Progress!

So, we are still just one centimeter dialated but I am 50% effaced which means, bascially, that I am progressing. Better than 0%, I guess! Ella's official debut is tomorrow but Dr.Tan thinks she will need a few more days...fine with me....I am getting REALLY nervous but am excited. It is so surreal. I cannot wait to meet our munchkin.

We have had a busy weekend and it has been so wonderful to hang out with good friends, have dinners out with just the 2 of us and to catch up on some errands. I have a big day of flower hunting and cleaning off the deck. Very exciting stuff!



I got to hang out with Beth for a late breakfast/early lunch on Saturday. So good to catch up with her! I haven't been able to catch up with BL so it was nice to sit and enjoy Sweet Bean on Diversey on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I can't wait to take Miss Ella to Sweet Bean during our summer break.

On Sunday, Miss Kayla had her 2 year old birthday party! Tiffany had everything just perfect and it turned out so wonderfully! The icing on the cake, literally, was the Sweet Mandy B's cake that she had made. I cannot begin to tell you how amazing SWB's is. Honestly. Best. Cake. Ever. Tiff gave us a HUGE slice to nibble on. Yes, I had a little for breakfast this morning. Hey, I only have a couple more days of being pregnant so I went for it. Check out some pics from the party- we had such a great time! So nice to catch up with my friend, Holly, at the party as well and to hang out with Miss O, her 3 month old baby girl. She and Ella will be great gal pals!!











I also wanted to post a pic of my official 40 week belly. I can't believe how big that bump has gotten! Ella has a little less room in there to move around these days but still likes to hiccup whenever possible. She is an active little girl and those "long" legs are still finding ways to fit under my rib cage, especially when it is late at night and I am trying to wind down =) No worries, I know that this is nature's way of preparing me for some sleepless nights.

Ella's room is almost done...there are some little things I want to do (like picking out a chandelier, what? Every girl needs one, right?!) Check out some pics of the pink and green that has become Miss Ella's room. Hope this girl likes pink....
















I have an email already drafted and ready to go to alert everyone of our trip to the hospital! I hope that I am feeling good enough for visitors at Northwestern. Chicago friends- if you are up for a visit to NW Prentice Hospital, let us know! We can't wait to introduce our little nugget to our in-town friends.

Just One?!!

Well, it looks like Miss Ella D. will be taking her very sweet time in arriving, according to Dr. Tan. I am only 1 centimeter with no changes from last week. I was feeling pretty wonderful up until about, oh, a day ago. I am getting pretty uncomfortable and getting a little swollen. My ankles, legs and feet are swollen and my back is aching a lot. I have had a pretty "easy" pregnancy so I guess I am making up for lost time! I will be 39 weeks on Sunday....it could be anyday? Most likely not but that's ok; I have a few more errands to run. Now, if I can just get my swollen ankles and legs moving.....

A lot of happenings...

We have had such a busy couple of weeks preparing for our little Ella Bear (as Daddy likes to call her!) to arrive. We are officially within 2 weeks (or less- OMG) of her arrival. I cannot even believe it sometimes. She is this little person that, according to my babycenter emails, can grasp fingers and make eye contact with her parents already. I cannot wait to smell and squeeze her little fingers right back!

We went to the doctor on Friday for our weekly appointment and we got to see our little girl on the big screen again! It is always exciting to see her. Just her little heart beat alone is the most amazing thing to hear. She is a lot bigger in there now so things are a little harder to discern these days. The sonographer told me that our little one has "cute chubby cheeks". I have scanned a picture of the cheeks but honestly, I cannot tell that they are cheeks! Can Y'all?
We also got to meet another doctor in the group. One of the first things she said was, "oh, your husband must be tall because your baby's legs are long! 75th-100th percentile!" Um, no....both of us are pretty averaage sized?! Apparently, her femur bone is measuring somewhere b/w those percentiles. We will see when she arrives!

Daddy and I had a nice, long dinner outside on Friday night. We have had a stressful couple of weeks with changes coming up and it was just so nice to have a laid back dinner with just the two of us (eeekkk! not for too much longer)!

On Saturday, Scotty and I headed down to the White Sox game to help celebrate Belly's 30th birthday! I was prety impressed with myself and lasted until the 7th inning! I was having pretty bad braxton hicks contractions all day. They have been getting progressively worse the past couple of days which means the end is near, I hear...We had such a gerat time and were so happy to send Belly off into his 30's.
PS- We do not think that Belly is an acceptable nickname for the svelte and buff Kent Bellgrau!





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Mother's Day was a little surreal for me this year. I cannot believe that I will have a little one here soon that will call me "mommy", or, with any influence from my side of the family, "mama". Southerners never say mommy. We are "mama" kind of people.

We had every intention of going to church, however, sleep is hard to come by for me lately. I woke up at 3:30 or so on Sunday morning and couldn't fall back to sleep until 6 am...needless to say, I slept until after 9 am and felt amazing. I definitely think that insomnia is nature's way of getting you ready for having a hungry/cranky/tired baby. We had a wonderful brunch with the entire Vajda family! It was so nice to hang with everyone for Mother's Day. Later, the boys went to play golf and I cleaned as much as I could before running some errands. We topped off the night with sushi with Marko and Tiffany. It was a perfect Mother's Day!



I also wanted to post a picture of my 38 week belly! Look at how huge that bump is now....



Nursery is almost done..I think. We have a duvet coming for the guest bed in her room for visitors. Our chair just got in (yay!) so we will be picking that up this week hopefully! More items are on their way from PBK. I think we are almost there....once the chair is in, we will take pictures of the nursery to post!