The Future

Pictured above are Charlotte's future mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband...we're just working out the details on which boy is which ;)

This is one of my dearest friends, and one corner of the "Erin" triune that exists. Mrs. John Ussery has been an invaluable resource and friend, as have all of our friends during this special time. A special thanks to Erin C. for her support and presence during the marathon day of delivery! Love you, Soph!!

I really don't even know where to begin. Saying that I'm overwhelmed in a good way would be the understatment of the century, nay..........eon. People told me that I would experience new kinds of love with both my husband and child-------and they were right. I don't really know who has amazed me more this past week, Josh or Charlotte. I'll just say I feel like the most blessed gal in the world, nay.........universe.

She's Here!!! She's Here!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After virtually 20 hours of labor, my beautiful wife gave birth to Charlotte Marie Hall at 11:40 pm on Saturday, January 19th, 2008. She weighed in at 7 lb. 8 oz. but 12 hours later actually weighed 7 lb. 14 oz., so we think she weighed around 8 lb. at birth due to a miscalculation because we were in a brand new wing with a scale that hadn't been used before. As biased as I am about my own child, I think she is so wonderfully beautiful (as you can tell from the pictures below). What a story to tell by the way! We left around 10:30 to come to the hospital, luckily before it started snowing like crazy. The snow didn't stick too bad to the roads, at least not in downtown Winston-Salem. BUT, when we got home 2 days later, snow was still covering a good portion of the ground. After Charlotte was born, it felt like forever before we were able to take her home. I guess we got a little cabin fever. After "the delivery" we moved to the old maternity wing, one of the boilers gave its last gasp thereby leaving some rooms without heat (including ours). It got down to about 60 degrees in our room, so Charlotte had to sleep in the nursery-------we were freezing but at least she wasn't. By the way, I can't stand the hospital's loud, reclining, pleather chair------horrible to sleep in----dreadful. Other than that, the hospital was great.


Monday finally comes and time to take our little bundle of joy home (yes that's cliche-ish but she really is). She has been great. Her first night here was a little difficult to get used to, but I have been going on straight adrenaline for like 3-4 days , so it didn't bother me. Erin might tell you differently though, I did sleep through an alarm for about 45 minutes that was right beside of me. Yeah, right afterwards I said I didn't hear it but an hour or two later, I definitely remember turning it off after I heard Erin say my name from the nursery. Since the first night, it seems like we have gotten on a pretty good schedule and any prayer for that would be appreciated.



One last thing, and then I'll post the pictures. We have only had this child for 4 days now, but it is really a lot of fun. I can't put into words how much fun fatherhood is. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.

Whaddaya Gonna Dew? (kwofee twalk voice, please)

So....Charlotte is um, nice and cozy still while the rest of us around town are dealing with snow!

That's right...we have one of the mildest winters ever?!?!?..and then the day she's due they are calling for snow/freezing rain/wintry mix for the next two days..awesome ;)

At least we'll have a more exciting story that originally planned! And maybe this will keep us from going 90 miles an hour on the way to the hospital, which was maybe a concern of mine up until this point.


It started snowing last night between 12:00 & 5:00, and here's what we awoke to see...
Not too bad, really...my only concern is the freezing temperatures and freezing wet stuff everywhere tonight. Snow..I like. Ice..I do not.

A crazy prediction from our doctor ;p

Well, I went to the ol' baby doc yesterday, and he informed me that I am 2 cm dialated and 50% effaced...which, as he predicted, means "we'll probably have a baby within the week"

:D I hope his "out on a limb" prediction holds true!! We're so ready to meet her!!

I'm officially massive...Josh and I went to C&H Cafeteria the other night, and as we were in line to pay, a little 3ish year old girl looked up from her dinner, caught sight of me, and gave a pretty good Joey Lawrence "whoa" complete with raised eyebrows and jaw dropped. Josh and I both busted out laughing. But it is all good and definitely worth every ounce of weight gain, which I'm sure is all water and no ice cream....er...yeah....

Now that I'm at home and have time to post, I have nothing to post about, so here's to random thoughts of a 40 week preggo brain (aka: who knows what will come out)...

-did the word "shocking" originate before electricity, thereby providing an exisiting description to the experience of being shocked, or did they make that word up post-electricity? (some people who shall not be named are still stumped by this one...mu hu ha ha ha)
-why would you name something a "whale shark"? Josh and I are watching Planet Earth, an incredible video documentary that is 5 DVDs long about God's wonderful creation which blows you away with every episode. Last night we were watching the "ocean deep" episode and I thought, how hard for kids to learn this stuff...is it a whale that looks like a shark, or a shark that's as big as a whale? The narrator, an entertaining Brit named David Attenborough, doesn't really explain this, but later we figured out it's the latter. Either way: why name something confusing like that?

Okay enough randomness for now..I've got to go eat! :D

SNB

Still No Baby :/

But, hopefully very soon we'll get to see this girl we've been waiting to meet!! Everything is ready, and I'm officially on maternity leave, so any time now...ya hear me, Charlotte!?

