Home Sweet Home

Well I am home from the hospital and thankfully they were able to stop the preterm labor. I went in on Tuesday after having some small contractions and dilated to two. The doctor sent us to the hospital to start the 48 hours of IV drip magnesium sulfate and steroids to help the baby develop faster, just in case. Gideon is okay, though he wouldn't stay still for the heart monitor the first night, the nurses averaged rushing in every 10 minutes thinking his heart rate had dropped when in fact he had just moved positions, again.

They released me on Friday and I cannot tell you how happy I am to be home. I am now on procardia every 4-6 hours for the next two weeks, just to give the little guy a little bit more time inside.

My sister surprised me and came into town to check on me. Tabitha and Mom were so great they came and cleaned my whole house and got everything ready for our little one's arrival. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have everything done. Josh managed to even charm the nieces and was able to "practice" calming Tayla. He was a sure win with Tianna all he had to do was put in Chicken Little and her response was "Josh you are my hero."
So we are waiting patiently and as hard as it is to stare at the walls, knowing our little one will be soon, makes it worth while.

Here are some of the hospital & home pictures.

Stopping labor

So, we're here in the hospital today, because Tammy started having some small contractions and was a little bit dilated. The doctor sent us here so Tammy could get 48 hours of IV drip magnesium sulfate to prevent labor, and some steriods to help the baby develop faster, just in case. Gideon is okay, though he won't stay still for the heart monitor thing they strapped on Tammy's stomach. Guess it's clear whose son he is :) Anyway, we're okay, just sitting around being bored and listening to the machines beep and click. -Josh & Tammy

New Arrival

My little brother and his wife welcomed their first little one into the world on Tuesday, Chloe Morgan Diekmann. She is perfect in every way. Yes, it is making us very anxious for our little one to arrive. The countdown is about 5 weeks. The nervousness and excitement have both set in....

Baby Shower!!!

The babyshower was Saturday and we just finished putting stuff away today and the gifts are still arriving. I told Josh we are going to have one loved little guy. It's funny, I have been to so many baby showers the past ten years, but it's a little surreal when its yours. Thank you everyone for your wonderful gifts, I can say without a doubt we feel very blessed with friends like all of you.

Love, Josh, Tammy & Baby 2 B

P.S. Check out our gallery of baby shower pics!

Valley Park flooding

So, the Meramec river is flooding near us, and so far, it hasn't affected any homes, though the mayor says "The City of Valley Park is expecting flooding by the Meramec River. We expect flooding to occur within the city outside of the levee protected area." Here's a picture of it overflowing into some quarry south of our house, courtesy of ksdk:
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Currently the river is supposed to set a record level of 40 feet, which basically puts anything outside the levy several feet underwater. Much of valley park is inside the levee, and we actually live along the big giant ridgeline that rises just north of the river, so our house is fine. (terrain map below courtesy of google shows where we live, as compared to where the flooding in the picture above is).
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Anyway, that's all for now... my lunch break is over.
-Josh

Fun with pictures!

Bunch of pictures now, since I've just spent the evening updating this server... :)

One for the baby book...

Me working on the nursery.


And at last, the thing you're really reading this for...

Pictures of the nursery!

Don't skip the post below, it's new too :)

-Josh

Things are underway & a name has been chosen…..

We have decided to name our little one Gideon Clayton Dalton.   I never knew deciding a name could be so time consuming,  it was rather a funny process, one of us would come up with a name and then the other would decide if it was "worthy-enough" to be added to the list with the following criteria.

1) Could not be on the top ten name list from Social Security for 2007.

2) We both had to actually like the name.

3) and it could not have a cruel nickname.  

  One of my favorite names was Lucas until someone mentioned Lucus Mucus, so the name was taken off the list and we moved on.   Then one night we were bored and started looking people up on MySpace and Josh mentioned that he would like to get in touch with a guy from college named Gideon and that is when I fell in love with the name.   The name means " A Great Warrior" so it looks like we have a little fighter on her hands and as much as he has been moving I firmly believe this. 

