Lilia Rebekah May

She's here! I will write more later, but for now just the important stuff :)

Lilia Rebekah May
Born at 11:40 am on the 15th of May 2009
8 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long!!

We are all home now and everyone is healthy and safe after a few minor bumps in the road. We are very grateful for all of the love and support that we have received from our family and friends and will have details on EVERYTHING once we've gotten a little more sleep.... if that ever happens ;)

A $250,000 answer to prayers and a witchy woman at 39 weeks

I'm really late in writing this. It would have been much more dramatic had I written it about a week ago. I really don't have a good excuse - I've just been crabby and lazy about it. So Cliff was supposed to leave last Tuesday and be gone until either the 14th or the 19th which was precariously close to my due date and making us both very nervous. I had been having a lot of contractions right before he left and I did NOT want him to go. Unfortunately, that's the Navy and that's what we both signed up for. So he DID leave on the 5th (Tuesday morning) and then... on that Thursday afternoon I got a call from our friend Mike at the squadron asking me if I was coming over there. "Why would I come over there? Am I supposed to be coming over there?" I asked. "Um... shoot! Did I just ruin the surprise?" Mike answered. "What!?!?!??" I demanded. Mike told me that Cliff would be landing in about 30 minutes and although I was spectacularly confused I jumped in my car and got over there as fast as I could. Both of us were surprised that day :)

Apparently a part had broken on his ship that held the aircraft in place. It wasn't an easy or a cheap fix so his boss decided to send one of the birds home and Cliff along with it! It was such an incredible answer to our prayers. I kept saying, "if I can just hold out until the 15th when he gets back....." but then he came home early! Having him home with me really calmed me down a lot and of course my contractions have now eased up and this baby will probably wind up late ;) I don't care, though! It's been absolutely wonderful having him here and my mom is here too! I have been such a worry wart throughout this entire pregnancy so it's nice to have a few constants in my life.

The only downside to this situation is that the closer I get to my supposed "due date" (the 21st) the crabbier and crabbier I get. Good GRIEF I am irritable right now. I am having more painful contractions and I am dilated to 3cm and it's doing absolutely nothing. My mom and I go for long walks every night. We even hiked Kamakura this past weekend. That's a lot of stairs people. I think the greatest injustice, though, is my body's betrayal. I made it all the way to 38 WEEKS with no stretch marks and then all of the sudden I had like 5 around the space my belly button used to be. It's like my body said "Look, Jill, we tried to work with you - really we did, but enough is enough." UGH!

I know that my blog has become nothing more than a pregnancy rant, but this is a nearly all-consuming part of my life right now. A part that I am completely over! If there is one thing that I have learned throughout all of this (and those of you that have yet to experience this wonderful portion of the circle of life) is that you NEVER ask a woman at term if she has had her baby yet. Don't even ask her when she is due. In fact, ignore briefly that she is pregnant at all. Ask her about "Lost" or "Dancing with the Stars" if you will. Better yet, just run in the opposite direction.

Over 37 weeks!

It's kind of surreal... I know that I am getting closer to delivering but it still seems impossible that I am going to be a mother soon! Not that I am not completely ready to get this kid out of me... quite the contrary, it's just that I can't really visualize the actual delivery...

Anywho, I have some great news! The last ultrasound that I had showed that my placenta had moved enough (6 1/2 cm) so I am no longer having a c-section at this point! I honestly had made my peace with whatever decision the doctor was going to make but no one really wants to have surgery if they can avoid it. The plan as of right now is to head down to Yokosuka on the 15th and stay at the "stork's nest" until delivery. The idea with the stork's nest is that you are already down at Yokosuka ahead of your delivery date so that you don't have to worry about making an 1 1/2 -2 hour drive while in labor. I am crossing my fingers that this baby doesn't come too early because I would really like Cliff to be there.

In other news:

- My feet have started swelling in the evenings. They usually return to normal by the next morning but they are KILLING me by the end of the day. I have tried to go on walks to keep my circulation up and I am pushing the fluids as my doctor recommended. This has helped a little.

- I gained 4 1/2 lbs in about 10 days.... That was really good for my self- esteem. And of course the corpsman at the doctor's office had to point this out to me. " Ma'am you realize you've gained some weight?" "No sir, I was looking at a different scale than you were. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Oh, and I'm not PREGNANT or anything." I guess it's true what people say, that you can really pack on the pounds near the end...

- I'm back to craving salads again, but this time with blackened salmon - YUM!!!

- With the blackened salmon and just about anything else I eat comes heartburn. Yuck. Acid reflux is the WORST. If this doesn't go away after the baby is born I'm gonna... I'm gonna... hmm.... I guess just stompl my feet and complain some more... :(

- The nursery is all organized!! Notice I say "organized" and not "decorated." I still have a little ways to go with decoration, but the furniture is all where it needs to be and more importantly, it is SPOTLESS. Some wonderful ladies from church came over yesterday and did an extreme makeover on that room. I had been having panic attacks over the colossaly chaotic disaster that was that room and they had completely turned around in about 2 hrs.

- I am having a lot of those so-called "braxton hicks'' contractions. I wouldn't call them painful but they can most certainly be uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel like I've gotten sucker punched and all of the air leaves my lungs. Cliff and I have noticed that I get them more frequently when I am stressed out or upset. Did that happen to any of you moms out there?

- Lastly, my mom gets here tomorrow!!! We are driving all the way out to Narita to get her tomorrow after church!! So excited!!!!

