came in and checked me as well, then looked up at the first nurse and said "You're right, she is 8cm!"
HOLY BANANAS-this was it!!
J quickly called my parents and told them to come on over to the hospital while the nurses hooked me up to all the monitors and other stuff. They asked me what I had planned for pain management. All I could say was "I don't know? I don't know?" I (or J) told them I wanted to go all natural, but at this point I was questioning that decision. This is where J jumped in as the supporter and cheerleader I wanted and needed. He was awesome at encouraging me that I was so close to being done & that I could totally do this the way I had hoped and imagined. I will tell you that if J had encouraged me the other way and suggested I get the epidural, I would have done it. He was exactly what I needed him to be, at just the right time!!


I went from 8-10cm in what felt like an instant, but was probably more like an hour. During that time my parents arrived. They took turns helping J hold my hands through contractions, fan me & keep the cool washcloth on me. I was so hot!

I was dying to push through these contractions but was told to hold off until I was complete. That was ridiculously hard to do. Dr. Hodges walked in when I reached 10cm. At that point my water hadn't broken on it's own so he broke it. I didn't feel this at all. It was somewhere around 11:45am-12pm that they finally said I could start pushing. Finally!! I had a nurse on one leg, J on the other & my mom holding my back and neck during each push. My dad was in a chair up behind my right shoulder-holding his breath to 10 and pushing every time I was instructed to do so. :-) It was a group effort, and at 12:33pm Graycen made her debut.

That's our birth story... but before I sign off-a few random things:
- I could not have done any of this without the encouragement and support of my incredible husband. I doubted his support of an unmedicated birth, but what I was therefore indirectly doubting was his support of me and my desires. While he may not always agree with the methods to my madness, he is my biggest supporter and I shall never doubt that as long as I live. I love you Bub!!
- Yes, my parents were in the room for Graycen's birth. Leading up to the event, I always thought I would just want it to be a moment between me and my husband. That being said, I don't think any of us, including mom and dad, planned on them being in the room. I can honestly tell you I wouldn't have it any other way than the way it happened. I am so grateful that they were there to witness their first grandchild enter the world. They were literally by my side during Graycen's birth, the same place they have been my entire life, through every other monumental occasion. I have given God praise every day for the time that J and I got to spend with mom and dad before, during and after Baby Gray's arrival.
- All natural and unmedicated-Hells Yah!! And I would do it all over again. It really wasn't that bad. But I should throw out there that God lined everything up for me to be able to do it the way I had hoped. When the nurse initially checked me-if she had told me I was less than a 5 there is no question I would have gone for an epidural. If they had told me I would labor the way I was for the rest of the day, no question, I would have gone for an epidural. If J had recommended it, no question, I would have gone for it. My mom hit the nail on the head when she said that it wasn't the type of labor that I had, but the time of the labor that made it doable without pain meds. Regardless, I could not be more thankful for the GRAYCE that God has shown me.

Okay-Baby Gray is about to lose her mind, and this post has taken me several days to finish. I will jump back on and work on my next post between feedings, sleepings, poopings, and everything else newborn. Next post is about dirt...

xoxo-
Lindsay

Weeks 39 & 40

I am such a slacker, and this post is so late that Baby Girl is sleeping next to me, not in me...

So let me try to recap week 39 & 40.
I had a doctor's appointment a day or so after my last post and they said the baby was progressing. i.e. making a move in the right direction. Week 39 brought baby even closer. I was effaced and beginning to dilate. Awesome!

My mom and dad went ahead and came to town on Friday the 5th. Seemed like perfect timing since each doctor's visit reported that she was closer to making her big debut and my due date was still Tuesday April 9th.

At my 39 week appointment I was 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated. They made my 40 week appointment for my due date and said if she hadn't arrived by then they would strip my membranes. Sounded like fun, except not really. So that weekend we headed to downtown DC. Dad had never been to the Jefferson Memorial and none of us had seen the real live cherry blossoms in bloom. What better way to try to coax baby girl out than a walk around the tidal basin? Well, we failed on two of the three attempts. We got to walk around the Jefferson, but neither the cherry blossoms nor our little one felt it was time to peak. Below are pictures of the cherry buds that we did see.

 (And J is not in any of these pictures because, being the rock star husband of a pregnant wife that he is, we thought it might be better to drive to this adventure. Normally I wouldn't recommend that to a single soul, but the thought of my water breaking on a metro full of thousands of our closest foreign friends was not appealing to any of us. So, in the cluster that it was, Jamie dropped us off at the Mall and we walked down, around, took pictures, read the walls of the monument, all in time for Jamie to make ONE lap around the before picking us up. Such a tropper.)

