The promised pictures....

Here is a sampling of the last month in pictures...



Emily hanging out at O'Hare on our way to Nashville.



Yummy Thanksgiving dinner!



Thanksgiving with the Kingma's playing under the table with cousin Camden.



Helping to decorate the tree. We have learned that real is definitely the way to go--she very much leaves the prickly branches alone.



Emily opening her 1st Christmas present--she looks much more into it than she really was.



Emily meeting Santa for the 1st time.

These Hands....

Way back in July, Aunt J sent Mar and I this neat e-mail, that we decided would be a really cool thing to personal for our mom and gmas for Christmas. Well it is 2 days before Christmas and it is done :) It has been made so much more meaningful with gma Leader's passing a couple of weeks ago--a great memory to remember her by!

These hands.....
These Hands…
Helped me, as an infant, explore the new world before me
Braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor
As a child, my mother taught me to fold them in prayer
Hold hope for a life barely begun
Are decorated with wedding bands as an expression of love for someone special
Were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold a newborn baby
Clapped with joy as children reached new milestones
Supported those same children as they grew to leave their own mark on the world
Hold children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
Cooked meals to bring family and friends together to the table
Bless marriages and baptize babies
Teach and guide young children
Have been the comforting touch in a painful world
Provide an education to the pushed aside and forgotten
Expressed the thoughts of the heart through words of letters written
Have soothed, consoled, and healed the sick
Trembled and shook when they buried loved ones
Consoled neighbors and friends in times of need
Traveled the world and reached out to change lives
Sew tapestries in an artistic expression of love
Put food in my mouth and clothes on my back
Shook in fists of anger when I didn’t understand
Covered my face in times of fear and doubt
Have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bruised
On the days when not much of anything else works real well, hold me up, lay me down and again continue to fold in prayer
Are the marks of where I’ve been and the ruggedness of life
Have changed the world
These hands represent 287 years and hold stories of the past, experiences of the present and hope of the future.





The hands in the picture include Martha, me, our mom, our grandma Leader, our grandma Kingma and Emily....

Wow..am I behind

I've been a lousy blogger lately--life has been busy and I just haven't had time. That and there hasn't been a whole lot of excitement to blog about, and what excitement there has been I'd like to use pictures and they aren't on my computer yet. Yes I am full of excuses :)
Here's the cliff notes version--and hopefully there will be pictures to accompany it next week when I'm done with school.

Emily's 1st Thanksgiving at Aunt Hildy's--great time was had by all

We set up the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations

Gma Leader (my gma, Emily's great gma) passed away after a wonderful 96 years of life. Emily has been very fortunate to spend at least a day a week with her since my mom started babysitting in August. It was always a dream of mine for my children to meet their gma Leader, so we were very blessed that Em got to spend as much time with her as she did.

Emily has figured out how to stand up by herself without holding on to anything and is very proud of this accomplishment.

Emily had her 1st Christmas with the Hilman side of the family and had a fabulous time being passed around to everyone all day long--and got some fabulous presents!

We bought new, grown up living room furniture--that I can't wait to get delivered!! No more slits in the couches and missing cushion stuffing!!!

That's it for now--Christmas break starts Friday at 3:15--and we will have 2 weeks of no work :)

That's it for now--I promise to get pictures up soon!!

Nashville....

Emily has successfully made it to Nashville for the 1st time :) It was slightly dramatic getting here however. Thursday morning she woke up pretty snotty--the past 2 times she has been snotty it has been followed by ear infection, and I didn't really want a repeat of Ohio--so I asked my mom to take her in and get her checked before we left Thurs. afternoon. She seemed to feel fine--and I wasn't concerned--but wanted to play it safe. Mom got her in 1st thing and low and behold--not 1 but 2 ear infections!! Icko. The dr. was hesitant to let us even fly--but decided to let us go with lots of precautions and warnings about ruptured ear drums and such. She gave us a new antibiotic after the amoxiciallan reaction last time and a numbing ear drop to numb her before flying. So we're off--Em and I make it to the airport with plenty of time to hang out in the terminal--especially since our flight ended up delayed almost 30 min. Emily was perfectly content crawling around the terminal making new friends. We load the teeny tiny plane and get situated, and start down the runway. I pull out the bottle to get through take-off--she's eating and then the plane stops, and Em finishes the bottle. And then the pilot comes on to say that we are delayed at least 20 min. Woohoo--Em is squirmy wormy but we make do until we finally take-off and start bottle #2. We get up and Em falls asleep before finishing the bottle. She sleeps until we touch down in Chicago--no problem :) Delayed again in Chicago--but our friend Michelle was there--so we hung out with her until plane 2. Flight 2 uneventful--she falls asleep at the beginning of the descent to Nashville and sleeps until we get into the terminal. Chuck picks us up and off to the hotel.
Oh yeah--have I mentioned that the hotel had been telling Chuck all day that they were out of cribs, but working on finding us one. When we got there at 9:30 they still hadn't found one--so I went to the front desk with Em to ask about it. I was told that we were on a waiting list--but not to expect anything, so I simply asked what he suggested I do with Emily that night. He said hang on-made a phone call--and by golly--found us a crib.....hmmm.....
Em's 1st's this weekend--
1st plane trip
1st trip to Nashville
1st hotel stay
1st David Crowder concert (totally not impressed and almost fell asleep)
1st breakfast with Marko (one of the super high ups at YS)
We'll update more when we get back--hopefully with pictures!

