Welcome to the World - William Stephen Seibert

I can't believe we got to meet our baby 2 whole weeks early!  I woke up on Sunday morning, July 28th, to find that my water had broken, which put us on a 24 hour timeline because there is a risk of infection if the baby isn't born within 24 hours of the water breaking.  Tim and I headed to the hospital around 1:00.  Active labor never kicked in for me, so they had to induce around 3:30pm.  I knew that if I was induced that I would likely get the epidural in the end, because contractions under induction are far stronger and faster than natural contractions.  Plus, the drug they give to induce is given continuously via IV, and I have to be hooked up to monitors to watch the baby's heart beat and make sure he's handling the contractions well.  This meant that my water birth was out of the question.  So I made it about 6 hours without any pain killers, but once the contractions got to be too much I decided to go for the epidural.  It was better than I thought it would be!  I could still feel and move my legs, I just couldn't feel any pain.  This meant that Tim and I were able to sleep through the night and we were woken around 5:30am because it was time to push.  After a little less than an hour pushing, our sweet William was born!  He is our pride and joy - we were instantly in love.  

The Nursery is FINISHED!!

I am so happy that we have finally finished the nursery and it came out exactly how I imagined!  The library wall is perfect, the clouds and airplane above his crib are so sweet, and the changing station is organized.  We have his name on the wall above his crib too, but I blurred that out since we're not announcing the name til his birth.

We moved the blue IKEA dresser from our bedroom into the baby's room.  We ordered new furniture for our room from a fantastic place in town called Amish Originals and it should be due to arrive in a couple weeks.  But we moved the dresser in ahead of time so we could get things organized.  The airplane and hot air balloon wall art above the dresser is from this great Etsy shop, Kindertype.  The cloud decals are also from Etsy.  Mom got the airplane toy for us in France, and it's perfect hanging above the crib!  It looks really dimensional flying over the cardboard block letters spelling his name floating among the clouds.

Oh how I LOVE the Library Wall!!

Nursery Update - Library Wall

Now that our showers are done, we can really get to finalizing all the details in the nursery.  Our big project this weekend was the Library Wall!  This is one of the first ideas I ever found on Pinterest, way back when I first joined the site back when it was new.  I found this image and immediately knew I'd have to do something like this when I had a baby someday.

THE INSPIRATION:

So today we drove down to IKEA to get some of their white photo ledge shelves to create our own Library Wall.  We got the 45 inch shelves but had to cut them down to 42 inches using Tim's circular saw to fit the section of wall we wanted to use.  Luckily they cut pretty cleanly, and the cut sides butt up against the corner so you don't see them.  The end result is just as I imagined it!  We stocked them with all the wonderful books we got at our showers and voila!  A reading nook for our little Boo :)

THE RESULT:

36 Weeks - What a Pain!

BOO IS 36 WEEKS ALONG, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A HONEYDEW MELON

HE'S GETTING CLOSER TO BE ABLE TO BREATH ON HIS OWN

Well, now that we are in our final month I am finally starting to feel the pains of pregnancy.  My hips hurt all the time, my feet are always swollen, and it's getting kind of hard to walk.  I am seeing a chiropractor to try and relieve some of the pain in my hips, and hopefully we can get things nice and aligned in time for giving birth.  I will work right up until Boo arrives, but man I wish I could just stop working and stay home now!  But I only get 12 weeks off, as dictated by the abysmal maternity policy in this country, so I don't want to waste any of that precious time I could have with my baby.  All in all though, I really can't complain about these aches and pains.  I have had a pretty easy pregnancy up until now and it's only a few more weeks to go!  I can't wait to meet my little man!

An Airplane Themed Shower

Tim's mom, Bev, and his sister Emily threw us an adorable Airplane themed shower yesterday for his family in Kentucky.  It was so cute and they did an amazing job!  Again everyone was so generous with the gifts and we got tons of great stuff for Boo.  Since Tim is a pilot as a hobby, they thought the airplane theme would be perfect and it was!  Bev has so many creative friends at work who helped with the details.  One made the amazing cake to the right, another made the awesome invitations that looked like plane tickets, and yet another made a super cute diaper airplane instead of a diaper cake.  It was such a cute idea!

Tim's cousin Jessica is also pregnant with her first, a little girl.  She is due in October.  And two of our friends, Missy and Joanna, brought their little ones.  Missy just had her little boy 5 weeks ago!  

It was great to see everyone and spend the afternoon together.  Boo is truly blessed to have so many people around him who already love him so much!

34 Weeks - Maternity Photos!!

BABY BOO IS 34 WEEKS ALONG, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BUTTERNUT SQUASH

HE'S STILL TRYING TO WRIGGLE, AND HIS LUNGS ARE ALMOST FULLY DEVELOPED!

We got our maternity photos back!!  The talented Lisa Lorraine took our photos and she did an amazing job!!  She will do our newborn photos as well.  I love her natural style, both in how she sets up the shoot and how she edits the images.  We took these when I was 31 weeks along, and chose our house and the nearby playground as our setting.  Here are some of my faves!

33 Weeks - More Vacation Photos

BABY BOO IS 33 WEEKS ALONG, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A WATERMELON

HIS HEAD IS DOWN AND IS ALREADY MAKING ME WALK FUNNY

The rest of our family vacation was so nice.  After the wedding weekend we went to Lake George for the week and ended the vacation with a lovely baby shower thrown by my Mom :)  I'll reserve another post for the shower.  Right now I'll talk about Lake George, which was gorgeous!  We stayed in a family friend's house with 2 private islands on the property and a 2 story dock with a deck on top, which Tim dove and flipped off of into the water.  It was very nice!  The house faced west so we were treated to a beautiful sunset each night.  My dad's friend Joe also came over on his boat to take us out one day.  Craig and Tim both tried to water ski for the first time in the FREEZING water lol!!  They both got up on the skis eventually!  Then we took the boat across the lake to a cute little restaurant for dinner.  Mostly though, we were just lazy, sitting around enjoying the weather and scenery.  

On Joe's boat

Yay Tim made it up!!

Canoeing around the property

The gorgeous house

The pretty islands

Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Pam

Preggo belly :)

Heading to dinner