Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everybody! We are back at Mom and Dad's for the holidays, and enjoying seeing everybody and looking forward to Christmas day. Natalia is still looking good, and feeling good. The baby is definitely growing, and the last time she was weighed by the doctor she had gained 28 pounds. That was Dec. 10, so she's right on track to gain about 35 pounds, which is the average, according to our Bradley class.

Natalia says that the baby has definitely grown, and she feels like it is taking up all the space in her tummy, and we've still got about seven weeks to go. We're starting to get very excited! The baby has also moved up in her tummy, and seems to be kicking in the upper right "corner" close to Natalia's rib cage on the right.

Other changes since the last update are, Natalia has felt like she's had to sleep on her side because the baby is getting really heavy, and she feels like its easier for her to get out of breath, and definitely more weight on the bottom of her stomach. The baby is still very active, but doesn't have as much space to rear back and really kick. It's been more nudging lately, as the baby has less and less space. Natalia still feels like the baby does shift around some, and we're going to ask Lee, our Brother in Law to see if he can feel what her position is. Natalia has felt cramps in her legs at night, but the last few nights that has gotten better.

We've been enjoying the Bradley class, and we're really starting to get into the heart of it. We are learning lots. This next week we are putting together a birth plan, which we will discuss beforehand with the doctors and the birth team. It's one of the most important parts of what we have learned so far, because it lets everybody know how we would like the birth to go. We want to have a completely natural childbirth, and want to try and avoid any drugs and/or procedural interventions which hospitals tend to present as conveniences which are "all part of the experience" but may actually harm the mother and/or baby. Yes, we would like to avoid that.

We had a hospital visit at St. Vincents Womens Hospital where we plan to have the birth take place, and we were very pleased with the visit, and happy with how open they were to a natural childbirth, and with their responses to our questions. They were very nonchalant when talking about a Cesarean section, but they have to make it sound routine for all the people who are half expecting or fully expecting that to be part of the procedure. The birthing room was very nice, as it had a shower, which Natalia expects she will want to use during labor, and they have beds which can be moved into different positions, and have a birthing bar for Natalia to hold onto during contractions. So in that, they seemed very open to the mom being in different positions for birth. Also, they stressed that during the birth, when the baby came out, it would immediately go on the mother's chest. That allowed us to check off some big items, and we're expecting the birthing plan discussion will check off the rest.

We have the nursery furniture in place and we're ready to start putting more clothes and things in it. Erin, my sister, gave us some of Kai's old clothes, so we've already some ready to go. We're planning on having the baby shower sometime in January, maybe towards the end, and my sister, Amy, is planning on hosting.

We want to mention the baby pool again, at http://elkinsbaby.babypool.com. It's getting close, and the prime slots are going fast, so get them while you can!

In this Holiday season we feel very blessed and thankful to have such great family and friends, and we are excited to bring another life into this world very soon! Merry Christmas to all! Love, Adam and Natalia.

More Baby News

The Baby is definitely growing! Natalia has gained 16 pounds total so far. I believe it is normal to gain 25-30 pounds during pregnancy. Natalia says the doctor wanted her to gain 35 pounds. What? That's like 1/3 of her normal weight. Natalia x 1.333 repeating. Ha!

The baby is very active, and is kicking a lot. It's really cool to feel the baby kicking, and I can talk to the baby and I'm pretty sure she responds because she recognizes her daddy. Natalia said that she felt the baby shift last Sunday when she woke up, and then Tuesday after that. Natalia said she thought the baby had definitely moved. It seemed like weight moved from the bottom of her stomach to the right side. The doctor said this was normal.

We started taking Bradley classes two weeks ago and those are going well. It's a method of natural childbirth which focuses on relaxation. We're taking them from Amy Ferris, who is the wife of Jeremy Ferris, one of my chiropractors. My sister Erin teaches Bradley courses, and had originally trained Amy.

We're watching Natalia's belly moving right now. It looks like Jello moving on it's own.