Sleep??

Apparently Em has decided she's been too easy on us for 9 months and is now making us work a little harder. She didn't nap more than 1 1/2 hours yesterday--and then decided to stay up till 11 p.m. Ok--great--but then she woke up at 5:30 this morning--far too early!! Fortunately Chuck was able to give her a bottle and she went back to sleep--however by that point it was silly for me to go back to sleep--so I'm up for the duration. Maybe I'll be productive and get bottles washed before work??

Happy Halloween!

~~Happy Halloween~~
We bought Em a nice warm Halloween costume--and it's supposed to be 71 today!! Silly weather. Oh well--she's still cute! I also have a fabulous Halloween card that Chuck made that I will share with you if I can ever get it off Chuck's computer :)
Have a fabulous day!

And now we have a rash....

Will the excitement ever end? Friday night while we were pajaming Em she had a bunch of little bumps on her....we thought they were bug bites and went on with life. Well as the weekend has gone on they've multiplied/gotten bigger and just all around ickier. Well today I called my mom to tell her we were going to take her to the dr. in the morning and set up babysitting plans and she freaked out...our two thoughts were reaction to amoxicillan or chicken pox....well she wanted me to take her to the ER immediately, I convinced her to let me call the on call service first--so we did, dr. thinks it is an amoxicillan rash, which is apparently not the same as an allergic reaction--and he said to bring her in in the morning to confirm it. So that's the plan. The interesting thing about this whole story, was my mom freak out--you see, my mom never freaked out when we were sick--we had to be dying to stay home from school--let alone go to a dr. The long running story is when Martha fell off the swing set and broke her arm, and my mom told her to take a nap and it would feel better after the nap. So to hear her freak out about a rash was just very surreal. But like Martha said--everything changed once Emily showed up.....for the better of course :)

Amazing 2 weeks....

In the past 2 weeks Em has become a superstar--here is a snapshot of what we have done-
*Finally diagnosed with ear infection after 7 drs. and 5 sleepless nights--started pink medicine and feeling much better!
*1st tooth came through
*Started crawling for real--when I want to
*Can go from laying to sitting on my own
*Can pull up to standing
*Have started babbling with vowels (ba, da, ga)
*Went to my 1st sr. high YAR

Needless to say it's been an amazing couple of weeks--our lil girl is growing up!

Em's 1st trip to Ohio.....

Get ready--this will be a long one.....

Friday (day 1) We left home shortly after 4, pretty much on time and started driving, and driving, and driving....we stopped in Champaign for dinner and Em hung out on a blanket for about 10 min out of the car, before we headed on. I guess before I go on, I should explain what our travel looked like--we were in the neon-Emily, Chuck, me and Keeno (the dog). Emily and Keeno were in the back--Keeno not a big fan of sharing but making due. Chuck rode in the back for a while with Keeno in front so that Em could have some company. Em did really well until shortly before Cincinatti (we were pushing midnight by then) so I went into the back and Keeno joined us--it was definitely cozy! We got to Wilmington shortly after 1 a.m. and Em was wide awake and so ready to go! So we played for a while and finally went to bed around 2 a.m.

Saturday (day 2)-We were woken up by the puppies who were dying to play (my aunt and uncle have 2 black labs as well) much earlier than we intended. Got up, had breakfast, sent the boys on their way to the OSU game. We then headed out for our adventures. We hit the book sale at the library, the pumpkin patch and the outlet mall. Lots of fun had by all. Emily's Halloween costume was purchased-much to Chuck's dissapointment it wasn't a ninja...but even he admitted, way cuter! We headed Em and spent several hours vegging on the couch watching tivo'd shows. Em napped a little, but not nearly enough....made yummy camping goop for dinner and hung out some more. Shortly before the boys got home (about 8:45) Em woke up screaming--in a way she has never screamed before--it took about 30 min. to get her calmed down, and we decided to go see if the urgent care clinic was open--thinking it was an ear infection that had her upset. Urgent care was closed, so we went to Kroger and stocked up on tylenol, baby orajel (in case it was teething) a thermometer and some teething toys. We went home, gave her some tylenol and she seemed better. Played a little bit and headed back to bed. About 1 a.m. she woke up screaming again, so we decided to take her to the ER to try and get some antibiotics since we were still thinking ear infection. The dr at the ER checks her ears and says they look fine and he was kind of stumped. He decided that he thought it was intersuseption, a weird bowel issue, but said they couldn't do anything for us and sent us to the children's hospital in Cincinatti (1 hour away). So we gathered the diaper bag, told Uncle Mike where were headed and left (now about 3 a.m.). We get to Children's hopsital, checked in, see a nurse, a resident, a dr. in the matter of about 3 hours. Dr. 2 says she will order u/s to check the bowels....in the meantime there is a shift change....we go back for x ray and u/s (now about 7 a.m.) and back to the room to wait. At this point we were told about 30 min to read the u/s. Em has slept on and off and seems to be doing much better. The problem with intersuseption is that you have to check it in the "attack" and now that it's been several hours, we're convinced they won't see anything anyway. 9 o'clock comes and new resident comes in, says u/s was negative and they'll work on getting us out of there. 9:30 comes and goes--10 a.m. dr #4 comes in and verifies u/s was negative and he'll get our discharge paper in about 10 min. 35 min later we are discharged to go home! What a night!!!

