Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Our last week in Changzhou as a family of 3....

This week I am approaching the 37 week mark in my pregnancy and the doctors in Shanghai feel it best for me to be close to the hospital in case baby decides to come earlier than her due date!  Personally, as a planner i feel good about this decision as well so that i am not in a panic in Changzhou about going into labor and ending up in the local Chinese hospital where i haven't been seeing doctors, or driving 2.5 hours to Shanghai while having contractions.  You never know with each baby its different, Blake didn't want to come out he was cozy and comfy in my belly, we evicted him via induction at 41 weeks and I delivered him at 8lbs. 3oz.  I think this is about as big of a baby as my pelvis will allow after the long labor and coming close to a c-section so our hopes are that this little one is under that weight and not late!

As of Saturday Blake and I will move to a serviced apartment in Shanghai, Brian has a driver on-call 24/7 so if i call he will be on his way to Shanghai.  I will be a 10 minute taxi ride from the hospital with a grocery store near the hotel, some restaurants including Papa Johns, Domino's and Starbucks, and have a food delivery service i can use to get food from many other local restaurants so i am not going out to eat with Blake for every meal.....we also have a full kitchen in the apartment so I can continue to cook breakfast and some dinners and we can stay in on the days I am worn out!  I am working with an agency to have an Ayi to spend the days with us to help chase and lift Blake and then to watch Blake when I go into labor and have to be at the hospital, not a site I want him to see at such a young age, his birth traumatized Brian :)  I know everyone at home wants to know the plan, so there you have it.  Now just keep your fingers crossed this little one is here by November 8th so I am a happy mama!


36 weeks and growing!


We now know we are having a GIRL, I am sure everyone by now has heard through the grape vine, seen on facebook or we have been able to tell you ourselves.  We are thrilled to be having a daughter, she will have her daddy wrapped around her finger as soon as she is placed in his arms I am sure.  How did we find out, well we have been seeing different doctors at the hospital, there are a total of 5 regular staff OBGYN doctors and the past two visits we had one we hadn't met before.  When she came in the room before we could say anything, she said Oh I see you are having a Girl...I immediately said we don't know what we are having and want to keep it a secret.  She quickly back peddled and said she saw something on my chart but must have misread it and went about my exam.  I find many people in China don't use He/She they only use She so I told Brian maybe it was just a mistake, then we saw her again 2 weeks late.....she came in the room and said "Blake are you ready for a little sister!", seriously lady did you really just say that!!!  I looked at Brian and we didn't know what to say at this point but we were excited and let down at the same time.  We had waited so long for this surprise and really hoped to find out in the delivery room.  So we had the exam and went home, talked about it and decided to open the envelope we had from our 20 week ultrasounds which revealed the gender.  Although we had no idea what we were looking at, it said on the photo "Girl".  So there you have it, we will welcome our daughter into the world with open hearts and love!  The good news is that i was able to then purchase some girly clothes for her so she won't be in yellow, grey and white in all the photos!  I bought some 0-3 months onsies, ruffle bottom pants, tights with hearts on them, pj's, socks, and headbands!!!



Another thing to take care of before we leave town, among packing, making sure we are ready for the new baby, having Brian work, Blake going to school and mommy being tired and beat up by this active little girl in my belly...my hair was still RED!  I made an appointment to go to the salon for Monday morning after I took Blake to school.  I arrived at 9:30 and was told the hair dresser i booked had a meeting so someone else was going to do my color, no problem!  I sat down and as three men looked at my hair trying to determine what they were going to do to get rid of this color they were typing into their phones to translate.....I ended up getting a conditioning or nutrition treatment where condition was rubbed into my hair, pinned up, then covered in saran wrap and I was placed under a hair steamer for about 15 minutes :)  They washed my hair afterwards, dried it and then again tried to decide what to do about the color.  After mixing up some dye they told me it would take two times, so they would color just the red and then do a brown all over (which is what i wanted so when it grows out and I am home with baby i don't have to worry about it).  I stopped taking photos, but they put blue dye on my hair this time, no more pink and continued to rub it into the hair to help remove the red pigments.  After a bit i was washed and rinsed again and had the brown dye put on my hair, after having two men put the dye through my hair I sat for a bit and waited.  Once the color was ready, they washed it out, dried it and this is the end result, I am very happy with it :)



Finally, as if this week wasn't busy or this month for that matter.....Blake is turning 2 on October 27th!  Since we will be in Shanghai we wanted to celebrate his birthday here in Changzhou and have a party with his school friends!  I am not sure he realized the party was for him, but he had a blast!  It was at the gymnastics place we take him to on Sundays, we had the whole place for the party, both he and his friend have birthday's this month and are in the same class so we got together and planned a joint party!  The theme was CARS and DORA and both kids had so much fun running around the gym, playing games with the parachute and singing songs!  He got lots of presents, cars and trucks which he loves, grandma and grandpa Hudson got him a train track with talking cars, grandma and grandpa Schumer got him a giant fire truck to play inside of and race cars on top!  Mom and Dad bought him his first basketball hoop which he went right for when he woke up that morning!  Looking back I can't believe he will be 2 years old and I will be again holding a baby soon wondering where the time went, I was just holding Blake in my arms for the first time.  So I am sure we will do something fun just the two of us on his real birthday but here are a few photos from his party!  Happy Birthday to my little man, i love you more than you can even know! <3 





And one cool gift to my amazing husband whom I am celebrating 5 years of marriage with later this month.  The 5 year gift is wood so I had this made for him and gave it early so I didn't have to risk breaking it in Shanghai!  I love you Brian Hudson, you are still and will always be my favorite!


And now I will get back to packing and making lists of things i need to remember to do....my next post will be from Shanghai!

2 comments:

  1. Great post! I sent you an email before reading this post, which answered most of my questions. Your hair looks great! I am glad you had fun buying some cute girly clothes! Happy Anniversary! We love you guys!! (not sure if my last comment posted or not)

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  2. I like the sign. That's a great idea. Happy 5th Anniversary. I hope you were able to spend some time with Brian. Be well and good luck with belly. Be prepared, although you call Blake "little man" you will be very surprised how big he looks after baby girl is born. When Shanyn came to visit me in the hospital when I had Reilly, she looked HUGE. It was the strangest feeling. Congratulation! All our love from Michigan! Aunt Lisa

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