The Travel Begins

We have embarked on our journey to Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Norway!  This was not the easiest trip to pack for.  Annika is gaining weight like crazy and I'm afraid she'll grow out of all of the clothes that I'm bringing for her by the time we return in February.  Anyway, the trip officially began on December 13th at the SeaTac airport.  It unofficially started about about 4:15am that morning when I got up to feed Annika and decided to stay up to finish the packing.  By 8:30am, I had us all ready to go and luggage packed in the car.  My friend Kadee drove us to the airport and I managed to move everything all together.  Travel was made possible by the BOB stroller and advise from friends.  I had Annika in the carseat on the stroller, a diaper bag on the shelf underneath, my bridesmaid dress on top of everything, a backpack, and then I pulled my suitcase and Annika's suitcase stacked on top of each other.  As you can see, it was right at the edge of what could possibly be managed by one person.

Annika wasn't so sure about the airport situation but she did excellent on the flight and really liked stretching out when I changed her in the airplane bathroom.  I put her in a front carrier and she slept almost the whole way from Seattle to Minneapolis.  Kyle met us at baggage claim when we arrived in MN. His flight from Oslo arrived just minutes before ours.  The three of us were very happy to be reunited and enjoyed our evening together. 

The next day we filled with visits with family and friends.  My aunt Gloria, great-aunt Ruth, cousin Sally, and her daughter Brittney met us at our hotel and we went out for lunch.  It was a short visit but very enjoyable.

After lunch we met up with some college friends at the Mall of America.  The Lego center is pretty fun for kids.  It was great to see Kyle's former roommate Andy and his wife and 3 kids.  We were also able to spend some time with our good friend Emily.

That night we stayed with a fun couple, Brian and Sarah, who we met when we lived in AK.  Brian is now a lawyer in the Minneapolis area and Sarah is a pastor of a church in Eagen (a suburb).  They have a neat old house in St. Paul and we always have a great time when we stay with them. 

*Side note:  If you ever find yourself in St. Paul and looking for a fantastic baby store, go to Peapods.  It's on Como Ave., close to Luther Seminary.  We went in there looking for one thing for Annika and came out with several more items that I couldn't resist.  I'm planning a quick return visit when we go back to the Twin Cities before flying to Norway.

One Month

Wow!  I can't believe that Annika is already over 4 weeks old!  There is definitely evidence of her growing, with cheeks filling in and a double-chin forming.  I haven't had an opportunity to weigh her in the last couple of weeks but she does still fit in newborn-size clothing.  I imagine that she won't much longer, as she is definitely a long baby.  We've been having a lot of bonding time now that it's basically just the two of us all day, every day.  I do pretty well on energy until about 6pm and then the exhaustion starts to settle in.  I'm trying to get some type of routine going but so far we don't have much that's regular other then the fact that she gets a great, long nap from about 10:30am to 1:00pm or longer.  In the evenings, Annika is taking short naps and much prefers to be held during those naps instead of sleeping in her bouncy chair.  That sure makes cooking and eating dinner a bit tricky!  Lately, I've been putting her in the Moby wrap and wearing her for good portions of the afternoons.  We've been out for a walk every day this week and that helps immensely with my cabin-fever.  It's also supposed to help the melatonin switch on in her brain so that those longer sleeping times can be during the night instead of during the day.  Annika is making a wider variety of sounds and has begun giving me smiles when she is awake.  I've been trying to capture those expressions on camera but so far the only smile I've gotten is in her sleep, which is due to gas, I'm sure :)  Still pretty cute!  

 Smiling in her sleep.  Can't wait for the real smiles!

 Snoozing peacefully.

 I'm pretty sure that she had her hands up by her face nearly all the time in my belly and she still likes to have her hands free.

Here she is at 1month old. 

