Induction?

No baby yet. I woke up this morning at 6:00 a.m. feeling pretty painful contractions every 10 minutes. But as soon as I got up and started walking around they subsided and now 9:24 p.m. at night I am on the eve of an induction. Hopefully I will go into labor tonight so than I don't have to be confined to a hospital bed as I endure contractions. We are so excited to meet our new baby boy, Vincent Edward. Wish me luck on delivering a big boy. We are getting induced at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Pictures to come tomorrow, regardless of what happens tonight.

Vinny in 3-D!!!

This afternoon we went to our doctor's appointment, ultrasound, tummy check to check on our soon to be new addition. Here is a 3-D picture that the ultrasound technician was able to take of Vinny. As you can see in the picture he has very chubby cheeks. According to all the measurements she was able to take because of the ultrasound she said the fluid is at a great level, lung function is perfect, nice strong heartbeat, and our baby (according to all the measurements she took) is already weighing a strapping 8 LBS 15 OZ. Yikes! The doctor checked me and said that his head has come down and that I am dialated to a 2. Progress is good. With the doctor's encouragment we scheduled an induction on Thursday morning just in case Vinny still wants to be his normal laid back self. I don't know if my body can deliver much bigger of a baby than 9 lbs.
All in all we are happy that Vinny is healthy and coming in the very near future. I might not be able to do natural this time depending on how big and how fast he comes. I hope I can but if not thank goodness for epidurals.

differences

Yes, I am still pregnant. We go in for a non-stress test, ultrasound, and tummy check tomorrow so I'll post an update then. But I did want to write down the biggest difference I have felt between this pregnancy and Susie's pregnancy. The biggest difference is that Vinny is a very mellow, willing to go with the flow baby in my stomach. Susie would do 3-4 somersalts sometimes within 1 hour on nights preceding her birth day but Vinny will have only done 1 somersalt in a 3-4 DAY span. Susie is our got to be going all the time girl, so I hope that Vinny continues to be the mellow baby he is in my stomach for Mommy's sanity sake. I am not sure I can keep up with two Susie-suzes. We can't wait to see and hold our sweet Vinny some day soon. We'll keep everyone posted.

jelly belly

With Susie I lubed up my tummy every night and morning with Aquaphor. Jim quickly called it my "jelly belly" and kept telling me he was looking forward to the time he could cuddle with me at night without having to worry about getting some of it on his hands. I assured him I was doing it for the good of both of us...I was desperately trying to stay "stretch mark free". I will have to say that I was very successful in my endevor with Aquaphor. NO STRECH MARK WITH SUSIE. This time around though with Vinny I have honestly become a jelly belly maybe...a total of 10 nights out of the whole pregnancy and (knock on wood) have NO STRECH MARKS.

So here's to either using some type of cream, expensive or non-expensive, to ward off strech marks...or possibly not using anything at all.

Uno didn't do it

Vinny, Susie, Jim and I had a really fun "DUE DATE". The day started out with 6:00 a.m. basketball at the church for Jim, breakfast at Waffle House, fun around the house, nap for Susie, more baseboard painting, cleaning the house, and cleaning the windows for me. Basketball at 2:00 p.m. for Jim at the church, swimming at the gym we are a part of at 4:00 p.m., dinner with our good friends the Dana's and then a fun filled night (until 12:30 a.m. this morning) of Uno. The night before I went into labor with Susie we had the Dana's over to our apartment and we played Uno so...we were hoping the same would happen with Vinny. No such luck, but I did get some awesome cuddle time with Jim this morning because Susie slept in until we woke her up at 9:00 a.m. She was a tired little girl from "due date" activities. Today we are just taking it easy and enjoying our family of three for a little bit longer.

At the pool we had some grapes Susie literally put a whole handful of grapes (5-6) into her mouth at once. Here is the before and after pictures.

Before

After

tick, tick, tick...BOOM!

Today is my due date and I feel a lot like a ticking bomb. I am not sure when I will be going into labor, if my water will break this time, if it will happen during the day or at night. Even though I feel this way right now we are taking advantage of the time we have with Sue. Last night we have a "Bassi, party of 3" night out. We stopped by a bike shop to check out the bikes. Here is Susie riding her first training wheel bike. She is getting so big.