So that brings us to week 40...
Baby Girl would officially not be an early baby. We went to my 40 week appointment. I was 90% effaced, 2 cm dilated and membranes were stripped. I have been told that the stripping can cause labor to start within an hour, or it can do nothing at all. The latter seemed to be my case. I left that appointment and went straight to work. Call me crazy, but I have hardly any leave and I was determined to work up until I delivered this baby. The doctor said the progression was a good sign, but they would like to induce at 41 weeks if she hadn't come by then. So we set an induction date of Tuesday April 16th.This made me super nervous. I hear pitocin contractions are a totally different ball game, and not the kind of game that would be conducive to the natural childbirth I was still holding out hope for. Call me crazy-many did-but I really loved the idea of delivering med free. Granted, it was an idea-after all, I am realistic and still wanted to meds on standby.

Wednesday afternoon mom, dad, London & I headed back downtown to see the cherry blossoms which were now in full bloom. They are as beautiful as everyone says they are!! So glad I can finally check that off my DC bucket list.

I continued to work and was able to get a lot done before I would be out on leave. Little one being late was actually the ideal scenario at work because it allowed me to get through as much new material with the kiddos before their AP exam. It also allowed me to get everything completely prepared for the substitute and the later I go out on leave, the later in the school year I have to come back. So Friday was my final day. Monday was a teacher workday and Tuesday was my induction date. The kids were so excited for me, but at the same time bummed that their chances of having a teacher who went into labor during their class came to an end. My last week was pretty comical as the kids started to make "bets" as to when I would have the baby and you could watch some of them really start to sweat as they envisioned my water breaking-I think they were picturing needing to reconstruct Noah's ark. Who knew I would be a living biology lesson? No, your due date does not mean that the baby will magically appear on that date. Yes, you are actually allowed to leave your house the day before the due date. You can imagine their faces when they came to class on the actual due date to me teaching as if it was any ordinary day. They are too funny.

Another bonus about her being late was it gave us some great down time with my parents. I know that they must have been bored and just as anxious as we were, but it was so good to get time to visit with them-and not in the typical hurried way that it is around a holiday or short trip. Mom and dad were so helpful in cleaning, doing laundry, cooking-and all of this before the baby got here. It was a huge help that last week to be able to come home and rest up for the big event!!

The weekend of week 40 brought us more walking time. The weather was amazing and we took the chance to head back to DC (cherry blossoms one more time-in passing) and venture to the Eastern Market-something mom had been wanting to do for a while. We walked around, bought some veggies, looked at all the trinkets, enjoyed the weather and each other. But still no baby...
 

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!!   

We were kind of hoping for our own lil Easter bunny today, but it appears that will not be the case.
It would seem that she is still snug as a bug...

There isn't too much intentional timing that goes into a pregnancy, but boy the timing has been perfect this week. Having Spring Break two weeks before our due date has been amazing. I was able to be super productive, get some work done, take naps and spend quality time with J all before Graycen's arrival. Woo-Hoo.

Spring Break started like so... 

Monday

And finished like so... 

Friday

J took the day off on Friday and we had a "date day." We discovered a BBQ place in Alexandria that serves Sundrop & Cheerwine in glass bottles-Holla!! We then ventured into the city. The two museums that did not seem to have bus loads of children outside were the National Gallery of Art and the Native American Smithsonian. Shockingly neither of us have been to those museums before. We did some meandering around both of them. I guess we could say we feel cultured now... We also saw a movie (happens on average once a year,) Olympus Has Fallen, which was so good. Highly recommend it.

The only negative about having so much time to be productive is now we have a super clean house, I am caught up on thank you notes, we have cleaned out the DVR, I finished reading my birthing books, laundry is all caught up...now we are just sitting and waiting... I can't complain because it is exactly where I wanted to be when she does make her appearance, stress free. In fact, the scripture on my 37 week board was all because I haven't been vocal enough about how blessed we have been with this pregnancy. It has been so easy that I feel guilty about it. When people ask how I am feeling- I feel like I have to find something to complain about because I have friends who have had such rough pregnancies. I mean, sure, I have to pee every 10 minutes, I have sleepless nights, and sitting through that 2 hour movie was pretty stink'in uncomfortable, but this is the part where those who have had "typical" pregnancies are cursing me.
But seriously, I have not even begun to offer enough praise and gratitude for God's work in the creation and development of this little girl. We could not have requested a better experience over these past 9 months. Is it wrong that I am a little nervous that since the pregnancy has been so easy, the labor is going to make up for the ease of the past 9 months?? What am I saying-of course it is wrong for me to doubt God's work. But am I doubting or am I just being realistic?? Just a glimpse into one of the ways I fall short in faith. Regardless, we continue to pray for the health and strength of this little one and that when she and God are ready, we too will be ready to welcome her. No sooner, no later.   :-)

Have I mentioned I am hoping to do an all natural delivery...

I hope I'm a better mom than I am a Blogger!!

Okay, so this blogging stuff hasn't worked out like I envisioned it. I pictured doing a blog post and baby bump pictures once a week through this pregnancy. Looks like I can't even make it happen once a month! Hence why there are no diaries, journals or scrapbooks from my life that go on for more than a month. I always have the best of intentions, but I need to just come to terms with the fact that I am not one of those people...

