Big baby

I had a doctors appointment yesterday, and she let me know that the ultrasound that I received on March 19th revealed that Camille is doing great, developing wonderfully and is in the 88th percentile for size. Let me repeat, the 88th percentile for size!!! That thought makes me tremble alittle. The doctor said if everything is looking good, and she is still HUGE, then we might induce at 39 weeks. I know it is way early to be thinking about inducing, but I live in fear of a ten pound baby.

Home stretch

I officially started my third trimester yesterday!! I have already been feeling more tired than before as well as being every increasingly uncomfortable. It is hard to eat, sleep, breath, move, etc, with this huge belly. All in all, though, I feel pretty good. Camille is moving a lot, enough that Matt has been able to feel her a couple of times, and I have SEEN my belly move like a wave. She sometimes stops moving when I touch her, and sometimes she gives tremendous kicks, like she is telling me to stop touching her. We are now searching for a middle name to go with
Camille ____ Erdman. I am open to serious suggestions, seeing as how I already have a host of random foreign soccer player/weightlifter suggestions from my husband, mother and brother!!

40 years...

For the past year and a half Matt and I have been in a period of waiting and working and praying for God to do a very specific something, and so far nothing has changed. This last couple of weeks I have felt like I was at the very end of my rope as far as waiting was concerned. I was angry at God, not just alittle angry, I was ANGRY at God. I was sick of feeling like we were sincerely seeking His plan, trying everything we could, and He was holding out on us. I was at a very low place...
In a totally unrelated conversation a friend from work shared with me that she had read Duet. 9 and it had been very meaningful to her, so when I came to read my Bible, being angry at God, I could think of nothing else, so I turned to Deuteronomy.
Let me share something that hit home, something that I have known since my days in VBS and never really KNOOOWN...God let the people wonder in the desert for 40 YEARS!!!! God tested the people, and let them get hungry and provided their food, and kept their feet from swelling, and gave them water, and kept their clothes from tearing, and led them around the desert in search of a place that He knew the directions to, for 40 years. I was humbled. I realize that for a while I have been asking God, in my own way, why He has brought me out of Egypt to die in the desert. He wanted to know what was in the peoples heart, and He wanted the people to know what was in His. I am on the verge of rambling, read Duet. 6-9. Why is is that we have to learn the same lessons for centuries?

monthly post

I keep telling myself that I am going to get better at this. How hard could it be to post once per week??? After the March scare with the baby and moving, everything has finally settled down into a normal routine. I am LOVING my four minute commute, but I do miss the mountains and seeing Kass and Rachel on a more frequent basis. The baby has been moving like crazy, which is great. I know you are supposed to start counting movements at some point, which just seems like another way to make pregnant women neurotic, so I think I am going to avoid that little endeavour. I have not been back to my doctor since the whole episode with the last ultrasound because I have completely lost trust in the whole system. However I did break down and make an appointment for April 24th, all the time dreading the next test that they try to force on me. I just cannot understand why the whole point of the doctors appointments are just to try and find something wrong. I feel alittle bitter towards the system...

Matt and I are working on planting our first garden. Right now we have some lettuce growing, and some strawberries and rhubarb fighting for their lives. I found out that we, in our excitement, planted things about a month early for this climate. I am going to plant tomatoes, squash, asparagus, and an assortment of herbs sometime next month.

I am headed off to make spaghetti, the pictures above are the Yoda modeling a "Future weightlifter" bib, the most recent belly pick and the super sweet stuff I got off craigslist (thanks mom and dad).

Everything went crazy...

