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 :)