Elliana Jane is Born!!!

(*Added 2 more pictures that I missed before*)

Our precious daughter has arrived! Elliana "Ellie" Jane Cerven was born at 2:42am on Dec. 16th, weighing in at 8 lbs., 15 oz. and measuring 21 1/2 inches long. I ended up being induced since we missed our due date...so, the Pitocin was a little rough for me. Labor was totally surreal, though...I'm sure all you moms out there can understand how inexplicable the whole thing is: the good, the bad, and the ugly parts! :) Little Ellie is healthy, content, and loves to sleep. She's already smiling and squirming out of her swaddled blankets.

Anyway, I'm sure more to come when we can! It's practically all I can do to finally get a few pics up and think beyond "feed, burp, change diaper, sleep...repeat." :)

Last picture of my tummy as we head to the hospital!!


Last picture as "just us" - off to get our daughter!!


Just minutes after Ellie was born!! Content already... :)


A close up of a precious little face!


Her "leaving-the-hospital" outfit...check out the feet! :)

Our new family leaving the hospital!

A precious little smile already!!

39 Weeks and Counting...

39 weeks and a few days...people have been telling me that I'm "all baby" (which I'm glad to hear!), and by the looks of this picture, she sure is just stickin' right out there! SOO funny to me to see a profile picture of myself, when I spend most of my days looking down...and then of course, just seeing the top of my belly! This child has been known to push pretty hard outwards - I don't know if that's common or not for other women, but there are times that you can feel how hard certain parts of my tummy are as if she was pushing her feet on my spine and her back out towards my stomach. Totally different sensation than the kick to the lungs or the stomach.

If we make it until my appointment on Wed., I am VERY curious what the next steps are. My due date is this Sat., and my doctor seems willing to help speed things along with the lovely skin rash/irritation that I've acquired now, BUT he won't be in town from Thurs-Sun! If I could guarantee one specific doctors that I like of the 3 remaining in the practice, I'd be all for getting this moving along...otherwise, I'd much rather have my doctor. Hmmm...we'll just see. At this point, if she'd rather come NOW (before Thurs), the highway is now open (making our trip much easier!),she could have the same bday as my brother, and my doctor would be in town...would be the SIMPLE way to go, but then again, let's think back about most of this pregnancy. :)

36 Weeks & Counting!

Here are pics from today...at 36 1/2 weeks, but guess what? We had a GOOD report at the doc's this Friday! Baby has dropped, she is definitely "head down" and in position, and I am dilated 2 cm! Other great and encouraging news to share: doc believes baby will be small (maybe even under 7 lbs!!), and believes that 38 weeks may be a reality for going into labor! Yea!!! That would be right around Thanksgiving! And, we know - no "holding our breath" on that projection - but the thought of delivering early, possibly having a small baby, and maybe avoiding a December birthday are all exciting things to hear! So, we'll just continue to wait and see!!

Also today, our church had a lovely shower for us - some really sweet women gathered to pray for us, for the baby, and to bless us with gifts. It was really precious and I felt truly showered (and encouraged!) by a wonderful group of women so close to us here in Maplewood. Don't have any pictures from tonight...and I still need to get pictures up from Heidi's shower!

Stay tuned for more exciting updates...another doc appt in the middle of this week!

Maternity Pictures

This is SLIGHTLY out of order from the next post, but I still wanted to get these up for viewing purposes. Below is a sample of pictures we took at David's studio on Thurs, Oct 29th - our 34 week mark!! Nothing has been "Photoshopped," so my tummy is seriously this size. :) We also wanted to take one last round of pics before I chopped all my hair off - 2 days later. So the blog entry to follow shows my shorter hair. I will miss SOME parts of having long hair, but I am enjoying NO hair on the back of my neck or getting caught under all the tons of pillows (these days) while I sleep!

Kelly's Visit!

Kelly came to town from Thurs-Sun to visit, see my tummy, watch me waddle :], attend a shower for us, and help me with things around here. It was great to have her here and catch up before life changes even more!


P.S. I CUT MY HAIR!!! About 12 inches off!! Yea!

Karen's Visit!

...More details to come...(just wanted to get pictures up) :)

Updates...

Yes, it's been a while. When you get out of the groove of doing something such as blogging, it's hard to start up again. Rather than trying to go through all the details of what I've missed typing and updating, I thought I'd just give a quick overview-update and add in some "progression" pics. :) These are 3 pictures of my ever-growing profile at 16 weeks, 24 and now at 30! Crazy to think that we're only about 10 weeks away!!

