A few fun pictures...

We realized that we have not really posted any pictures (with the exception of our favorite, the ultrasound) so here are a few for your viewing enjoyment...

Carey, Matt and Baby Penney overlooking Camden, ME.

Matt, Carey and Baby Penney on the schooner Suprise from Camden, ME.

Some edema afflicted feet at the end of a long day... AKA blood sausages :-) (FYI, this was immediately after getting home from work before putting my feet up, once elevated for a bit the swelling went down a lot)

36 weeks, OH MY!!

The start of the 36th week of pregnancy brings with it a mixed bag. We are down to 4 weeks until our due date; but in one week we will be considered "full-term" which basically means that the Dr's and/or Midwives have no concerns about letting labor progress if it starts; or we could be allowed to go up to 2 weeks late (6 weeks from now). To me (carey, the one carrying this ever growing baby) this seems to be a little bit like weather forecasters saying that there will be scattered thunderstorms/rain showers, this covers the forecasters regardless of what the weather does they were at least somewhat accurate with their prediction. Now I am not intending to compare our wonderful yet-to-arrive baby to a few rain showers, thunderstorms or any other weather pattern; I merely find it interesting that there is a 5 week period of time during which it is perfectly acceptable for the baby to make his/her appearance, 5 weeks can be a long time.
But, I digress...

We are very excited to be approaching our due date and we can only imagine how fast the next few weeks will fly by! The baby's room is starting to go down the road of readiness. We will be painting this week (hopefully) and then next week setting up the crib and moving in a dresser and armoire. Our house is filling up with baby things and Wes would like nothing better than to play with some of these new toys. He also seems to be getting a little more mopey and clingy. We think he's nervous that something bad is coming, little does he realize this new arrival will be a little playmate for him in no time. We are confident that once the baby arrive home he'll be thrilled!

Both baby and mom are doing well. The baby's heart rate has hovered around 150-160 and continues to grow well. I have entered that fun stage of having little odd things happen; my right hand has been somewhat tingly/numb for the past week or so and I seem to be experiencing some pregnancy induced carpal tunnel symptoms (apparently this is fairly common and is due to water retention). The past few days has brought with it some pretty hot and humid weather (humidity being the key here) so my feet are swelling and have started to look like "blood sausages" (or at least that's what Matt and I agree they resemble). It's really rather funny, it may not be as funny if they start hurting but for now there is no pain just additional size (flip flops are very nice right now).

One of our last blogs mentioned that we were starting our birthing class. We had 6 classes and apparently we are now able to breathe our way to a new baby! Actually we found the class very helpful and really informative, our instructor was a labor and delivery nurse for 32 years at Manchester Memorial Hosp (where we will be delivering) and she had so much great information to share with all of us. She also was part of the team that brought Manchester the spa-style tubs that are used for labor and delivery (if the mother wants) she had so many positive things to say about them we are going to try them out at least for labor and maybe delivery. We'll see how things shape up for it!!

Well I hope this finds all enjoying the summer and doing well, we will do our best to keep this up to date and we will DEFINITELY update this quickly after Shiny Copper makes his/her appearance!

Ciao!!

31 weeks and counting!

I neglected to post this entry, rather than delete it I'll post it late... sorry for the delay in posting!!

Happy Summer everyone!

We are quickly approaching the arrival of our little, wiggly bundle of joy. It is amazing how fast the time has flown by but I know the hardest work is still ahead of us.

Last weekend we took our final vacation sans kids. We went to a great B&B in Camden, ME and had perfect weather the entire time we were there. We highly recommend this spot for a vacation. You can do a lot or relax a bit and do just a little. We settled in the middle with seeing some lighthouses, visiting a museum, taking a a schooner ride and watching a little parade (very little parade). All in all we had a great trip and came back relaxed and ready to tackle the remaining time in our pregnancy and somewhat ready to tackle parenting.

Health wise the baby is doing very well and growing nicely. Carey is growing nicely as well and has been able to stay cool with the early summer heat (we haven't had any real hot days)! :-)
We are working toward having the baby's room ready and we are starting the begin the collection of baby paraphenalia. With less than 10 weeks we are feeling like time is really begining to FLY by!!

28 weeks!!

Oh my goodness!! We have been very remiss in keeping this blog updated!