Sunday (day 3)-Get back to the house, eat brunch and everyone naps for a while. We had originally planned on going to the Renaissance Festival but that plan was nixed early on and changed to the saurakrat festival....we were going to nap for an hour or so and head out....well 3 hours later when we woke up from our naps, we decided to stay and veg instead. So we did. Mike made a fire in the pit, we grilled pork burgers and had a fabulous evening hanging out. Em spent oodles of time sleeping which seemed to do her quite a bit of good. We stayed up later than we should have and all crashed.

Monday (day 4)-everyone (including the dogs) slept in and it was fabulous! We had one of my favorite breakfasts of scrambled eggs and cinammon rolls before packing up to leave. We drove, and drove, and drove and finally got home about 7 tonight...

Even with the trip to the ER it was a fabulous weekend that we are hoping to make a yearly tradition (minus the ER trip!) Without further ado....the pictures!

The day the camera died.....

Well Chuck gets his wish--we will be replacing my beloved sony cybershot.....last night Emily was taking a bath in her brand new ducky bathtub, and the cybershot wouldn't turn on :( It's been finicky for a while now, and apparently it's done. So now we have a week to find a new camera before we go to Ohio......

Then and Now.....

As many of you may remember--a mere 8 months ago we took several pictures of Emily in an adorable striped jumper with matching hat. Well, here she is, in the same adorable striped jumper, minus the hat.....

Cubs game....

I just finished posting about the Cubs and cheering them on--I think the Dodgers have scored 2 runs in the time it took me to make the post--Emily just turned off the tv....clearly we know how she feels about things!

Go Cubs Go!!

It's Oct. and we are still playing--Em is doing her best to cheer them on--but so far they aren't giving us much to cheer about! Aunt Martha--how could you even suggest disowning a gorgous face like this :)

More pics....

Sorry I just couldn't resist posting more pictures--just cuz she is so darn cute :) Godfather Andy thought it would be fun to put Emily in the guitar case--she loves listening to daddy try and play the guitar and is very fascinated by the case--so apparently this was a logically choice!

Update...

My puter is being cranky and won't let me move the pictures--so apparently they will be 1st in the blog today--with words 2nd...not my choice but such is life I suppose!

Also not the best pic we have of the football game--but the others must still be on Chuck's computer--I'll have to work on getting those up another day!

Ok...clearly it has been forever since I've updated--but I've been back to work, and starting grad classes and life is just a lil crazy right now-with no signs of slowing down--but here's whats new. Em is growing everyday--she's army crawling across the floor, prompting daddy to start building something to block the banisters. We've decided to do cubby shelves on one side and probably just plexiglass on the other--I think that will also solve the baby gate problem, so no falling down the stairs for Miss Em! In the world of first--Emily had her 1st tastes of spaghetti and seemed to enjoy it, and watched her 1st osu football game--since you're all more interested in the pics and not words--here they are :)

Big night

At 6m 3w old Emily slept in her crib overnight for the 1st time last night! It was very exciting, she is now such a big girl! Granted she's been napping in there for months, and sleeping through the night even longer--but it still seems like such a big step. Suppose it's time to turn the pack and play into a playpen now......

Too much gymnastics??

Apparently we have been watching too much gymnastics--Emily has decided she is in training. Or she is just showing off her flexibility. She spent about 1/2 hour sleeping in this position in Chuck's office on Sunday.

Sippy cup intro.....

We tried the sippy cup this morning with breakfast--I put water in it, so as not to waste any valuable breast milk---I think the pictures pretty well tell how she felt about it--

Reflections......

This post isn't really about Emily, but she was there--so I guess you could say it was an experience for her...not one that she will likely remember. For those of you that don't know the history, my gma Leader is 95 years old, and last month after a week of really icky sickness had to move to the nursing home. Saturday afternoon my mom called me to say that her and my Aunt M were over at gma's house, cleaning out the attic. Now, I know from stories that the attic is probably crammed full of treasures and what not, gma had lived in the house for 50 years, and grew up in a world where throwing things away wasn't an option, "because we might need that someday". (Unfortunately Chuck will tell you, I have a little bit of that gene!) So I was intrigued as to what they would find, Emily and I packed up her stuff and headed over to the house. I am so glad I did. We found treasure upon treasure and Aunt M was able to tell me stories I had never heard about gma.