Quick updates: the third trimester has met me with some new and some "old" symptoms that are really slowing me down. I don't want to sound all complain-y, but I also don't feel like the pregnancy books quite do these "9" months justice; sometimes I feel things are just glossed over, and other times, I've resolved that I just don't particularly ENJOY pregnancy. Bouts of nausea (though not as bad), near-fainting spells, and headaches are back like the first trimester...now I have "severe reflux" (which I won't even begin to get into what happens in the middle of the night to wake me up) and sleeplessness. I'm definitely having moments of round ligament pain (frontal, abdominal stretching that is sharp and almost knocks the wind outta ya), plus sacroiliac pain (backside pain, almost like a charlie horse in your butt), and pelvic bone pain (which we just learned this week could be from a loose connection in my pelvic bones). I had SOO planned on getting at least moderate exercise throughout this pregnancy, but just getting in and out of a car to run errands, standing on my feet too long, or doing some minor household chores, causes me residual, I-can-barely-walk pain for about 2 days afterwards. I am constantly telling myself that it's OK, and "we" just need to get through this pregnancy, reducing as much pain as possible.

For those who are curious, my scars from surgery are at a complete standstill, and I'm kinda convinced they won't ever look much better than what they are now. Afterall, Baby is taking all the nutrients first. I've had very little of an appetite and haven't gained too much weight yet, so it's been hard to think that I've been getting all the nutrients that I need after Baby takes them.

Now, for the way more FUN news. We have found out that we are expecting a *GIRL* and are thrilled that she keeps showing very healthy signs. She is a very active baby inside of me, but is a bit ultrasound-shy as she turns inward whenever we try to see her pretty little face. At home, it's constant activity...and she favors my right side most of the time. Friends and family who have observed my tummy closely can see a bigger lump on the right side almost all the time. She kicks way out to the sides, too...occasionally downward, but mostly so far out to the sides, that she's kicking right above my hip bones! And, no, since everyone keeps asking, we don't have a name for her yet...workin' on it!

David and I attended our 1st childbirth class this Monday and we loved it. The teacher is great, it's comforting to hear other women going through the same aches, pains and discomforts, and it's just SOO educational! We have 3 more weeks of classes and then we'll be pros, right? :) Yea, not until the little one makes her appearance and we all get through delivery, we know.

I'll try to shoot out another update and one that's even shorter soon. Thanks for reading and being a part of our journey!

Recovering...

My recovery has been going well, I think. I was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday in the late afternoon. The ride home was awful - they had given me a big dose of Percocet and an iron supplement - for the about-3-mile-drive, David had to stop twice because my whole world was spinning and swirling. We finally arrived home, to a house that had been cleaned by friends from church! What a wonderful blessing when I was going to have guests in town and our house just wasn't ready for that! I tried to get some sleep and rest while my sweet husband went to pick up medications and take care of me, while also trying to catch up on being gone from his work for 2 full days (and worried about his wife the whole time!). I tried to take it easy on Wednesday, but also catch up on emails and keep some food in my system.

On Thursday, it was another slow day with just a few "emergency" emails to address - the rest could wait! My dad decided to come down from Chicago to check on me :) and to help out if we needed anything. He arrived in the evening with tons of food his wife, Diane, had made for all of us, which was a great help...and proved to be many meals for all of us over the next few days. The next day, one of my favorite roommates from college, Laurie, arrived for her weekend visit with us and another favorite roommate, Kim, who lives nearby. We actually managed to get out of the house (!) and spend some time with Kim and her family for the afternoon! Not bad on the 3rd day after surgery!

My goal was to move around as much as I could and get through the rough spots. Anyone who has had surgery knows that part of the battle is crazy muscle soreness, so I figured, "The sooner I move and the more I move, the faster I'll feel better!"

Below is a self-portrait of bandages after surgery. Things are a little out of scale and if you don't want to see, now is the time to stop scrolling. :) But, alas, these were the incisions I got to deal with just as my tummy is starting to grow....

Surprise Surgery

Little did we know what was coming, a mere 36 hours after the last post! We spent Sunday visiting with David's extended family (fun to see you all, McGhees!) and stayed as long as I could. I had begun feeling "weird," as I put it, and it was a long 2 hours home. I spent the evening sitting and laying uncomfortably trying to focus on a movie until I eventually just headed to bed. I figured it was just another rough day of pregnancy...until 4am....