Giving Thanks

We've had a great Thanksgiving week here.  It was hard not to miss being in Alaska with our friends.  This is the first time since 2004 that we haven't celebrated Turkey Day with our group up north.  We're making it a goal to get back there next year!  Anyway, I am thankful for our healthy baby girl and all of the support we've had.  My dad and step-mom have been in town since the 19th and have been a great help around my place.  It's so nice to have a couple pairs of extra arms to cuddle Annika and willing helpers to clean dishes, make food, grocery shop, and do laundry.  We have been spoiled this week.  We've really had a lot of help from our parents ever since Annika was born.  Some of the activities we did included making lefse, going to the Zittel's (brother's in-laws) for Thanksgiving Day, braving the crowds to shop on Black Friday, and watching Alt for Norge (popular Norwegian reality show).

My dad snuggling with Annika.

Making lefse for Thanksgiving has become a tradition over the last several years.  We started doing this with St.Olaf alums at a local church and have joined that group on a few occasions.  With a new baby, making lefse at home was a better option for us. 

We enjoyed being invited to join the Zittel family for Thanksgiving at their beautiful new home.  It's a gorgeous place with plenty of room for celebrating and having a big meal for family and friends.

We had delicious, fresh crab that had been caught that morning.

A full Thanksgiving feast!

Annika looks forward to having some turkey next year :)  She mostly slept through Thanksgiving this year.

Something more to add

  I forgot to include a picture of Annika from the passport application day.  It's definitely worth documenting the experience that we had and what we did to get that picture, even if it didn't end up being the one we used.














 Later in the week, we met up with our group from the Centering prenatal program.  If there is anyone having a baby in the Seattle area, I highly recommend going to the midwives at Swedish Ballard and being a part of this program.  There were 8 couples that met over the course of our pregnancies and everyone was due in October.  We met monthly from April to July and then every two weeks from Aug. through mid-October.  It was great to get together last weekend to see everyone's babies!  It was quite the group of little ones and it was amazing that there ended up being 4 girls and 4 boys.  All healthy and lively.  Even though I had the latest due date on Oct. 29th, Annika was born 7th out of 8.  We lined the babies up on the couch in the order of their births.  Unfortunately, one family was unable to make it.  All of the babies lay nicely on their backs, except Annika.  She rolls to her side as soon as she possible can.  There was definitely a big difference in size from the first little boy through the last girls.  Such cuties! 

I am going to make it a priority to get into a routine of getting out of the house to go for walks.  The tricky part is that it has been pretty cold or rainy.  I may resort to walking the mall, just to be some place warm.  I want to use the track at University of Puget Sound but I'm not sure that they allow strollers.  On one recent walk, I may have bundled up Annika a little too much but I didn't want her to be chilly. 

Love this cute bear suit!  It's still pretty big but should last through the next couple of months, hopefully.

Beginning to settle in

Annika is 17 days old and we slowly figuring each other out.  She's a very cuddly newborn, good eater, and sleeps for about 3 hours at a time.  At our 2 week check-up, she weighted 6 lb 13 oz. and after being weighed at Jonathan and Brenda's house, is probably up another 10 oz. or so over the course of a week.  That's some pretty solid growth!  Annika has a few times during the day that she's fussy but, with the help of her grandma's, I'm figuring out ways to help calm her.  My goals is to start getting out of the house in the morning to go for a longer walk.  The Pediatrician suggested being outside at least 20 min. each day to help her brain learn day vs. night.  The only tricky part is that her eyes need to be open and we haven't quite managed that yet. 

Annika's Grandma Ina visited us from Grand Forks, ND.  She arrived on the 9th and stayed through the 15th.  She had a lot of snuggle time, which is exactly what she came for.  My mom came back to visit on the 15th and then left this morning.  It's been great to have their support and I tried to take advantage of their helpfulness.  It was especially nice to have Ina here to help the day we applied for Annika's passport and I was very productive in getting errands accomplished with my mom's help yesterday morning.