Natalia says she is feeling healthy. She's had more trouble finding a comfortable position to sleep as she's gotten bigger, and she's also had leg cramps on occasion. She's also felt like she's had hot flashes, all of which I'm pretty sure are normal for a pregnant woman.

Here is a picture of Natalia. If you compare it to the previous picture, you can definitely see a difference!

Starting Preparations for the Baby

This past weekend we started the baby registry at Babies R Us. Our registry number is 44542971 in case you want to check it out. We went there both Saturday and Sunday, and we still have things we need to pick out.

We're not only shopping for the baby, but we are also preparing the room. The nursery will be in the bedroom next to the master bedroom, and we've got it completely cleared out except for the bed, which we are going to get rid of soon. We're planning on painting, at the very least (VOC free paint, of course), and perhaps adding a chair rail, and maybe some sort of surface below the chair rail.

We started walking yesterday, because we want to make sure Natalia's got the endurance to have a baby. We're going to try to get out and walk 2 or 3 times a week from now on, as long as Natalia feels comfortable doing so.

Don't forget to place your bets at http://elkinsbaby.babypool.com.

As promised, here is a picture of Natalia today, at 23 weeks and 5 days.

Adam and Natalia at Doug and Christina Husemans' Wedding

Baby Time!!!!!

Hi there everybody. Natalia and Adam here. We're having a baby!!!!!! Yay! Natalia says that I am the writer, so it is my responsibility to get some words on this page about the little baby that is on the way. It's been a while since we've written, and we haven't even finished the full honeymoon story, yes we got to Bali and we didn't remember what a computer was. We'll finish that later. First, let's talk about this little baby.

The baby's name is--just kidding, we don't even know that yet, and we wouldn't say because that would ruin the fun of the baby pool, which we have started at http://elkinsbaby.babypool.com. At this site, you can bet some money on the baby's name, weight at birth, etc. You can win 20% of the pool, and the rest goes to the baby's college fund. :)

We've already found out the gender of the baby--it's a girl! I think she's going to be a soccer player. She just kicked and I'm pretty sure I saw Natalia's stomach bounce out of the corner of my eye. Natalia definitely felt it.

Natalia is, as of this date 22 weeks and 6 days along, according to the fact that we had the ultrasound where we found out the baby is a girl last Tuesday, and it was 22 weeks and 5 days at that point. 8 day's later, and I think we've got it worked out correctly based off of that.

Natalia is feeling good. She had morning sickness for the first 3 months, but that has subsided for the most part. Now she is feeling fine, she has a good appetite, and she has gained 12 lbs, and is looking bigger. I'll post some pictures soon. Her bellybutton is starting to look pretty stretched, and her belly looks good overall. Very smooth and round, like she ate a watermelon whole. Maybe not quite that big yet, but you get the idea. She doesn't like it when I poke her bellybutton with my finger.

Natalia went to the grocery store and walked around there for 3 hours trying to find stuff for different recipes, and she felt like that was the most exercise she had gotten in a while. Thus we decided we are going to try and walk two or three times a week, but nothing to over-exerting. Erin, my sister, said this would be a good idea.

Speaking of food, Natalia has had a few cravings, such as pickles, and Nutella on toast. To be clear, not pickles with Nutella on toast, but who knows that might be good. Amy and Christopher had brought up some jelly and honey from their trip to the Smokey Mountains a few months ago, and sometimes Natalia will have that on toast. I've noticed she's definitely eating more carbohydrate laden foods during the pregnancy, and I think I have too. I've maybe put on one or three pounds myself. Ha!

Hmm, what else? That's all we can think of right now, but please respond with any questions you might have, and don't forget to check out http://elkinsbaby.babypool.com.

Talk to you soon. We'll keep you posted.

Adam and Natalia

Wedding Pictures!!!

Here's all the pictures Shelly took at our wedding. If you want the full size pictures let me know and we will mail you copies!

Wedding Day - Getting Ready

Wedding Day - Adam and Natalia

Wedding Day - Wedding Party

Wedding Day - Family Portraits

Wedding Day - Ceremony

Wedding Day - Reception

Taman Mini

The day after Mom, Dad, Erin and Lee arrived was also the day before the reception in Indonesia, and so we decided to spend this day at Taman Mini, which is a theme park that is very close to Grace and Berthus' house. Taman Mini means Miniature Park. It is named as such because the park contains a large pool with miniature islands that represent the islands of Indonesia.

