Mommy and Sweet Pea

Baby Henry! Also known as Cupcake, Sugar, Hank, and Big Boy (so far). Born 2:19 AM January 8, at home (in the bathroom!), with a great team of support. 9 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches, with a 14.5 inch head. We are getting good rest thanks to Henry's amazing sleeping abilities and the help of my wonderful mother.

I got out the sewing machine today, a friend came over, and we made a couple of things. She made Christmas stockings for next year, and I made a cashmere baby sleep sack and a little taggie toy for the unborn baby. I would have been able to get more accomplished, except I had to do some creative patching together on the baby sleep sack since I had less fabric left than I thought I did, and it took three tries to get the taggie pinned together correctly. I'd like to make another, bigger taggie that's more blanket-sized rather than toy, now that I know how to do it for sure. The taggies: (monkeys one made by me, flowers by my husband) Good directions for a taggie blanket can be found here   Sleep sack - may be a little short in length and I may still cuff the sleeves and add an applique design on the front: Good directions for wool baby sleep sacks can be found here And one last thing I whipped up at Stella's request - a dress for her baby doll, made out of a hand

Written around 10:00PM January 1 Here I am, sitting at the computer using a contraction timer, hoping these mild contractions are the start of labor. I am only 39 weeks pregnant (tomorrow) and have been through this with my doula clients many times before. I KNOW that there is no reason to set my hopes or expectations on having my baby on a particular day. I KNOW that the best time for my baby to be born is when my body goes into labor naturally. And yet.... I can't help but hope that it's tonight. Or tomorrow. Or within a couple of days at least. Sweet Pea was born on her due date, during the first week that I stayed home from work. I had just in the previous few days gotten everything done that I had wanted to do before the birth, and started some very mild natural labor encouragement techniques. I knew that first babies were often late, and was not overly anxious for her birth. So, when my water broke at 1:00 AM on her due date I was pleasantly surprised, and excited. Ev