There's nothing worse...

Greetings dedicated blog readers. It's been a while and I feel like we've neglected you all out there so I wanted to take a minute to update you on the happenings of the little one.

Meet Glen...or is it Glenda? Or maybe Gary?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new favorite item in the world of Baby Blakely. Here's the story of the one piece of baby equipment we won't leave overnight without.

I know I'm a father when...

I know I’m a father…

One Month Old!

It seems impossible that Noah is one month old today!  Where in the world has the time gone?  It has been an amazing, overwhelming and wonderful month. 

This is why I love #longwoodu

Blurry 2 weeks

Many of you have asked whether or not the blog would continue now that our wonderful BB has been born. Although BB can now be known by his given name of Noah Benjamin, we will still continue to blog about the adventures of our little baby Blakely.

Noah's Birth Story

Here's a long post for you all!  I've tried to keep it fairly PG, but let's face it...labor and birth are just sort of gross in general...beautiful and a miracle, but gross none the less.  You have been warned!

May I Introduce...

Noah Benjamin Blakely

August 25, 2012

10:01 AM

9 pounds 1.6 ounces

21 inches long

3 Weeks and Counting

Baby Blakely is predicted to make an entrance into this world just 3 short weeks from today!  We went to the doctor yesterday and got a great check-up again.  Contractions have picked up some which have apparently been effective, because I am now at 2 cm dilated.  BB's head has gotten even lower which is making me even more uncomfortable.  But, Dr. Lucas is happy with the progress and still expects we will be right around our due date.  We received more great news that I am negative for the Strep B test, so no IV with antibiotics during labor and delivery for me!

Lions, and chicks, and games...oh my

             As you all know, this is a blog about our adventures on the way to parenthood. Occasionally, we go a bit off-topic to talk about some things that seem relevant or poignant at the time. Well, strap in folks…here we go again.

Get low!

Baby Blakely decided to get low this past Friday!  I went into work and various people throughout the day said..."Oh my, that baby has dropped!"  BB has officially moved her/his way down into my pelvis which results in fun little sharp pains every now and then as BB's head jams into my nerves and bones.  But, it's also a great sign of progress and lets me know the end is in sight!

For all you betting types out there

Lots of folks have been speculating about the sex of the baby as well as possible names to go along with their guesses. We've taken this as a sign that you all would like to begin a friendly competition to see who can make the best guesses about our impending bundle of joy. Fortunately, as with most things these days, there's a website that will track everything for us. Enter your guesses at the official Baby Blakely Baby Pool here:Baby Blakely Official Pool

A prize will be given to the winner!

The cuteness is overwhelming!

As many of you all know, we've been in the process of moving for about a month now. In that process, we began setting up the nursery/baby room. You see, we knew that we were going to need a baby room in the old apartment but we also knew that we were going be moving so...no sense in getting stuff set up. For a while there, the whole moving thing was a bit of a secret squirrel operation so many people were confused as to why we were being negligent parents-to-be by not setting up the baby room.

Our Big Weekend & More

Last weekend was a big weekend for our soon to be family of three!  On Friday June 22nd I headed over to Roanoke for the 2012 Virginia Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.  On Saturday, a bunch of family arrived in Roanoke as well.  We met up for dinner at a delicious restaurant before heading over to the Roanoke Civic Center for the "Service for the Ordering of Ministry."  This is the worship service where I was commissioned as a provisional Deacon in The United Methodist Church and officially became Reverend Lyndsie Nicole Kidd Blakely!!  Josh and Sylvia (my pastor) arrived just in time for the service after being at a wedding back in Farmville earlier that evening.  It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate with friends and family.  I'm so blessed to have a family that supports me in my calling to ministry!  Thank you to all who were able to be present with me at the service and for all those who have prayed for me throughout this journey.  It means so much to have your support!  And thankfully, my alb still fit over my BB bump...it's getting pretty tight though!

We're having a...cat?

I promise everyone that this post will, eventually, be about our impending bundle of joy. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, on to the good stuff.

30 Week Update

Wow how time has flown!  Tomorrow I will be 30 weeks along.  Only 10 more weeks to go!  Lots has happened in the life of Baby Blakely since I last wrote.

A Quilt for BB

My sewing adventures really began a few years ago when I told Nanny (my grandma) that what I wanted for Christmas was for her to teach me how to sew.  So for Christmas, she found my great-grandmother's old Singer sewing machine in the attic and had it cleaned and serviced.  Then she gave me a lesson on the basics of sewing!  My first project was sewing a throw pillow for my room while I was at Duke Divinity School.  After that, I was so busy with school, work and planning a wedding that I didn't do much with it.  Not to mention, I didn't have a good space to set up the sewing machine and a "project space".