Getting Annika's passport was an experience.  We had hoped to be able to get it while Kyle was still here but her social security card had not arrived yet.  Kyle had to fill out extra paperwork and have it notorized, in order to show that he gave parental permission for her to have a passport.  Typically, both parents listed on the birth certificate need to be there in person when applying for a child's passport.  That was a small hurdle and easily taken care of.  The more difficult task was the picture.  The first place we went basically told us that they didn't want to attempt an infant picture and that we should go to Costco and then apply at another location.  The photo guy at Costco was very patient with us, as it took a good 15 min. to get Annika to wake up from her nap.  It took even longer to get her to sort of look at the camera and keep her eyes open.  The picture we got there had quite a few shadows and the guy told us we could come back and have the picture re-done, if the passport people rejected it.  Our last stop was at a Municipal Court building.  The passport lady did say that the Costco picture wasn't good enough and she said that they could take the picture there.  After another long attempt, an acceptable picture was completed.  Ah.....check that off of the list.  Annika's passport should be here within the next couple of weeks.  Then we'll be ready to travel!

Annika with her Grandma Ina.

Practicing using the moby and going for a walk around the neighborhood.

Reading to herself :)

I have been blessed with so many friends coming by to meet Annika and bringing food for us to enjoy.  I really appreciate their thoughtfulness and will definitely be bringing food to my friends with newborns in the future.

Week 1

      We're one week into being parents and it's been an amazing, unbelievable experience.  Changing diapers and routine feedings have kept us busy.  We have actually really enjoyed our trips to the store and walks around the neighborhood this week.  It has felt really good for me to walk longer distances after months of discomfort with braxen-hicks contractions.  We are slowly figuring out a night routine that allows for a couple hour stretch of sleep at a time.  The last two nights have been really good and we hope to continue the trend.  Mostly we just spend hours and hours looking at her cute little face and wondering how it was possible that we created this little person.
      We have had quite a few visitors this past week.  It has been wonderful to introduce Annika Marlene to our family and friends!  People have been so generous with gifts, attention, and support, we have been truly blessed.  Annika has even received packages in the mail addressed just to her.  We have realized that the nordic/scandinavian pronunciation of her name is not always obvious for others. (It is pronounced: Ah-nick-ah Mar-lay-na).
      We have also noticed that Annika has been stretching a lot this week.  She often reaches straight up with one arm and then kind of circles it around her head.  This is usually followed by a leg stretch where one leg is resting on top of the other.
      One fun experience we had this week was giving Annika her first bath at home.  She really loves the warm water, but not the getting ready or getting dried parts.  We have also found out that she is very content in her car seat and usually sleeps the entire time while in it.  We are still learning to be comfortable with settling her into her car seat because she is so little.
       A trip to Target was important after the first few days as we realized that we didn't have many clothes small enough to fit her.  Sizes 0-3 are actually quite big on her and she manged to dirty the two newborn sized onesies within a couple of minutes at the pediatrician's office.  Somehow stripping her down to a clean, dry diaper to be weighed was much more challenging than we thought it should have been.  Lucky we are keeping a good sense of humor and traveling with at least one change of clothing. 

 At her first pediatrician check-up.

 We just can't stop taking pictures of her facial expressions :)

 Going on our first walk around the block.

 Friends Jody and John

 First bath at home in the sink.

 Kyle painted lettering that is hanging above the crib.

 Our friend Heather visited and we walked around the University of Puget Sound campus.  Annika is wearing the adorable knit apple hat that Heather made for her.