Well we have been working on the nursery trying to get things ready for the little guy's arrival.     Josh's project has been to paint the nursery and the letters and as you can tell by the pictures he has been hard at work and definitely doing an awesome job. 

And it snows…

I have been so ready for spring lately and of course it snows this week.   One great thing about St. Louis is that you never know what to expect when it comes to the weather.   It could be sunny one day and building a fire the next.

Things are going well with "the Daltons" .   We made two trips so far this month, one to Memphis for Tom and Deanna's wedding and the second to Mississippi for a family members funeral ( Sue Kairit Taylor).   This weekend we only have one event we need to be at, so it's Saturday morning and we are trying to decide what to do.. so I am rambling on the blog :-)

I wasn't really a "pet" person until I met Josh and his two cats so I have been reading up on all the articles regarding pets and babies.  My favorite article is where they recommend putting aluminum foil in the baby bed prior to the babiy's arrival since cats are scared of it, so the baby bed should be set up by Tuesday and I am going to put this method to a test.     It has worked so far with the couch. 

I can say that the pregnancy so far has been an adventure, the baby is starting to move a lot which is the coolest feeling ever.   People have slowed down on the horror stories about their deliveries :-)  Nesting fever has not hit yet, although I think Josh is looking forward to that so we can have a spotless house.   The cravings have started and for some reason it has been ice cream and bbq chips, it's not out of control, yet.

Well I am going to go do something and not let this day go to waste ...

Love to all.

Tammy

And the waiting has begun….

Baby Furniture ordered - CHECK

Baby Bedding/pictures for the nursery - CHECK

Finding out the sex of the baby - CHECK

Deciding the name of the baby (we're not telling anyone) - CHECK

Waiting for the little guy to arrive .............................................................................................................

I used to prize myself on being a patient person, but I can tell you sometime in the past couple of months my patience level has gone out the window.   Looking back at our wedding I realized that it was the perfect sitituation, he proposed, I planned and bam we were married... we didn't have a lot of time,  engaged in December and married in March.  

I can say that I have been lucky enough in life to be able to have several friends to share the same "time" in life with,  when I was single I had tons of single girl friends, the year I got married 5 of our friends were married the same year and now that we are expecting several friends & two of my sister-in-laws are expecting.   So we are waiting together...

Christmas is over and "year-end" is almost over at work,  so we have officially started getting things ready for our new arrival.   We have semi-registered, ordered the baby furniture, moved completely into maternity clothes, and gotten very anxious.   Josh has earned the "husband" of the year award.   My mom made a statement that she doesn't have to worry about me since I have Josh, and it's very true, as I am writing this blog he is sitting next to me reading " What to expect, when you are expecting."   He has been great, a little too concerned at times, but I wouldn't change him for anything.  It's really nice having someone to take care of me while waiting :-) ...

This blog is me rambling...good night everyone.  

-Tammy

It’s going to be a boy!

So, tonight Tammy and I are emotionally worn out, having spent the whole day being excited about getting to see the baby via the ultrasound this morning.  They took a ton of pictures.  Here's a good one of the whole baby:





So, there's our bouncing, stretching, swimming baby boy!  I have to admit, I'm wonderfully proud, and also thrilled to know that we have been mostly buying for the right gender so far.  Tammy was thinking that it was a boy, whereas I've been really unsure, but still happy to buy cool stuff for whenever we were to have a boy.  We were much further along in coming up with the boy theme and decor for the nursery, so basically we have the bedding and some paintings already.  We're doing the nursery in space rockets (so cool).

     The cool solar system painting we picked up a month or two ago does still have Pluto on it... for those of you that voted to grandfather it in as still being a planet *cough* Brad *cough*  Actually, it looks like much of the space themed stuff hasn't been adjusted to remove Pluto which was demoted to "dwarf planet" status in 2007.

Tammy's having all the fun adding space stuff to our online Target Registry for the eventual baby shower while I'm working on this post, so I'm going to go shoulder shop with her.