More FInn photos

Finn Bath Part 3

Finn's First Bath Video

Pictures of Finn!

Finn is here!

I will try to blog at some point about his arrival and our first days at home, but right now it seems like it will be a while until I have either the time or the energy.

But everything is wonderful and we are completely crazy about him.

In the interim, here are some photos of our gorgeous baby.

Almost There!

Hello everyone...

I am sorry for my lack of participation in this joint blog over the last several months. Those of you who know me well, know that I am not the best multitasker, and it seems to be an unsung rule of physics that when one new major event with new demands appears in life, the demands in other areas (like work) will increase at the same time.

That being said... I cannot adequately describe how excited I am to meet Finn in this blog. He kicks up a storm now every night, strong kicks, sometimes three at a time all at different angles. I can hold my hand on the spots where he is pushing and actually feel the roundness of the foot as he pushes back. I am so eager to interact with him, and to see his first smile and the first time he recognizes things and interacts with the world.

The midwife told Austin this week that she is 2cm dialated and 70% effaced and that he is in the right position so things could happen at any time. She even said it was 50/50 whether she would make it through the week. I am really ready and Austin is even more so. :-) Overall, she has been uncomfortable but things have been going really well.

I will try to blog at least once in the week after he arrives. Keep your thoughts and prayers with us.

Kevin

Nursery pictures

I am just on a picture posting binge. Here is our nursery, which is completely done except for hanging the valances, which we are doing this weekend.

I think it came out super cute, and many thanks to my darling husband for painting it and my sister for helping me decorate.

Finn in 3-D

When my parents visited, we went and got a 3-D ultrasound, which was a lot of fun. Since it was mid-day, he was, of course, sound asleep (this baby is definitely a night owl). But we got some really cute pictures:

Lots of cute face shots:

The bottom of a foot:

Two little fat baby feet:

Happy Birthday to the Father to Be!

A little note for the expectant father on his birthday:

October 27, 2008

To my wonderful husband on his 30th birthday:

Kevin,

Happy, happy birthday! I can’t believe that you were only 22 when I met you and now we get to celebrate your 30th birthday together. You have become a more wonderful man and husband every day since I have been with you so I can’t wait to see what a new decade will bring.

You are the best person I know and I am so blessed to have you in my life. You are funny, smart, and kind. Every day I spend with you makes me love you more. I am counting on us getting to spend at least the next hundred lifetimes together because it is already clear to me that just one won’t be nearly enough.

I can’t wait to see you as a father. Finn is so lucky – he not only inherits your fabulous genes but gets to grow up with a great man like you as his role model. There is no one I could feel better or surer about having as my partner as we go into becoming parents.

I hope you have an amazing birthday. I love you endlessly and always will.

Austin

More pregnant pics

Who is this giant pregnant lady?

What can I say, I am eight months pregnant as of next Monday. Crazy.

Per Emily's request, here are more photos of me in all my glory.

33 weeks and change

Time is continuing to swim along quickly. We are done painting the nursery (Yay! Thanks Kevin!). It looks very nice.

The furniture is all put in and it's mainly decorated. I will post pictures once we have the last few items in place (a glider, curtains). I think it's going to look great and it's so nice to have it all nearly done.

Next week I have another round of baby doctor appointments, including another ultrasound. I am excited to see Finn and to hear where he is, size wise.

Stay tuned...

Only eight more weeks!

I had an absolutely lovely time at my shower. It was so nice to see some of my very favorite people, especially those I hadn't seen in ages.

Plus we got lovely, love gifts for Finn, which I really appreciated.

Here are some photos:



Kevin and I are now trying to get anything that falls under the "must have before the baby arrives" banner. Painting on the nursery is still continuing, and I have faith that soon it will be done and we can put everything away.

I am now 32 weeks. The rest of the pregnancy both seems too long (I am not feeling well and am looking forward to not having my giant belly) and way too short (I can't believe that in only eight weeks I will have an actual baby!)

Off to my baby shower!

Tomorrow I leave to fly up to DC for my baby shower on Saturday.

I am very excited to see everyone and to celebrate the coming of Finn.

Thank you in advance to everyone who is coming, especially people who are coming into town just for the shower. I feel very loved.

29 weeks

We got to have another ultrasound on Wednesday and this time even got to see Finn in 3-D. Very cool.

Here is the picture from it:

He is doing well and is already three pounds.

It is hard for me to imagine both him and I being 11 weeks bigger than we are right now, but it is so nice to hear that everything is going well with him.

27 weeks pregnant

I am now in my third trimester. It seems some days like December 3rd will never get here, but I am sure it will come before I know it.

We are slowly trying to get things ready and I am very much looking forward to my shower in DC at the end of the month.

I am still feeling okay, but I am starting to get more tired and achey and big!