We have been trying to maintain a good balance of relaxing and cramming in fun activities: going to movies, going out to eat, trying to squeeze in those things we probably won't do as often in the upcoming weeks here :) So we've definitely maxed out that whole "this may be our last chance to....[ ] before Charlotte gets here, let's go!!" thing. I've been filling the [ ] with eating most of the time. Which is probably why Josh and I almost weigh the same...yeah. That is fun. Hey, it's probably just water weight, right? HAHA. No, seriously, Josh is getting an extra jewel in his crown for keeping his mouth shut about how much mine is open and having food put in it. What a sweet hubby. He is probably curled up in the bathroom sucking his thumb as I prowl around the kitchen going "lay off, I'm starving"...but oh well...it's all worth it :)

I promise we'll get some pictures up here as soon as we get home from the hospital...or as soon as is humanly possible...not sure my mom will want to take on blogging, but hopefully Josh can take a minute and upload some footage of the newest Hall.

Hope everyone is doing well!! Maybe next time I talk with some of y'all it will be on our way to the hospital... :D

From 3 Trimesters to 3 Weeks!!

Merry Christmas (one day late) everyone!! Josh and I have had a blast since we went on Christmas vacation visiting with family and friends, and just relaxing a little bit before life takes on a whole new meaning! ;) We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season so far!!

With just under three weeks until the due date, Josh and I are worse than two little kids waiting on Santa to come visit...I am so ready to meet our girl!!

Since my last post, we've had 2 more showers~everyone has been more than generous! Thanks to family, friends, and coworkers, we have everything we (or Charlotte) need. Josh and I cannot verbally express what the showing of support has meant to us. We can only hope to "pay it forward" by doing our best to raise Charlotte to be the kind of family member/friend that you all are to us!

I still don't have any pictures loaded from two of the showers, but if I can get some loaded at a later time I will. We have a few pics from our family shower (some sweet family and friends) which was wonderful and beautiful! Since the Fair Grove shower was a "drop in" style (where people could come get some refreshments and drop off a gift if they chose to do so) I don't really have any pictures of a typical shower..it was very relaxed and very much appreciated~thanks Karen J. and Penny!!


I did take some pictures of the nursery, which at this point is only missing Charlotte(!), and a picture of the belly at 37 weeks. Josh was like, "you want to take a picture tonight?" and I gently reminded him that we could be going to the hospital any time, so we might want to get one more belly measurement pic in before that chaos begins. (I can see it now~my water breaks and we stop everything to get a picture of the belly on our way to the hospital...haha yea right).

So without further rambling...here are some pictures! Mama Lutz, it's your turn!!

What's the rush, little girl?

Well,

Today the doctor revealed the mystery of the shy baby...Charlotte isn't playing peek-a-boo, and she isn't shy, and she isn't hiding (don't worry, Erin C., there won't be two generations jumping out and scaring you for fun ;0p).

Turns out, she is ready to come out! Not in the dialation or effacing sense, but in the "she is already head-down" sense. So, it looks like we will not see her sweet face until she's screeching and covered in blood and guts :) (Nice mental pic, huh? You're welcome.) Personally, I hope we don't have a chance to see her face before then, because that would mean she'd flipped around to a wrong delivery position. Plus, we will see her in about two months anyway!! When she comes out, she may look like one of the celebrities listed below, in order from greatest match to least from myheritage.com

Janeane Garofalo
Emmy Rossum
Amanda Bynes
Jena Malone (yes, no one knows her. She played the daughter in Stepmom w/Julia Roberts)
Alyson Hannigan
Eva Peron

So, yeah, something like that. With some Josh mixed in...someone who loves math can do the combinations for my celebrities and his, which include:

Carl Sagan
Vince Vaughn
Kevin Zegers

Side Note: All pregnant or planning-to-be-pregnant-eventually readers beware! Don't let your doctor leave you thinking you'll automatically get to see the baby during the 4-D. It's not a sure thing :/

Everything is progressing nicely: she's moving all of the time (and today we identified for sure with the doctor what part is what...i.e. that is a leg, arm, tush, and so on. The doctors are wonderful and reassure us every time we go that everything looks great, which is nice to hear. (Their "being wonderful" does not hing on the positive updates they give, it just happens that both are true). We're working on getting her place in our home and family carved out. Unfortunately, there appears to be a war between Charlotte and Sweet Pea over anything that is in the glider...and right now the battle tally goes like this: Sweet Pea-2/Charlotte (okay I'm playing for Charlotte right now)-3. The dogs have learned they cannot get up in the chair, but I think Sweet Pea is under the impression that it is okay to stand on her hind legs and take anything in the chair off. The latest item to be haggled over is an adorable pink lamb that my college roomies gave me at a shower/princess party on the 11th. Speaking of the shower...

IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I can't thank Merin C., Michole, Merin U., Mamanda, Mmegan, Mmelissa, Mabby, and Mlauren enough. Ever. It was so special to me and will be a treasured memory forever (until I get super old and start referring to it in the assisted living facility as "my princess party" and asking if it has happened yet?)...I truly have THE BEST friends a gal could ask for :D Love You Ladies!!