New Hannah pics

There are new pictures of Hannah up at www.theclingerfamily.com.  Click on the photos tab at the top of the page to see pics of her from the last couple of weeks.  Such a cutie!  :-)

"On My Own" - or - "Out of Proportion"

This week Jeff has been in Arkansas for the New Church Leadership Institute (NCLI).  It is the second of two weeks he has been gone for the institute.  He went to the first one in October, and we had the "what if" plan in case I went into labor (I didn't).  I think I spent at least one night in Lawrence with Barb and John (Jeff's folks) so I wouldn't be alone for the whole week.  This time, I had sole "Hannah duty" all week.  Jeff encouraged me to try to plan things to do each day to help the week go by faster.  And actually, the week has been pretty good.  Monday I met Sara and Kara for what I thought would be a "working" lunch but turned out to be just lunch for my birthday.  Tuesday I was able to get some work done during the day, and then Hannah and I went to walk around the mall while dinner was cooking in the slow cooker.  Last night I had a meeting in Lawrence and tonight I had rehearsal, so Wednesday evening I loaded up the girls (Hannah and Kayla) to spend some time with Barb and John.  They watched Hannah last night during my meeting and tonight during rehearsal.  Tomorrow I will meet Julia, a long-time friend, for brunch, then get the girls loaded in the car to go home.

This week has made me appreciate a couple things: #1 - all that Jeff does around the house and his presence and support; #2 - how helpful it is to be living close to family; #3 - how much I appreciate John and Barb being willing to watch Hannah (so, ok, we don't exactly have to twist their arms to do it, but still...); #4 - what a privilege it is to have the option to work part-time; and #5 - how difficult it would be to be a single parent.

Thanks for doing this parenting thing with me, Jeff!  I'm glad we're doing it together.

WAAY too long

I can't believe it has been so long since I've posted! If you're reading this, you no doubt know that on 11-11-08, "BC" became Hannah Marie! She was 8 pounds 2 ounces, and 19.5 inches long. She's now 10 weeks old, smiling, cooing, and generally being cute...except when she's being fussy, which seems to be more frequent lately. We're working on that.

We had an ultrasound on her pyloric valve after her 1 month doctor's appointment, and found that it was fine. We had been concerned about the amount she had been spitting up, and problems with that valve run in my dad's side of our family. She's fine and really healthy, so we feel blessed!

I went back to work in the middle of December. That's sooner than I would have liked, but I figured I needed to be around for Christmas Eve. I was part time before Hannah was born, and am still, which is nice. I have been driving to Lawrence just two days a week, on Sundays for worship and Thursdays for rehearsal. Mondays are Jeff's day off and I will probably be going to Lawrence then. It will mean we lose a family day, but I think it will be good for Jeff and Hannah to have time to themselves.

Last night we took dinner to some friends who have a one-month old and almost-three-year-old, and it was amazing how much bigger Hannah was than Kaia. Granted, they can still wear the same size clothes, but it was pretty neat to see the difference.

Life is different in the Clinger house, which we are making more "ours" with some painting and other changes. We are so thankful that we're close to family. Hannah ("little h" or "hmc" to distinguish from Mom) has had lots of time with grandparents and aunts/"unlces." My sister is in the middle of a rotation in Topeka (about an hour away) and we've been able to hang out much more than we will when she goes back to St. Louis. And Jeff's sister was able to spend several days here between Christmas and New Year's.

Hannah was baptized at Church of the Resurrection on Dec. 27th, and despite funky weather, we were able to celebrate with all six of her grandparents, aunt Erin and almost-uncle Jay, aunt Rebekah and almost-uncle Mike, great-aunt Patsy and great-uncle Wayland, great-aunt Charlotte and great-uncle Charlie, Grandpa Suffron's cousin Judy, Mom's cousins John and Sue. We were sorry my grandparents couldn't make it, but it was wonderful to be surrounded by our families.

