Watching Jonah sleep, I was wondering whether he was dreaming of his future as either…

A worship leader:

Jonah dreams of leading worship.

Or, perhaps a rapper:

Jonah dreams of rollin' through the hood.

We just switched the hosting for our blog and this means:

1. We lost a comment or two that was on the last post (sorry, please resubmit)!
2. We are having some technical difficulties (see missing links)
3. We are now blocking search engines so perhaps we can start to use our names again.
4. We will hopefully get less spam comments now, so that we don’t accidentally miss yours if you use a new email address to post a comment.
5. We may be able use passwords for super-sensitive posts.

As always remember:
- If you don’t see your comment, send us an email so we can find it and authorize it.

And on a slightly different note:
- If you text-message us, please sign your name: our phones do not show us the sender’s phone number. So we thank those of you who recently congratulated us by text message without signing your name, and we are sorry that we don’t know who you are.

So you probably have heard, but also may have not, and that is probably just due to the randomness of our ability to compile email lists, but we have had our baby boy. K was awe-inspiring throughout a comparatively short (11 hours active) but super-intense labor (when we checked into the hospital at 3:30am, she was 8cm, but it took another 8 hours for Jonah to finally arrive).

We are stoked, though still tired. Jonah is cute and cuddly and healthy in every way. K calls him her ‘little burrito’ - you generally see him wrapped up tight - and I call him ‘baby stegosaurus’ because his face/nose kinda remind me of a dinosaur (though K doesn’t approve of this sort of comparison)…and because we could so give him a faux-hawk if it was ok to use hair gel on his hair.

As I’ve said in an email, I think he is in the 95th percentile of newborn cuteness, but I may be biased. Here are some previously unreleased pictures of Jonah Gabriel - who if we decided to hide from google, may be referred to as JG - who is 1 day, 9 hrs, 38 minutes old as of 9:06pm today (August 3rd.) These have not been emailed, and will probably never show up on Facebook

At hospital: 3:30am.
Examination: 4:00am: 7-8cm, 100% effaced, baby head down at 0.

Things are speeding up. We’re still at home but have made the first phone call:

Yesterday I went to doctor. I have a midwife and a doctor by the way. I prefer the doctor when I go into actual labor (no particular reason I trust both deeply), but this was one of the only practices in the area that lined up with our goals of childbirth, and with a HUGE added bonus they deliver everyone in their practice. No team of 7 different doctors we could have at labor, no randomized appointments. I know both the midwife, Arianna, and the doctor, Beth pretty well by now, and I LOVE both of them.

Anyways, all that to say I went to the doctor, but actually I saw Arianna, midwife instead. She examined me, and, then re-examined me, and had a somewhat look of amusement/surprise when she announced that I was 4cm’s. And that’s when I realized how lucky, blessed, and what a gift I’ve been given. All the nights of contractions have gotten me to 4cm’s! Some women don’t get there without hours of pretty intense labor, and I’m walking around my house complaining of what feels like to me- cramps that I can’t sleep through. And most of my complaining is because I’m sleepy, and bored… and because who in their right mind likes cramps? Maybe whoever told me that because I had had such horrible cramps in the past, that labor wouldn’t hurt so much- was right. At least the first 4cm’s has not been the drama that I’ve had many friends experience. And for that, I am so thankful. For that, I have to officially stop my whining wagon, and get off.

And because of that, I feel great. Jonah’s still not arrived on the outside, and I think it’s more an issue of my body not being ready quite yet, then him. J and I were joking that Jonah seems perfectly ready to kick himself out, but my body’s been a bit slower to release him. We are still having a lot of fun together, cooking, reading, playing games, watching movies together… This has been a real special time between J and I, and I’m so glad that we’ve had it.

Today I am going to round up Sense and Sensibility, or something equally Jane Austin-esque, just having a hankering for it, (cold houses, rainy damp chilled days all on video? -sounds like I am dreaming!) and maybe convince J that we need some good Chinese food. Oh and I am going to label some boxes that I packed and are just sitting in the kitchen in everyone’s way.

I never heard of this before, either all of you who have had children and are my friends never told me about this (I forgive you, I forgive), or you just never had this experience. I was so confused by this morning, that I googled “contractions only at night” and found, that low and behold I AM NOT ALONE! Hallelujah!