Baby boy Lewis has a name

We've officially picked out the baby's name.

On (or around) December 3rd, we look forward to meeting

Finnegan Gray Lewis

Baby decorating

We've picked our nursery bedding!

We are going to use Nojo's Day at the Zoo, which looks like this:


I am excited to order it and to be able to start organizing and painting the nursery.

We have also finally registered, for those of you who are dying to start buying us many, many baby gifts. We are registered at Babies R Us. So fun.

It's been a long time...

So the bad news is that I haven't written anything in more than a month... The good news is that there is more than a month's worth of occurances to write about.

So let me start with "Hooray! It's a boy!". I honestly would have been happy either way as long as the kid was healthy, but deep down (or perhaps not quite as deep as I think) I wanted a boy. Unfortunately, I was on a business trip during that ultrasound, but was also reassured to know that he is doing well and is about 15% bigger than expected.

Athletics, academics, girls, emotions, problem solving, what it takes to be a good man, I have experiences and insights in these areas to share, and that means it is easier to envision what I will spend time doing with him. Down the road I do look forward to becoming a strong father for a girl as well, but it is nice to start with the kind of young mind that I know. Also, let's face it, I still like a lot of the things little boys like to do and it'll be nice to have an excuse to do them as an adult.

On the homefront, the second trimester is MUCH happier for Austin... she has a glow, has a lot of energy, and our time together is wonderful. The searches to start outfitting our house with baby gear have begun in earnest. We have reduced our list to about 80 things that we need and are searching Craigslist and Ebay in earnest to get what we can. Right now we are shooting for anything that is 50% less than the best we can do for an equivalent new item and Austin has had some success.

Austin is feeling movement of the baby now, and I may be able to feel it externally too, though I am not really sure. Breathing, stomach rumblings, and baby movements all feel the same to me right now. Everything at our Dr. visits has been positive, and nothing really scary has happened on our end, so we are very pleased and excited about the way things are going. We are debating between a green safari theme or a blue ocean theme for the room, so feel free to weigh in with your opinions in the comments section.

The coming week is our trip to the Dominican Republic and the longest vacation that I have taken since I started my career. It will be great to see my whole side of the family and great for the both of us to get a chance to relax and enjoy ourselves. I can't wait!

I will try to get back into writing more often now.

-Kevin

20 week ultrasound photos

Here's the darling boy in all his 20 week glory.

It's a boy!

I went to the specialist yesterday and got to see the baby on the ultrasound for close to twenty minutes. It was great! And...we're having a boy!

Kevin and I are very excited.

He is looking healthy and big already. I got to watch him move all around and it was lovely to see.

The second trimester is a miracle

After all my complaining about my pregnancy misery, I am offically feeling 100% better.

I can eat - and boy, do I. I am hungry all the time now and everything looks good (although meat and vegetables and I are still having our difficulties - this baby is consuming a lot of cheese).

And I am actually able to leave the house and do things like run errands and go to the gym.

It is a happy time.

An approximation of me, now that I'm in my second trimester.

Maternity clothes transition

I am officially starting to wear maternity clothes.

I can still (barely) get my formerly too big pants buttoned, but it's being increasingly less comfortable.

I have ordered a couple of items off of the Internet and yesterday Kevin and I did our first maternity clothes shop. I am trying to get multi-purpose items that I can wear for a while, we will see how that works.

I am much more comfortable with the change to maternity bottoms. Such is the exciting life of a pregnant girl!

15 weeks

Despite my best intentions, I have been remiss at posting pictures of my gradually expanding self. But here is me at 15 weeks:

I feel like I am definitely starting to show now.

We also went to the doctor (yet again) today. We were able to hear the heartbeat, which was great. Everything looked good and we will go back to both the main doctor and the specialist in another four weeks (at which point we will hopefully find out the sex).

Long Absences and Nesting cont.

Finally, the moment you have all been waiting for... kitchen pics:

Okay, In looking at the blog I noticed that it has been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted... Sorry about that. I tend to be a man of single focus and as of late, that focus has been turned to work and home repairs rather than blogging.

There is both good and bad in that because while I have been away from posting for a while there is a bit more to catch up on. So... baby wise, we had our 13 week check up. It was a bit of a scary time considering that most of the advice that we had gotten was that we shouldn't even tell anyone until that point because the risks were much greater beforehand. Fortunately, there was nothing to worry about as they said that everything that they can see with the ultrasound looked perfect. The baby is right on schedule with growth and development, the heart rate looks good, and the spinal cord seems to be developing appropriately. I wish you could see the video as the fuzzy pictures don't do it justice. You could see the little arms and legs, the skeleton was clear, and it looked like it was having minature hiccups. In the week and a half since Austin is feeling a bit better, so there is hope that her sickness won't be the 8 1/2 month kind.

