The Assessment

In the Maternal Assessment room waiting for evaluation. Nurse = Sue

The Arrival

As we arrived, I dropped Stacy off a the Emergency Room entrance. I had a great opportunity to wish her "Good Luck" and pretend to drive off (actually went to park the van). It was still fun to see the reaction of all the onlookers.

Once inside, Stacy amazed everyone as she denied any form of assistance. She was offered wheelchairs and help up to the 2nd floor -- all of which she turned down. "Are you sure honey?" My super-human rockstar wife!

Getting all our ducks in a row.

Called the nurse line a second time. Apparently there was a misunderstanding as the nurse claims she told us to go "right away" to the hospital. Instead we were just hanging around at home waiting for her to call us back. So we are packing up the van and heading out. Still no contractions.

Empty house

Dogs and kids are off to Camp Mickelson.

Getting a professional opinion

Still no contractions. We decided to call the nurse line. She advised us to prepare, so we have called Margie and Arnie to come get the kids. They are on their way.

Breaking the news.

Told Tyler and Sydney -- They are both very excited. Of course they expect the baby to just appear out of mommy's tummy at any moment (wouldn't that be nice).

The day begins...

Stacy and I are up and showered. Tyler is up and singing in bed. (a.k.a. "Being quiet")

Whoops! What was that?

Stacy slept on the couch in the back room last night. Got up to go upstairs to sleep a few more hours in bed and her water broke! Very surprised!! No contractions, so we decided to go back to sleep and get a few more hours of sleep.

We're Waiting...

37 1/2 weeks.  I'm ready.  The kids and Andy are ready.  The house is ready (kind of!)  I guess the baby isn't ready yet.

I had an appointment today with my midwife and apparently there really is no progress to speak of, so we will have to be patient.

I still have a few items on my pre arrival to-do list, so I'm going to try to get through them.  For instance, perhaps I should try to fill in Sydney and Tyler's baby scrapbooks before I get their details confused with #3!

I guess the good news of still being pregnant is that I was able to get my H1N1 vaccine today.  Although pregnancy brain almost led me to miss it.  At 5:30 p.m. we were getting ready to get out to dinner when I realized that I had my appointment at 5:20 p.m.  Oops.  I quick called and they told me to just come in.  No one cared, or even seemed to notice for that matter.  Thank goodness!  The twins have theirs scheduled for this Friday, so let's hope that I remember theirs. :)

Doctor Tyler and Doctor Sydney at your service.

Tyler and Sydney came with to Stacy's Week 36 appointment. It was their first time meeting Deb our midwife. While Tyler was more interested in his High-Five Magazine`, true to form Sydney was right up at the examine table on a stool to help Deb with her "examination".

Deb was great at involving Sydney -- she had her hold the monitor and help locate the heartbeat. It was the first time that they were able to hear the baby's heart beat on the hand-held fetal heart rate doppler. Even Tyler broke away from his magazine to listen. It was fun watching them and to give them another experience to prepare them for the coming baby.

Hospital Decision Made Easy

So, after procrastinating for several months, I finally called the Abbott and Southdale hospitals to find out how much our hospital bill is likely to be at either one.  After finding out the amounts, the decision to choose Southdale seems like a no brainer:

Abbott

Estimate Total - $6039

My Responsibility (20%) - $1207

Southdale

Estimate Total - $4675

My Responsibility (10%) - $467.50

It stinks that I won't be able to have my midwife as involved as I wanted, but she can still be at Southdale to support us during labor.  Besides Southdale Fairview is where I was born and it is only about 5 minutes away from our house, plus no worries about construction like the routes to Abbott.

Baby Names - One Step Closer

Andy and I finally sat down and rated the list of baby names that we have compiled.  We also had to do this with Sydney and Tyler since we can't seem to whole heartedly agree with each other.


The following are our top name picks, although we still haven't actually decided on the official name(s) yet.


Boy Names:
Kai
Kyle
Trey
Aidan

Girl Names:
Tiegan (Teagan)
Avery
Keegan
Kaitlyn