Nick and Catherine's Blog: July 2014

Baby Sterner is doing great. Just continuing to get her lungs ready and growing fast. I had a sonogram on July 8 and we got to see her move around a bit. Everything checked out fine. We were not at all surprised to learn that Baby Sterner, like her sister, is expected to be around 8.5 or 9 pounds at birth and has a rather large head. We also learned that I have an excessive amount of amniotic fluid, which is not a bad thing, but I am telling myself it accounts for at least 10 pounds of weight gain.

It is difficult to get good pics towards the end, but here is one of just her nose and mouth. Love those lips! I have also included a partial belly pic.

Here is a video of Baby Sterner having the hiccups. Emma hair and tall man on a pink scooter is bonus footage.

IMG 0393 from Catherine Bell on Vimeo.

Bryn has been so sweet the last two weeks and appears to be out of her naughty stage. I do have one video that is in honor of the days temporarily gone by when Bryn was horrible.

IMG 0347 from Catherine Bell on Vimeo.

We had a great Fourth of July at the annual neighborhood parade and at the Morgan's house. Bryn held her first sparkler and got to see some pretty impressive fireworks at the house.

Picture of the four kiddos. This is about as creative as I get.

We have been spending more and more time with our neighbors and all of us are having so much fun. We can definitely see now the huge benefits for kids who live in the suburbs. Bryn is particurly fond of a three year old named Jax two houses down. She isn't shy about it.

IMG 0407 from Catherine Bell on Vimeo.

Jax driving Bryn around the block.

Here and there and around the house. We've been enjoying the calm before the storm.

Window markers with Rylea and Ella!

Haircut with Grandpa.

We joined LifeTime fitness a few weeks ago and we all love it! Below are pics of Bryn's first swimming lessons with Mi Mi and fun at the outdoor pool.

School fun!

I'd say she liked the magic show.

Fun with the Supples!

Daddy's Birthday!

We are so excited to meet Baby Sterner tomorrow!

June consisted of about 10 doctor appointments for Bryn related to her having dizzy spells, my highest billable month in the last year, starting our basement remodel and Nick working on his biggest sales deal for the year. I also had one false labor scare in there somewhere which couldn't possibly be due to our schedule. I didn't even bother to go to the doctor, just figured the contractions would go away because it was an inconvenient time. Turns out that worked out!

Bryn did her best to help like only a 2 year old can! Two years and 9 months is the title of this post because it is the age where she turned impossible. We are thinking one of the Doctors she has been to gave her a magic portion titled "be as stubborn as your mom now that she's 9 months pregnant--and make sure to go limp if she tries to pick you up--it will make her back feel fantastic." Don't let this look fool you, people.

Truly though, life is good. I won't go into too much detail about Bryn's doctor appointments. The entire experience has been stressful, but it could have been much worse and the important thing is that so far the tests are turning out normal. We still have a couple to go, but we are giving her a break until after the baby comes. We have so much empathy for families of sick children and we can't say enough positive things about Children's Mercy.

Baby Girl Sterner

Baby Sterner is doing great and I probably should not complain as much as I do about how I feel. I am getting very light headed and it is difficult to do much with Bryn right now. But, I do not have preeclampsia like I had with Bryn at this point and my swelling is also a ton better. My back hurts a lot and I think that is probably due to how she is still positioned straight out. She is pretty active in the evenings and seems to want to show off for her dad and likes to hear his voice. I can't believe that I probably will be posting pictures of her in the next blog post and can't wait to see her!

We went and registered at the hospital a couple of weekends ago and got the best news that they are now encouraging skin-to-skin time with the mother right after a c-section, even before the baby is cleaned off. Then they will do her measurements and bath there in the recovery room rather than immediately take her out. That was the worst part of the c-section with Bryn is that I saw her for about 10 seconds and then she and Nick left for an hour.

After I gave Nick a TON of crap for slipping and telling Baby Girl Sterner's name to John Goodin and Tim and Brooke Herbel, I ended up slipping and telling my sister and my dad in the last month. We have been referring to her by name at the house a lot and my brain is about 25% focused at any given time. Oops. Grammy, Mi Mi and Papa Joe still do not know and want to be surprised.

No pictures really of Baby Sterner, but we have a sonogram to estimate how big she is on July 8. Here is the best I've got for now and what happens when I try to eat a salad at my desk. Baby Sterner catches everything for me.

Visiting Poppy and Great Grammy.

Great Grammy is doing really well. We caught her sitting in her chair like she was 16, which is just about right. Bryn got to sit on the deer, eat cookies, crack walnuts on the patio, pretend to play (like a dog for some reason) and laugh hard. I love seeing her do the same things at the farm that did at her age.

School Fun

Being strong at a couple of appointments! She wore the looks well.

Bryn got to go to a 10:00 p.m. movie to help her stay awake before her EEG. She was delirious, but felt pretty special. P.S. How to Train your Dragon 2 is too violent for a 2 year old and a 31 year old pregnant woman.