And so it begins - or rather, ends

WARNING: THIS POST IS GRAPHIC...READ AT YOU OWN RISK!

We experienced the beginning of the end of my pregnancy this weekend with a trip to the hospital!  Don't ask why I put an exclamation mark...it wasn't a good trip.  There we were Saturday night just watching a movie.  I was sitting in a black chair (luckily not our tan couch) while Jeff gave me a back massage.  Suddenly I felt like I was peeing my pants and couldn't stop it so, naturally, I got up to go to the bathroom.  Much to my surprise, it was not pee but rather blood that was gushing out...never a good sign, pregnant or not!  Hence, our trip to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, the nurses and doctors ran umpteen tests to see what was going on.  I was hooked up to all the baby monitoring machines as well.  We got to the hospital at 11pm and finally got into a room where we could "sleep" at 3:30am.  Not much sleep followed, but at least we had some more space and privacy.  One ultrasound, 1 IV, 6 needle pricks, 11 hours of no eating or sleeping, and 12 hours of continuous fetal monitoring later we were released from the hospital.  Diagnosis...uncertain.  The best guess is there was a slight detachment of the placenta from the uterine wall which caused the bleeding.  But since I was fine and the baby was fine and labor hadn't started, they sent us home.

I think what really happened is that my body realized that January had been an easy month in comparison to the rest of my pregnancy and it felt the need to throw another curveball at me just to remind me how horrible it is to be pregnant!

Here's hoping the next trip to the hospital starts with contractions instead of large quantities of blood!

The Ice Storm

Following the snow we had large quantities of freezing rain.  This was kind of a different weather experience for me, but was pretty cool once it stopped.  On Thursday the freezing rain just kept coming and left everything in its path covered in about .5" of ice.  So we had about 4 inches of snow covered with .5" of ice covered with another .5" of snow. 

When I went outside to take pictures I had to jump to on the ground to break through the layer of ice.  It was a strange feeling to step on snow but not sink!  We had left our car parked outside for the whole of the snow and ice storm.  It was pretty cool to clean it off because we were just pulling huge sheets of ice off the car.  Every inch of the car was iced over. 

I can talk about this storm being really cool because we didn't have any dangerous car accidents, tree tipping, nor did we lose power.  However, I do realize that there are some in the Seattle area for whom this storm was not fun and I apologize for getting excited about something that caused a lot of pain for a lot of people. 

Anyway, here are some ice pics:

Ice on the grass that wasn't fully covered by snow - obviously we need to mow!

The heartiest rosemary plant ever!

Snow-pocalypse!

We love living in Seattle, but if there's one thing we'd both change it would be that Seattle needs more snow.  We usually get one good snow a year here, but it seems we're always leaving town the next day and never get to enjoy it! 

This year we kept hearing rumors of a large snow storm headed our way.  We were doubtful because long-time Seattle-ites consider 1 inch of snow amount.  But we were so pleased when last Sunday it really did snow most of the day and we ended up with about 2.5 inches of snow in our yard.  The snow kind of lasted through Monday, but was totally gone by Tuesday when it started raining. 

Luckily, we woke up on Wednesday to another load of snow!  We just love playing in the snow!  I obviously couldn't do too much playing this year, but it was fun all the same. 

The funniest thing is that the news reports referred to the snow storm as "snow-pocalypse"...it wasn't quite that good, but it was more snow than normal. 

Happy New Year!

I've never really cared much for New Year's because I'm not a night owl nor do I love to party much.  But despite my non-New Yearsy ways, we managed to have a very nice start to 2012.  Brett and Sariah (brother and sister-in-law) came to visit for a few days.  We crammed as much Seattle-ing into those days as possible without putting my into labor.  It was a lot of fun. 

Here's a list of all the fun things we were able to squeeze in: Pike Place Market, Mission Impossible movie, Experience Music Project, Gingerbread House competition at the Sheraton, Dancing Christmas lights in West Seattle, shopping downtown, visit to Sariah's old house, visit to temple grounds, fish and chips at Spuds, visit to Alki Beach, church, dance party, fireworks at the Space Needle, and half a day of relaxing!  It was a jam packed weekend and so much fun!  Thanks for coming to visit Brett and Sariah! 

Fireworks at the Space Needle

Sariah in Avatar shoes at the EMP Museum

Us being scared at the Horror Exhibit in the EMP

Us making scary characters at EMP

December in general

December was an interesting month.  I wanted so badly to feel in the Christmas spirit, but for one reason or another I never really got there.  I didn't make Christmas treats, I did all my shopping in one day, we were really focused on preparing for the baby, I was sick every day, and we spent the actual holiday in 70 degree weather.  I'm not complaining, it was a really good month overall, it just didn't ever feel like Christmas. 

We did do lots of fun things though, like paint the baby's room!  My mom came and helped us - and it's a good thing or we never would have finished!  We started a birthing class which has been very helpful so far. I spent hours and hours researching cribs and diapers (not as much fun).  We attended several very fun Christmas parties. We spent Christmas in California with Jeff's family.  And we ended the month with a visit from my brother, Brett, and his wife, Sariah.  So it was a full and fun month overall!

We got lots of good gifts for Christmas including a lot of stuff for the baby.  All of Jeff's family was together that weekend for his sort-of-sister's sealing to her husband and baby.  That was a very nice event and the sealer had a lot of wonderful things to say that applied to everyone in attendance.  Unfortunately I was rather sick that night and missed the reception they had.  We played a lot of games on Christmas which was fun and attended church (at 11am instead of 9am like our church in Seattle was doing!).  We also discovered our new favorite Wii game, Just Dance.  So overall a great Christmas!

Jeff perched precariously in the stairwell while painting

My favorite gingerbread structure this year

Jeff's Favorite Gingerbread structure this year

Now that's what I call Christmas spirit!

Thanksgiving - a month and a half later!

Not sure why I've been so bad about blogging lately since I have all the time in the world now.  Maybe it's because I do not have all the energy in the world anymore.  Whatever the reason, I'm finally getting around to blogging about the holidays. 

For Thanksgiving we took a trip to Denver to visit my sister, Cielle, and her family.  We had a wonderful time!  My parents and brother and his wife also came.  Cielle's kids are super cute and it helped us get excited for our baby's upcoming debut. 

We ate (a lot), played games, went to Christmas festivals, and watched a couple movies.  It was a very nice low key Thanksgiving.  Cielle's has three-year-old twin girls who were very curious about my ever growing tummy.  They kept asking me oto pull up my shirt so they could see the baby and to take the baby out to play.  My favorite exchange with the girls regarding the baby went as follows:

Emelia: Do you have a baby in your tummy?
Me: Yes, I do!
Naomi with wide eyes and confused look: Did you eat it? 

Not quite, Naomi, but good guess!  Happy belated Thanksgiving!