For example, we found several notebooks from when she was in nursing school (circa 1930) one of which was notes from a music class, I learned gma had once played piano.

I knew that in my lifetime gma had never driven a car, so I asked Aunt M if she had ever driven....nope....when she was growing up Uncle D learned to drive 1st, so was given the job of driving her and her sisters, then she would take the train or bus wherever she needed to go. Can you imagine.....never ever driving a car?

We found the Leader family Bible, it had belonged to Thomas Leader, who was LC's dad, who was Lestor's dad, who was my gpa.

We found boxes and boxes of letters, some of which were postmarked as long ago as 1930....I can't wait to read through them and see the stories they tell. Hopefully someone will have the time to put them in albums to save them.

I learned that gpa Leader built the china hutch that gma's china was stored in.

I learned that Great Uncle D painted the 2 pictures that have hung on the wall of the living room for as long as I can remember.

I learned that there was stuff in the basement that Aunt M can remember moving into the houes, that hasn't moved since that day 50 years ago.

We found the small child's chair, that is in the picture of my gma when she was 1 year old.

I again realized, what a good idea it is to label all pictures while you still remember who the people are, because 100 years from now, people will find those pictures and have no idea who they are and wish they did!

I could go on and on......but I won't :)

I'm heading over to the house again today with dad--so we'll see what stories he can add to the list!

While it is sad to know that gma Leader will never live in that house again, and that we will never gather there for family get-togethers, it is a blessing to know she is doing well and being taken care of. And that she saved all of these treasures for us :)

Busy weekend

We had a busy weekend of 1sts and lots of pictures to document them!

1st--Emily became an omnivore--she had meat for the 1st time, so shredded chicken with rice and carrots, and loved it :)



The other big first of the weekend was Emily is officially able to scoot her way around the room--very well I might add. We can thank Howie the cat for teaching her this---he likes to lay just out of reach and taunt her to come and get him. Usually Howie loves Emily attention and will often seek her out--so the fact that he ran away in the video is odd--but her giggle that follows is too cute to pass up......

1st a picture--




and then a video--

6m appointment.....

As promised-here is an Emily update. We went to the dr for our 6 month visit today. She is 15lbs 2 oz and 25 in long (5 oz of that came from the bottle she ate in the waiting room...) Dr. said everything looked wonderful--gave us the ok to start her on pretty much any table foods other than the high allergens. I'm starting to think that could get pretty overwhelming--I'm not entirely sure where to start now---I think I liked it better when it was simple-fruits or veggies. Now I've got to work in meat, pasta, and such....oh my!
We got just 1 shot today--we'll go back next week for 1 and the following week for the last...then we don't have to get any more shots until 1 year! Woohoo!!!
That's pretty much the story for now......I'll try to come up with something more exciting to blog about soon. And for your viewing pleasure--a lunch time picture.

To keep Martha happy.....

I promise a blog this afternoon/evening after Emily's drs. appt. Lately we've just been enjoying life and hanging out so, as much fun as it is for me, I'm not sure how intriguing it is to write about.

Camping.....

We went camping again this weekend.....well kind of. We went to camp this weekend--and stayed in the air conditioned lodge. It's kind of the same right?? This was Emily's 2nd camping trip--and she seems to really enjoy it. She loves campfires, and swimming, and just being around people in general--so she had a great time! It was a family camp that we were asked to help lead at the last minute, so it was a tad stressful, but I think everyone had a great time. We got to meet lots of new people, Emily was very popular with the 4-6th grade girls.....I had a hard time getting her back. Chuck discovered Emily's new favorite song is the birdie wake-up song--I'm going to have to figure out a way to video it for all to see--she laughs and smiles every time he does it with her. I think it's going to become a daily ritual with daddy and daughter........
On a sadder note....I only have 3 weeks till it's back to work :( I will have to cherish each and every moment of my days they are going by way to quickly---the plan is for my mom to watch Emily when I go back to work--at least for a while--so that is a huge plus :)

The adventure just continues...

Monday was quite the eventful day in our lil world. We were woken up (is that grammatically correct??) at about 6:30 am but a horrible storm. I come out into the living room to investigate whether we should be taking cover in the basement or not--and the satellite is out--about 5 minutes later the power is out! So I go back to bed--not much else to do.

We wake up about 8:30, still no power. I call the power company and they said the entire grid was out and they had no idea how long it would be before we were up and running. Fortunately we had a meeting planned in Galesburg, so we get packed up and head out about 10:30--still no power. Come home after lunch at about 4 (mind you it's about 90 degrees out at this point), still no power. Chuck needed to go into the office, so Em and I decide to go with him, because A-it's stinkin hot in the house and B-there wasn't a lot to do in the house. We stay at the church until about 7:30, find out that there are 4 poles down that are part of the transmitter line--so until they get those fixed they can't even figure out what problems they have locally--we're told it could be up to 4 DAYS! Yikes!! I'm starting to seriously panic about the 20 or so bags of breast milk in my freezer--not something I can just go to the store and replace!!!
We get home and hang out outside until it gets dark--then light a bunch of candles to feed Em. And decide at the early hour of 10 o'clock to go to bed. Fortunately my breast pump has a car adaptor--so I go sit in the car in the driveway to take care of that--let me tell you how much fun that is! And off to bed we go!