I’ve had Braxton Hicks contractions for months- they’re a breeze, so don’t try and tell me how these night pains I’ve had are just more BH’s. No, they have frequency even. And at least 2 of the nights in the last 9 days that I’ve had them, I’ve contemplated calling my mother for her and dad to start driving here, and whether or not to wake J up. I’ve taken baths, showers, sat on exercise balls, read, walked around and around the house (not the best idea to walk around the block at 1-5am alone), and counted my contractions. They’ve been as close as 7 minutes apart, lasted up to 60 seconds, and been strong (though not as strong as I imagine they will be). Last night I was starting to really really wonder if this was it. I was up with these from 12am-4am. And fell asleep with the clock in my hands. The last one was 12 minutes apart. . . and then I didn’t have any that woke me up till 6am. I’ve had 4 this morning. No regularity, and not as painful as in the night, but they are different today, especially since normally I never ever have them in the morning.

So that’s the update. In one sense I’m hoping that this means that I am dilating, and all this work is getting me farther along the road then if I just wham bam boom went into labor without any preliminary. Tomorrow morning I go to the doctor/mw again and will get another quick exam to see how far I am.

Having been up half the night pacing, stretching, and praying… wondering if I should call my parents to start driving up here, if there was any regularity to the pain (what DOES a contraction feel like anyways? am i having them, or not? if i am asking God for a supernatural labor- how will i know?), and having small snacks since lately I get really nauseated and start vomiting randomly if I don’t. . . I finally fell asleep around 7am, to only awaken at noon. I’m so glad the 2 weeks before his due date we agreed for me to stop working, so that I can do this sort of thing. Yesterday J and I spent the day together. Though there has been so much for us to do and accomplish, we also realize that this is our last season alone together before kids, and the last 2 years have been not been exactly much of a honeymoon in any sense of the word as far as time together, so we’ve been taking time out once a week to have one day where we just have time with each other. It’s wonderful and so much fun. Last night after googling all the options of naturally inducing labor, J decided I needed to try the cinnamon trick… and I agreed but didn’t want it on my food, and decided to take a spoonful of it dry… um… don’t do that for any of you thinking about it. Dry cinnamon, no matter how much saliva you have stored up in your mouth to swallow it, does not go down easily. It coats your esophagus, and causes a sort of choking refllux… which made both of us laugh so hard we had tears streaming down our cheeks. Aah, the things you do for your husband, the things you do to get a baby to come out, and the fun you have in the process! Anyways, yesterday I didn’t have a nap, I didn’t sleep in too late, and I walked miles and miles, was on my feet for about 6 hours straight, and had a blast going to the Pier, walking through the city, seeing the sunset in Boston Common, and spending hours in the New England Aquarium. . . and still I was up half the night wide awake with baby stretching in all directions (mostly down though). I thought for sure after all that I’d either go into labor or at least be so exhausted I would sleep well! I guess this is normal. Maybe?

This afternoon I am filled with longing and prayer for a place to live in the upcoming months. I love our cute little (emphasis on little) apartment here, and the things about it I love, I really want to take with me- the totally renovated kitchen, and all new paint and moldings… But the no closets, tiny rooms, (we have about 550-600 sq feet), old windows with no ability to keep out cold, or keep in cold in the summer, and minimal natural light have got me sad. I really want a place with space! I’ve been fighting this claustrophobic feeling for the past 2 months now, maybe it has something to do with nesting. I don’t know. But I long for space, light, a washer and dryer, closet space to organize things in, and our things to be organized again… I long to be able to have people over and let them have their own space.. can you imagine if they had their own bathroom when they visited? How wonderful would that be!? I long for a larger place, clean, newly painted, energy efficient, and now I am being redundant. Anyways, I just though I’d voice this… these are my longings today.

That and that Jonah would make his appearance! Of course!!!

It’s 4:32am, I am sitting on the exercise ball, rocking my er, bottom around, trying to get the ache in my hips to stretch out without having to fill up the tub and float my baby/belly. I had a piece of toast with nutella, for comfort, and some watermelon balls… have I ever mentioned that watermelon is my favorite texture out of anything and everything I eat? ESPECIALLY when straight from the fridge? Well, it is.

No emergence of Jonah, no not yet. However, the feeling I have right now, particularly when I lay on my side? I’d say he’s low, oh, he’s very low!

I was just reading friends of our blog- they are full time intercessor missionaries at IHOP- KC. Listening to her talk about the beauty of the Lord, the splendor of our King, this great love we’ve been given has set my heart on fire, put peace back in my bones. Good reading at 4am…

and now, at 4:38 am, I will sign off. g’night all.