Well we had our 28 week appointment yesterday and I (carey) got to drink the ever-so-yummy glucola so I could have my glucose tolerance test. In all actuality it was not that bad, the "cola" tasted like orange soda, i guess most people say it tastes like sweet orange soda, but since I rarely drink orange soda I didn't have a reference point. So far I have not gotten a call from the Dr's so that means I tolerated the glucose. Yay! No gestational diabetes!! Other than some poison sumac (or ivy) on my arms I am feeling great. I decided the other day to trim our front hedges back a bit and thought maybe while I was at it I could trim back some poison sumac... it seemed like a good idea at the time. Thankfully Zyrtec and calamine lotion are safe for the baby so I'm not scratching my arms off.

Shiny was very happy yesterday (according to the nurse midwife) and had a heart rate of 150 which is perfect. My belly measured 28 inches so Shiny is right on track for size too, though I suspect that Shiny has some extra room since I am tall or my belly will start surpassing the "norm" for size, because I don't think that this will be a small baby. I would be happy to be wrong though!! :-)

The soccer match continues in my belly and we're not sure what the score is but I think that Shiny is winning the match. We've had some hiccups too, which is very interesting they almost tickle. A couple weeks ago during communion in church my belly started... twitching, or bouncing just a little from a baby-hiccup-bout.

Lastly, baby Penney gender... hmmm... everyone has a different opinion some are convinced that its a boy, others are convinced that its a girl and then to top it off some that thought it was a boy are now switching to think it is a girl and vice versa. I personally have little to no clue and have given up trying to decide. Deciding what to eat is challenging enough some days... speaking of eating... I'm going to go feed this little baby. Stay tuned for more baby updates...

Up next: Child Birth Classes... we begin next Tuesday! Should be fun and interesting!

Take care!

We had the ultrasound!

On April 10th we had our ultrasound and we are having a... baby! Yay!!

Because Carey's belly has not quite popped yet we (mainly Carey) were wondering if there really was a baby in there, and as you can all see there is.

We are very excited to report that Shiny Copper is healthy with a good spinal column, 4 chambers in the heart, 2 kidneys, ribs, 2 legs, 2 arms, all the brain parts they look for and we think a really cute face. :-) They estimated the weight at about 14 ounces.

Shiny was sucking his/her thumb when we caught our first look of our baby. It is so exciting to see Psalm 139 in action, its amazing to see what God does in such a short amount of time. You might say that there was even some personality there too, the technician was trying to get a good look at the front of the baby's face and Shiny did not want to cooperate, but after much bouncing and jiggling of the ultrasound thing on Carey's belly Shiny did turn his/her head and cooperate. So we are thinking that Shiny may have some of our stubborness... not that we are terribly suprised since Shiny is getting that gene from both sides and arguably it is a dominate gene. Shiny has also begun communicating with us through the little kicks and jabs, Matt has yet to feel these but Carey can feel them very well now. Maybe someday Shiny will "bend it like Beckham" and play some soccer.

We look forward to our next appointment and we'll keep you posted on the progress Shiny makes and the score of the soccer match that has begun in Carey's tummy! :-)

Minting new Penneys

We've had this blog "set-up" for a few months now and just haven't used it... yet. With a new baby on the way we figured this would be a great way to stay in touch with our friends and keep everyone in the loop.
So (in case you didn't catch the previous statement) we are pregnant. Almost 17 weeks pregnant to be exact. We are happily surprised by this soon-to-be addition to our family and so far all has been going very well. Wesley doesn't quite understand what we're talking about when we keep telling him he's going to be a big "brother" but we know that he'll be great with the baby when he/she arrives. We have nicknamed the baby Shiny Copper since we are not planning to find out whether we are having a boy or girl.

So far...
We've had two visits to hear the heartbeat and in about 4 weeks we will be seeing Shiny Copper for the first time!
Carey has not really had any nausea according to the little research she's done she is not alone, there are others that don't have nausea (don't hate them!!) :-)
Everything still seems somewhat surreal though each day it seems much more real and we are more excited and a little scared... we're gonna be parents?!?! Wow!!

We'll try to update this blog regularly, at least after every Dr's appointment. So stay tuned for Shiny updates and Penney updates!

Ciao!