BB Meets Baby Sophie

My step-sister, Amber, had her second precious baby girl last Thursday, May 10th!  Since Josh and I were headed out of town for the weekend for Daniel's graduation from CNU, we didn't get a chance to meet baby Sophie right away.  Then, of course, Josh flew out of Norfolk to head to Yellowstone National Park on Sunday so he won't even be back until next Wednesday.  So, yesterday I had the chance to go visit Amber, Kaylynn and Sophie right after work!  She is absolutely adorable and a pretty content little thing! While I was holding her, BB decided to kick at her a little.  I guess BB was excited to meet cousin Sophie.

BB's Trip to the Zoo!

As Josh mentioned, we had the chance to head to Richmond two Saturdays ago to not only run some errands and finish registering for BB, but to go on our April date in my year of dates gift I gave him for Christmas.  April's date was a trip to the Richmond Zoo!!  It's some place we have always wanted to go, but never carved out the time.  I was SUPER excited about feeding the giraffes.  What a great little zoo it is!  We had a blast seeing all the animals and especially reading all the educational material about almost every animal we saw...but that's pretty typical of us.  Since BB can hear now, this was BB's first encounter with animal noises besides dogs!  We hope BB enjoys animals as much as we do.  Enjoy the pictures and videos from BB's first trip to the zoo!

The scanner tried to eat my baby!

I've been meaning to get these pictures online for some time. Imagine my surprise when I went to scan them and the picture didn't pop out the other side as they were supposed to. I found little BB (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) wrapped around the spindle in the machine.

Enjoy the photos. Sorry they are a bit grainy.

Vacation

A while back, Josh and I were looking at the calendar trying to figure out when we could take a vacation before BB's big entrance into the world.  Things weren't looking so great.  Our summer is already packed with weddings and work obligations that take both time and money.  I was trying to be okay with the fact that we might just get to take a few day trips here and there and that's about it.  Then, we received an awesome message from our friends John and Loletuth who are both pastors in Kentucky.  They wanted to rent a house in the mountains in Gatlinburg and invited several of our Duke friends to join them the week after Easter!  What a HUGE blessing!  Josh and I were both feeling pretty stressed and tired from work and as we looked at our calendars, the week after Easter was a pretty good time for both of us to take off from work.  We had a great week catching up with friends, playing games, walking around Gatlinburg, visiting the Smoky Mountain National Park, and (for everyone else) relaxing in the hot tub.  Instead of the hot tub, I took a bath which I haven't been able to do in a while since we don't have a tub at home.  It was a wonderful and relaxing trip, and I am so thankful to have gotten some time away.

The beautiful house high in the mountains.

The crazy world of baby products

This weekend, the Mrs. and I carved out some time on Saturday for our monthly pre-planned date time (see the BB's Big Night Out entry) and decided to finish up our baby registry process while near Richmond. We had already visited with the good folks at Target to set up an initial baby registry and knew that we wanted to supplement that with a registry at a local shop in downtown Richmond called Franklin Goose (website here). We also thought we might set up a registry at BabiesRUs as well (more on that later).

BB's First Hospital Visit

On Good Friday, April 6th, we had our first visit to the hospital.  I have my regular monthly appointments at the Health Center for Women and Families here in town.  However, for our big ultrasound they sent us over to the hospital, because they have the big fancy machines.  Eventually, the health center will transfer me over to the hospital full time since they don't do deliveries in their office.  BB was breached again (not a big deal this early on) but was wiggling all over the place!  It's crazy that I can't feel all that movement yet.  I'm sure it's coming soon, though.  We got some great pictures of BB's profile (though the direct on pictures of BB's face are a little creepy and skeleton-like) and BB's arms, legs, hands and feet!  BB's feet were all the way up at my belly button.  The nurse spent time measuring all sorts of things like BB's brain, spine, heart, etc.  It was really neat.  We could even see the four individual chambers of the heart pumping away!   It's so fascinating that they can get such a detailed image.  It took her a while to get through all the various measurements she needed to do which offered lots of baby viewing time for us!  And yes, BB cooperated even though breached and we were able to find out whether we are having a baby girl or boy!  But sorry, we are still keeping that a surprise for the rest of you!  Start thinking about placing your bets.  Only a little over 4 months to go!  After our Good Friday service at church, we broke tradition and celebrated a little by going out and buying BB's first outfit.  It is just plain stinkin' cute and so tiny!  We were able to find a couple other gender neutral outfits on clearance at the outlets in Gatlinburg on vacation...but I will tell you about vacation another day in another post.  For now, it's time to get some things done around the house and make dinner in order to come back up to church to lead a dessert and discussion on "The Hunger Games" with my co-worker Mandy!  Maybe I will have some time at my Christian Educators Fellowship retreat this week to write an update about our vacation.  Until then, I hope you get to enjoy this beautiful weather we are having!