Good news--we wake up this morning--and power is back :) Woohoo!!! All is well--hopefully today will be much less exciting!!

Is 6 months too young to potty train??

Just an advanced warning--if poo grosses you out you may just want to skip over this post altogether--cuz that's what it's about!
I figure since I'm a mama and mama's talk about poo--and this is quite the story--it's only appropriate I blog about it :)
So Sunday afternoon we were hanging out after church and Chuck had made lunch and Em was playing in her exersaucer and all was good. Chuck grabbed Em to put her in her chair to eat and after putting her down said "how did she get blueberries on her foot?" and I said "what??" She hadn't eaten blueberries since Sat. lunch. So I come in to look--and said "Oh--that's not blueberries--that's blueberry poo" How in the world did it get on her foot??
Well after further investigation she must have pooed while in the exersaucer--and leaked--big time--as there was blueberry poo all over the bottom of the exersaucer--which she had basically been dancing in!
So--we now had poo in the exersaucer, in the booster seat, and all over Emily!! It was quite a mess--and about 1/2 hour later--we finally got to sit down for cold lunch!!
Hopefully that will be the last of the wow poos--I'm thinking potty training is looking more and more appealing!!

It's like she knew....

Em must have known that I created a blog all about her--so she felt the need to give me something to write about. First the background story--it has been stinkin hot here today--and Em went to my parents' house while I tutored tonight. They don't have air conditioning-so it was stinkin out there too! We stayed for dinner since Chuck's gone and she was horribly fussy--like a fussy I've never seen before. I wasn't sure whether to blame it on the alleged ear infection-or the hot. But after coming home she has been a dream baby--leading me to believe that she definitely is a daddy's girl and can't handle hot without being cranky. Anyway--we now have happy baby and I'm getting her ready for bed and she sat up--all by herself!! Never done that before--granted it wasn't for long before she bounced off my leg--but she did it!! What a big girl she is!

So here we are......

I've decided since I love reading blogs I might as well create one of my own. I'm not entirely sure what I will write about at this point--so we'll just see where it takes us. I'm hoping to use this as a way to document Emily's life and milestones so that I don't have to try to remember them all. With that being said--here's what is happening in our current life--

Spent the past weekend in Indiana with Great grandpa and grandma Kingma and family. We got to meet our new cousin Camden who was born in March and is already 3 lbs heavier than Em. Em went swimming in Lake Michigan for the first time and loved it! In fact she loved it so much that she fell asleep in her floaty not once--but twice!

We came home Tuesday and am pretty sure she is fighting her 1st ear infection :( She started amoxicillan today--hopefully it will make our mood improve. For all of you that claim she doesn't know how to cry should have heard her tonight!!

Let's see--what else--Chuck is hanging out with Andy tonight playing cops--that ought to be interesting!

The Cliff notes of our beginnings

Friday, May 02, 2008 1 Year Ago Today.... Emily was created. It is so hard to believe looking at our little peanut that 1 year ago today she was being created in a petri dish in Iowa City! We are so blessed to be sharing our lives with Miss Emily. We've updated the pic page with some new pictures of what's going on in her life--we've had Easter, our 1st Cub's game, our 1st smile--it's been a busy 3 months!! Stay tuned for more updates!

Friday, February 01, 2008

The rest of the story--- So it has taken me a while to post this-but here is the rest of the story of Emily's entry into the world. As planned we started pushing around 11 p.m. It was an interesting experience since I still had the epidural pumping through me-but once I figured it out it was wonderful. Chuck commented that I'm the only person he's seen smile when I get ready to have a contraction-I responded with I hope I'm the only person he's seen in that position!! So we pushed, and pushed, and pushed. My contractions were about 4-5 min apart, so while it seemed like it was taking forever, we really weren't pushing that much. Dr. came in about 11:30 and took over for the nurse and we continued until 1:11 a.m. on Tuesday when Emily finally entered the world. She had the cord loosely wrapped around her neck so dr. cut that and we got to hold her for a few seconds before they took her to the warmer to get her cleaned up. She had quite a bit of mucus on her lungs and wouldn't scream for the nurse, so it took a while to get that taken care of. She never did let out a good scream--until about Weds. afternoon--we thought for sure we were going to have the quietest baby on the planet! They thought they'd have to keep her under the warmer for the night, but she managed to get her lungs cleared enough that she was good to go. We did a quick attempt at breastfeeding and the nurse got chuck and I some supper which was the best food I'd had in a long time! Then the nurse tried to get me up to the bathroom and I made it there ok, but then blacked out while in there, so I was confined to bed for the rest of the night. When we woke up the following morning, I again got light headed when I got up, so I spent all day under bed arrest. I finally was allowed up at 3 p.m. Weds. to shower and such--what a wonderful feeling that was!! We were ok'd to go home Thursday morning-and made it home late Thursday afternoon. It is now Friday morning--so we survived the first night-and I'd have to say we did a pretty good job if it! Thanks for all your well wishes and prayers--we can't wait to share Emily with all of you!!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