We picked up Mom, Dad, Erin and Lee at the hotel and then we went to the park. We were suprised when we arrived that there was hardly anybody at the park. This was likely because of Ramadan, and Natalia said it was normally more crowded. Not that we were complaining--it made it very easy to get around and see all the sights.

The first place we visited was the aviary. This was really neat because we saw all sorts of exotic birds, all of which were native to Indonesia. The aviary consisted of several large domes, which were split into two areas. The first area contained birds from Eastern Indonesia, and the second area contained birds from Western Indonesia. The zookeeper said every month they would open up the doors so they could visit each other. Just kidding about that part.

The aviary was really cool, and we saw many different birds. Mom and I talked to a Macaw for about 5 minutes, and we got it all on tape. I was taping for most of the time, but I did get a picture in front of the peacock cage. Don't worry, the pictures get more exciting later on...
After the aviary, which all of us really enjoyed, Dad and I especially, we got on the skyway, which was a cable car that was carried across the entire park. From the cable car we got a birds eye view of the park, and could see the miniature Indonesia islands very well. Here's a picture of the islands.
We actually got two rides across the skyway because we got to the landing area on the opposite side of the park, and the attendant just sort of waved us through! We got a chance to pass everybody, which was sort of fun, and back at the first landing area there was sort of a bump when you landed, and since Natalia and I landed first we got to see everybody react to this, which was pretty funny, let me tell you.

After we rode the skyway we checked out a few of the other sites, which included different churches of the area, which were true churches, and we were able to take a walk through an Islamic mosque. Very interesting.

Another part of the park contained the houses of Indonesia, which you could walk through and look at the architecture of all the different types of houses built in different parts of Indonesia. We only walked through one house, which was very much like a barn. It was interesting because it was built on stilts and you had to walk up two very steep flights of stairs to get to the living area. The upper living space was a very large room that was considered a common living area. It had ventilation on each end, which also made it very barn-like, and then it had smaller rooms all along the sides of the room, and each of these smaller rooms would house a family.

Once we got done checking out the house examples, we went to check out the lizards and snakes. I'm not sure what they call this place. They call big bird houses aviary. What a great name. I guess lizards are too ugly to have a name for where they live. Anyway, we went to where the lizards and snakes live, and we saw many snakes, including the Indonesian Spitting Cobra, and a Monitor Lizard, which is about two feet long. Natalia said this was the same lizard that was stealing the fish out of the Koi pond in her parents' garden! We then went back to the main attraction in the snake-and-lizard-iary, which was a Komodo Dragon. We actually got to walk up and touch the Komodo Dragon, which was pretty cool. Here's the picture of Natalia and I with the Komodo Dragon. It was pretty docile, but I was half expecting it to go, "RAAHHHHHH," and then go after my arm. Fortunately that didn't happen.
So that was pretty cool, and if we hadn't gotten enough of touching scaly animals, they had another feature close to this with a very large python. They let us go up and hold the python, which was really cool. I went first, and here's the picture. You can really feel how powerful the snake is. It's not slimy at all, but I could tell the snake was like, "You know what, this guy thinks he can keep a hold of me, but I could just squirm right out of his hands and coil around him if I felt like it. Well, I just ate that chicken yesterday so I think I'll just play along for now." Ok, so the snake didn't actually say that, but it did squirm around quite a bit. It was interesting because you could feel the scales of the snake sort of bristle out in a wavelike manner, which made it harder to hold onto, and would allow it to back right out of your hands if it really felt like it.
I thought I was really brave to go up, until my nieces went up and held the snake. There was also a little turtle walking around the snake area, and we got a really cute picture of Catherine and Celine.
We all had a really fun day, and it was nice to have a fun outing with Mom, Dad, Erin and Lee on their first full day in Indonesia.

Next up...the big reception!