Facebook Album...

I should clarify: click on the "Kaia Mae Swaim" that's in blue underneath her picture to get to the album, not her name in black at the top. I'm sorry for any confusion!

KAIA MAE SWAIM

Our picture uploader isn't working, so I'm attaching a link to a photo album on facebook so you can all see pictures of our little girl! Click the link below and then click on Kaia Mae Swaim. We'll actually probably be uploading pictures this way anyhow since you can add more at one time than on the blog. But we'll attach links to the albums and let you know when more pictures are posted. And we'll still add posts to let you know how things are going.

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=14816265&k=YYBU6ZUZW4XM5FFDVKV4YP

She's doing great- sleeping a lot and working on learning how to nurse. We are certainly understanding why so many people advised us to get lots of rest before she came. We're not getting too much now! But Josh's mom is here helping us, which has been a huge blessing! We celebrated our 1st anniversary yesterday. We can't say that 1 year ago we would have guessed we'd celebrate our 1st anniversary by changing diapers! But we wouldn't have it any other way. Kaia is certainly worth celebrating as well! We are just so thankful to have a healthy little girl and feel very blessed to have her complete our family!

IT'S A GIRL!!

We have a new addition to the Swaim family! Kaia Mae Swaim was born on August 13th at 6:04 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 19 3/4" long! Mom and baby are both doing great! Thank you all so much for all your thoughts and prayers! And congratulations to all of you who voted correctly on our poll!

More False Labor

Still no baby! It's about 4 am on Wednesday, so we're technically into our 5th day overdue. I usually fall asleep around 10 pm and sleep hard until about 3 am, and then toss and turn. Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to give those of you who faithfully check our blog the news: that there's nothing new. I've been walking like crazy and had pretty strong contractions yesterday, coming every five minutes. With my previous experience of false labor, I waited until I'd had them regularly for about 5 hours before going in. Unfortunately, I still hadn't made any progress. So we came home. I'm still having contractions, but have to wait for them to get worse before going back in. It's very frustrating! So we are going to continue to play the waiting game and hopefully watch Michael Phelps win more gold medals in the process!

+ 3

We're still waiting! The last ultrasound that I had, which was about a month ago, put our due date at August 8th. (One day earlier than previously expected) So...I am currently 3 days past my due date. I had my doctor's appointment this morning, and am still at a 4 but am 80% effaced. The doctor said 80% of women have their baby within a week of their due date, and I already knew that going past the due date is very common for first babies. So, she expects me to have the baby by Friday. I hope so! Knowing that it's natural to go past your due date is entirely different from actually going past it! It's driving me crazy!! At least I feel better knowing they won't let me go past next Monday. When my Grandma was pregnant with her first she went a MONTH over! She's an amazing woman-I don't know how she did it!

I am very thankful that the Olympics have started, since that has become a welcome distraction. Although I will admit I'm a little disappointed Baby Swaim didn't make his or her debut on 8-8-08. But I know the Lord has a special birth date for our baby! A few months ago Josh jokingly mentioned that I could have our baby on my birthday: 8-19. I told him there was no way that would happen, but now it's looking like a possibility! It's also a possibility that he or she could be born on our anniversary: 8-17. Hopefully it doesn't take that long, but we'll see. We'll keep you posted!

No Baby Yet...

Baby Swaim still has yet to make his or her appearance. The time seems to be crawling by. By Tuesday we started to go stir crazy and decided to start making the most of our time. Walking around the mall wasn't cutting it and there's only so much you can buy when you don't know what you're having. So we've spent the last 3 days going to the zoo, a baseball game, and to the first day of the state fair. I think I've walked at least 5 miles in the past 3 days, but still no contractions. At least none that are strong enough to bring on active labor. So we'll continue to wait and try to rack our brains for more things to keep our minds off of waiting! This is harder than being a little kid and waiting for Christmas! Hopefully we'll have good news for you soon!

False Labor

On Friday I had contractions all afternoon, which gradually got stronger. Once they'd been at 5 minutes apart for a couple hours, we went to the hospital. We were so excited, thinking that maybe my labor had started. We went in at 7 pm and the nurse hooked me up to the monitor, which tracks the baby's heartbeat and my contractions. After consistently having contractions ranging from 2-4 minutes apart for 4 hours, the doctor checked me. I was still at 3 cm, so they sent us home. The doctor said the contractions were either early labor or false labor, depending upon how they progressed. They continued through the night and into the morning, but gradually subsided on Saturday afternoon. Turns out I was having false labor. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed. I was so excited to meet our little one! After another day of few contractions, I've started to come to terms with the fact that we may just have to wait! Baby Swaim is just not quite ready yet. But, as I've been reminded by friends who already have kids, it's nice to enjoy this time of relaxation and rest. So that's our plan until whenever Baby decides to come! We'll let you know!