It's a girl! Emily Ann Hilman was born on January 29th at 1:11am. She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 20 inches long. more details and pictures soon

Monday, January 28, 2008

I just got off the phone with Sarah. She has checked into the hospital and the induction process has started. She told me when she checked in this morning her contractions were 7-8 min apart. She still had no idea she was having contractions. She seemed very comfortable and bored out of her mind still...but hopefully blasty will get the hint and come out soon :) more updates to come as I hear more!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Continued update....it is now 10:30 pm. I figured I will recap the day's events so I don't forget. We checked in at 6 am and were having contractions 7-8 min apart but I wasn't really feeling them. They started pitocin at about 7:30 and upped the dosage every 30 min. I spent the majority of the morning on the excercise ball, we also spent some time walking the hallways until my dr. said no, since baby's heartrate wouldn't stay on the monitor. Dr. came in about 12:30 and broke my water--at that point I was about a 4 and contracting every 3-4 min and not feeling them still. Water breaks and they put internal monitors on baby, so movement became much more difficult. Contractions start to get more noticable but still not miserable as the afternoon wears on. Chuck and I watch Oceans 13--didn't really get it, but it was something to entertain for a few hours. About 5ish the contractions start to get uncomfortable enough that I had to breath through them, but still feeling ok. By about 6 I was ready for some drugs, so they gave me a shot of Stadol in my iv, which I love :) When she checked me I was between 5 and 6 cm at that point. The Stadol definitely took the edge of the contractions, and basically put me to sleep for about an hour which was oh so enjoyable. By the time the stadol wore off, about an hour later I was almost 8 so they wouldn't give me more stadol :( I was feeling ok though, so I said let's see how we go. I was still slightly terrified of the epidural and having to push with it. I did pretty good until about 8:30, at which point I thought I was going to die. The contractions were coming one on top of the other and were riduculously intense. I was terrified that I was too far to get the epidural, but dr. agreed to it and my favorite person Dr. K came in to set me up very quickly. In the meantime we managed to get to 10cm, but baby was still at -2station. The 20 min. before the epidural were very definitely the worst pain in my life! Chuck was amazing talking me through the contractions and keeping me from going absolutely crazy! He even attempted to fix my har for me :) Epidural went in at about 9:15 and I was immediately happy again. It is now 10:45 pm and we are going to start pushing around 11--at last check baby was at 0 station, so we are making progress, and I feel good enough to check e-mail :) That's it for now...to be continued......

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Final pregnancy entry--despite the fact that this website says Blasty is 3 days old--I continue with preggo updates--because--we are still pregnant. As of Thursday we were almost 4cm and 80% effaced and waiting. Induction will be Monday morning at 6 a.m. unless baby decides it has finally warmed up enough to come before then. Be watching for an update!!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Today was the 39w drs. appt, and it went as well if not better than I thought. I have progressed from last week (1-2cm 50% effaced) today I was a good 2 almost 3cm and 60-70% effaced, so that was definitely good news. We also set an induction date of Jan 28 if baby doesn't arrive sooner, which excites me even more. It's amazing what have a specific date to shoot for does for the morale! (is that spelled right??) Oh and I've officially gained 25lbs, so I'm in the average expected weight gain range of pregnancy...it's so nice to be average :) That's it for now, hopefully this was the last drs. appt and our next update will be with Baby arrival news!

