Life changes tomorrow.

Well I am a week over my due date and still no baby so I am being induced at 8:00am tomorrow morning. It is a cervadil induction so I expect that I will be sent home, and then who knows how long it will take me to go into labor and then how long labor will take on top of that. But one thing I know for sure:

I AM GOING TO MEET MY BABY THIS WEEKEND!!! YAY!

Its been a long wait and I really cannot believe that it is finally here. I really cannot comprehend that I will be bringing a baby home. That I will be a mom. That there really is a living, breathing human being inside of me that will come out this weekend. Its just so surreal.

I am nervous for labor. Because my body hasn't really "worked" like it is supposed to work thus far, I worry that maybe it wont perform when it comes time to get this baby out. Man, I hope I don't have to have a c-section. Being so small, I worry about that. But, so long as baby is healthy, then I am happy.

I have been having contractions.....no, not braxton hicks contractions, but REAL and INTENSE contractions for quite some time now. As I type this I am getting them about once every 10 minutes. But nothing is happening!!! They just aren't getting closer together. Oh well, hopefully they will have prepared me somewhat for labor.

Anywho, I am off to get my last minute preparations out of the way.

Next post: meet my baby!!!

Tour my house: Part IV.......the nursery!

Well, as the countdown/wait continues, I thought I would share pictures of the nursery. Its completely done and just waiting for a little baby to arrive.

So here it is looking in from the door (so hard to get pics of small rooms):

Her little blessing dress from Mexico:

Modge-podged these plates for a cute little plate wall:

Made the mobile:

Quilt and all bedding made by my mom and sister - thanks guys!:

Crib Skirt:

Crib sheet:

Recovered the rocking chair and ottoman:

I has this little side table that is hand painted on the top, but the colors did not go with the nursery. I couldn't bring myself to paint over it so instead I just covered it with scrapbooking paper:

Here is a close up of what we did on the walls. I really am not a fan of just painting a wall one flat color - I need more interest and depth. So I decided I wanted to do 5 foot board and batton style paneling and on top of that wallpaper. However, wallpaper is expensive and I could not find one that met what I was looking for, so instead I made a stencil and PAINSTAKINGLY stenciled the entire room. It only took me about a month........

And this is a closer view of the board and batton paneling. I LOVE it - I want to cover my entire house in it:

So that's it! Now all we need is the baby to use it! 3 days and counting. I have a feeling I will be late though - if that's the case then my induction date is Feb 4th. Ugh, that feels like an eternity away!

Any tips to get labor moving?

Insomnia.

It's 5:30 AM and I have watched the past 3 hours tick by on my bedside clock. Can't sleep.

Could be the INTENSE braxton hicks that I have been having - like hard to breathe through intense. Or the fact that I am so very, very uncomfortable. Or my ever-impending role of Mom that is very quickly coming towards me.

All I do at night, as my husband blissfully snores sound asleep beside me, is think. I think about this baby inside me and what she will look like. Will she resemble Dylan or I, or a good mix of the two of us. Will she be a 'good' baby or a fussy one. Will my water break at church, shopping, in bed, on the couch, or will it break at all. What will going through labor be like. What will it be like when I see my baby for the first time.

But mostly I think about all the hopes and dreams I have for her. I think about who she will become - the goal of the child I want to raise, the obstacles facing that, and how to get her there. Dman and I were discussing the attributes that we would hope this little gal would have at 18 - how we would classify ourselves as being "successful" parents. We came up with Faithful, Virtuous, and Smart. At times, like tonight, the daunting task of getting her there overwhelms me. I know, raising a child does not happen overnight. I do not have to have any of this figured out right now, and I will learn as I go, but that doesn't take away from the huge responsibility that being a parent is - I am scared.

In my formative university days I used to watch Dr. Phil. Now I think he is a joke and wouldn't watch his show if you made me. But that is besides the point. The point is that he has a saying that has always stuck in my head - "The word Parent is not an adjective, it is a verb". Yup, a verb. An ACTION word. Actions that I will take that will forms this child's personality and inevitable future. Yikes.

The litany of jargon on "how-to" parent is, in the small sense of the word, overwhelming. Have you ever been to chapters and tried to go through the parenting section? Do you have a year?

