You are the trip I did not take, 

you are the pearls I could not buy, 

you are my blue Italian lake, 

you are my piece of foreign sky. 

                                                                   (Anne Campbell, To My Child)

   Emily Anne  

May 25th, 2012 
8:46pm

 6lb 7oz, 20.5 inches

 

The end is near....

3cms and 60-70% at yesterday's appointment.  Membranes have been stripped.

Some good contractions since then....feels like things are starting to head the right direction.

Went for a walk//run this morning in hopes of getting the ball rolling.

39wks 2 days
The last morning with a belly maybe??

Anyone else see it?

The Heat Miser from the super old Christmas claymation movie?

Looks like I was at about 14 minutes and 20 seconds...

Because after hours of filming, the segment used was about 40 seconds long.
Overshadowed by the 800lb bride.  Hmm.
Oh well.  It was still a fun experience.
And I shared 30min of tv with a segment on Will Smith, so it's ok.

I did the ghetto recording version and filmed it with the camcorder, so when I get that uploaded I will share.

Good news:  Running during pregnancy was shown in a good light.

Also, I wasn't waddling while I ran.  Yes!

Burning up my 15 minutes

The last year or so has been quite the whirlwind for someone who spent a lot of years as a wallflower.

Thank goodness for meeting my wonderful man who helped me break out of my shell and find a lot more fun in life, huh?

The last year has been an absolute blast, but let's be honest, I figured the whole Hapari thing was my 15 minutes of fame and I was totally good with that.  I've had a blast with them, and continuing to do the local spots has been such a treat.

But when opportunity presented itself last week to do a piece on running during pregnancy I have to admit I jumped on it and really hoped it would work!

I was contacted by a running coach who got my name through the fabulous SBS and Dimity of AnotherMotherRunner.com, authors of two of my favorite running books-Run Like a Mother and Train Like a Mother.  (and the source of the speed bump shirt!)

I was actually approached about doing a couple of tv spots after the Hapari thing, but they fell through so I wasn't sure how this one would work out, especially since there's kind of a time limit to my pregnant running at this point.
Things came together amazingly fast and within 24hrs they had a crew scheduled to be here Monday morning!
So I spent the weekend with my fingers (and legs) crossed, having gone from "let's get this baby out now" to "please stay in for a few more days!'.

 
It's definitely a more fun way than normal to spend a Monday...hanging with a film crew and running.
Though running with a cameraman hanging out a van and tracking alongside you is just a tad bit different.

I'm sure Nicole would appreciate this picture of her.  I wasn't expecting her to stand up when I snapped this of them setting up.  And didn't take another.  Oh well.  Sorry Nicole!

I do have to admit that both Aaron and I were kind of hoping that at some point during the running yesterday my water would break.
No such luck.

All the people who think running will make a baby fall out take note:  My baby has not fallen out.  If you know a way to get that to happen, please let me know.

We had a great time, everyone was a ton of fun to work with.  The kids were excited to get out of school early for the opportunity to be on TV, though my overachiever girls did complain about missing "so much" school on Monday.  Whose kids are these again??

Aaron got the pleasure of makeup.

He says it was weird, this face convinces me he enjoyed it.

Maybe he was reminiscing about the Jack Sparrow Days...

One of the highlights of the day was meeting the adorable Janae-the one and only Hungry Runner Girl.

 And seriously-she's even cuter and happier in real life than on her blog.  I know, I thought it was impossible too.  I had been asked if there were any other of my friends who were running pregnant so they could get some footage of us running together, but all of them that I know are out of state so that kind of quashed that.  Till I pulled the 'hit up a stranger because you read her blog' card and tracked down Janae.  Thankfully she and her super nice husband are now completely used to the fact that people they've never met know all about them and were cool making time to be a part of the shoot in the afternoon.

We got to run together for a bit in the 90 degree afternoon, and they interviewed them a bit about her pregnancy and running.  Super cute people, and I have no doubt that when their baby pops out in a few months that she will come out all smiles and ready for a PR rep.

Hopefully I'll get a head's up as to when it will all air, it will be fun to see it!  I'm anxious to see how it turns out and what footage they use.  It's always amazing to me how many hours of filming goes into a few minutes of air time.

And just to get it out of the way, they asked for pictures of previous pregnancies when I didn't work out all the way through them, gained more weight, was more uncomfortable...all that not so fun pregnancy stuff.  I'm still a little embarrassed that I gave them one of the pictures.  Pregnancy number 4 was brutal.  And it shows.
So just to go ahead and pre-empt the coming moment of shame from 9 years ago...

ACK!
Wow.  Seriously.  I've posted some bad pictures before, but this one....ouch.
Good news, the sweater makes me look bigger than I was.  I was big but not THAT big.  Bad news, I was still like two months away from delivery here.  Ohmygoodness.

