53 Days old today!

Hello, all.
Apologies for the 52 day delay...
Miss Clara is 53 days old today.
What a blur it's been!
We've had visitors from afar, I got divorced, trips to the zoo, a trip to Fort Atkinson State Park in Fort Calhoun, Laurentzen Gardens, visits to Grandma South, a trip to Des Moines, Lincoln (sans Clara,) and likely some I've forgotten.
We've had sleepless nights, poopy diapers, significant hearing loss from intimate ear screaming, lots of smiles, and now she's even starting to giggle a little bit.
She's almost grown out of her newborn clothes (some she has.) When we brought her home, nearly every article of clothing we had for her was too big! She's growing bigger, and stronger, and faster. She can even stand - if I keep her from falling over. :-)
It can be frustrating. Nearly overwhelmingly frustrating. Some of you may know (all too well) that patience has never exactly been my forte.
But when I see my baby girl smile, it all melts away. Like a cheesy commercial for Calgon or something.
Make no mistake: She is the apple of my eye. I still get a little teary-eyed when I listen to Stevie Wonder's song, "Isn't She Lovely," which is a song about his own daughter. If you haven't heard it in a while, I strongly suggest you pony up the 99 cents from your favorite purveyor of online music and give it a listen. Or a hundred.
So, without further ado, here's some newer pics. And a loose promise to update this here blog a little more often...

A Couple More Pics

As promised. :-)

We hope you enjoy. Oh, and you can click them to see them bigger. I think that's true for all of them - just in case you didn't know.

Pure Magic

27 hours, 11 minutes ago, I saw my daughter rush, head first, into the world as we know it.
Within about 5 minutes of that, I was holding her, gazing into those beautiful dark blue eyes, and crying like a... well, like a baby.
I'd never actually seen a live birth before. Frankly, I might never have believed anyone who might have tried to tell me it's a beautiful thing. I am a believer now.
Beth's delivery was quick and free of complications. 2 pushes was all she took!

And so it begins...
I began this post about 11 hours ago, and am just now able to get back to it. Although, to be fair, it isn't really Clara's, or anyone's fault. Except the hospital's...
Beth decided she could be exhausted and in pain at home just as easily as at the hospital. That was about 10:30 this morning. We finally rolled out around 3:30 this afternoon.

Ok, so we're pretty much exhausted already. Beth has gotten less sleep than I have, and Miss Clara has slept more than I would have ever imagined. (She continues to do so even now.)
But one thing is certain: Clara is pure magic. Perfect. Beautiful. Nothing prepared me for that.
I knew she was gonna be beautiful - just look at her mama! But to say I'm smitten barely scratches the surface.

More to come, with a few more pics...
Hope you all are well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls... Presenting Clara Hope!

Miss Clara Hope Simerly
Born 04/17/2011 6:16 AM
7lbs, 2 Oz, 20" long.
And beautiful!
Thank you, everybody for your kindness, support, love, and gifts. We love you all, and can't wait to introduce you all in person.
Keep watching the blog, as we intend to keep updating.

Break Water, Not Hearts!

Just about 5 minutes ago, Beth's water broke. It was clear.
She's in an enormous amount of pain. We'll keep everyone updated as this progresses...

Stay posted for huge, yet tiny, news!

Beth was admitted this morning "in labor." we came in yesterday morning around 10:30. That was kind of a funny and convoluted story which I am currently too tired to convey...

We were just informed that she now has to walk around for an hour. Yay. Poor kid. She's just this side of miserable right now.

Stay tuned.

38 Weeks and Counting...

Today we are at 38 weeks.
Our appointment went very well. Beth has gained 3 more pounds, which is most certainly all baby.
She is also dilated to 2 cm, and her uterus is at about 50% for thickness. So, it really could be any day now. 
She's been having "contractions" for about a week and a half now, and frankly, I think she's ready to be done with the whole "pregnancy thing."
And as long as we're being frank here, I kinda am too. I want to meet my baby girl!
Beth keeps teasing me with all the pseudo - contractions. To be fair, she doesn't have any way of knowing whether labor is starting or not. Better to be safe and prepared, I suppose. And of course, we'll keep you posted. :-)

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Sorry to disappoint you, Jay

April 12 has come and gone... still no Miss Clara. :-(
Oh, sure she's wiggled a lot, caused "contractions," and misled us about her intentions a few times, but she still hasn't come to meet us. So we'll continue to wait...