I awoke suddenly with SEVERE pain. The pain I spoke of over Memorial Day weekend's trip to the hospital had steadily increased throughout the whole evening though I tried everything I could to decrease the pain; this time around, the pain was already at that elevated level and I was sure something had gone wrong...yet again with the cyst. We headed to the hospital after having the doctor paged (who told us it was likely gas!), and because I was 2 days over 16 weeks, they took us straight to the maternity section of the hospital. This time around, we did more painful ultrasounds, CT scan, and blood tests to determine what the issue was...and tried heat, ice, anti-gas pills and eventually 2 rounds of morphine to dull the pain - NONE of those pain remedies worked. For 6+ hours, I squirmed and grimaced as they tried to find the cause and eventually, THANKFULLY, I got the first shot of Demorol...ahhh...THAT was what I needed to get through it! It didn't take all the pain away by any means, but it lowered it to a 3 or 4 and I could finally catch my breath. My doctor came by the hospital some time that Mon morning and said that they would keep me on a 23-hour watch...I didn't care as long as I had some pain medication! Soon after, I was told they had decided to then do "exploratory surgery" at 7am the next morning instead and see what was going on - all the tests were coming back with blood flood to the ovary (which should NOT be the case if it is twisted) and no real apparent problems. I also wasn't showing signs of Appendicitis, but a General Surgeon came to ask if I wanted my appendix out while they were in there - heck yea! Take any unnecessary organ out at this point!

Surgery was interesting for me this time - for my neck, they 'knocked me out' in some holding room through an IV; this time I went all the way into the operating room, they had me get up on this stainless steel table, they strapped me down in a "t" position and then came the gas mask...I HAD to be out in like 2 seconds. :] I awoke in the recovery room and immediately asked what happened/what all they found. It was there that I learned they had to take my ovary AND my fallopian tube (plus the appendix) out...I was shocked and didn't understand, especially when none of the tests were showing such a need! It was once I sleepily got back to my room that David showed me pictures and compassionately explained what they had discovered. Because of the the twisting (the cyst had caused the ovary to twist several times, with even fresh hemmoraghing in the last 24 hours), blood indeed had been cut off from the ovary and fallopian tube. I don't have any idea how it all works, but I can't help but think what this problem cyst would have effected further either in my body or with the baby had it continued (and how would I have dealt with that level of pain!?). Pictures are below...the top left pic with the white marshmellow-looking thing is the good ovary (bottom left square on the same pic is my appendix); the bottom pic: the top two pics/squares are the bad ovary and fallopian tube....no question why they had to come out! Oh, and the pinkish blob on the left is the sac the baby is in!! :] Baby fared the surgery well as far as all tests have determined! No contractions for me the whole night, good, strong heartbeat, and baby eventually returned back to its correct spot in my tummy once the swelling went down. Whew!





Ironic to me now, I went back today and read through the "mix of emotions blog" to see that I wrote: "We learned that if it had grown in size instead, there is a risk of it twisting and eventually cutting off blood circulation and there are consequences to that situation that I'm still not sure I understand!" How interesting that we now know EXACTLY what happens when twisting ("torsion") DOES happen and blood supply IS cut off....

First Measurement

Tonight we took our first set of "tummy circumference" measurements. :] I am officially over 16 weeks and feel like I'm beginning to show...although the 2nd picture (a sneaky snapshot that D took) doesn't really look all that "large." I lost about 10 pounds since becoming pregnant, hence the note on the pic below that I gained 8 pounds of it back.

Today has been a mix of emotions. For starters, we had our second appt with the new doctor earlier this morning. We are still a bit unsettled about our feelings for our doctor, though we feel overall she knows what she's doing...it's more a personality preference. We were pleasantly surprised that she took a few quick moments to check the size of the cyst - and it has gone down in size slightly! We learned that if it had grown in size instead, there is a risk of it twisting and eventually cutting off blood circulation and there are consequences to that situation that I'm still not sure I understand! Anyway, we got a 5 second glimpse of our little baby again, this time looking like it was waving at us as if to say, "Hello!!" (We know - we have quite an imagination about this baby who is not aware, but what new parents don't?) The doc did give us one little picture, where the baby totally looks like an alien: it's mostly just the head with hollow eyes and a skinny spine going up to its head. Kinda funny to us!