Watermelon

So I have been craving watermelon for about 3 or 4 weeks now!  I've been hesitant to get any, however, because usually most of what you can find right now isn't good since watermelon is not in season.  Last night, though, Josh and I did our grocery shopping for the week and Kroger had the little sugar baby seedless watermelons.  It had gotten to the point where I didn't care if I was disappointed in the flavor.  I just had to have one.  As soon as we got home and put away the groceries, I cut into that sucker and proceeded to eat the entire thing!  While not the best watermelon I've ever had, it was pretty darn good!  And even though I ate the whole thing...I still want more.  I have a feeling I'm going to be eating a lot of watermelon this summer.

"How is it with your soul?"

Early on in the pregnancy process, the Mrs. and I were so excited to be pregnant but were unable to share it with anyone. We had decided to not share with others that we were pregnant until closer to the 12^th week in an attempt to get out of the high-risk time. All of our nervous excitement had to go somewhere, though, so we found ourselves sneaking into a bookstore to buy a book about our new condition. Since Lynds and I are both something of bibliophiles, we decided to limit ourselves and only buy one book to read each. Lyndsie, of course, settled on the classic, “What To Expect When You’re Expecting.” I went for a less conventional choice with, “Dude, You’re Gonna Be A Dad!”

With section titles like, “I saw the sign and it opened up her cervix”, it took me less than a week to read it cover to cover. Somewhere in there, and the direct quote escapes me, the author, John Pfeiffer, talks about fathers-to-be coming to terms with their own mortality. It seems the impending arrival of the next generation has a tendency to make fathers think about the fact that they are getting older themselves. Add onto this the fact that I’ve inadvertently picked up three or four fiction books recently that deal with the theme of death and I’ve been in for some serious introspection.

The things people say (and do)

This pregnancy thing has really opened my eyes to some of the common things that people say and do. It seems that there are some standard things that are said to people or done around them as they go throughout their pregnancy; I had no idea!

To preempt what I know is inevitable at the conclusion of this post, this shouldn’t prompt apologies or changes in people’s behavior. These are simply my observations of the experience so far and they certainly aren’t negative (mostly).

Railroad Tracks & a Taste of Spring

Yesterday Josh and I went for BB's 4 month appointment!  Tomorrow I will be 16 weeks along.  I can't believe we are getting close to being half way through already.  I mentioned to Sharon (our nurser practitioner) that my lower back has been hurting, especially when I lay on my back (which I like to do when I'm reading in bed or watching tv on the couch).  She looked at my charts and said "Well, I can't get on you for gaining weight too quickly, because you are doing great with only gaining 3 pounds since the beginning of your pregnancy so far."  That was good to hear, because with how much BB is already sticking out, I was nervous that I was gaining too quickly.  Apparently, though, my weight is just redistributing itself right to my stomach.  She advised me to stack a few pillows under my knees when I'm lying on my back and gave me some exercises to do to stretch out my lower back and loosen my hips some.

The Rev!

Wow!  Yesterday around 4pm, I got a call from my "shepherd" with the Board of Ordained Ministry that I am being recommended by the board to be commissioned!  I got to celebrate with dinner at El Patron with Jen R., Patti, Dave, Matt and Brittney while also celebrating Brittney passing her exams and becoming a Registered Nurse!  After handbell practice and choir practice, Josh and I celebrated with dessert at Sweet Frog since he had his staff meeting during dinner!

For those of you who don't know The United Methodist Church's ordination process....it is long and grueling.  And while the BOOM (board of ordained ministry) works every year to tweak the process in hopes of making it more of a supportive and pastoral process, it still remains daunting simply because of what it is.  If you stay right on track with everything, it is a 7 year process to full ordination.  Since I switched from the North Carolina Conference to the Virginia Conference, I am about a year or two behind in the process.  Ultimately, that is okay for me, because I am on the deacon track which requires me to find my own job position rather than those on the elder track who are appointed to a church once they are commissioned.  So, after writing four huge papers, creating a DVD of myself proclaiming the word in various ministry settings, filling out various other forms and applications, then surviving four interviews which were forty-five minutes each with fifteen minute breaks in between on Monday, I got my call yesterday with the official word.  On June 23rd at Annual Conference in Roanoke, VA I will be commissioned as a provisional Deacon in The United Methodist Church.  And while I will not be able to wear a stole yet and will not be fully ordained (another 3 years of papers and interviews until that step), I will officially be The Reverend Lyndsie Nicole Kidd Blakely!  BB will be large and in charge up there on stage with me.  Let's just hope my alb fits over my baby bump!