       Snuggle time

Our birth story

 For those who are interested, here's how it all went down :)  We started timing my contractions about about 4:45pm on Sunday evening.  By 7:30pm, I had had regular contractions at 7 min. apart for an hour and decided to call the midwife.  The basic guideline is to go in to the hospital with contractions that are every 5 min., lasting for one minute, and have been regular for an hour.  Because we live 50 from the hospital, we already knew that we should probably not wait that long and this was confirmed by the midwife.  After one more hour of regular contractions, we packed up the car and were on our way to the hospital a little before 9pm.  Let me tell you, I had never noticed how many bumps there are along I-5.  Kyle did a great job driving safely and by the time we arrived at the hospital, my contractions had progressed to every 4 min.  As I got out of the car, my water broke and the contractions started coming much more quickly.  The first nurse we met was named Analisa, which was a sign right away that we were at Swedish hospital in the Scandinavian neighborhood of Seattle :)  After being checked by the midwife and finding out that I was already 6 cm dilated, we decided to utilize the jacuzzi and hopefully make some more progress.  The nurse and midwife were excellent, giving us suggestions and encouraging me through the contractions.  We were in the tub for about 2 hours (I'm not really sure of time at that point).  The contractions were incredibly intense and as I found out, back labor is truly excruciating.  The good news was that I was now at 8 cm. and anticipating that our baby would be arriving in a few hours.  Kyle was doing an amazing job of putting pressure on my back to counter-balance the pressure somewhat.  After another hour of contractions, I was barely managing the pain and was very discouraged to find out that I hadn't made any progress in dilating.  Because of the baby's position, my cervix was slightly swollen on one side and because of the pain, I wasn't able to relax into the contractions at all.  We decided at that point to get an epidural.  I was able to get one more quickly than I had expected but it wasn't successful at first at taking away the pain in my back.  I was given a stronger medication and finally had relief.  The epidural process started about 2am and was right around when my mom arrived from Oregon.  We all had a chance to sleep for an hour from 4am to 5am.  When I was checked at 5am, I still hadn't made any more progress and labor had slowed.  The midwife suggested that we start pitocin to increase the contractions.  After two more hours, I was checked again and had finally dilated entirely.  I had not expected to feel so helpless with totally numbness in my legs but thanks to the amazing help of Kyle and my mom (and 3 hours of pushing), Annika made her arrival into the world.  She came out face up with a lusty wail.

 

From Norway with love

I have a lot to catch up on with our blog and definitely need to start with the much-anticipated return of Kyle from Norway.  He's been living in Oslo since Aug. 8th on a Fulbright Scholarship, doing researching/writing for his dissertation.  We have regular skype dates throughout the week, either from home or I would bring my laptop to work and we'd talk during my lunch break.  Skype is about the best thing ever invented for long-distance relationships.  Each time we talked, I'd stand up and give Kyle a view of my baby belly and I would angle the computer towards my belly so that he could talk to our baby about waiting for him to come home before she made her appearance.  I was very nervous about Kyle making it home in time for delivery and counted down the days.  I think everyone that I worked also knew exactly how many more days it would be before he came home.  Finally that day arrived on Oct. 26th and I picked up Kyle from the airport after work.  It was so good to see him and immediately a relief to have him home.  I worked one more day after he got back and while I was at work, Kyle put together the crib, the stroller, a bouncy chair, and hung up more decorations around the house. 

After I moved in, I did a few things but then it seemed to take more energy than I had to settle in more.  We went together to my 40 week appt. last Thurs. to see a midwife and make a contingency plan, in case our baby decided to be late.  With Kyle leaving on Nov. 12th, we wanted to make certain that he had time to spend with her before leaving again.  After our appt., we had a nice dinner at a favorite Seattle restaurant called Ravish.  It's located in our former neighborhood of Eastlake and such a wonderful spot for a meal.  Without knowing when our baby would arrive, we wanted to take advantage of time for the two of us and going out for a few meals.  On Friday, we really enjoyed time spent with a colleague of Kyle's and hanging out at a brewery by UW.  Saturday was our official due date, so we didn't make any plans and spent the day relaxing at home.  We made lots of good food and tried not to be anxious about when labor would start.  It helped that it was a beautiful, sunny day and we could go outside a walk around and take care of some errands.  I had a few contractions that evening, enough to start timing them, but then by about 10pm the contractions tapered off and we went to bed.  On Sunday, still with no baby, we went to church and then met Kyle's brother Joel for brunch at another favorite spot in Eastlake called Louisa's.  It was during our brunch that contractions started again and turned out to be the real thing :)