We stopped by the pet store to pet puppies. Here is a video of Susie with a puppy.

The next three pictures of what we were doing outside the resturant last night as we were waiting to be seated.

Up, up and away says the Susie-suz...as well as again daddy, again.

All I can say is......did I teach her that?

Susie and mommy.

the "BIRTH day" song

We have a tradition in the Jim Bassi family that on the day of the actual birth we have a cake and a number zero candle on the cake. Don't you think since we celebrate all other birthdays with wonderful cake and ice cream that we should celebrate the actual true "birth day" with the same respect.

Bring on the cake!

Here are a few pics of Susie's Birth day cake/party

I'm not sure if she is sleeping or crying in this picture but just like we all know "it's her party and she can cry if she wants to."

P.S. the nurses and doctors loved having a Bassi baby in the hospital - midnight snack in Room 246!

big sis!

No I have not had Vinny yet but I do want to post a few recent pictures of my sweet little Susie. She will be a big sister soon and I will have to share my time between the two but for right now she is my baby girl!

Cute little Sue

Watching daddy play basketball

Higher daddy, higher!

A little curious and a little bit Susie - "Curious Susie" :)

Telling dad just how life works

Taking time to smell the flowers

"I see a monkey riding a bicycle. What do you see daddy?"

Bath time with daddy

Our Susie-suz and her big brown eyes!

"Riding" her stuffed dog Bolt

"Am I not suppose to play in the gutter water?"

Susie see - Susie do

Playing " Miss fixit" with her plastic hammer

Kissing Hundley at the pet store

Fun in the swing

Swimming in Lake Whitney with daddy

Feeding the birds at Mama and Papa's house

Out on the boat with daddy

dragging his little feet

How is it that anytime before this last doctor's appointment (yesterday morning) I have been okay with Vinny coming after his due date but yesterday after the doctor's update I was disappointed and moody and not wanting him to be overdue. I went to the appointment with high hopes of me making progress towards Vinny's big debut...but that was quickly shattered by the doctor's update. I am as of today (aug. 11) 4 days from my due date and have not dialated AT ALL and 0% effaced, oh yeah and his head has gone back up to being in the free and easy floating position. Yes, I can look at the cup half full and say that I get a few more days or weeks (who knows) of somewhat uninterupted sleep and more one on one time with my Susie-suz. But I'll tell you yesterday was one of those half empty days when I made yet another appointment for next Tuesday for a non-stress test, ultrasound (to tell how big the baby is) and to see if there is any progress in the dialation department. I was also a little frusterated that I had to make an appointment for an ultrasound because in my doctor's words he didn't want to miss this being "A 10 POUND BABY". A 10 pound baby - yikes! I have only gained 20 pounds this pregnancy and so I was expecting a baby just about the size that Sue was (7 lbs. 5 oz.) but apparently the doctor is thinking Vinny is going to be a big strapping boy. Thank you for reading (listenting) to my petty little complaints. I am through now...acutally not yet.
Today my dad is getting remarried and I am not there.
How is it that life seems so busy right before a baby comes with preparations and all but at the same time how time seems to stand still. I am stuck right now in the middle of this whirlwind where I feel like the world is flying past me and I am standing here wondering when, where, what.

Another thing that I am feeling frusterated about is (all of the women out there that have had to wait until their due date or AFTER like me with Susie will understand me and all of you women that always come EARLY can just stop reading this post right now because it doesn't apply to you - so there - as you can see I am just a bit frusterated with those women that never go ALL THE WAY) that I never am the one that comes early. You see I know of someone that was due the same day as me and she got induced and her baby is already 2 weeks old, another girl at church was due a week after me and her baby is over a week old, and my sweet sister-in-law (I love you Jalei but am a bit jealous that you are at a 2) is dialated to a 2 and is 70 % effaced and is due 2 weeks AFTER me. I can't help asking myself the question of "Do my babies not want to come and see their mommy and daddy? Susie was 5 days late and who knows how late Vinny will be."
Don't worry about me though because after last night's cry session on Jim's shoulder, after I told him I just needed a good cry, I feel recharged and am seeing the glass very half-full today. Back to finishing up my half-finished projects.