Well. I went to the doctor and I’m 70% effaced, -1, and 2cm. YAHOOO!!!! I had a really hard time sleeping last night, not like horrible, just a lot more uncomfortable then normal. I have sort of like constant dull cramping, and I kept dreaming that I was in labor. I guess I kinda am. At least on my way that is! I gave up sleep at a little past 6am (very unusual for me these days- since morning sleep for some reason is usually my best sleep) because my right hip hurt SO BAD, nerve tingling down my leg, just yuck! So I did all my stretches that normally totally work and make things better, got my exercise ball groove going, everything… and nothing worked. and then it hit me, maybe this is not my body, but the baby hitting a nerve in my body, and the baby needs to move! So I got online and found a warm bath was recommended, and immediately when I sat in that tub of warm water- WA-LAH. No pain. No nerve tingling feeling. No horrible ache deep in my joint. Nope, it was all fine. The midwife said today that it’s because water can often lift the baby into a different position. I don’t care what it did, it did something and I was so much more comfy, I went back to bed, got J to stuff pillows all around me (I can’t reach things these days), and slept for 2.5 hours straight!

Another huge answer to prayer- the temperature chilled out. The humidity has waned. And we have had our windows open for 3 days, no need for even air con, and barely any need for a fan. LOVELY. My feet and hands haven’t been this small for several weeks! Goodbye massive swelling!

*sigh, Jesus so loves me.

I’ve just been googling to find out what other women are saying right now that are in their 3rd trimester and are feeling what I am feeling. I can’t find many blogs on it, and so I figure, I might as well write my own!

I feel like I am going to explode, and that if Jonah had an opening on my right side, near that bottom rib, he would have made his way out by now. He seems to think that rib is a toy, something fun to run his leg/some other body part along. I keep reminding him that my belly is not his long term home, it was a short term rental, and that we are super excited to see him. I tried bribing him with ice cream and late bedtimes but it didn’t work. (I KID, I kid). And yet, he is very much still inside of me. He’s incredibly low, hence the random achy pain (like I rode a boys bike and fell a couple times) ‘down there’, which is good says doc, and that he’s coming soon! Soon? Like when is soon? That was a week ago. *sob.

Emotions are running high. There is so much going on, so much to do, and yet so much is completely contingent on timing, timing of him coming out, timing of how I feel with recovery… and within that will come the timing of J trekking to Jersey to find a place for us to live, a possible bass playing extravaganza (The Call) in DC, and packing up our entire house, reserving moving vans, parking permits, etc. I could go on, but I can’t. It’s just too much.

I’m reading baby books galore, well certain ones. I won’t tell you which since it’s all too controversial. At least for now I won’t. I’m praying for a natural awesome supernatural even, childbirth. I’m staying inside cuz it’s so hot that I can’t breathe when I go outside. NO seriously, it is. Today at church, (no air con), I about passed out, and then I remembered that I AM pregnant and that passing out is a serious possibility, probably more so then if I weren’t pregnant and in that kinda of heat with no fan blowing on me. I seriously overheated, and when we got home I was walking up the stairs to our apartment I just started crying. Crying because I was so hot, and my hands and feet don’t work right when I am this pregnant and I get so hot. It’s like they swell up so much they hurt, and when I try to move them it’s just like there is no circulation and it isn’t a horrible pain, but it’s definitely an uncomfortable pain. So this is why women gave me pity looks when I told them my due date back in January. Note for all of you without children: if you can, plan to get pregnant and have your baby when the 3rd trimester is not the raging middle of summer.

J’s been wonderful. I was going stir crazy yesterday (no exit from air con in house for 3 days= house crazy!) and so I convinced him to go to the mall. YAY! Large space with air conditioning! How beautiful is that! For him though, that’s serious sacrifice going on, he HATES malls. He also helps me stay cool, makes sure I am drinking enough, eating enough (I’m so hot I lose my hunger and then I get nauseas and start gagging into my waste basket and wonder why), and calms me down when I start getting too stressed out. I love him!

My rings have been off for over a week now. I miss them.

I say all this, and I still think that this is much easier then my 1st trimester puking drama. Now that totally ate dirt.

Okay I’m done. Hopefully someone, somewhere in their 3rd trimester drama will read this and feel a little more understood, a little less like they are the only one, and a little more sane.

If you haven’t seen this site (click link below) you should. It is probably the coolest presentation of world development data there is. Drop-down menus on the left and bottom axes allow you to choose what statistics you want to track, and the slider at the bottom allows you watch changes over time. Each dot represents a country and it’s size represents its population.