Friday, December 21, 2007

We had our 35w appt yesterday and I have made the decision Chuck is no longer allowed to come to appts. with me. The few that he has come to always run way longer than normal!! Yesterday's issue was the fact everything was double booked in honor of Christmas! Anyway, everything is good, I finally gained a lb. so that makes up for the one I lost last appt. I had a group B strep test done that I will get the results of next appt. I had blood drawn to check iron again and so I can get my rhogram (rh-) shot today. All in all it was about 1 1/2 hours before we got out of there! Very excited though, because I now start once a week appts!! Only 5 more (or 4 or 3) before we finally will get to meet baby Hilman!!! I'm done with school for 2 weeks, so we will be working hard to get everything ready before I go back to work in Jan!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Quick update--of not much to update! We are going to the dr. every 2 weeks to be checked and everything is so far so good. As we get closer to baby day I will try to update more often and promise that when baby comes we will announce it here for all of you out-of-towners!! I wanted to share the Advent devotional that Chuck wrote for church this year--it made me cry and I thought it very appropriate as we prepare for Christmas! I Think I Get It Now Chuck Hilman �You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.� I think I finally get it now. For hundreds of years the Jews looked forward to the day their messiah would come and restore their kingdom. They wrote about their desire for him to come. They prayed for his coming deliverance. The eagerly expected him. I think I finally understand their sense of anticipation. As Sarah and I wait for our first child to be born I am beginning to understand the anticipation felt by the entire Jewish nation (on a much smaller scale, of course). We have spent the last six months preparing ourselves, and our home, for our child�s arrival. We have prayed for our child every day. We have put together baby things, cleaned, and prayed some more. Sarah has eaten and I have taken that as a challenge to eat more than her. I think I�m winning. The level of excitement about Christmas is a little higher this year because I know what it�s like to anticipate the birth of a child. I would like to remind everyone about how exciting this Advent season really is. There is a reason the whole world is not excited about the birth of our child. He (or she) is not the savior of the world! We are anticipating the one who has saved us from our sins and redeemed us from the curse of the fall! I pray that you would enter this Advent season with a sense of excitement and eager anticipation.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Just had to share...we get a weekly e-mail telling us what is happening with baby. Every week it will tell us the size of baby and compare it to something, usually food and this week's had this information "You're baby weighs about 3.75lbs, or the size of a large jicama." If anyone can tell me what a large jicama is without googling it or looking it up elsewhere...you win the prize! What an interesting thing to chose.......

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Yesterday was baby shower day! Actually baby shower #2 day, baby shower #1 was last week at work. We have 3 soon-to-be mommies there, so we did a group shower...it was tons of fun! They gave us a wonderful basket full of baby goodies as well as a target gift card that we are going to buy our pack-n-play with. Yesterday's shower was the church/Hilman/Leader shower. There were LOTS of people there and we had a great time!! My favorite activity was decorating "baby" pumpkins, it was great fun to see everyone's creativity. We received tons of wonderful stuff for Baby Hilman and thanks to Grandmas and aunts for helping sort it all out and put it away when we got home! There are new pics on the picture page!

Friday, October 26, 2007

Drs appt update-I had both a drs. appt and blood work today. Everything went well at the drs. office, still measuring right on (new belly pic on picture page) and we are starting our 2 week appts! That means the countdown is on! Less than 13 weeks to go! The blood work wasn't so enjoyable. I failed my gestational diabetes test by 1 point earlier in the week, so I had to do a 3 hour test. That means I had to fast for 8 hours, go to the lab, have blood drawn, drink their lovely sugar juice, and then have blood drawn 3 more times over 3 hours. Needless to say it was a long afternoon!! Hopefully the results will be negative though and we can go on with life!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Daddy felt confirmed movement from the baby today! Once he figured out that was baby, he said he's felt it before, but it was very definite today!! I'm so excited for him...and now I can allow others to feel my belly, I was refusing until now, since I wanted him to be the first to feel the baby!!

Friday, October 05, 2007

Huge dilemma~ I just got a phone call from my dad...my cousin just had a baby and named her Emily Grace...now the question is, do I keep Emily Ann?? Just to complicate things, based on our last names and addresses they will most likely go to the same school and be very close to each other alphabetically.....what to do, what to do???

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

22 week ultrasound was today. Everything looked wonderful, all of baby's measurements are right where they should be...baby is a little over a pound in weight...only 6 more to go :) Chuck's guess is girl, based on his 30 sec. of ultrasound analysis, we'll see how right he is....but not until Jan!

Saturday, September 08, 2007

The registries are done!!! All 4 (yes 4) of them! Here is the breakdown in case you are interested...... jcpenney-- (Chuck's gma insisted...she gets an amazing employee discount) babies r us--Oodles of baby stuff, unfortunately we don't have one anywhere near us, so we'll have to depend on all our dear friends and family for this list target--the standard registry place, who doesn't love shopping at target?? mygiftlist.com--the cutest and highest recommended cloth diapers fuzzibuns as well as 2 super cute only available online onesies that I dream of having! So if you are interested in seeing the tons of stuff babies "need" to be babies, feel free to check out our lists!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Another routine drs. appt today. I got to see Laura, the nurse I went to h.s. with and we chatted way longer than she's supposed to, but it was fun. She's due with baby #2 in Nov. She gave me a great idea that Chuck seemed to really like so I think we're going with it. When Blasty is born Chuck will get to be the 1st to see the gender and announce it to the room! She said her hubby did it with their first and was just thrilled with his very important job! Everything looked good, baby was trying to hide from the doppler and even kicked it at one point, but we managed to find a heartbeat in the 150s. I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing that sound! Dr. came in and said cf test came back negative which was great, since we've seen how much it cost, Chuck couldn't have gotten tested anyway since his insurance won't pay it, we would have just had to chance it! My belly is measuring at exactly 20 weeks, and we were up 8 pounds from the ivf, 6 pounds from the last appt. I really need to get another belly pic to see if I've really grown as much as I think I have! Our u/s is scheduled for 9/18 so just a couple more weeks and our next appt 10/1!