Home improvement wise, we have taken several steps forward. The tile floor is in, and I think it looks great! I spent virtually the entire day yesterday watching and talking with our Romanian installer, Ray. The guy really knew his stuff and worked the entired day straight with no lunch break from about 8 to 8 to get it finished. I will hire him again in a heartbeat.

I stained the quarter round for installation when he seal the floor on Wednesday, and the Lewis's officially have their first permanent kitchen floor. The improvement is dramatic. Dramatic enough that I decided to replace our flourescent lighting with new track lighting to compliment it, and am having a really hard time avoiding the "self install granite slab countertop" websites even though everyone I talk to (including Ray) says it's a bad idea.

Also, in the intervening time since my last post, you have missed my trip to my grandmother's memorial service in California. She recently passed away at the age of 8

9 and my family got together to celebrate her life. It was both a sad and happy time, and a great reminder of what a wonderful family that I have and just how important family is.

Oh, and back to the baby... Austin's sister sent us a Massive amount of clothing from both their boy and girl from the ages of 1 to 3. I think it is going to make a tremendous difference for the baby. If I have my way... this baby will be in nothing but hand-me-downs. :-)

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath. My visits to the aquatic center now total 2.... not quite the 10 that I had planned on.

More visit details - A.

I am offically in my second trimester, but am still waiting for the whole more energy/feeling better thing. Here are some pictures (rather blurry) from the twelve week ultrasound:

It was very nice to hear that the baby is looking "perfect." I go back to my normal OB on the 12th.

Due Dads

For Kevin: to watch instantly on Netflix.Due Dads:Providing helpful tips with a big dose of humor, this informative program is jam-packed with valuable advice for fathers-to-be. Chapters on each trimester offer suggestions to ensure the comfort of your pregnant partner, including meal-making, cleaning and foot massage instructions. Perhaps most importantly, a discussion of the inevitable stresses of pregnancy presents coping strategies for men navigating this life-altering period.

The male version of nesting...

I think that this weekend was a great example of how pregnancy begins to revert us to our "primal" instincts. For the first time in the pregnancy, Austin is feeling some of the emotional effects of all of the hormones coursing through her veins... There were a lot of tears shed during movies and yes, even commercials, this weekend. The need for cuddles has also increased markedly. :-)

I meanwhile, continue to have a stronger urge to build, improve, clean, and repair our house than I have ever felt before. The project during the week was having two dead pine trees cut down in our yard, then distributing the mulch over the weed bed bordering our driveway... very satisfying as they had been concerning me during the recent high winds we have had here in Georgia.

The weekend project was stripping the two layers of linoleum floor from our kitchen so that we can lay porcelin tile. The top layer came up easy in about a half hour. The second layer took about 4 hours of pouring boiling water on it waiting 15 minutes while watching TV, then pulling it up one section at a time. Finally, the felt backing for the second layer took about 8 hours between Friday night and Saturday of serious sweat with a razor scraper, boiling water, and Krudkutter (my new favorite cleanser/degreaser/paste remover). Seems like it would be a total pain... but it felt good.

Now, the rest of the flooring is in Home Depot's hands and I am Jonesing for my next project. Will it be sodding the backyard? Putting a patio in the backyard? Self-installing granite or granite tile countertops? Replacing our ever-leaking windows? Who can say... but I am anxious to do it while I have all of this father-to-be superenergy.

New Baby - New Products

There is a new world of BABY to explore.
G diapers The flushable disposable diaper.

http://www.gdiapers.com/

or the Bumbo Baby Sitter
The Bumbo Baby Sitter is a revolutionary new concept with world wide patent rights, uniquely designed according to the baby's posture. It is certainly a different take on high chairs and boosters. The baby seat will allow baby to independently sit upright from as young as 3 months up to an age of approximately 14 months. The baby Bumbo seat provides a snug and cozy environment for the baby. (Picture from The Image is Found.)

We will check out more, Austin, when you come to visit. Love,L.

12 week visit

So the doctor was uneventful. I did get a prescription for Zofran so we shall see how that works out. I also got my referral to a peri-natal specialist. We are going to see them on the 27th for an in-depth ultrasound to see how everything is going with the baby. Hopefully they will see only good things.

Absentee fathers and big days

So I see that it has been a week since I posted and I have left my sick and pregnant wife to carry the load for all of our readers... I would say that the reason was that work was just too busy and distracting this week, but that sounds a little ominous for our unborn LP.

Needless to say, I am very excited about our 3 month visit to the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully this time we will get to see something more exciting than a flickering grain of rice. Since this is the most dangerous section of the pregnancy, the anxiousness and excitement is tempered with a bit of fear, but I am certain that the experience will be amazing.