Gapminder World

For a shocking picture of AIDS, use the starting axes (life expectancy and income per person) and before hitting play, click on a an African country like Swaziland or Botswana and an Asian country like Bangladesh. If you can’t find the dot, just check the box on the right side. Now you will see a “trail” of data marking where each country has been. Note that as time passes, Bangladesh stays very poor but sees life expectancy grow by leaps and bounds. Compare with Swaziland, which is much wealthier.

Well, we haven’t had time to figure out what is wrong with our blog (sorry about the missing picture) as we are now realizing that we have so much to do before the baby comes that maybe we, or at least I, am not so sure we want him to come a couple weeks early anymore. However, a friend and I had planned to go to one more Red Sox game while still living in Boston - it’s only my second, we conducted surveys for about an hour and a half before the game in exchange for free standing-room tickets.

Well, I only used my camera to record one at-bat, but this is the one I got. It was the bottom of the 8th inning and the Red Sox had been trailing all game, they had just scored a run to close the gap to 5-3 when Manny Ramirez stepped to the plate, and the crowd got to its feet chanting “Manny Manny” in anticipation. On the first pitch he hit a towering drive over the green monster. My actual video shows clearly the swing and the ball going out of the park, but when YouTube compressed it, it lost its definition, so now you mainly see what a baseball crowd can sound like when they are cheering for the Red Sox.

In between graduating, saying many difficult goodbyes, and getting ready for the summer while trying to stay cool in the sweltering heat, we have tried to update our blog but had some trouble uploading images and not enough time to fix it. I will use the poorly-compressed image I have so far (below), but I am posting this mainly so I can see a new headline and text when I open my browser, but you can read along too if you like.

Previous failed post:
Sorry for the slow pace of blog updates lately. Someone has in fact taken the apartment now, so we can rest at ease, and we are now preparing for graduation week…no it’s not just a day but a whole week of festivities. Here’s what I imagine every one wants to see, a new (well recent) picture of Krista and baby. This is from a trip to the beach on Plum Island. It’s 1 hr north of us and highly recommended in mid-May as no one else is there but occasional bird watching groups that look at you strangely for building sand castles and swimming (well quickly immersing and fleeing) in the 50-something-degree water:

Our landlord has been really cool in that he’s extended our lease from June 15 till September 1st. That being said everyone is shopping for a place to rent for September 1st- now. This means that a realty company takes over the showing of our apartment to prospective tenants. In the 48 hours since they have been hired by our landlord- we have had the place shown once, and they wanted to show it this morning as well. Though they called two hours beforehand, and J was studying for a final exam so we both said ‘no’, and suggested they do it on Saturday afternoon, which they are already planning to show it then, twice.

I cannot tell you how unnerving it is to think about complete strangers walking through your house. Looking at your stuff. How uncomfortable it makes me feel to have them come through on days that we are both not here. And yet we have no choice. The place has to be rented. And I want our landlord to have the peace of mind that he has tenants to fill the place by the time we are gone. As a landlord, I understand that peace!

My gripe are these stupid rental/real estate companies. They have no direct connection to us, and really could care less about the current tenant. They’ve called me on my cell 4-5 times a day the last 2 days, never mind that I told them I would be at work, and please to email their questions. Then when I said ‘no, is there a better time” to tomorrow morning’s prospective showing, I got an email from the head manager - CHEWING ME OUT for being noncooperative. (not a word, but can’t think of the right one). These companies get the equivalent of one months rent- over $1500 dollars to whoever they can get to sign a lease. They show it to whoever they can, even if the person isn’t necessarily interested in this type of place. Believe me, I know, I was shown places that I was annoyed to be shown by these people, simply because they weren’t what I had asked for, above my price range, and the agent was just trying to sell me on something. It’s like the worst of the worst type of situation.

In short, please, please PRAY that this place is rented quickly for when we leave. The last thing I want is for strangers to be walking through our apartment when we have the baby. That would be so frustrating and I would feel very much encroached upon, like my privacy was being invaded. Never mind the fact that I already do, with a new baby it would just feel 10x’s that.
Thanks friends.

Here is the classic brown sweater and jeans that I’ve been sporting in these bump updates, and you know what? You really at this point can’t get the full effect of how big I am!! So. I have taken some other shots in a different color, that you may know! These were taken Friday night, and are at 28 weeks, 5 days. So pretty much 29 weeks. I’m in my 3rd trimester, have gained copious amounts of weight (though doctor says i am perfectly healthy), and am starting to feel tired lately. It’s not as bad as the sleepiness/exhaustion that set in during the first trimester, but I have definitely noticed a change of energy level. That being said, we’re also doing a lot more these days socially.

Okay for more pictures (including a goofy faced one):