Addison Rose Hemphill

As you can see we finally decided on a name for our little

bundle of joy! We are starting to get very excited about this little one. With only three months to go until she arrives I feel like we still have so much to do. We have finally hired the doula that will be accompanying us through our birth experience along with our midwife. I am so very excited to have Sarah share her knowledge and support with us. We are striving for an unmedicated/natural birthing experience, and I am looking forward to it. Of course I know things don't always happen the way you want them to, but we want to try for it. I have heard many wonderful birth stories about natural births, and with my background of massage I thought it was perfect for me. I received a few quotes from our doula that I wanted to share. I think there is such great truth to these.

"Giving birth should be your greatest achievement, not your greatest fear" - Jane Weldman

This is one I want to not forget during the rest of my pregnancy

"If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle." - Irma Bombeck

I would have to say first off, pregnancy is not for sissy's. I think many people don't realize everything that a woman's body goes through during the 40 weeks of pregnancy. It's not an easy change for a woman to deal with, especially when it's your first child. Now I know I haven't made it all the way yet, but I am making progress. I would have to say that my changing body, the hormones up and down, the acid reflux, the back pain and the nausea are not necessarily fun things to deal with. But above all that God has placed inside me the most wonderful little girl that He has entrusted to me. I do not take this responsibility lightly. Beyond the pain and discomfort there is a joy and a love for her that grows with each day!

So we have started doing a little bit of decorating in her room, but still have a few things left to do. I will leave you with a few pictures of our nursery.

This blanket is the inspiration for Addison's nursery

We have the room painted, but we still need to put up the chair rail.

Progression of my pregnancy

So, I figured I should try and get a few pictures up on my blog. I am definitely not the best at keeping up with the blog, but oh well. I am now almost 26 weeks along and doing pretty well. I have to say my back has started causing a few problems, but nothing horrible. I am actually enjoying the pregnancy for the most part. There are so many wonderful things to think about and dream about. Jesse and I have gotten into quite a few conversations about parenting and how we will raise this little one. Also trying to make the smoothest transition for our two furry kids. There will definitely be some jealousy issues from those two. So here are a few pictures.

12 weeks

I was still pretty sick at this point. I think that's why I look a little off.

16 weeks

Just a little tiny baby bump!

18 week Ultrasound

This is our precious little one's first profile shot! I love it!!

25 weeks

I think this is an odd angle. I think I look bigger in this picture than in real life. Must be the stripes. No more stripes for me!

It's a Girl!

We found out almost a month ago and I am just now getting around to posting on here. We are very excited about the news that we will be having a daughter. As most of you know I grew up with 3 brothers, and Jesse has 1 brother. We kind of just assumed that with all of the testosterone in our families that we would end up with a boy. God decided to give us the blessing of a little girl! This is going to be such an adventure for the two of us, and we can't wait.

I have been enjoying the growth of our little one over these last few weeks. I have been feeling her little movements over the last 4-6 weeks, but it has gotten to be so much more lately. I can now feel her kicking on the outside too. I absolutely love the feeling of her moving inside of me throughout the day. It makes me wonder how people could not believe in God! This is such a miracle growing inside me, and I relish every minute of it.

We are starting to get some things for her nursery and I am having lots of fun with that!! I am not a really girly girl, so I am not using pink and purple. I know this sounds strange to some people. I have found some very cute things in blues and greens and yellows that I think are still girly though. I bought some paint for the room, and I am sure Jesse will get around to painting sometime in the next four months! We have a few other projects that need to be finished first. Well, that's about all the news for now. More later!

Another addition to the Hemphill family!!!

This is definitely going to be the most exciting new addition to our household. Many of you have already been told this exciting news, but I wanted to have it documented for future memories. We found out at the end of October of 2010 that we were expecting our first child!! So exciting and a little shocking and a tad bit scary too! It will be so much fun as Jesus carries our little family through this next adventure in life. We are thoroughly ready for the joys and even the hard times that are sure to come our way over this next year. So, our little bundle of joy is due to arrive somewhere around July 17th 2011.

Jesse and I have been together for quite a few years now. We dated for about 4 1/2 years before we got married, and we are now coming up on our 4 year anniversary. Starting a family is something that I have always hoped and dreamed about since we first met. Jesse is a very methodical and analytical person and he had a plan (I did too, but they weren't quite the same!) He really wanted us to have a house so we would have a safe and comfortable place for our family. Well, we got the house back in 2008, so then I was kind of starting to think it was time. But not quite yet... I had quite a few other friends who got pregnant and had their kiddos during this time. That was so exciting to see, but starting to get a little difficult. I just had to trust God that when our time was right we would have our own. We had a few things that we felt were important for us before we had a child. I know you can never be totally ready to have children, but being as prepared as possible is a good thing. Well, we ended up getting Harley and then Lily joined our family this last year too. The plan was that the two of them should be able to somewhat occupy each other when we add a baby to the family. So, after this final "preparation" we decided to start trying for our family. It didn't take us too long, and here we are!!

I am now coming up on 15 weeks. Sorry it has taken me so long to start talking about the last few months. I had a slightly rough first trimester, but thank goodness it's over now. It definitely could have been much worse, but I don't want to relive it again any time soon! It makes me a little worried about the third trimester because I know it will be difficult as well. I think the hardest thing for me is the unknown of how my back will react to my growing pregnancy belly. All I can do is pray and hope that no complications occur. I am VERY lucky to be working at a physical therapy clinic. My co-workers have taken very good care of me over the last few months.

I promise to try and keep up with the latest pregnancy news and all the other changes in our life over the next few months.

