Day 4

Anneke has been sleeping well.  Sometimes too well.  After Steph was released from the hospital, Anneke came home and was asleep for 5-6 hours, or more.  This was nice for Steph to get some sleep.  But it was a little disconcerting, really.  We were a little worried about her becoming lethargic.  But her muscles and arms have been good and strong. 
But she sleeps well.
Steph has been trying her best to keep up with baby demands.  I won't go into details, but a visit from the midwife reassured us after we had a panic "Do we use formula or not" moment.  She said it's fine and actually gave us a cool feeding tube apparatus that keeps Anneke going to mom for her nutrition.
Now we're waiting for a good bowel movement.  We've been concerned that she hasn't "shat" since we left the hospital.  Although she has been going through a good number of diapers.
Today she's been awake and alert, but not crying, which is a new thing, and really awesome.  Before today, if she woke up, she was going to cry, 'cause she's hungry.  It's nice to see her eyes, and have her turn her face to your voice, without her crying.

Hooray for coming home!

Steph and Anneke were able to come home today! 
Thankfully, Anneke slept the entire way home, and now Steph is getting some sleep too!
When Steph fell into our bed, she said "I love my bed."  and fell asleep almost instantly.

Anneke has given her a couple restless nights in the hospital, which we don't believe were helping Steph's blood pressure that is still trying to balance out at a normal level again.  Every time I was at the hospital, Anneke was sleeping peacefully, and not much trouble.  Every time I left (at 11pm), Anneke would wake up and torment Steph through the emotional night.  On Sunday night, Anneke seemed to need to be held so she would sleep.  On Monday night, Anneke decided it was a good time to cluster feed.

Hopefully, she realizes that its more fun to be awake during the day, than at night!
Here's Anneke at home: (!)

Anneke Leigh Geertsema

It's amazing how much you can love someone you haven't yet met.
Saturday night, and Sunday morning,  I couldn't get over how moved I felt, when we realized that our baby was on the way.
So it was an emotional day. 
Although, I hardly slept the night before today.
I had gone golfing on Saturday in the Unity Christian High School golf tournament.  I'd had a great day, and even won the door prize to get to play another round of golf!  I thought that was pretty good.
When I went home, Steph and I researched a new cell phone plan, watched a movie, went for a walk around the block.
And then Steph mentioned a headache.
But we were in bed already.  So we went to sleep.
Only to get up again 45 minutes later, and make our way to the hospital, 'cause Steph's headache was getting worse.
SO, at the hospital, Steph was given some meds for her headache, told that she'd probably be induced in the morning, and we tried to sleep through the night.  I didn't sleep more than an hour or two, that I can tell.  They gave me a recliner that squeaked.  A lot.  Try gettting to sleep when you're worried about your pregnant wife, who's told she'll be delivering next day, and when you're sitting in a squeaky chair, when she needs her sleep to have strength for the next day...  (It was uncomfortable!).
Anyways, without anymore gory details...  Steph was induced at 8 in the morning.  Went through a number of stages of delivery.  Ended up with an epidural, because her blood pressure was sky rocketing (like 180 over 115 and higher).  With the epidural, her blood pressure dropped.  She relaxed.  Anneke Leigh came out relatively quickly after that!

Anneke Leigh, was born relatively close to 6 pm, Sunday, Sept. 26, weighing in at 7 lbs. 12 ounces.

She's named after her Oma (MaryANN) and Grandma (ShirLEY).

Anneke means "Gracious".  Leigh means "Meadow"

And after holding Anneke for two hours while her Mom had some well deserved sleep.  I have to say it was hard to put her down in her bassinette.  (mostly 'cause I was scared she'd wake up and cry if I stopped walking in circles with her....!) (But also because she is absolutely beautiful and very precious!)



Fun Stuff

Well, as everyone knows... we're expecting.
We've been expecting for a while now.  And it's been kinda fun.  (sometimes kinda not fun, for Steph, particularly). 
And sometimes we've been hit by certain moments.
Like, when we first realized Steph is pregnant. 
Like, the first time Steph threw up (and fifth time, and tenth time, and nth time...)
and when we put the nursery together.
and told our parents/family/friends.

All those times when we just thought to ourselves, "This is it."
What a loaded thought to have!
It's exciting, and really scary.  But in a really exciting sort of way.

Well, this week has been a whole lot of, "This is it" moments.
The baby's coming, and we're excited... but this is it...

So today I put the baby's safety seat in the car.
And then both Steph, and I, sat in the car, and thought, "Wow, this is it.  It's coming!"

If I can summarize the feeling though... it probably wouldn't be... "Wow, this is it!"
It would go more like:
"Heaven help us!...  This is it!"

sincerely.

I guess it's that time of year again!  Today, the garden was ripped up.  Including our vegetable plants.  We're weren't expecting much more from our veg plants. 
This year was more successful than previous years.  We enjoyed the beans that were produced.  Although I would have liked it if we had produced enough to freeze some of those.  We got a good number of tomatoes.  Enough that we were able to throw out a number of very odd looking Better Boy tomatoes.  Next year we'll stick with just the Early Girl tomatoes.  Although, Steph used this opportunity to say, "See, I hope we have a girl, 'cause boys are just trouble."  Or something like that.  This week we'll be making some Tomato Jam!  (because, what else do you do with 16 tomatoes that all ripen at the same time?).  And out of our 4 green pepper plants, we got 1 pepper.  We were going to have two peppers, but somehow it disappeared.  So 1 pepper isn't bad for 4 plants... Last year we were 0 for 4....
Anyway,  School has started up for both of us.  Actually, School is almost over for one of us.
And my the bathroom vanity I built upstairs, simply refuses to finish itself.  Which is frustrating me.  I still gotta build some doors and drawers for that.

And that's what's been going on over here. 
3 and a half weeks till baby!  Supposedly....

Congratulations Nan and Rach!

This past weekend we made the trek out to Sarnia for Nathaniel and Rachel's wedding.  We had a great weekend and it was a beautiful wedding!  Too bad it rained for during most of the picture-taking time, but I'm sure they still got some awesome pictures--can't wait to see them!  Here's a couple that I stole from mom's collection!  (I didn't take any pictures-horrible!)

So CONGRATULATIONS Nathaniel and Rachel!  We're really excited for you and pray for God's blessings on your marriage together!

September Already?!?!

We cannot believe that it's already September!  This summer has flown by--as every summer usually does.  But this time the countdowns are on:  4 weeks of school and 6 weeks until the due date.  It's all coming so fast, it often doesn't feel like a reality!

The last few weeks of our summer have passed quickly.  Trying to get things done before school starts, both at home and at school.  Dave has continued to plug away at our bathroom--the staining and finishing of the cabinets took significantly longer than anticipated, but they're finally in!  Now all we need are the shelves and doors and we're pretty much done!!!  Here's a couple updated pictures of where we're at: