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).

Shower at 36 weeks, Ultrasound at 37

I had a shower on August 19th that my mom, sister, aunt and cousin organized for me and it was an absolute blast! Just look at the tasty treats they served up! And check it out--what do you think? Most adorable toothpicks ever? Yes, I think so. It was amazing, and the entire table scape was so cute and fun. Aunt Sara and Bridget made delicious little cucumber sandwiches, and there was a delicious punch made from pineapple juice, almond extract and other yummy additions. Here are a couple of shots of the table:

Here is a pic of the wonderful swing that came from Andi and Paul Dwyer:


I am positive that it will be put to good use! Most parents I know say that the swing helped them calm and sooth their babies a ton, and helped them keep the babe occupied while they worked on other projects.

So I was 36 weeks at the shower, and here is a belly shot from a week later, at 37 weeks:

I feel happy and healthy and so does the baby, who is still hovering around the 90th percentile for size. We got an ultrasound done half-way through our 37th week. The pictures of this sonigram are much blurrier than our earlier shots, but here's a profile picture from the ultrasound:

Still busy and big at 36 weeks

We've been pretty busy the last few weeks, and while it's been a ton of fun, I think that it's finally time to slow down. Two weeks ago (I was at 34 weeks) we went camping over the weekend and met our friends Jesse & Crystal in Sequim. We shared a campsite, had a ton of fun, got "rained" on (which wasn't actually rain, but dew falling from the big trees we were under), and picked blueberries the next morning. We picked over 21 pounds of berries in under an hour! It was good fun, and THANK GOODNESS for our Aero Bed. It was the only reason I was able to camp, and made things a lot more comfortable. That, and the fact that Jesse & Crystal picked a site directly adjacent to the bathrooms :). Here's a quick snapshot of our site:
The next weekend, (this last weekend), we drove down to Portland on Sunday afternoon and I stayed the night down there with Luke. He had training at the Honda Training facility in Gresham, OR. While we were there we got to kick around downtown Portland and meet up with my good friends Matt & M'Lissa who live down that way. It was great to see them, and scare them with my pregnant belly and new haircut. I got to spend some time with M'Lissa on Monday, and then drove back up to Tacoma in time for my final childbirth class. Mom came down to come to the class with me, as Luke was still in OR. We covered postpartum care and briefly covered some newborn care. You should have seen me swaddle. Let's just say that I found my own technique. Here I am at a small park we found in Portland. It was near the restaurant we ate at with the Tabors, and it was made from reclaimed industrial land. It was a peaceful little oasis in the city, so we thought it would be a good place for our belly-shot:

Jammin at 33 weeks

Last weekend we went out to Graymarsh Farms in Sequim, WA (pronounced "squim") to pick raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. It was a nice day trip, and we came home with some beautiful strawberries and raspberries for making jam. I don't really recommend going for a full day of berry picking at 33 weeks pregnant...but if you have to, do what I did: leave the squatting for strawberries to your husband after about 15 minutes of effort and move on to arm's-height berries like raspberries. Also, blueberries really are the perfect berry to pick; their ripeness is easily detected, they do not grow thorns on their bushes, the bees generally leave them alone, and they stand at about 3-5 feet in height, meaning that they won't break your back reaching for them. There didn't happen to be too many that were ripe enough to pick on this trip, but we're hoping to get back out there in a week or two to try again. Here I am back at the ranch prepping the strawberries for the blender. Normally I insist on "driving" the blender, but strawberry prep can be done while sitting down, so it won me over. I just like "shifting gears" from "stir" to "liquefy". I usually downshift back down before I can feel right about pushing "off". Luke makes fun of me for this, but he is after all the man who pretends to shift while driving our Volvo (automatic transmission). I say, let each one find a way to shift in the way they are comfortable! I'm now going to attempt to shift my growing body and bottom out of this glider and get into bed...thanks for reading and more pictures soon!

32 week belly pics

Here I am at 32 weeks. Please excuse the tired circles under my eyes and the rumpled hair...it was hot and I had just gotten up from a nap. Luke suggested that I update the blog, and I agreed to at least take a couple more belly pics. I'm measuring at 33 inches, which is pretty much right on track for being 32 weeks along. It's the same measurement as two weeks ago at my last appointment, so my growth seems to be tapering out a bit (but not the baby's!). The books tell me that the baby is now somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds, and measures out between 16 and 19 inches from head to toe. It sounds huge to me, but judging from the amount of activity that I feel on a regular basis, I think it's still got plenty of room to move and stretch.