Bed Resting

I went into the hospital twice this week for some fetal monitoring. Apparently I had started to dilate already and was having frequent contractions. After drinking lots of juice and water, I did better. After my second time there, they had some lab results ready that indicated my risk for an immediate birth was low. So I got to go home again to more bed rest. I may be on this modified bed rest for 2 to 3 weeks. We'll see tomorrow what they say at my regular prenatal appointment.

Baby has gotten really active again, pushing a lot on my tummy. The head is already engaging to zero station (moving into the pelvis). And the body is now on my left side, but facing forward and upside down. So all the hand and leg movements are felt on my right, and on my bladder. It's fun to watch my tummy move with baby. I get winded easily from small effort and am often tired. But now I get to nap as much as I want. I get to read and watch movies now and have some down time. The others living here have picked up the cooking duties. I still work the menu and make the grocery list.

By the way, I watched Facing the Giants over the weekend. It was a really good movie; well made and I cried a few times and laughed.

So it's unusual for a first time mom to be 80% effaced already (meaning my cervix has really thinned out) and I'm likely to have an early delivery. I'm almost 35 weeks along. Possibly it'll be a May baby, instead of June 7. I pray that the baby's not born until it's fully developed and ready, closer to 36 or 37 weeks if not later than that.
-CallaLily

Spring photos

First picture is of the two students on my kitchen crew for the past three months. They were great. Now they are in Outreach Phase in Saint Lawrence Island.

Second photo was taken at a neighbor's house where I happily housesat for a week recently. Amazing view of the moutains out the living room, eh? I sat and read and napped many hours by that window that week. It's not always so clear and sunshiny, but that week everything was beautiful.

-CallaLily

He Is Risen

Easter week came and went so fast this year. We made some pork roasts for our Easter dinner on base, which included one other family plus ourselves. Everyone else is gone. The outreach teams have left for Saint Lawrence Island and for Colorado. We're keeping up the fort and going to midwife appointments! Just two months left til due date.

So now I cook for only 9-10 people per meal instead of 24. That's a nice break. Even so, I get exhausted so easily these days, third trimester fatigue. And I find myself awake and alert in the wee hours of the night and morning when I wish I could be sleeping...another pregnancy thing I guess. I try to take a nap atleast once a day, but don't always get to.

BearHunter is filling his work hours with fix-it jobs around the base. They have mudded walls and ceilings, installed a waist-high wood border on the lounge walls, replaced the entrance to the eaves with a snugger fitting frame to prevent heat loss. And other projects like those.

I went to my first ladies' Bible study this morning at the nearby church. Not sure yet if I'll become a regular with that or not. We also joined a Monday night Bible study at the same church, reading through one of Chip Ingrams books.

Spring has finally hit us this week with warm sunshine and enough heat to melt the snow build up. I can see green and brown grass exposed all over town. Of course, the huge piles of snow and ice take longer to melt through, but mostly it's looking like a whole different place.

BearHunter and I had amazing experiences at a conference last month called HeartChange. The final result for BearHunter was a new, bigger trust in God. And for me, I have fresh identity in my femininity. I'm still seeking God on his design for women and what it means to be feminine in His Image. But it's been fun to finally truly enjoy "pink, girly stuff" that I used to gag at the thought of. My desires are changing, because God did something on my inside. So that's been fun to see the changes in both of us since the seminar.

With only two months til baby will be here, it's time to start arranging our room to fit the crib and other baby supplies. Fitting another dresser in here will be difficult, so I may try to convert the top drawer of my dresser into a baby clothes drawer. Just keep the clothes that fit now in it and rotate what's in there as baby grows. I turned one of the shelves on the entertainment center into the diaper changing station (where a TV would go if we had one). The crib which the British couple will leave for us fits nicely into one nook of our T shaped room. We may yet buy or build another piece of furniture but haven't found anything perfect yet. We pretty much have to find it locally because few companies ship large items to Alaska.

Today we enjoyed a beach bonfire for lunch, hamburgers and hotdogs freshly roasted. Beautiful mountains seen across the bay and only a slight breeze to keep our jackets about us. It was good to get out. It's easy to let the days fly by and stay busy with our work, not getting outside much at all. It's so healthy to be outside; fresh air, sunshine, everything is good for the soul I think. And the sunlight is increasing dramatically here. It's starts getting light before 7am and stays light out til atleast 9 or so. Soon it'll be midnight and light out I'm told. May you get outside today, too!