I guess that's about it. I'm going to try to update on a more regular schedule. Feel free to hold me accountable. :-)

Post-Weekend Update

We met with the doc this afternoon, and she said all the lab results came back normal.  My blood pressure was a little higher than it had been Thursday, but it was still securely in the "normal" range.  She said it was fine for me to go back to work and resume life as "normal."  We'll have weekly appointments from here on out, but were already at that point anyway.  So the good news is that there's nothing super exciting to report!

Thanks so much to everyone for food, prayers, calls, emails, and the many other ways you support us!

Baby Clinger update

Well, so much for my boring pregnancy.  Up until now there hasn't really been anything to report, but here's the latest.

Yesterday morning I had a regular appointment with my doctor, and everything was fine.  I went to Lawrence to work as planned.  I felt some tingles in my foot, so checked with a family friend who is a doctor.  She had me come in and ran some tests, and talked with my doctor's office.  They want me on bed rest for the weekend.  Tonight I'll go to the lab here in Olathe where they'll run a few more tests, and we'll get the results on Monday afternoon when I have an appointment with my doctor's practice partner.  They're checking for pre-eclampsia, which is related to blood pressure.  Mine has always been fine, but the doctor in Lawrence saw a couple other indicators that could be precursors to pre-eclampsia.

What happens next depends on the results from the lab work.  The good news in all this is that we're less than a month away from the due date, so if they decide to deliver, the baby would be early but probably not dangerously so.  Jeff's trip to Arkansas next week is up in the air, and he's cleared his schedule of pretty much everything, so we're hanging out together.  We'll get some movies and probably pull out some of our board games.  We're hoping the doctors are just being cautious, but we're also trying to get prepared for the possibility of an early delivery.  We'll update at www.theclingerfamily.com.  Your prayers and support are, of course, appreciated.

Baby's Footprint

In my blog reading today, this post from gDiapers caught my attention.  We considered using gDiapers as an alternative to disposables, but now are thinking we'll go with cloth.  In any case, it really got me to thinking about the global impact on resources that just one child has, and what my global impact has been and will be.  The references to other countries were telling as well.  If you're interested, you can calculate your carbon footprint here.  Really, there are lots of places you can do that.  The sobering thing for me was to see how many earths it would take to sustain humanity if everyone lived like me.  And it is interesting to see, but I don't think it means anything unless we do something to make our footprint smaller.  We're trying, at least.

Updates

Several updates to let you know about...

• I'm now 30 weeks pregnant.  I haven't gained too much weight, but at this point I've decided not to keep track on my own anymore.  We had an appointment with the doctor today and they took blood samples.   They'll also be checking my TSH levels.  Oh, and I drank the glucose drink this morning.  It's like flat orange pop, and made me feel like I had just had 10 ounces of pure sugar (surprise).  We've now moved to the phase of seeing the doctor every two weeks.
• We started child birth class last night.  We'll go on Wednesday nights for a total of 5 weeks.  There are 5 other couples in the class, and there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between folks last night.  Four of the other couples all have the same doctor, which seems like it could be unique.  The woman who led the class just talked the whole time other than when we introduced ourselves, and it was a little difficult to pay attention all the time.  But it was helpful.
• This Sunday will be my first Sunday leading worship at the West Campus of Lawrence FUMC.  I was freaking out a bit what with people being gone for the holiday weekend, but it looks like things will work out ok.  Thanks to lots of folks, I have a list of people to call on to fill in if needed.  It helps to have connections at COR, and that they're having a special service for the weekend so folks are available to help out!  It's been nice this week to go to the office and interact with folks there.
• We have furniture set up in the nursery now.  We just need to sort through all the clothes and equipment, and figure out where its all going to go.

We're all settled in the house (well, except for stuff for the baby).  Kayla enjoys having a backyard and "talking" with other neighborhood dogs.  She mostly lays on our bed or in front of one of the sliding glass doors in the sun.  Ah, the life of a suburban dog.  I'll try to be better about updating, but I won't make any promises.

Shalom to you.