Quick update

Just a quick update on our status.
Beth was fairly certain Saturday night that we would be going to the hospital somewhere between Saturday and Sunday.
Sunday morning, she expressed some mildly disappointed awe at the fact that she no longer had such expectations. We watched a movie, took a walk, she took her nap, and went to work - all without any of the obvious discomfort she experienced Saturday.
So, we wait. On pins and needles. And we (realistically, i think) expect to be meeting Clara pretty much any minute, or day, now. Anyone wanna take any bets as to whether or not we make it to Thursday's 38 week appointment?


I hope all is well with you and yours. We'll keep you posted!

37 Weeks...

Thursday is Dr.'s appointment day. This past Thursday was no exception. All is well - thank the deity of your choice! Beth is doing really well throughout all of this. I would be a whining, whimpering, gelatinous blob of poorly strained previously frozen spinach - like material if I had to go through the whole pregnancy thing. She's such a trooper!
All this past week she's been making some noises about Clara coming virtually any minute. I probably don't have to tell any of you how... anxious that's making me. :-)
Today, less than 2 hours ago, in fact, she has informed me that she's having contractions. They're not regular yet, but she's fairly certain they're contractions. Talk about suspense! Carly Simon's got nothin' on me! I/we will keep you all posted...


Again I hope this finds you all in good health and spirits.

36 Week Appointment

Another week, another weekly appointment.
Again, everything is going swimmingly. We are so fortunate, in so many ways.
Beth is measuring at 37 still/again - likely due to the fact that Miss Clara has dropped so far in the last week.
Several of our friends were certain we would have an April Fool's baby. Are they trying to tell us something? Anyway, all those that had 4/1/2011 in the birthday pool... You lost! LOL
I still say April 14 or 15. Dr. says she'll never make it to 4/28, "as scheduled."
We are both doing quite well.
Today we are having what I affectionately refer to as "Smoked Meat Fest." The grill-cum- smoker has been hard at work for nearly 7 hours, and performing quite well. For those who know, low-and-slow is the way to go! Smoked brats, especially the pineapple brats from Hy-Vee, are just about my favorite. We also are serving a pork sirloin roast from the smoker; it's been on for about 5.5 hours. And for the vegetarian, we are serving a veggie burger from Trader Joe's. We should have plenty of left overs, which is kind of the plan. We don't want to have to cook too awful much when Miss Clara greets us. :-)
I hope this again finds everyone in good health and spirits.
I'll keep you posted!

35 Week Appointment

Thursday morning was Beth's (now weekly) appointment. We're really getting down to the wire now!
So far, still all good news. Everything looks good, no complications, and Beth has a bit of a waddle going on now. She's so cute!
Now might be a good time to get a pool going for an actual birth day...
A couple people we know are certain it'll be on April 1. I've had the notion, for several weeks now, that it'll be @ week 38, or April 14. Can't say why, exactly. I just seem to know it. I guess we'll all know in a couple weeks.
So, last week, week 34, she measured 35 cm. This week, she measured 37. If this keeps up...

For those who may not know, the Dr. measures the uterus, in centimeters. The resulting number is supposed to correlate with the number of weeks pregnant. So, we're measuring a little early.
We're still trying to get all our reading done, the apartment shaped up, thank you's written and mailed, and our minds prepared. Beth is still working, hoping to work right up till the labor begins, in an effort to secure as much time off as she can. She gets 6 weeks of maternity leave, and she's shooting for 4 more weeks of PTO. So, we'll see...
We can hardly wait to meet our little girl.
I hope this finds you all in good health and spirits.

34 week appointment

We had our check up today. Dr was pleased with my blood pressure and the fact that Miss Clara seems to think that she can wiggle around in there all she wants. Her heartbeat sounds steady and strong. Dr asked how I was feeling and I told her tired most of time but with little bursts of energy here and there. Dr feels certain that if things were to progress quickly now that Clara would be just fine and no need for steroids (big weight off my mind) but not quite ready for her to make her appearance just yet.
Tod finished the room and it looks very nice. Koral made a picture that I need to get a frame for that will match the decor perfectly. All the clothes are washed and put away, crib made and ready, and diapers waiting. Few more things I would like to get done around the house before bringing her home but the room was my biggest worry. Now I don't have too. He has been so wonderful and patient with me and my little "quirks".
We received some wonderful news, Tod's family will be coming to visit in June (Father and step mother) and hopefully August (sister and brother). I can not wait to met them. They have been so nice at accepting me and our situation and I feel so very blessed in so many ways.
I will try to keep this updated each week, time to go change over the laundry and Clara is getting up set that the laptop is "resting" on her. LOL
Take care all my wonderful family and friends

Beth's Birthday!

