So, Ju's asleep, Alaise is fed, and I'm doing some work for a customer, and I look down, and Alaise is just SOOO cute, I had to try capturing my view of her from where I'm sitting now.  I hope you all like the photo.  :-)

October 22, 2009 my first born, a daughter, entered this world.  Alaise Noelle Vanderwater was greeted by her parents and grand parents (on both sides).  She's a big baby, 20 inches, with a 14+ inch head, 8 lbs 13 ounces.  Ju's labor went pretty well.  The epidural did wonders for her.  The delivery, on the other hand, was quite difficult, and the size of the baby required the doctor to make a bit of room for her to come down the canal via an episiotomy.

So, I will be getting induced at 5:30am tomorrow morning.  I really need to be going to sleep...  But it seems like there are endless loose ends I want to tie up before this little person really arrives in our life.  I especially want to journal in the book that I have been keeping. :)  Went to the doctor this morning and we scheduled the induction for tomorrow, so hopefully that goes well.  The final weight gain is about 35lbs, which isn't great, but isn't too bad.  About 5cm dilated already, but the baby's head is still cocked to the left, so there is still a good chance of C-section.

Hopefully this will be the last one of these for a while! :)  My due date has come and gone.  And I've been sick for a week now, with a sore throat and a terrible, awful cough.  Coughing has kept me up several days in a row, and I've survived by napping here and there during the day.  It's been absolutely terrible.  The doctor prescribed me stuff called Tussionex, which, if you Google, is very strong, and works wonders.  Well, apparently she prescribed 500ml, and the dosage is 5ml at a time...  And the stuff is really expensive, so the pharmacist wanted to call the doctor Monday morning to confirm.  She gave me 15ml to last me the weekend (which is complete bull, since it's twice a day, 5ml at a time, and this was Friday afternoon.).  Which cost me almost $5, so I really hoped it would work wonders.

37 Weeks.  It's hit me hard, in the last couple of days, that Kris and I only have 2 more weekends, just us.  My parents are coming in Oct. 6, so we have this weekend, and next weekend.  It's really really hit me hard.  I feel blessed with a marriage I really enjoy, and life sucks sometimes, but Kris and I always pull through together, and we really enjoy each other's company.

P.S. Did you know that even if you use disposable diapers, you're supposed to dump the poop in the toilet before disposing the diapers??  They don't want human feces in the landfill, contaminating the soil.  I know no one does it... But, just FYI.

So, I finally bit the bullet last night and ordered cloth diapers.  I'm absolutely, positively, and utterly terrified.

Why?  I dunno.  I just am.  It seems cloth diapering isn't the "social norm", which I don't really care that much about.  But I am having lots of reactions to my decision - wrinkled noses, talks about dunking/swishing diapers in the toilet, "Good Luck" (with maybe a skeptical expression), blah blah.  Kris supports me, and that's really what matters at this point...  (Although, I'm not sure if he knows what he's agreeing to.) :)  Anyway.  But it's just something I felt like I wanted to pursue.  It's cheaper in the long run, yes.  It's good for the environment, yes.  But I'm not really someone who is super environmental friendly, I recycle what I can, but I am far from being a crunchy mama.

Today is 36 weeks.  A milestone of sorts, according to our OB - she said that babies born after 36 weeks generally don't even have to stay in the hospital. :)  I skipped 34 weeks, which was a big milestone for us - babies born at 34 weeks have almost 0% chance of having any sort of long term complications.  So, we've hit both milestones, and we are so much more relieved.

I have, however, made the mistake of being on the Bump again.  It's one of those things...  Being on the boards, you most often hear about the bad cases, the worst case scenarios.  You don't hear about the normal, healthy cases.  One of the girls lost her baby at 39 weeks and 4 days.  3 days before her due date...  She went into her routine doctor's appointment, the doctor couldn't find the heart beat...  Went in for an emergency ultrasound, and found the baby dead with no amniotic fluid.

So, I hope Labor and Delivery Part II will only come once we have this babe.  But we did have Part I today.  I've been having bad Braxton Hicks at least since yesterday morning...  Some hours, I'd have them every 6-7 minutes for hours straight.  The doctor wanted me to go the hospital if I had 4-5 previously...  But the stubborn (and maybe stupid) person I am, I would wait it out, take a warm shower, eat something, and lay down.  That usually slowed it down, and Braxton Hicks wouldn't last more than a day on and off.  This time, I took a bath, and did everything I was supposed to, but it just wouldn't go away.  I was up at 4:30am because it bothered me.  Not to mention I was absolutely ravenous.  (nothing Korean ramen and rice couldn't fix!)

This week I have a belly photo!  I always thought I'd be really faithful about taking pics every week...  But the last photo we took was at 25 weeks, so it's been 8 weeks since I last took it.  And the size of my belly has like... doubled!  It's incredible how much me and the baby have grown.  I feel like a gigantic bloated hippo, but I guess that's okay for now.  :)