These first two pics were taken this past Saturday at a good friend's baby shower

Me and my good friend Jamie! (Sorry it is a bit blurry-it was taken with a camera phone)

Belly picture on Sunday (August 9, 2009) 6 days before due date.

Susie hears a WHO!

Horton and his clover!

Here are a few pics of my "never ending clover project" as Jim would call it. I have to admit that I have been working on these little guys for a long time and I HAVE brought them on any mini-vacation that we have been on this summer just in case I get a spare moment, but don't you think the end product is worth all of those many "perfectionist" hours that I have spent on them. They are going into some polky-dotted flower pots that I have in Susie's Dr. Seuss room.

As you can see the first phase of the clover making process is to paint the dowel a solid color and then glue the styrofoam ball on top of it.

2nd phase is to paint the coresponding striped color onto the dowel.

3rd phase is to glue the feather boa onto the styrofoam ball and PRESTO you have yourself some original Dr. Seuss clovers.

Here are a few of the finished clovers. I am making about 30 of them (10 for each flower pot). These are flowers that I definitely can't kill!

THANK YOU UNCLE TOM FOR BRINGING DR. SEUSS TO LIFE FOR US. YOU ARE TRULY A VERY TALENTED PERSON!

Goodbye beautiful tree

The tree in front of our house died a couple of weeks ago. According to neighbors they told us not to loose any sleep over it because every house in our neighborhood STARTED out with our same type tree but theirs have all already died and now it our tree's turn. Oh, the 'first year in a house' woes. At least it is not our air conditioner that went out, I have heard of that happening to new home buyers. Here are a couple of pictures of what fall and the middle of summer look like at the Bassi's house.

Dressing up for Halloween

This year our family has decided to dress up like Curious George for Halloween. Last year we were Wilma, Fred, and Pebbles for Halloween. I picked up Susie's costume the other day. I think she is a little afraid of it but I hope by Halloween she will want to get into it. Curious George is her most favorite thing in the world next to PUPPIES! Susie is going to be Curious "Susie", Jim is going to be the Man in the Yellow Hat, I will be the Woman in the yellow hat and I haven't quite decided if Vinny is going to be the Baby in the yellow hat or if I will dress him up in a bannana suit.

So besides the monkey costume all I need to do now is dye our outfits YELLOW, lots and lots of yellow.

Sue's monkey costume

Us from last year (sorry it is so dark it is the only photo that I have of us - I know, I know our old camera was broken at the time and so our good friends took this one of us)

One for the money, two for the show...

A couple of weeks ago my best friend, Jamie threw me a bbq/baby shower. I told her that I wanted it to be more about all of us friends (with family members) getting together and just having a good time. Success was Jamie's first name that day...we had so much fun. Thank you Jamie. Susie had a ton of fun in the backyard playing on the slip and slide. Here is a cute video of her.

NEST-ING: I have been doing plenty of this!

NEST-ING: to get projects completed before the baby comes


For a woman that is due in 10 days these are a few of my projects I have been working on and other nesting necessities.

Hung the shelf and put together the bench.

Painted Susie's "ladybug letter" mailbox (we use this mailbox to hide treats for her to find right now but will eventually be for notes or pictures we want to give to each other)

Mounted these shelves

Mounted the underneath basket in the laundry room.

Drilled holes into the brick windowsills in order to hang my flower baskets. I have found that we have really tough brick. I have already used up two masonary bits on our electric drill. I have three more baskets to go. Each hole has taken about an hour to drill and out in 100 degree weather being as insulated as I am (last month of pregnancy) one hole every hour is a bit much but in the end it will be worth it.

Tied two queen sized quilts this past weekend.

Stocking up on a year supply of canned goods as well as organizing the pantry.

Organizing all closets - I have become the queen of the label maker and tupperware!

Stocking up on paper type goods. Need toliet paper or a paper towel?