Part of what has made this so hard to keep up is that I feel like the longer time goes on the longer my post has to be to cover what I have missed-thus I put it off because I can't justify the time it will take to sit down and write it. Excuses... any who, I promise not to recap the past 10ish weeks in this post-partially because I can't remember everything.

Let me start with where we are now.
I am at the end of my 37th week and I think I can say we are officially ready for Graycen's arrival.
I have been reading every chance I get, I figure the more I know/hear the more prepared I will be. We did a Costco run today and stocked the freezer, we have stocked up on coffee and drinks for visitors. J got a hair cut today & I have a hair/nail appointment on Tuesday (you know, the things that will take a major back seat once baby girl gets here.) We have been getting together with friends and co-works over the past few weeks. I have a towel in each car & a puppy pad under my side of the bed. (no joke-we really like our mattress)
This past week we finished the nursery, packed our bags, installed the car seat, got our TDAP vaccines, did our hospital tour and selected our pediatrician. Phew.
Here it is-finally- Baby Gray's nursery:

Before

Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are in love with how it turned out. Really it is all thanks to her daddy, as most of it I would have never been able to do on my own-no matter how much I insisted or tried. This nursery was a labor of love and there are touches all over this room of people who are already so in love with her and can't wait to meet her.
Her Big Daddy (J's dad) was here to help with the initial stages of taping off the room and getting it ready to paint. My mom (grandmother name TBD) made the curtains, glider covers, boppy covers, changing pad cover. Britt helped with the name since I am a horrible bow-tier, and the bookcase.



The hospital tour went really well, and started to make things sink in for me a little more. (And yes, I don't think it has quite hit me that I am having a baby...more on that later.) We are planning to deliver at Fair Oaks Hospital, which is a five minute drive from our front door. We are really excited about delivering here. Those I know that have done so have raved about their experiences. We were impressed with the facility and everyone seemed super nice. As we walked the halls I was super curious, really wanted to pop my head in one of the closed labor & delivery rooms to check out what was going on. Jamie told me that would be frowned upon, plus, what is that saying...curiosity killed the cat? I kept my ears peeled for the screaming I anticipated, but all I heard was a baby crying. The delivery room was huge and depending on availability you can get a room with a jacuzzi tub for laboring (not delivering.) One piece of information that did surprise me was that they no longer have a "well nursery." Meaning, that if the baby is in good health, they stay in your room 24-7. I have to admit I was a little bummed about this, because one piece of advice I consistently get is to let them take the baby to the nursery at night so you can get some sleep. I was planning on following that advice, even if people say I won't want to. Guess that decision has been made for me. A little foreshadowing perhaps? I have a feeling some decisions are going to be made for me in these next few weeks.

So the real stuff people want to know- do you feel different, are you ready, has anything started?
How far along are you?  37 weeks
How big is the baby? 19+" and about 6.25 lbs.
Any weight gain/loss? still on track, last week was 147lbs, just about 30 lbs.
Maternity clothes?  beginning to hate them and favor my yoga pants, ready to get back into my real/"cute" clothes
Sleep?  not so much-there are random nights that I can't sleep at all, but for the most part it is naps between bathroom breaks and shifting sides
Baby Movement? all the time-she is super crowded in there and likes to stretch her legs a bit, her movement also can be triggered by the touch of her daddy's hand, never fails-every time!! Daddy's girl already.
Belly Button?  outtie
Cravings?  no serious "stop traffic" cravings, but am loving fruit
Aversions?  avocado/guacamole - still
Gender?  girl
Labor signs?  not really, but she has moved to head down (that was one of those sleepless nights because she worked hard to get from transverse to head down)
Dr. says she has dropped but I don't notice a difference.
Braxton Hicks have kicked up, if that is what you call the hardening of my belly-but I'm still not sure that I am having them because they aren't uncomfortable and don't bother me.
My 36 week check up I was effaced 50% and not dilated. At 37 weeks I was 80% effaced and started dilated, but less than 1cm.
Oh yah- and the swelling kicked in at full speed about a week ago-it is a great look...(see 2nd picture below)
Symptoms?  see above
What I miss?  brie cheese, sandwich meat, my real clothes, being able to bend down, my ankles, my shoes
Upcoming appointments?  ^{tomorrow, and an ultrasound on Tuesday (I get to have one since my belly measurement didn't change from 36-37 weeks.)}
What is next on the To-Do list?  get the car seat inspected, do some deep cleaning of the house, finish some grading and sub planning for maternity leave & kicking my feet up because it is Spring Break!!

My last two bump pictures:

So I better stop there for now. Since I am on Spring Break, I really have no excuse for not doing another update on Tuesday & hopefully I will have an ultrasound picture to share. 

Until then...unless of course she gets here before then...

xoxo - Lindsay