Lily

So, we decided to make another addition to the Hemphill household. Her name is Lily and she is an 8 week old white boxer. We are very excited to have a playmate for Harley. It has been quite an adjustment for all of us to have another puppy in the house lately. I wouldn't trade her for the world though! She is the sweetest thing ever! She loves to cuddle, but my oh my she has a fiesty bone in her too!! She is definitely gonna give Harley a run for his money. She does have to get a little bit bigger before she can take him down, but she isn't afraid of him at all.

She is all white with just a few black spots on her face and ears. Sooo Cute!!

She seems to be adjusting well to her new surroundings. Now we just gotta get the potty training thing down as soon as possible. I think it helps to have big brother to show her the ways.

She already thinks she is as big as Harley!

It's so fun to have a tiny puppy around again!

Hopefully soon we will have a tiny baby too! All in God's timing I guess!!

You gotta admit they are pretty cute next to each other!!

I think Harley wishes she was bigger so he could really play with her. He is being very gentle though for now!

What a week!!

We had a VERY busy week this last week. It was sooo much fun though! My younger brother Kevin, his wife Chel'ea, and 1 month old Calvin were in town all week. It is so much fun to finally have a new family member that is sooo tiny! We had a baby shower for the new family last Saturday. They were blessed with many wonderful things, and of course we all enjoyed holding Calvin. They stayed in town for the week to help with our basement project, along with my oldest brother Eric.

So Adorable!!
Saturday night and all day Sunday my oldest brother Eric and I were installing wires for our future theatre system in our new family room. I definitely learned a lot!! Who knew there were so many different types of wires, and electrical boxes, and panels... Well, we got it done. We really wanted to do it before putting on the sheet rock. It made it so much easier.

Then on Monday the fun started. We decided to finish half the basement at a time, so we started with the 2 bedrooms for now. Kevin and Jesse worked for three days straight to insulate, sheet rock, mud and tape the rooms. I couldn't believe how much they got done in three days!

Kevin decided to take a break from our house on Thursday and Friday and went over to my other brothers house to help them. It was definitely a week of hard work. He did the same stuff over at their house in their basement.

Then on Saturday I learned how to pull mud! It is actually not too terribly bad. We will have to try and do a few top coats of the mud before Kevin comes back again. We are hoping to have this project done by the end of the summer, so we have our work cut out for us.

The beginning of the family room

A New Addition to the Family!!

Last Friday night at about 11:30pm we got "the" phone call. My sister-in-law Chel'ea was one week overdue and her time had finally come. She was having contractions about 2 weeks ago but it never progressed, so we think it was just braxton hicks. She didn't really know the difference at the time. Well, this time it was for real. Her midwife had come to their house and confirmed that she was in labor. She was only dilated to about 2 centimeters, but was definitely feeling the contractions. I actually hadn't really thought about making the trip to Winthrop, but it happened to be Friday night and I had the weekend off. My other sister-in-law Julie and I decided we wanted to make the trip up there to support them. I talked to my little brother and he said to just wait till morning because the midwife said it would be a slow process. Well, I talked to my mom and she was WIDE awake. This was her first grandchild and all, so she was not about to go to sleep. Julie and I decided we were gonna make the drive that night cause we were already awake and ready to go. We called my mom to see if she wanted to come with us, and obviously she said yes!!

So, the three of us girls left Spokane at about 2:30 AM (yes, you read that right!). It is about a four hour trip and since we were in my new car I was the designated driver. It's kinda crazy but we stayed awake the whole trip up there. I think there was a little bit of excitement in that car. I also had a few caffeinated beverages to keep me going for the trip. We made it into town at about 6:30 am and stopped for coffee and bagels before heading to Kevin and Chel'ea's house. We got there and Chel'ea was upstairs with her midwife and her mom. She was having a little bit of a difficult time, so we all just hung out downstairs. By this time she was about 4 centimeters, I think. We decided to lie down for a little nap, so we weren't quite so cross-eyed. Julie and I slept in the guest room for just about 2 1/2 hours. My mom couldn't really sleep, so she might have gotten about an hour of rest.

At about 2pm we decided to take a little walk to get some fresh air and wake ourselves up a bit. We didn't know how far along she was because she wasn't really letting the midwife check her. We got a call in the middle of our walk that the babies head was crowning... Oh no!! We come all this way and wait for hours on end and now we are going to miss the big moment! We all started running back to the house. We got there and she had just started pushing. She was not as far along as her sister had said in the phone call. Oh well, at least we were back now. She had been laboring in a warm pool most of the time because she had a lot of back labor. She said it helped to be in the warm water. About two hours later is when she actually had the baby.

You have to admit he's pretty darn cute!!

At 4:40 pm Calvin James Drozdov was born. He was 8 pounds even and 20 1/2 inches long. Both mom and baby did wonderfully. I was very proud of her. The midwife had two assistants to help her and they stayed for a few hours to monitor both Chel'ea and Calvin to make sure they stayed stable.

The happy new family!!

Ater we had all eaten dinner and met and held Calvin, Julie and I decided we needed to head back home. My dad was on his way up there, and he and my mom would be staying with the new family, so we decided it best to come home. We left Winthrop at about 8:00pm and got into Spokane at about 12:15. On the way out of town I picked up about 3 more caffeinated beverages. By this time I had only had about 2 1/2 hours of sleep in the last 40 some odd hours, so I was wiped. But I had Julie to keep me awake as I drove back home. Overall, it turned out to be a very good weekend! I am very glad that I was able to be there and meet my first nephew on his birth day! I have to say I think my mom is loving her new role as Nana!!

The two happy new aunties!!