I realize that it has been over a month since I have last posted. I have several reasons (excuses) for that, but I will stick to the most relevant, and therefore interesting, of them. On March 11, two weeks after my ultrasound, my doctor informed me that part of the ultrasound made it look like I had an incompetent cervix and that my chance of preterm labor was elevated. She thought it was probably nothing to worry about, and said to come back in a month. I was stressed, of course, the thought of preterm labor was scary, but my doctor did not seem concerned and up until this point she had always been rather conservative so I figured that I would be overreacting to make a big deal of the situation. That was Tuesday, on Friday I called with a question....Matt and I had planned a trip to the bay area for one last getaway before I was unable to travel. I knew that the elevation change going from Tahoe to the Bay was also a trigger for preterm labor so I wanted to make sure that this was not contraindicated considering the developments of the ultrasound. I called the doctor totally expecting to hear the nurse call me back a state that it was fine for us to travel. The doctor called me back late Friday afternoon and stated that she had ACTUALLY looked at the ultrasound pictures (why had she not done this before??) and that by no means should I travel. In fact she said I should take it really easy and that she was going to make me an appointment to see a high-risk pregnancy specialist. I sobbed for the rest of the day...and it was Friday, so I had all weekend to think about losing my baby. I got a confirmed appointment with a specialist in Reno for the following Wednesday (over 5 days away) and was told that if I experienced anything weird to call the doctor. My doctor happen to be on call, so when my breast started leaking like crazy on Sunday I freaked out and called her. She put me on bed rest until my appointment. From Monday to Wednesday laid on the couch and alternately prayed and cried and was miserably uncomfortable. God did bless me with peace at times, and the baby took my sedentary state as a signal to really exercise her kicking abilities, which was wonderful! When we FINALLY made it to the doctor, he turned out to be the most wonderful man, and was so very comforting. He did an ultrasound of the whole baby from top to bottom, describing in detail the development, and stating over and over again that everything looked perfectly normal. He confirmed that indeed our baby is a girl or a boy without a penis (Matt emphatically picked girl). It was wonderful to see the baby again, and to hear that she was doing well, however that did not answer the question of if I was going to spontaneously go into labor. He then performed an internal ultrasound to look at my cervix and the position of the placenta and membranes. Honestly it only took a few minutes for him to determine that in his words everything looked "perfect", he even had the tech push on my abdomen to try and conjure a problem, all to no avail. He stated that all he could say was that the ultrasound tech does not do enough maternity ultrasounds to diagnosis such a problem, and that all of the stress was for nothing. I cried. I had spent the last five days feeling like my baby girl was going to fall out if I stood up, and that there was so little chance for them to save a baby at 22 weeks. I do not know if the problem was really there and God decided to heal it, which had been my prayer, or that the problem was not there, which was also my prayer. All I know is that it was awful, and then it was over, and I could breathe again.

I learned a lot through all of this. I learned that I REALLY love my baby, and that the thought of losing her was enough to drive me to madness. My mother and cousin have been telling me the whole time that today is the least I will every love this child...and I see how that is true, and it scares me. I started the path of lifetime learning that this child is God's child, and I have absolutely no control what-so-ever. NONE. How do people raise children without faith in God and prayer. I learned that I NEED to be in community of believers, because when I need to have a church to call, I had nothing. I learned that my doctor is an Egyptian (Isaiah 30) as well as the ultrasound, as well as the Internet. I learned that when I am stressed about some health issue, the best thing to do is to stay as far away from Google as possible, more information is not better. I learned that it is really hard on my husband when I cannot stop crying. I learned that laying on the couch for 48 hours gives you one heck of a backache.

Okay, so that long account is partly why I have not posted. I just did not feel like writing when I could only focus on getting through the next few minutes without losing my mind. After we got the good report I hit the ground running. We are super short staffed at my work, and I have been putting in 9+ hour days. We are moving from Tahoe to Carson City this weekend, and I have not even packed a thing. Everything has gone crazy, but in a good way now.

Kozloski update: Rachel had a doctor's appointment yesterday and they said, "holy cow, you have gained 7 pounds stop eating!!" Now remember they wanted her to take weight-gain supplement a few weeks ago. And then the said "Holy cow, your baby is waaay too small, you need an ultrasound!!" So she had an ultrasound today and they said, "Holy cow, your baby is huge, we need to move your due date up to June 8th." What do those Egyptians know anyway????

The BIG one...

Today we had the BIG ultrasound to find out what we are having. It turns out we are having a baby, who looks to be normal. I was totally expecting to be told I was having a boy. I do not know why, I just FELT that way, and many people have told me that I look to like I am carrying a boy (low, high, whatever), I had a dream it was a boy, maybe I wanted a boy...regardless, I was 100% expecting to be told that a little Alexander was on the way. Turns out dreams and old wives tales are not very reliable. We are having a GIRL baby...I am equally excited, but am going to require some time for mental adjustment. I have been 'accidentally' calling it him, and now have to make the mental switch to her. I do not know why having a girl seems more scary than a boy, maybe boys just seem tougher from the beginning. Matt and I now get to learn how to be a girls parents, which makes it all a bit more real. I am excited about starting to actually look at things to get for the baby, which still does not have a suitable name, and am trying to figure out how to avoid the seas of pink headed my way. Matt's first comment was that a girl has a better chance of winning an Olympic medal in weightlifting, obviously we have A LOT to learn.

On Kelly's Behalf

Dear Audience,

We are covered in snow again. Fortunately, as I slaved away shovel at the many feet of snow, a friendly snow plow driver took a large chunk out of the way for me. I rejoiced. Both vehicles are cleared away... for now.

Kelly still doesn't feel well. However the gallons per hour of snot has reduced. Hopefully she will recover very soon. The baby has been kicking a lot. Apparently trying to encourage her to recover.

OK That's about it.

Matt