My couch monkeys and their favorite sidekick….

I called the doctor’s office yesterday morning, after the contractions had been going on for over 12 hours. The nurse told me to bring Ashley in so they could hook her up to the monitors to see what was going on. Once we got there and they did their little test, they determined she was dilated to 2, and sent her over to the Labor & Delivery floor of the hospital for further observation.

The contractions were pretty good ones ~ spiking off the chart about every 2 minutes. After 4 hours, though, there was no change in dilation, so the doctor decoded that since Ashley has just reached the 36 weeks point, it was time to stop the contractions and not let her go into what is still considered “early labor” at 36 weeks. So, they pumped her full of drugs (that none of us were happy about, but the benefits of waiting at least another week before delivery far outweigh any short-term side effects Ashley was made to suffer through because of the drugs) and eventually the contractions stopped. We were at the hospital for about 12 hours before we were finally able to go home.

Ashley got up this morning and said she was having contractions again, but she didn’t know how regular they were because she had been sleeping. She went back to bed, so they must not be too intense right now. The doc said the contractions are fine, but unless she dilates to at least a 4 he’s not going tolet her deliver before 37 weeks. She has a regular doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, so we’ll see if she has dilated any more by then.

Ashley’s visiting the OB once a week now. Last week he commented on her lack of stretch marks. She has been doing a remarkable job with the stretch mark cream ~ lots and lots of cocoa butter. She has gained about 35 pounds so far. But that’s actually GOOD ~ the doc told her to keep eating, pretty much whatever she wants and as much as she wants. When you start out at 89 pounds, I guess you’re allowed to gain more weight! She will probably have lost the majority of her pregnancy weight a month after Attison is (finally) born. Her metabolism is that fast ~ lucky little stinker.

Ashley was finally able to go to bed around 11:30pm and fell right to sleep. I slept for about 3 hours, but I’m up again ~ I’m having lots of fibromyalgia pain, and surprisingly enough, sleeping tends to make it worse. But I’m glad Ashley was able to get to sleep ~ since she hasn’t been up in several hours, I’m guessing the contractions finally stopped.

Is that the most precious thing you’ve ever seen or what?! That, my friends, is a personalized cloth diaper. My sweet friend Tamara, who is making the cloth diapers for Attison, decided she wanted to learn to use the embroidery function on her sewing machine. This is what she “came up with.”

Much, much, much too precious!

I told her I didn’t think she really liked the Winnie the Pooh theme. Especially when the set contains so much pink. But she loves it. I told her I might just get too attached to it that I won’t want to let her have it when they move into a place of their own. She said that was fine ~ she knows I’m a Winnie the Pooh fan.

I’m also the one who’s going to have a Pepto-Bismol pink baby room. Not the walls ~ they’re going to remain a lovely beige ~ but until we have a grandson, the baby room will be littered with pink, pink and more pink. I’m not really a huge pink fan necessarily ~ it’s just turning out that we have more pink than we know what to do with!

Here are a few pictures of the bumper set:

Ashley received a pink Classic Pooh blanket at the baby shower, which will fit right in with the Pooh-bear theme:

Do you see the little Classic Pooh and Piglet that has been embroidered onto the blanket? This blanket is so soft ~ it has fleece on one side and satin on the other.

We found a good deal on Pack ‘N Plays while we were looking through Sunday’s ads and coupons. Yesterday we picked up the Pack ‘N Play ~ it’s Classic Pooh as well!

After we ate about half of them, we covered some in dark chocolate……

Yum, yum, yum! Ashley said, “Every pregnant woman should have a stash of dark chocolate-covered fresh strawberries.” LOL

Ashley asked me to make a blanket for her…….she chose the yarn.

This is the purse Ashley is working on…….

Here’s a link to the pattern she’s using: http://stitchesoffaith.blogspot.com/2007/03/anatomy-of-strapping-young-lad.html