Also Clara's baby shower. :-)
Yesterday, March 5th, we were given a shower for Clara Hope.
As Beth just said to me, "Our baby girl has so many clothes, it isn't even freakin' funny!"
We are so thankful to have such loving, caring, and generous friends and family.
I was there, and learned that I'm a weirdo because most daddies-to-be are not as enthusiastic as I am about this baby thing. I'm coming out of my skin with breathless anticipation at the notion of finally meeting my baby girl. Nope. No excitement here!
After the shower, the birthday celebration began commencing. Actually, it involved some card and gift exchange, and mass exodus shortly thereafter.
Thank you so much, Terri and Michelle, for such an awesome party. We had a great time, and rolled out of there with seriously full bellies. :-)
Ok. Enough jibba-jabba. here's the pics:

The Guest of Honor.

The Birthday cake.

Tinkerbell, Beth's favorite Disney character, as she sits atop the cake.

The Diaper Cake.

The shower cake.

Thanks, Terri and Michelle, for such awesome decorations!

Shower game.

Thanks again, everyone. And, Beth's birthday is tomorrow, March 7. So feel free to holler at her.
We wish the best to you all.

Goodness it's been awhile

Just realized that it has been over a month since we have posted anything. Not much has really happened. I am still looking and applying like crazy for nursing jobs and Tod is still searching too. He probably puts in at least 6 or more applications a day in. I know one of these days something will come up for the both of us. My brother and sister in law purchased a beautiful crib for Clara. Tod put it together and it is in the living room. (Still need to get the room finished) My mother gave us a dresser so we now have a place to put all her clothes. I am starting to feel tired easily and seem to have less energy. Weight is still doing well and found out from the horrible glucose testing that my sugars are "just fine" which are amazing considering I didn't realize I was having the test done and I ate almost a half a package of cookies about 4 hours before the test. The appointments are still every 2 weeks and will start being every week middle of next month.
Hope everyone is doing well and look forward to any comments. We love you all.
Beth

DOH!

Ok, for those of you who may be interested in posting, if you click on the title of the post you'd like to comment on, you'll see a box, clearly labeled, in which you may enter comments! woohoo!!!

New look, new questions...

Hello, all!
I've decided to update the look of the blog. Please feel free to let me know how you like it - or if you don't!
I've really been wanting to make the comments visible, so that it might be more user friendly. Apparently, this is a limitation of the blogger software/template(s). So, I've found a gadget that displays recent comments. It's a kludge, I know - it doesn't seem to know how to handle ampersands. Sigh... I've spent way too much time trying to make the comments show below each post. I've edited HTML and XML, and still no dice. Anyone have any suggestions?

Anywho...

We've been doing some reading here. So far, here's the (baby-related) list:

The Expectant Father - The copy we have here is a little out dated, but most of the 

                      information  seems to have survived the turn of the century. :-)

The Baby Book - Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby -- From Birth to Age Two

This is also a tad outdated, but again, very useful.

Hypno Birthing - The Mongan Method  - This appears to be a new take on LeMaze; and as 

  such is really more Beth's deal.

And in the non-baby related book department, I've been reading World War Z an Oral History of the Zombie War. Apparently, it's a sequel. I'm enjoying it immensely, though. Gonna hafta check out the first one, The Zombie Survival Guide. Sometime.

How about you folks out there? Any recommended reads - baby-related or otherwise?
Again, we'd love to get comments/feedback. Please bear with us while we try to figure out how to make it easier...

Some help or advice on this "problem" I have

Sure hoping someone can give me some advice on what to do. I know it is not the best thing to talk about and maybe I should be embarrassed to say anything, but here goes. I am just now having an issue with brushing my teeth. Had a bit of this during the first trimester. It went away but now back and with a vengeance. Almost every time I brush, regardless of what kind of toothpaste I use, empty stomach or not, leaning over, standing up straight,you name it; I end up vomiting. It's starting to get really annoying and I am really hoping someone might have another trick that can help me with this. Hope this finds everyone well and really hope to get some feed back on this.

Registered!