But I guess that brings up the point that Dman and I always end our "how the heck are we going to raise this child" conversations with - thank goodness we have have spirit to guide us along our journey as parents. Really, I can read up all I want on sleep schedules, discipline tactics, and eating habits, but in the end, if I am in-tune enough with the spirit, I will know what to do. Who says He can't be the one to confirm to me that my baby isn't gassy, she just needs cuddles? I think he can and will.

Anyway, just thought I would put a pen to paper (in a manner of speaking) on my thoughts. I will probably look back in years to come when I have a brood running around, and figure out that no one really has it figured out, and laugh at my nervous self. But for now, I will probably go back to bed and keep on pondering. That is after I down a bottle of TUMS for this wicked acid-reflux!

Tour my house: Part III

It's been crazy around here at casa Karch lately what with Christmas and the 3 week impending birth of our baby girl!! Oh my how time flies. I cannot believe it is almost here. At the same time, I am ready to have her out TODAY!! I am so, extraordinarily uncomfortable!! I am trying everything on the list to get something started as my OB predicts that I am going to be late!! ARRRG!

Christmas around here was great. Just time spent with family and eachother. And of course, preparations for baby. The nursery is DONE....just waiting for my sister to finish making the quilt and then I will share pictures. The only things left to do is to pack my hospital bag and make some freezer meals.

Anyway, I thought I would move on in the house tour to the main floor bathroom. Now, I failed to take before pictures of this room and I am so mad at myself for not because seriously, this room was B-A-D. Such an eyesore. Just picture the same cabinets as the kitchen, a really tiny, ugly clip-on mirror, and HORRIBLE fixtures. Oh, and a hole in the ceiling that had half-heartedly been covered up with a piece of wood. Got the idea? Okay, then here it is now:



(Do ignore me in this picture - a small bathroom meant inevitability of me in the mirror)














The rundown of reno's includes:

-Ripped out the old vanity, counter top, sink and fixtures, and replaced it with a new espresso vanity, granite counter, trough sink, and my favorite, the waterfall tap.

-Painted horizontal stripes on the wall. All I did was take the original paint on the walls (the taupe) and mix in some white, to get a lighter cream version of the taupe. You can't tell because it is very hard to take pics of a small bathroom, but the stripes ended up making the VERY small bathroom look a lot bigger.

-New lighting fixture - giant improvement on the Hollywood lighting that came with the house.

-New mirror to replace the 1 x 2 clip on mirror.

-Tiled backsplash that cost about $10. I just bought some inexpensive ceramic subway tiles from Home Depot and used the leftover glass/marble mosaic from the kitchen to create some visual interest.

That's about it. Probably the easiest reno of them all, but it created a big impact.

Next up.........the NURSERY!!

Tour my house: Part II

It has been a while since I posted , so I thought I should get something up here! I have no festive ideas to share, so I thought why not continue with the house.

Next up is the kitchen. There are still a few things that aren't quite right, (like I want to add a dark brown bamboo blind as opposed to the white to warm up the space a bit) but I will get to those.

Here is the kitchen before renos (note: new appliances had been added cause there weren't any when we moved in, and the handles on the cabinets had been changed):









And here is the after:


















This breakfast bar and cabinets are new. Nothing existed on these walls before, which in a small house was a huge waste of space I thought.






So, all in all we:

-Painted the cabinets
-Installed new counter tops
-Installed new cabinets and a breakfast bar on the opposite wall of the existing cabinets
-Painted the walls
-Dman built out a bulkhead and installed a pantry door instead of that nasty plastic accordian door that came with the house
-Installed new light fixtures
-Installed a counter to ceiling glass mosaic and marble backsplash

I would have LOVED to have continued the hardwood floors into the kitchen, but alas, our budget did not allow for that. We may tile somewhere way down the road, but who knows.

It was ALOT of work, but well worth the result I think.

30 weeks!

Woohoo only 10 more to go!!! I set up my Christmas tree last week cause I am intense like that, so here is my 30 week pic in front of the tree:




k, now here is my 30 week question: I have been having ALOT of braxton hicks contractions - like one every 20ish minutes. And last night I was actually having them every 5 - 10 minutes. But then I drank lots of water and lied down and I was fine. But always every 20 minutes for about a week now.

Is this normal? Anyone else experienced this?

Leah xoxo

It's been a while....I have to post something!

Some pictorials of my adorably cute extended family over on the photography blog.