Happy Holidays from The Davis Family! May you and yours enjoy the peace, joy and love this season brings and may your Christmas be as blessed as ours.

Under the tree

Look what Santa put in my stocking

Why do you do these things to me?

xoxo

Suzanne, Evan, Little Evan, Caroline
and Brutus-The-World’s-Most-Patient-Dog

Not right now, but probably before the weekend is over. My blood pressure was still high today, combined with some elevated numbers for my liver function (I should really pay more attention to WHAT exactly those numbers are and/or mean, right? But when the doctor is frowning at me my brain goes blank) means my OB was concerned enough to send me up for a couple of hours of monitoring in L&D. I have absolutely no other symptoms of pre-eclampsia – no swelling, no headaches, no blurred vision, no protein in my urine – and my blood pressure STILL isn’t quite high enough to be official pre-e (at least according to Wikipedia) so I managed to talk them into letting me out of labor & delivery tonight. If there was a record speed for getting your pants on, I totally broke it on my way out the door.

As long as I keep feeling fine, I’m free until 5 pm tomorrow, at which point they’re starting my induction.

That’s right, I said 5 PM TOMORROW. SATURDAY. Which might even be TODAY by the time you read this. SOON. My mind is having some trouble processing this time frame, in the same way my mind would have trouble processing the entire room turning upside down and all the furniture sticking to the ceiling.

The baby, for the record, looks FINE and still doesn’t care that her mama might be sick. Girls, I tell ya, trouble right from the start.

But now I have approximately 22 hours to finish up my Super Important List Of Things To Do Before The Baby Comes, including getting these boxes of Goodwill donations out of my kitchen, organizing baby clothes, finishing the nursery and picking my mom up from the train station. Because I CANNOT have this baby until she gets back, despite the amazing collection of frozen meals now filling our basement freezer thanks to my awesome friends from Stroller Strides and E being on stand down from work. I need my mom here to feel prepared and relaxed and calm and all of the good things one should feel when bringing a new life into the world. I’m already nervous enough just hearing the words “induction” and “pre-eclampsia”, I don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the huge pile of unwashed laundry and the dirty bathrooms and the fact that I STILL haven’t been to the grocery store since I was sick. E is helpful and all but really? His idea of a clean house means you can walk from the front to the back without tripping. Mom understands CLEAN.

So, internets, wish me luck for Saturday night/Sunday. And no more guesses in the birthday pool, since it looks like the weekend is for sure. But the 19th is my mother-in-law’s birthday and also the day E and I got engaged 7 years ago so not a bad day to have a baby overall. If you want to follow along on Twitter I’ll be over there as much as I can & you don’t need to have an account. Just look at my page here and try to focus on the tweets that don’t have an “@” somebody in front of them, since you’ll only see half the conversation. That is, if you’re interested in live birth updates. If not, come back Monday or Tuesday for fresh-baked bebeh pictures.

P.S. I would really appreciate happy, it-wasn’t-so-bad induction comments since the majority of the stories I’ve heard are not so good. Even with the drugs everyone’s labor seems REALLY long and hard – not to mention my mom’s induced labor with me which was long & hard and DIDN’T involve drugs.

P. P.S. I thought I had more time to ask for these, but if anyone would be willing to write & share their own birth stories while I take a few days off that would be awesome. You can be a blogger or not a blogger or have it written already and send me a link or write it now or write it in the next two days. Just send me an email at bebehblog@gmail.com so I can post it here. It doesn’t have to be rainbows and butterflies or involve meadows and wheat fields (although if it does PLEASE sent it), I just want to hear your story and take a few days off to, you know, give birth myself. And everybody loves a birth story.

My love of Christmas is SO INCREDIBLY STRONG it can actually make me kind of Scroogish. I just like my traditions to be the SAME every year. That’s why they’re TRADITIONS. You know those books that list all the questions you and your partner should discuss before getting married? “What kind of lights go on the house?” should be NUMBER ONE. Otherwise you might end up shouting at each other over colored vs. white vs. blinky lights. Not that we would do that – I married within my own Christmas rules.

The house can't even CONTAIN all the Christmas, which makes the front porch Holiday Central.

1. Colored lights go on the tree/in the house. White lights go on the outside of the house. NO EXCEPTIONS. And absolutely no blinking.

Outside lights are hard to see during daytime photos, but they are white.

Tree = colored lights

Colored lights on the banister seemed like a good idea, until the toddler tried to throw himself down the stairs to see them.

2. Ornaments are meant to be collected over many years, so when you eventually become a grown up and have your own tree you have your own treasured ornaments. None of this a different-theme-for-each-year bs with all green or all red or whatever. And for the love of tiny Christmas Baby Jesus, LABEL them.

3. REAL TREE. Best when cut down one’s self in the freezing cold but any real tree is still ok. I will consider exceptions for allergies, but only with a doctor’s note.

We have this same photo (minus 1 belly and 1 toddler) for the last 5 years. I'm "helping" while E cuts it down.

4. Stockings shall contain: candy, socks, Chapstick, fruit. Amended to include pistachios, per E’s request. Additional items are welcome but the above are non-negotiable.

5. One (1) present may be opened on Christmas Eve, especially if it contains holiday themed pajamas/clothes to wear to candlelit service.

6. Speaking of presents, unless they are from Santa they go under the tree as they are wrapped/received so there is plenty of time for shaking and guessing.

Despite the late state in getting this place all Christmasy, we’re in pretty good shape. All the rules have been followed and if I were to go into labor right now I’d have a lovely, well-lit, pine-smelling house to bring my holiday baby home to. None of our relatives will get their gifts until February (I am DREADING the trip to the post office) but hey, we’ve got our own gifts wrapped and ready!

Now, who wants to fight over real vs. fake trees?

I was going to post just a couple of these but I CANNOT PICK which ones I like the best so here’s the most epic, ridiculously long photo post ever. Kade from KBG Photography took over 600 shots on Saturday and gave me a disk with 370 edited photos less than 24 hours after our session. How’s that for amazing turn-around? If you’re here in Eastern Connecticut I HIGHLY recommend using her for family photos – she was fantastic with Little Evan, even when he was being…difficult. Check out her website or like her on Facebook to see all the great shoots she’s done. (And thanks to April for suggesting her!) I’m so glad I was able to get these taken, even if my stupid kidneys forced us to reschedule. Thank you so much Kade!

And Mom/Mom Davis/Other Relatives, I have a release form saying I’m allowed to print as many of these as I want so if you need new family pics for the walls just let me know!

Belly handprints: Fail. But still cute!

He did NOT want to love the belly.

He had no problem loving the belly :)

My super pale belly is...kind of creepy. But the kid is cute!

Little Evan is trying to escape. But we'll call it hugging.

For the record, those are my pre-pregnancy jeans unbuttoned/with a Bella Band. They still totally fit over my butt at 38 weeks pregnant, something I am ridiculously proud of.