Hello, all. Hope this post finds you all in good health, company, and fortune.
Just a quick update to let you all know that we have registered (finally!) at Babies R Us, Shopko, and Target.
A few things about that:
There is a great deal of overlap, as we're certain that some people have preferences, credit cards, and other reasons to shop one vendor over another. So if you're inclined to shop them all, please don't feel like we need the same stuff from each vendor. :-)
Also, please don't feel obliged to purchase us anything at all. I have always felt awkward in the past (my marriages, for example) registering for all the swag. I really wasn't raised to ask for stuff. That said, we'll graciously accept any and all gifts.
All three vendors can be shopped online, and we're registered under "Swingholm"and "Simerly."

Beth, Koral, and I had great fun today registering. Until later this evening, when fatigue began to set in and the grumpies started to (temporarily) take hold. But shopping for baby stuff is just so amazing, what with all the exceptionally cute stuff out there.

Thanks again, and please don't be afraid to comment. We're pretty open minded and open to suggestion. Plus, we kind of enjoy the interaction. :-)

Be well...

Hopefully clear up some confusion

I posted this link to my Facebook account thinking that it would be the easiest way to let everyone know I am expecting a baby on or about April 28th. Tod and I have actually known each other since the 5th grade, but being from a military family moved and returned during 9th grade. We did not have any classes together during high school (in fact he thought I hated him-believe it or not I was painfully shy back then). We reconnected mid-March in 2010 and actually started dating in June. Tod is a wonderful man who treats me incredibly well (spoils me rotten). Well, long story short, I thought I was going through menopause (another long family history story there), and found out nope having a little one instead. From his part of this blog you can tell he is very excited and so am I. Everything seems to be going well with little Clara even thought I am of an "advanced maternal age". Thank you to all my family and friends who are and standing with and helping us in all of this. We love you all.

Upon further reflection...

I haven't been able to stop thinking about my last post. Somehow, I feel as though I maybe missed something, or was a little too harsh on my stepfather. So this post is mainly to (hopefully) rectify that.
I think it's fair to first give a little bit of background on him: Born in the mid 1940's, he grew up on a farm. Needless to say, different time and place, with a set of hardships most of us have only read about or seen on tv. He returned from Viet Nam to find his wife in bed with another man. His family seemed to be of the opinion that it was his mistake to divorce her, and forever regarded my mother, and me, as somehow illegitimate. He had a job with the Air Force that was so secret he couldn't even tell us his job title or description. But we didn't need that information to see that it entailed the sort of stress that most of us couldn't imagine, and would very likely crumble under. Keeping the free world safe, and all.
Given his parenting tool set, I actually think he did pretty well. And hindsight being, well, 20/20, I can understand (kinda) how difficult it must have been for him.
So, I hope I may be forgiven for calling him a prick in my last post. I'm still standing by that charge - all of the above does not excuse his behavior with me. But it does effect my understanding of it, and makes forgiving him so much easier.
I sincerely hope that everyone's 2011 is shaping up positively. I know that we have a great deal to look forward to here.

The holidaze is behind us...

First off, I'd like to apologize for taking sooo muh time to update this blog.

Anyone who is likely to check in here is likely to know any and all news I could post here tonight. This is what happens when I get so dang lazy about this thing. New year, new possibilities...

Those who know me know that this was my first holiday season in any sort of role that resembles "stepdad." Needless to say, it's awkward for pretty much all of us, and not the least bit of awkwardness is reserved for yours truly.
I find myself desperately trying to avoid treating Beth's kids the way my stepdad treated me. Which isn't to say that he was overly terrible. He always made sure that my needs were met and whatnot. But during my childhood, he was mostly a dick. (I think it's important to note that I wasn't beaten or anything - my childhood could certainly have been worse.) So I'm desperately trying to fill and redefine the role as gently, yet firmly, as I can without being him. And of course, with baby on the way, I've been giving a great deal of thought about what it means to be the best dad I can be. Trouble is, I think I turned out pretty well, (not perfect by any means,) and I can't work out whether it's because of or despite my upbringing. Some of both? None of the above? Maybe some of you fathers, or mothers, or step parents could weigh in?

Anyway, without further ado, here is the most recent inter uterine picture of our daughter, Clara Hope:

And here's one of Beth and me for the holidays:

We sincerely wish the best to you all. 2010 had some serious warts, but some amazing highlights as well. Hopefully, 2011 will have much less ugliness. I know it will add one beautiful baby girl to two loving parents.
Oh, and Beth texted me earlier - she wants me to be sure I mention "how much Clara's mommy loves Clara's daddy." And although I believe it goes without saying, Clara's daddy loves Clara's mommy an awful lot, too!