Later in the day, we received our first fun little baby items (besides the little robe that Lori picked up for us from a local "free" store - shown in the left of the pic below - thanks Lori!). David's parents found some cute little burping clothes, and receiving blanket and some onesies - all unisex of course! Hard for us to believe that our baby will likely be smaller than those first outfits!

First Father's Day-ish

June 21

Happy Father's Day, Daddy-to-be!! Some people have said that these Mother's/Father's days are the best because there are no kid responsibilities...yet, somehow I think our first ones next year will far surpass our quiet and rather boring ones together this year. :) I got David a cookie cake (one of his 'fav' things), to say a little thanks for all the crummy-feeling-days he's been helping me with and to share in our anticipation of changes coming up. As a little fun bonus, some"one" had to check things out prior to Daddy seeing it and was a little ticked off that I was not allowing him to lick the sugary-goodness...you'll see.

First Purchases!

June 10-12

We bought our first baby-related items! Becky spent some time online, looking through new crib purchases (and other items for the room) as well as some used purchases on places like Craigslist. We had some great finds!! First, on Wednesday, we bought a used-but-in-good-shape crib in a neutral color wood. Only $100 and it's a "convertible" crib, which we've since learned it means that it can go down to a daybed and eventually use part of the crib as a headboard for a full bed later! I LOVE practicality!! Next, on Friday, my great friend Lori made the long, long trek out about 40 minutes west of our house with me to check on a changing table and a glider with an ottoman. AND, they both match the crib, too! All items need a bit of TLC cleaning, but we feel blessed that we now have some 'absolute necessities' for under $200! We think we got some GREAT deals!!!

Overwhelmed by Meds

Sat, May 30th

I had an overwhelming feeling this weekend by all the pills I was taking now that I'm pregnant and have post-hospital meds. I thought I'd take a picture of meds/pills/vitamins "before" and "during;" thought it would be a funny set of pics to share! The first picture shows what I have to take daily for my thyroid. I think the second picture speaks for itself and the overwhelming feelings I have from changing some things so drastically in a few short weeks....

Memorial Day..."Memorable Day"

May 24th/25th

Our Memorial Day this year should have been called "Memorable Day".... We were looking forward to a long, relaxing weekend together...still grateful to be out of the restaurant business and enjoy a holiday weekend with friends. On Sunday afternoon, Becky started feeling pretty consistent lower abdominal/pelvic pain. It went on into the evening and we tried to head to bed. I (Becky) was up ALL night, couldn't find a comfortable spot, couldn't eat or drink anything, and finally tried "relaxing" or sleeping in our old recliners. The pain increased into the early morning hours to the point where it hurt to breathe in or out. I finally thought "maybe going for a little walk would help decrease the pain...maybe it has gotten worse since I've been curled up in a ball." So, I went out in the neighborhood around 4:30am, barely made it around the block to the top of our street and had to sit down on the curb because I felt lightheaded. Things didn't get much better as I sat, so I got up and tried to get home quickly. I made it to the bathroom where I noticed that my face had lost all color and my arms and hands were starting to tingle; I began to feel pretty weak and sick. I woke David up and said, "OK, I think we need to go to the hospital now." Within a few minutes, we were in the car with a trash can (hey, just in case), a cold washcloth, and me groaning the whole 4-or-so miles.

Upon arriving, I leaned over the counter and just said, "I'm pregnant and I've been having severe abdominal pains." They immediately sat me down to check my blood pressure and then the shaking began - I couldn't stand up straight and my body was beginning to shake uncontrollably. I asked the nurse if I could please have some water or ice chips. His response? A straight-faced "no." I thought for sure I was going to pass out - a pregnant women who had not eaten or drunk anything in nearly 12 hours and you are denying her?!? They escorted us into a nearby room and I could not get remotely comfortable. David was pretty worried because I literally could not stop shaking. Of course, scary thoughts about the baby were going through our heads most of our time there. Eventually, I tried laying mostly on my stomach with one of my legs bent so my hip was in the air (and not all my weight on the baby) and MUCH to my delight, the pain began subsiding...until the doctor came in and poked around a bit. After a few hours, we were sent off to have an ultrasound done to check for the baby's health, possible kidney stones for me, and a condition I had neither heard of or had read of (as it relates to pregnancy) - an ovarian cyst. Apparently (now that I have found info in the preg books), ovarian cysts are very common in pregnancy and are supposed to be reabsorbed by the body. When they don't reabsorb, they can produce a lot of pain and can even rupture, though we learned the next day that mine was small enough they were not concerned about rupturing at this point.