Today, I became THAT dad

Well, it has happened already. You might rightly wonder what it is that has happened. Allow me to paint a picture to illustrate the event:

13 Weeks

The night we went to the Lion King (February 22nd) was the 13 week mark!  This picture of the BB bump was taken the day after!  I can't believe how big the bump is getting already.  Sorry for the not so great quality.  The picture was taken with Josh's iPad.

BB's Big Night Out

As Lyndsie mentioned in an earlier post, for Christmas she pre-planned a date for every month this year. The awesome thing about this little gift is that it allows us to continue to do fun things AND they have already been paid for. How thoughtful!

Our date for February was to go see the Lion King on Broadway (in Richmond) at the Landmark Theater. I was pretty excited about the trip as I've heard multiple times about the amazing costumes and staging. Although I had heard about these amazing things, seeing them in person was something else entirely. It was nothing short of astounding. I audibly gasped at several scenes because of the sheer awesomeness that was the costuming.

My baby has hands!

This week we returned to the doctor for a check-up. BB's mom has been having sinus issues so she hasn't been feeling well. We were hoping the doctor would be able to give her some stronger medicine to knock out the sinus issues and prevent further sickness while making sure BB was still doing well.

The doctor's office was not very crowded which was very exciting. There's nothing worse than feeling like you are being rushed through when you have important medical questions. The doctor immediately decided that Mommy needed an antibiotic for the sinus infection and impending ear infection. Fortunately, it turns out pregnant women can take certain antibiotics without issue so we excitedly snatched up the offer of a prescription. Now on to the good part: baby talk!

9 Weeks Tomorrow!

1/24/12

            Josh has already written an entry about our second doctor’s appointment, but I wanted to make sure I recorded my reactions as well for later reflection.  Wow!  What an amazing appointment. 

A little check-up for BB

This week was the fated first (technically 2nd) doctor's appointment after finding out that BB would be coming into our lives. I don't know about Mama but I was definitely nervous. Although we had confirmed the pregnancy a few times, I was terrified that the doctor would tell us we were crazy. It turns out we may be a little nutty but we're also still pregnant.

7 Weeks and 3 Days

1/14/12 

            Today I am 7 weeks and 3 days pregnant!  Sorry it has been a while since I wrote!

BB's First Family Photo

Note: This is the second post about the family photo extravaganza. Lucky you, you get to hear about it from multiple perspectives!

Merry Christmas, Baby Blakely!

12/27/11 

            Well in the worry of my car being on the fritz, Josh and I decided it best to try to figure out some new options.  Since we can both walk to work, we really only need one car between the two of us.  The plan when we got married was to only have one car.  However, 6 months before our wedding I was the victim of a hit and run which totaled my car.  There was no good solution to me needing a car for my last 6 months in Durham other than buying a new one.  I had always wanted a hybrid and found a used Honda Civic Hybrid within my price point.  I paid in full for it, and must admit I am sad to see it go.  What a great little car.  I was averaging around 45 miles per gallon with Sid the Civic!  It was the perfect option for us to take on smaller trips to Richmond and Lynchburg rather than wasting the gas in the Jeep if we didn’t need the extra room that the Jeep provided.

May I introduce to you: Baby Blakely!

12/22/11

On Tuesday, December 20^th, 2011, I woke up at 7am, thirty minutes before my alarm was set to wake me up to get ready for work.  Josh had woken up in the middle of the night with a horrible stomachache and decided to sleep on the couch in the living room so he wouldn’t wake me up throughout the night.  I quietly went into the bathroom hoping I wouldn’t wake him since I knew he hadn’t gotten much sleep.  I pulled out the pregnancy test and followed the directions.  In a matter of a couple minutes, a faint blue line appeared in the “pregnant” spot!  Was it really there?  Had my eyes just not fully adjusted yet?  A smile spread across my face.  I walked into the living room holding the test and sat down next to Josh on the couch.  I kissed his forehead as he slowly woke up and I said, “Mister, I think we might be pregnant.”  He instantly smiled and said “What? Really? Really?” and looked at the test.  It was hard to believe, and since it was just a faint line, we didn’t want to get our hopes up too much.  Since Josh didn’t have work, I asked him to pick up another test so we could confirm later.

Staying up to date!

Hi Family & Friends!

Josh and I are creating this blog to keep you up to date on all things Baby Blakely (BB).  Since we do not have any family living in Farmville, this will be a way for us to share stories and pictures along the way!  We have been writing ever since we found out about BB, but obviously we did not want to publish this blog until the news was made public.  So, enjoy reading all our past entires as we publish them until we make it to present day news!  We look forward to sharing this journey with each of you.

Love,

Lyndsie