Monday, August 06, 2007

We had another drs. appt today. The nurse found Blasty's heartbeat in seconds, and it was in the 150s which she said was great. Everything else was hohum, which is also wonderful, no excitement is good news as far as I am concerned. I had blood drawn to check to see if I am a cf carrier, if it comes back positive they will check Chuck, to determine if our baby has a 25% chance of having cf. I'm not sure when we get those results back, probably not until my next appt, which is almost 5 weeks away because of Labor Day....5 weeks is a long time! Hopefully with school starting it will go by quickly! Tonight is the 1st new mommy class, it's called Best Beginnings and we will learn all about what pregnancy is going to do to me and my body...doesn't that sound exciting?? That's it to report for now, hopefully we'll be posting baby's first movements soon!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Another appt with Dr. Pohl--this time 2 nurses and the dr. couldn't find your h/b so mommy got a bonus u/s and there you were hiding up high in mommy's belly, with your heart beating away! Everything looked good and we get to go back in 2 weeks. We also got to schedule the BIG 3d ultrasound for 9-18....right before Mommy's birthday, what a great present!

Monday, July 02, 2007

Another appt with Dr. Pohl--we got to hear your h/b for the first time with the doppler, very cool, but not as cool as seeing you live on the u/s! We also learned no swimming in Lake Michigan for mommy this summer, and no walking around Chicago, oh well, it's too hot for Chicago anyway!

Friday, June 22, 2007

1st appt with Dr. Pohl. We were hoping to get another u/s, but the machine was broken :( So, mommy and daddy met with the dr. and went over the next 9 months of your life!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

2nd ultrasound-your heart is still beating strong. You've started growing arms and legs already...even though they are really hard to see, they were definitely there. This was our last appt with Dr. Figge, felt good to move on, but will miss the attentiveness and caring of his staff! They did a wonderful job!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

We got to see your heart beating for the first time! It was an absolutely the most amazing sight, you are barely six weeks old, and already have a heart beat! Wow :) God has blessed us!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Mommy got the call from the nurse that we are indeed pregnant. Beta number of 248 which is great for 4 weeks pregnant! She called Daddy who immediately told everyone he was with! The grandparents were notified tonight also and were so excited they called everyone they know I think!

Monday, May 07, 2007

After 5 long days, we head back to Iowa City for the transfer. All 7 eggs are still growing, before the transfer the embryologist brings us a picture of all 7 and shows us the one that will go back in. She tells us it is a 5 day blastocyst, which is the ideal stage to put back in. Chuck decides the baby should be called "Blasty" from here on out. We get to see something that very few people get to experience, and watch "Blasty" go into his/her new home in my womb for the next 9 months.....what an unbelievable experience!! We then head home for my mandated 3 days of bedrest.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

We go to Iowa City for the egg retrival. I am put under, when I come to I find out they were able to retrive 19 eggs!! 13 of those eggs fertilize later that day!! That means we have 13 growing babies!! They immediately take 6 to freeze for future use, and leave 7 to grow. Becuase we have 7 growing, we will do a 5 day transfer, meaning we go back in 5 days for the best 1 to be put back in.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

It's house closing day in Lincoln as well as the 1st day I have to give myself a shot. I will be giving myself shots daily until sometime in May. Kind of scary to begin with, even scarier to do it in a public bathroom in Lincoln! But I survived.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

I start birth control pills for 1 month. It is very strange to be taking birth control to get pregnant, but it allows us to super control what my body does and when it does it.

Monday, February 26, 2007

We meet with our dr. from Iowa City. She is wonderful and answers all of our questions and then some! We also meet with the financial advisor who will be taking care of all of the insurance paperwork. All of our tests checked out with Dr. F so we are approved to start with the next round of cycling.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

We meet with our specialist Dr. F and he agrees our only chance is ivf with icsi. He says he can do all the monitoring and we can go to Iowa City for the actual procedures. He sets up an appt with the Iowa City Dr. for us at the end of Feb. In the mean time he will run some preliminary tests, to make sure everything else is in good working order.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

We see the first specialist and he feels our only chance at conceiving with be with in vetro fertilization using icsi (assisted fertilization). He agrees that we should see the 2nd specialist. I look into our insurance coverage and discover (Thank GOD!!) that all procedures will be covered! We quickly call and make an appt.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

We discover from the quick/easy tests that there is indeed a problem and we will not be able to do things the "natural" way. My dr. refers us to 2 different specialists to further investigate the problem.

Friday, September 01, 2006

I see my "new" old dr. in the Quad-Cities and find out she is no longer delivering babies. She refers me to an ob/gyn since we are working on getting pregnant. Later in September, I visit the new ob/gyn and am very impressed. She agrees with previous 2 drs. that there is no reason why we should have any problems, but offers to run some quick/easy tests on both Chuck and I to rule out any problems.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Chuck and I decide to start working on expanding our family with a baby. I see my dr. for my yearly check-up and she sees no reason why we shouldn't be successful and gives us the go ahead.