In the midst of all this pain and long hours, we were SO touched to see the latest ultrasound. In just 3-or-so weeks time, our little peanut had grown so much!! Yes, us mommy-to-bes read it all in the books: the fetus' development, "your walnut-sized baby is now the size of a lemon," etc. BUT..., David and I went from the "what if something has happened to our baby?" to immediately seeing a heartbeat (!!) and then seeing FINGER BONES, TOE BONES, THE SPINE, and THE RIBS!! WOW!! I instantly forgot and cared so little about the awful night that I just went through (the little shot of morphine probably helped, too :] ). Our little baby was - as I say - havin' it's own little dance party in there, too. It was moving all around. We initially thought it was sucking it's thumb, but other views showed that it had it's arms up by it's ears and was moving it's feet all over the place. SOO good to see the little one moving around...so funny to see just how active it is, again!

We were sent on our way about 6-7 hours after arriving, with some pain and other meds. And we were blessed to get into the new doctor I hadn't yet seen the next day, since I decided to stay back from a work trip to Florida on Tuesday. She did yet another ultrasound and yes, our child was moving all around on THAT one, too! Of course we would have such an active child! :] The doctor also said that much of all my sickness I've experienced could be the baby's activity. Since we're 3-for-3 on the baby movement during ultrasounds, it all makes a lot of sense....

A Little Peanut!

May 7th

This day was rather eventful for us. We headed to my OB/GYN of 8 years for the first prenatal exam and to verify pregnancy. Much to our dismay, we discovered by the end of the appointment that we definitely could not use this doctor through our current health insurance. Super bummer that I have to find someone totally new for such an important time! The amazing thing that happened that completely blessed us was a surprise ultrasound! We were told that our doctor bills for that separately (and we were planning to have it done somewhere else), until we were in the room with her when we learned that she always does an ultrasound on the first baby visit to check for a heartbeat! Yea!! So, we weren't expecting it, but we got to see our little peanut-shape child! And, we got to see the little racing heart! Truly amazing - clearly a little tiny piece of life there!! There we were, at maybe 7 or 8 weeks of pregnancy, only knowing we were pregnant for 2 1/2 of those, and not expecting to see our little one! One of the biggest blessings for me was when the doctor showed us the different between her moving the wand-thingy and the baby moving around. What a funny joy to see that! :) And, we fully expected them to determine that the baby wasn't quite as old at 7-8 weeks, but the baby's size showed up closer to the 8 week mark...which is just crazy to internalize that already we were 2 months along!

We celebrated afterwards by stopping at one of our fav places: Bread Co.

Later that night, Becky attended the first of a 6+ month series of free classes offered at the Pregnancy Resource Center. We are awarded points for attendance, doing "homework," going to church (and taking notes :] ), and even bringing the father along! Once we accumulate 6 consecutive weeks, we get our points, and get to go "shopping" at their shop for diapers, bottles, blankets, even cribs, pack-n-plays, and almost anything you can imagine for a new mommy or baby! Fun, helpful, and hopefully an opportunity to meet some other women going through the same stage in life!

A Reason for a Blog...

Well, there are certain things that will get us to reconsider what we've always done, aren't there? We have a hard enough time keeping all of our family and friends updated on life here...I thought this might be a great way for you to check in with us every "now and then," and perhaps when we have BIG NEWS...like now!

For those who may not know - and for those who do know and want to "relive" the moment again with us - WE ARE PREGNANT!! We found out on the evening of April 18th, after Becky came home from a LONG and difficult trip to Indy for a seemingly long conference. She was increasingly sick over the week leading up to the conference and then progressed quickly while away from her hubby. :( By the end of the time spent away from home, random spells of sickness followed by being completely fine, awful food aversions, and sleepless nights, Becky called David prior to coming home and said, "If I'm not pregnant, that you can check me in somewhere because this unlike anything I've ever felt before!" Soon after arriving home, we took the test...and UNlike the other tests in the past, this one appeared as "pregnant" pretty much immediately. We stood in the bathroom, looking at each other in shock (and then eventually took a picture). Seriously? US?? Pregnant? What will we do? Little did we know then, we do what all newly-pregnant couples do: go get double-checked, learn whatever we can whenever we can, and refocus our prayers - a whole lot! It's so suddenly not about us anymore!