Okay already...

Family and Friends,

I must first apologize for neglecting to post anything to the blog after my due date.. I did in fact have the babe! Her name is Addison Jane Porter, born on January 7th at 11:33AM. She weighed 7lbs 4oz and was 20.5inches long! I feel like I should go back in time and give some details about the birth for those of you who haven't heard it:)

On my due date (Jan 3rd) I had thought my water had broken. I was super excited at the prospect of having little AJP so Ryan and I raced up to Evergreen. When we got there and I got all "checked out" I was told, "Sorry, your water has not broken. You probably just peed your pants a little bit".... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! I was beside myself.. I thought at that moment I would be prego for EVER... The next day I had a drs appt. My progress was minimal so my Dr, Dr Gong said that she would like to schedule my induction for 1 week from that appt. I was depressed as I wanted to go as "natural" as possible but also was SO incredibly uncomfortable, I agreed.

Fast forward to Wednesday Jan 6th. I started having more and more painful contractions that day. By lunch time they were pretty frequent and increasingly painful. Ryan and I had met for lunch in Bellevue and thought we might have to go to the hospital from Baja Fresh. However shortly after lunch, the contractions subsided so I went home and Ryan went back to work.

By dinner time I was getting more and more uncomfortable. At 2AM we left for the hospital. When I got checked I was only 2cm dilated but they let me stay!!! I think that was on account of the level of pain I was feeling. I labored until 8:30am when the dr on call came in to check me. I was already to 4cm!!! The dr also said that I didn't have a bag of waters to break.... So they probably had broken on Sunday... "Peed my pants..." Whatever!

Ryan and I had also had a chance to go over my birth plan with our awesome nurse Jen. In short, I wanted to do as little pain meds as possible. She said she would help in every way to get me through! She was amazing!! We could not have had a better nurse! The next couple of hours are now kind of a blurrr but I do know that by 10:30am I was 8.5cm dilated!! I started pushing around 11am and Addie came into the world at 11:33am!!

The last 8 weeks have been wonderful, challenging, amazing, fun, tiring and surprising. Here are some pix from start to current. I promise to update more frequently.

40 weeks on Sunday and darn ready to have this kid!!!

From Ryan: We called the hospital Christmas night because Laura was having contractions as close together as every 4 minutes but then they started spacing out and weren't progressively getting stronger. The contractions stopped after a couple hours and she was finally able to get to sleep. False alarm! Since that time just some random contractions with notably strong, but infrequent contractions Wednesday night. The rule of thumb for gong to the hospital is contractions every 4 minutes, at least 1 minute long for a duration of at least an hour. Or water breaks.

At this point we're just waiting.... It looks like our little girl is just way too cozy! At Laura's last dr appt she was 1 cm dilated and 40% effaced so we're hoping that the activity this week has increased the effacement. We'll keep you posted!

Here are some pics of our Nursery:

35+ weeks!!!

Well hello there!

I can't believe I'm writing that I'm over 35 weeks!! There's been a lot activity at the Porter house in the last month or so and I apologize for not updating sooner. Ryan went through a nasty bout of swine flu exactly 1 week after I got my H1N1 vaccine... PTL.. My dr said that was an incredibly close call. We have the nursery 90% ready and I've even put the sheets on the the baby crib. Clothes are washed and put away and I've even started packing the diaper bag :) I had my 1st official contraction yesterday, that I didn't know was a contraction. But I went to the dr later in the morning and she said it was most likely a contraction and not just a cramp.

I've had 3 amazing showers thanks to friends and family and we feel so blessed to have all of you in our lives. We have so many fun clothes, toys and practical things!! (breast milk storage etc) Now we just can't wait to see what she looks like!!! I'm placing bets on her having strawberry blond hair :)

So at my dr's appt yesterday my dr said that everything was A-okay. She kept saying that I "really dodged a bullet" in getting my swine flu shot before Ryan actually got sick. We are thankful for that. She also confirmed that LBP is head down and facing the right way! Yay!! I've been asking her to cooperate :) She measured me and said I'm "right-on" for my due date of Jan 3rd! Aside from the acid reflux, things are going sooooooooo well!! Here are a few pix we've taken in the past few weeks.

Pumpkin Patch

Ryan and I ventured out to Remlinger Farms on Saturday morning to find some good pumpkins for carving! As you can see we had our pick. I'm not so sure whether it was because we came so early in the season or we got there just as the farm opened. (probably both) We're early birds, what can I say. It was so much fun and we can't wait until next year when we can bring LBP!!

We also have been busy getting the nursery ready for our little girl! Ryan has been such a good daddy already and started painting. As you can see, she's going to LOVE pink! This is just the begining! As we do more, we'll post more pictures!

27 Weeks!

First of all, I must apologize for not updating in almost 5 weeks! I'm so sorry. We've been a little busy :) Lots of family events have taken place. And as you can tell.. I'm getting large....... much larger! As of today, LBP is a about 2lbs! She's kicking like crazy and it's been amazing to feel and see her dancing around in my belly!

Almost 2 weeks ago, we got an addition to our family! My sister Bridget had a little baby boy, Eric Badger Frolich. He was born at a healthy 9lbs 5oz and is doing great!I've posted a picture of Bridget holding him and also one of Ryan holding him. I'm so excited for our little girl to have a cousin so close in age. I was fortunate enough to be with my sister during part of her labor and it was a great insight into what I'm in for. She did amazing and I'm so proud of her!!

So far Ryan and I feel like we're well on our way to being ready for this baby. Our friends and family have already been so amazing by passing along many useful baby items. We feel really blessed to have people in our lives who are willing to share! We ordered our crib and changing table a few weeks ago and got the crib a short while later. Ryan immediately put the crib together and as I type this, is taping in the nursery as we get ready to paint! Hopefully in the next post, I'll be able to show some pix of that!

22 Weeks and camping....

This last weekend Ryan and I decided it would be a good idea to go camping for one last time before the summer is over. Truth be told it was our only camping trip this summer, but at least we got out there right! We joined our good friends Kim and Dave Hanson at a great spot near Salmon Le sac right on the river. We even had Tula with us for the weekend! LBP did very well and she even let me sleep through the night

It's a Girl !!!!

I'm almost 20week along so thought I should post some new pix of the belly!

Also I neglected to write in my last post that Ryan and I found out that LBP (little baby Porter) is a GIRL!! We were completely surprised and so excited! Ryan, along with many family, friends and coworkers were convinced it was a boy. I felt, deep down that it might have been a girl but everyone had been saying boy, so I started to believe it. When the U/S tech told us lbp was a little baby girl, we were both surprised and I must admit, even though I didn't have a preference, I'm SO happy!

During the U/S she was quite the little show-off, kicking her legs, sucking her thumb and moving all over the place! I think that means she's going to be a super active kid and perhaps and Olympian?.... We'll have to wait and see. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll post the video we have of her ultrasound. It's pretty exciting stuff, for us at least:)