Hello, 39 weeks

For anyone checking in, wondering if there is baby news, there's not a whole lot to report.  This baby girl is due to arrive in 6 days!  I'm so happy to have this day approaching and know that Kyle will be arriving in 3 days!  I'm feeling good but getting increasingly uncomfortable.  Luckily, I'm not swollen at all.  I keep checking my rings to make sure I can still get them off of my fingers easily.  As I was meeting with friends and running errands today, the thought has been in the back of my mind that this could be my last weekend before she's here and changing our world.  Several people at work last week were encouraging me to relax and maybe even start my maternity leave early.  Well, I did a lot of relaxing yesterday and got a bit bored.  It's very quiet around the house on my own and I don't want to spend hours and hours watching TV.  I've already knit two baby hats and I went and picked up 4 new books.  The projects that I'd like to have done, I either can't do them on my own or don't have the energy.  Over the next few days, I'd much rather be finishing up paperwork and some assessments at work than sitting around the house.  As long as I know that my mornings will be much more productive than my afternoons, I can get through the work day.  5 days of possible work seems like so few to begin with.  So, here I go into my last (maybe?) week of pregnancy and can't wait to finally meet this baby! 


In other news, today has been a very busy day.  My brother-in-law Leon had a layover at the Seattle airport, so I met up with him, other brother-in-law Joel, and soon to be sister-in-law Jessica for a very, very early breakfast.  It was great to have a chance to see him, as those opportunities are few and far between.  It is very nice to know that we'll have a longer time to visit and see the whole Korynta family when we're in MN in December for Joel and Jessica's wedding.  Then I went to the gym and swam.  I think it's probably going to be my last swim before the baby arrives but we'll see.  Then I met up with a fun group of ladies, two of whom have 1 yr. old daughters, and 4 others that are all currently pregnant with their first babies.  Of the seven of us, only one woman wasn't pregnant.  It was quite the fertility table :)  We had a great time talking and will hopefully be meeting regularly.  After that I went up to Seattle to join another group of fabulous ladies to say good-bye to a friend who is moving to Japan tomorrow morning.  It was a busy morning and a nap was needed when I got home. 

Here are the latest belly pictures:

 38 weeks

39 weeks

Ladies Weekend

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a weekend with some of my favorite ladies, whom I've known since I was about 11-ish years old.  We figured out that the first time the four of us spent time as a group was a trip to the mall in 6th grade :)  We also tried to remember the last time the four of us spent any time longer than a couple of hours all together.  There's a chance that it hasn't happened since high school.  There's no way we'll let it go that long again!  I think (hope and pray) it's going to become an annual event.  I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate having some "me" time before our bundle of joy arrives.  We lounged, we talked, we laughed, we shopped, and we ate a lot of fabulous food.  Julie, Katie, Mikaela, and I went over to Bainbridge Island and stayed at a B&B.  The island is a quick ferry ride from downtown Seattle.  It's a pretty little community that has a lot of art and local events like zucchini races :) Unfortunately, we needed to leave to come back to Seattle before being able to witness what a zucchini race really entails.  

 A fantastic bakery, which we visited twice!  I had forgotten how much I like tea lattes.  Julie is obviously very excited to order a delicious baked item :)

 Modeling our new wool caps.

 Showing my 37 week belly.  I think this is angle makes me look larger than I really am.  Of course, it could be the stripes, too :)

 Katie and I both had the amazing butternut squash ravioli.  Seriously amaaazingly good.

 After our dinner we went to a french restaurant for dessert.  Yes, everyone, we were treating ourselves very nicely this weekend!

 Breakfast was served in this dining room.  The porch outside was the location of my skype date with Kyle.  It was a little chilly but at least it wasn't raining!  If only the dining room would have been open earlier, I would have really enjoyed sitting inside by the fire.