Claire Louise Thompson

She is here at last. She came on September 15, 2010 at 10:34 a.m, at St. Joseph Medical Center, weighing 10 lbs, 3.8 oz and measuring at 21" long. More on the birth and labor story later. For now I'm happy to report that it's been a bit day in the Thompson household, and a big day for Miss Claire-bear.

We've been getting to know her bit by bit, and today, we learned a very valuable lesson: she does not have to eat once an hour, that's silly. Mostly when she fusses once an hour, she just needs to be bounced, jiggled or rocked, and would prefer to have that accompanied by either a loud crashing train outside, a hairdryer running, static on the radio, or our obnoxiously loud dishwasher running. I've always hated this dishwasher, until today. It's been a rough go of it nursing-wise trying to sooth her by feeding once an hour (you can imagine what happens to my feeding anatomy under that kind of work schedule, so I'll remain decent and not go into detail about it). Now that we've learned some other techniques for soothing (and learned when we need to use them--thanks Mom), we are no longer dealing with both a crying Claire AND a crying mommy (me).

We had our first pediatrician appointment on Saturday morning (two days ago), which went splendidly. She weighed in at 9 lbs, 10 oz, which is a net loss of only 9 oz. She has no jaundice, and they let us go at the end of the appointment with absolutely no concerns for her. We go back on September 29th for Claire's 2 week physical and parenting class. We are really looking forward to the classes offered for free at Union Avenue Pediatrics, and have heard that it's a wonderful way to meet other families with babies the same age as our Claire.

She also had her first day with more quiet, alert wakefulness today. It was so fun to see her awake and calm looking all around and taking in her world. Her big blue eyes were tracking Luke across the kitchen as he put the dishes away, and would turn in my direction each time I spoke.

We also went on our first walk as a family. I'm not technically supposed to be doing any walking until my 2 week postpartum appointment, but it felt so good to get outside in the fresh air. We mainly stuck to the walk-way behind the building and did a loop around the Museum of Glass. We got a couple of great pictures by the glass sculpture, and Claire loved being outside, especially when we came back around the front of our building to head in and a long coal train came cruising by. They even spoiled her by blowing the horn nice and loud (she didn't even flinch!) I did okay with the walk, as my recovery is going well, and luckily, a stroller operates pretty much as a walker would, so I got the little extra support that I needed to make our jaunt enjoyable and pleasant. Still, I was feeling sore and a little winded (gasp!) by the time we were done, and I dream of the future when I'll be back to jogging again. I'd like to walk as a family in the 2010 Pierce County Hunger Walk (it's only a 5K), so I'm hoping that I'll be up to that by October 3rd. Seeing as how that is only a couple of weeks away, it could be a challenge--but it's good to set short-term goals, right? Right.

For now, my short-term goals for the rest of the day include: taking a nap (which will happen in about 3 minutes), eating a full meal tonight, paying the bills and FINALLY finding time to paint my toenails, which I haven't been able to do for myself in a couple of months.

Congratulations to us; here's to Claire Louise who has changed our lives and taught us so much already.

Labor Day Weekend

This was the most bizarre Labor Day weekend I think we've ever had. The weather was great, and we both had time off from work like usual, but we couldn't make any plans! That might not seem like much, but to Luke and I who don't normally do things "spontaneously" very often, it was kinda fun to just sleep in, wake up, and see what the days brought for us. It turned out to work rally well. We went to the Dwyer wedding on Friday night (planned, but we hadn't been sure if we would make it until the last minute), walked a bunch and watched movies on Saturday, I worked on Sunday morning (boy, are the people at Mount Cross surprised to see me every time I walk through the door!), Saw Ben and Sarah on Monday afternoon followed by my parents in the evening, and yesterday, my mom came down on her day off to hang out and help me pass the time with Waldorf salad and chick flicks. Whew! Needless to say we had an active and fun holiday weekend, but it was just a different feeling to not know what was coming next. I kind of liked it, and I probably should get used to it!

Still, through all of this, no baby came this Labor Day. Oh well. It was nice to have a long weekend for the two of us to share...kind of like a last retreat! The due date is tomorrow, and I really don't feel like I'll be having a baby tomorrow (because I still generally feel pretty good). I certainly don't mind the baby coming a little past-due, and I certainly trust my body to know what it's doing...but I'm a little wary of needing to be induced, so I find myself desiring to send the baby this message:
"Please Baby, if you are listening or reading this blog, I am begging you: come out soon. We'd all like to meet you--you seem like you've got a great personality from what we can tell, and your parents are so brilliant and funny that you must be at least interesting to talk to. I promise that we'll take care of you and we'll even let you scream at us for hours if that's what you'd like. (I'm guessing you will be more interested in eating though...)

Love, Mommy"

The light at the end of the tunnel...

Here I am at 38 weeks. The baby had begun to "drop" by this point, and I was starting to be able to breath and eat again in relatively comfortable fashion. Mom and Dad Boye came down for a visit and we all agreed that I needed to take another profile shot to show off this impressive tummy.


We are getting extremely eager to have the baby, and are keeping our spirits up by staying busy mixed with intervals of rest and fun. This weekend (Labor day weekend), we were able to make it to a wedding of some very close family friends that we would have never thought we could make it to. Here's some photos from the photo booth they had set up at the reception. We all agreed that these are the most fun and hilarious photo booth pictures that we'd ever seen!

It was so great to be able to be at Chris and Michelle's wedding, and we had a ton of fun. The buffet at the reception was spicy thai food, and we thought that might do the trick, but alas, no such luck. Maybe if I had eaten, and then gotten onto the dance floor we might have seen some action, but most likely that would have just ended in indigestion. So, I didn't dance at the wedding, but it was a great time, and a great party with amazing people. I'm glad that we went, even though I kind of felt crazy being there at almost 40 weeks pregnant. I was so tired by the time we finished eating, and had to fight it to stay awake during the toasts, but we made it through and then made it safely home. The memories are priceless and it was totally worth it.

At this point I'm starting to think that the baby might never decide to join us. I know it sounds crazy, but you do definitely get to a point where you start thinking that you're just going to be pregnant for the rest of your life. Hopefully that's not going to be the case (we're 99% sure anyways!) All of our friends and family have been so wonderful and supportive-and that is really helping to keep us going. Last week was Luke's first week of school, so it actually did work out well that the baby didn't come last week. Also, several of our friends that we would want to tell right away were out of town this weekend due to the holiday. SO...the point is this (Baby): it is now officially a great time to be born into this world. Every night Luke encourages the baby to "move to the light at the end of the tunnel" and I'm sure that very soon the baby will start to listen to him. (And we all know that that might be the last time the baby listens to us ever again).