God bless running during pregnancy and the fact that it has played a role in me NOT looking like this again.  Oy.

Also I am now more pregnant than I have been with 6 of my 8 kids.  Two more days and she has everyone but Malia beat, as Malia was 4 days late.  So baby can come out now.  Like NOW now.

Less than 24 hours later

A little more confident about sitting up-as long as someone is nearby.

Standing up when holding on, but still a bit shaky.  He did try to pull up for the first time just hours after the cast removal.  His legs were not happy about that.  Poor kid.  But by the end of the night, he was all over it.

And all about trying to walk.

Yes, I know it's a blurry picture, but that felt appropriate.

And the real winner was the morning after.
I had the nerve to step into the other room for all of two minutes to switch the laundry a whopping 23 hours after this boy was freed from the cast.

I came back in to find him waiting for me.
Up here.

I do believe he's recovering just fine.

Freedom!

Oh what a fabulous Tuesday morning.

Sam was strapped in for breakfast in his seat one last time.

Yep, he still liked it.

The morning went on as usual and he went down for a nap.
Until this lovely message showed up on my phone and I realized that I needed to wake him him and head out!  Hallelujah!

The boy didn't appreciate being woken up.

He got strapped up into the big car seat and we were off!

(thankfully he cheered up quickly)

I have to admit, I was so nervous.  I had this fear that we'd get to the appointment, do the x-rays, and have the dr tell us "sorry, it hasn't healed as well as we'd hoped, he's going to need to stay in the cast".

Boy that would have been frustrating.

Not the end of the world obviously, but we've all been so excited for it to come off that it would have been hard to hear.

Thankfully that wasn't an issue.

Lincoln tagged along-which worked out great, because he is good enough with the camera that he was able to get some pictures for me.  He insisted on wearing his green striped shirt so he could match Sam.
They spent a few minutes hanging out-Sam scurrying around sideways as he has become so good at over the past month and a half.

First up was x-rays, which Sam hates, especially because I have to hand him off to a stranger and wait outside.  No fun.
Though you can still clearly see where the break is, the ortho was thrilled with the healing, said it looks as great as we could have possibly hoped for!  Yes!!

And then it was time.

I worried about how Sam would do with the saw.  When I laid him down on the table and he started freaking out, I worried even more.

First-the bar came off.

Turns out he wasn't bothered by the saw, he just didn't want to lay down.

No, the phone is not a toy, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  He was fine and dandy after that.  And he only made one phone call-to Aaron, so it was ok.

Cutting and rotating,

then a little more cutting and rotating....

And then...off it came!

Yes, it was pretty gross looking in there.
The good news is that it didn't smell anywhere near as bad as I expected!
I was terrified that a couple of diaper leaks may have left, um, grossness where I just couldn't reach down inside the cast to appropriately clean things up.  But our efforts were worth it and there were no nasty surprises!  One little tiny red spot on his left hip, about the size of a quarter, where his skin was irritated, but that's it!  There is a bunch of skin that has built up on the left leg that will probably take a couple of days to slough off, but everything under the cast was so much better than I expected to see.

Lincoln had to try it on for size

and kept the bar to bring home to show the kids.  And to use as a sword.

Freedom!
Sam felt so tiny after getting that thing off, not to mention so much lighter.

Getting back into the car for one last ride home in the big seat.
His legs of course automatically straddled back to where they have been for so long.

You can see the flaky skin here

 He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself when I put him on my bed.  

 The dr mentioned that it might be a week-or longer-before he is back up and around, feeling confident and strong enough to try walking again and to really feel comfortable without having that cast surrounding his entire lower half.

It didn't occur to me that sitting would be scary to him until I tried to sit him up.  Any time he'd been "sitting" since this thing has been on, he's really only been propped in an upright position-he hasn't been able to bend at the waist for a long time.

 He obviously wasn't thrilled at the idea in the beginning.
 He wouldn't even try to sit in the tub, he just laid down in the water.  But my goodness, he was SO happy to be in the water!

One very long bath later, he smells fabulous, is much happier, and even gave sitting up a try for a minute.

The end is near!

And to celebrate, we had a cast decorating party. 

I know, probably mean of me to have not let the kids do this weeks ago, but honestly I had forgotten about doing it and no one had mentioned anything till this past weekend when we were talking about the cast coming off so soon.  

(no his diaper isn't full, just falling out) 

Baby girl has a name now, so she signed too.

Yep, keeping it under wraps till she arrives.

And of course, some of the marker ended up on my shirt.  Still not sure why I ever wear white.

Tomorrow, the cast comes OFF!!!