Do I still live in Japan? Oh yeah, I guess I do...

Cliff and I went to a bazaar in Yokosuka last weekend and finally bought the step tansu we wanted! I am sooooo excited about this piece of furniture!! If you have never seen one before you can google "step tansu" or "Kaidan dansu" and that will give you and idea of how versatile and beautiful this particular type of furniture can be!
We have ours set up more in the "Buffet" style but if you look very closely to the left you can see where the pieces fit together if we wanted to set it up like a stair case. We hope to have the room to do that eventually, but for now it is going to be a TV stand.
That's rice paper behind the glass and we have our DVD player inside. We can use the remote through the glass so that everything stays hidden!
So... I was bored the other day driving home from Sagamihara housing with Cliff and I started taking pictures... Typical day driving around Japan.
Watch out for people on bikes - they WILL NOT watch for you.
It was pretty grey and dreary on this particular Saturday, but we did spot some wisteria!! Anyone who knows me at all knows that I LOVE wisteria. LOVE IT!
More wisteria :)
So pretty!! They have white wisteria here in Japan as well. I know everyone gets all crazy about the cherry blossoms but this is more my thing. And below you can see an older Japanese woman that took the wisteria thing a little too far.... j/k I really have no idea why she has such a violent shade of purple for her hair color. I just had to get a picture, though...

Cliff's Birthday and a pregnancy update!

Cliff's 27th birthday was yesterday! What an old man!! His favorite sweet combination is peanut butter and chocolate, so for his birthday I went all out....
I made a triple layer chocolate cake with peanut butter/ cream cheese frosting with a chocolate and peanut butter ganache icing. My friend sent me the recipe from Smitten Kitchen although she had never tried the ganache with it. This was my second attempt at baking cakes and I have to say - it was SPECTACULAR! Maybe baking isn't so bad after all! Especially when the results are like this! It didn't look as pretty as the pictures on the website, but who really cares?? It was soooo yummy. I think that Cliff enjoyed it too :) Here is the link if you are interested: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/08/chocolate-peanut-butter-cake/
The birthday fairy came to visit Cliff! This is my friend Ashley's little girl Natalie. Natalie is fascinated with baby Lilia in my belly. :)
Here is Cliff inhaling the scent of yummy chocolatey goodness. There is a chunk of ganache missing.... I guess someone couldn't wait for me to cut it...
We ate the whole thing in one sitting!! Ha! Just kidding... but we did polish off our very large pieces with a glass of milk. Like I said before... so yummy.
Speaking of baby Lilia, I am now over 35 weeks! My doctor told me on Tuesday that if I went into labor now they probably wouldn't stop it. I guess that's nice to know. We also talked about the upcoming ultrasound and what the plan with my placenta was. He said that we will reevaluate next week when we get the results and possibly set up a consultation with the OBs at Yokosuka if my placenta still has not moved. He didn't seem too concerned but he did hand off my prenatal record to me just in case :)
There's the belly! All out in front as everyone says... Cliff says he wants his basketball back, but I'm thinking we may have graduated to beach ball at this point. I'm definitely ready to have my body back, though. Cliff and I have issued a 30 day eviction notice. It's getting increasingly difficult to tie my shoes and shave my legs. I have trouble getting my socks on and getting out of bed too. It really hurts to be on my feet for too long. I have to give a shout out to my mother for working on her feet all day when she was pregnant with me. Really just in general I have become more aware and more grateful for what my mother has done for me. I'm also so thankful that I have a caring husband who rubs my feet and back at night and cleans the house and puts all of our baby furniture together. He has really been a wonderful partner through all of this. His favorite thing to do right now is play "tummy tag" with Lilia. Whenever she sticks out a foot or elbow he chases it around as she moves across my belly :) It's really very sweet how excited he gets about it.

Well I guess that is it for now!

Flight suit photos

It's a tradition among the Lady Warlords to dress up in their husbands flight suits once a year and take pictures! We decided to wear their red flight suits this year rather than their usual green. I think we look great! So there ya have it - this is what my husband gets to wear to work, (red is just for Fridays, but either way they are practically pajamas!) That is the fancy painted up "show bird" in the background. The glorious SH60 Bravo... er... something like that :)
To change things up a little we also wore our husbands leather bomber jackets. I could barely zip up Cliff's flight suit over my preggo belly but I had better luck with the jacket. Can you even tell I am pregnant?
It was soooo cold on this particular morning. Windy too. We didn't mind huddling up at ALL.
Good looking group, don't ya think?

Badman Ball

Here are the Lady Warlords... and Aaron our MOUSE!
Some of the girls!
I really thought we had more pictures... :( I'm kind of bummed that we don't have a full length one of us that turned out... the only one that was taken was without a flash and really dark. I might see if I can get it lightened up. Otherwise, we will have to wait on the professionals.

So the Badman Ball is a formal event that takes place once a year here at N.A.F. Atsugi to honor the Carrier Air Wing. Badman is a call sign for CAG or the commander or something... Anywho, there is a week of sports and themed parties (Luau, margarita night, etc.) that lead up to the main event - the ball! This is one of the perks of the military. I loved dressing up and going to dances in high school, but not very many people get to continue to do that as adults. With Cliff in the military we are guaraunteed at least a couple of formal events every year. We had a lot of fun. Even without my mom here to do my hair... Cliff and Chrissy really helped a lot with getting me put together and it was fun to show off the tummy in the "fairy princess" dress my mom made me!