Out of their Minds Design

July Catch Up, Part II – New Baby Stuff!

Ok so let’s go over the facts that we know…

Baby is due January 7th!

On June 27th we had our first ultrasound, unscheduled and frightening as all get out. But then there was waving and happiness! His/her head is on the left, facing up. If you look carefully you can see a chin right around where the two dotted lines cross, lips and a nose slightly above that, in profile.

On July 2nd we had an ultrasound when we got back to Grand Rapids… In particular can you see one of his/her hands up there near the top? Four closed fingers and a tucked-in thumb!

When we finally got in to see the doctor, on July 8th, she allowed us to record the heartbeat… I have that recording for you here. Click here to listen.

We have another doctor’s appointment next week, we’ll let you know if anything new is revealed!

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Part V

The final part of the 28th, I’m hoping to get some baeball video up for the “epilogue.” We shall see, big deadlines for Daddy this next week. Have patience please!

Some final moments with the cousins and the swingset before bedtime… Ian’s all grins! See this image larger.

I won’t lie, the only way I got Ian and Kaylee to smile during this series of pictures was to let their feet graze my belly as I was pushing them. For some reason one’s grown daddy or uncle making an “oof” face and crossing his eyes is comedic gold. Can’t help myself sometimes. See this image larger.

*My turn?* See this image larger.

Weee! See this image larger.

Carefully watched by spotters, Ian climbs the slide like a mountaineer. See this image larger.

*I can see Kaylee and Connor’s house from here! No seriously, I can!* See this image larger.

*I don’t wanna go home, Grandma.* See this image larger.

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Part IV

The latter half of the 28th, which was the Sunday of our extended weekend… Are you ready for a image avalanche? Gooooooo!

*Hey! We heard you have popsicles in there!!!* See this image larger.

In what is probably going to be a moment that little Ian will carry with him until the next time he gets to see his cousins, Connor teaches Ian the importance of follow-through. See this image larger.

A quick study, he was off to find a club of his own to borrow. See this image larger.

Cute. See this image larger.

The speed of this kid has done nothing but impress me. Well ok, it has also made me very tired, and old. But yeah, impressive little man! See this image larger.

Melissa and Melanie’s Uncle Jim dropped off some presents for the little ones; here Grampa Ray kindly lends a hand in opening a nice set of Matchbox cars. See this image larger.

*Sorry Daddy, Thomas is full at the moment, you’ll have to come back later.* See this image larger.

Ian apologizes to Kaylee for playing a little rough while establishing which part of her swingset belonged to him. See this image larger.

“Like a diamond in the sky…” See this image larger.

Earlier in the week Mr. Brandon taught Ian to give a thumbs up, and say “sweeeeeet.” Ian showed off this talent to his cousins while still in Ohio. See this image larger.

Aunt Melanie tasked me with getting a picture of all three of the kids smiling. This is maybe about as close as I got this night… See this image larger.

…but oh how we tried… See this image larger.

and bribed… See this image larger.

Ian: “Reeeecycle!!!” See this image larger.

Looks like we’re still going pretty long on photos!!! I’ll continue the same day (the 28th) in Part V!

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Part III

We awoke Sunday, the 28th, to discover we were still completely out of energy. Melissa still on bedrest, and me there to watch her… the Orr reunion could happen without us. That’s what pictures are for!

I just know somebody said to Ian “Eat your Cheerios over on on the linoleum so that you don’t make a mess on the carpet.” He got half of it right, I guess… See this image larger.

A quick grin with the cousins. See this image larger.

Kaylee takes a swing! See this image larger.

Ian happily enjoys a push from Grampa Ray! See this image larger.

Ian dines on some of the traditional Orr reunion delicacies, with his favorite cousins and Grandma Barb! See this image larger.

The day isn’t over yet, but I’ll save the rest of the pictures for next entry… cya soon!

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Part II

June 27th, Melissa and I awoke, pushed Ian out the bedroom door, and fell back asleep immediately. We went into recovery mode, more or less.

That evening, Connor had a baseball game and Grandma Barb stayed home with Melissa so that Ian and I could go root for “the Bakers.”

Ian is ready to cheer Connor on, and can’t wait to see a live game after watching the same double on the Kunze blog 462 times. See this image larger.

Shortly after this picture was taken, the most hilarious conversation I’ve ever heard occurred in the two seats behind me. “Ian, see water?” “Yes Kaylee, I see water….(pause) Look at trees, Kaylee!” It was like some horribly scripted after school special, but the cutest thing on Earth. See this image larger.

Ian and Grampa watch from the sidelines as anticipation builds! I’m putting together a compilation of the video footage I took during the game, and that will end up on the blog in a few days. See this image larger.

He was pretty happy here watching the game, although I had to stop him from running around a bit. Thanks to Grampa Ray, Aunt Melanie and “Ronnie” for watching him. Ian was also happy about the after-game victory tradition of ice cream! (I understand that if there’s a loss the tradition to help cope mysteriously also involves ice cream.) See this image larger.

That night, hopped up on sugar and bolstered by his own youth, Ian attempts the popular sport of block jumping. Is he going to turn down a double-dog dare? NO WAY! (Love Ian’s body language here… you can see from his toes and his left hand that he’s pretty much bursting at the seems.) See this image larger.

We have a winner! (But I’m not sure who.) See this image larger.

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Part I

LATEST NEWS: After our appointment. Our physician was still a little hesitant to give us much of a prognosis for how things should or will go in the future, because she can’t. If you think about it, obviously any baby is a possible miscarriage. She did take Melissa off of bed-rest, give her the ok to go to work, to perform tasks such as lifting Ian, and even said she could go up to Fawn Island. She answered our extensive list of questions with what I will call a positive outlook… using words like “hopefully,” and said she did not consider this a “high risk” pregnancy. I guess what I would say is that our doctor mostly approached this from the standpoint of normalcy. For us, that’s awesome news!

NEWS: Today we go to the doctor and finally get a chance to discuss this pregnancy with our physician at length. We did actually get to talk to her yesterday on the phone, huzzah!

Ian graduated to the “Early Preschool” room today! I’ve got footage and will show it off in a few days!

Alright so back about a week ago, the Ohio trip…

The night we showed up at the Kunze’s, and everybody was out and active and running around! Here Ian stares in awe as Connor shows off his driving technique. See this image larger.

I added this picture after the entry was published, I got the pictures out of order, chronologically: Aunt Dissy helps Kaylee with he swing! See this image larger.

Ian and Kaylee discover home shopping is a toy cart and cash register away. See this image larger.

She’s a cutie, that Kaylee! See this image larger.

She’s a couple inches taller than Ian, and with that weighs a little more… Connor is ridiculously tall and a rail, but fit as a fiddle. Here he shows off his muscles! See this image larger.

I love a picture with narrative. If you can’t read this one, I’ll help you. Connor is saying “I don’t like little kids in my room because they cause chaos.” Ian is saying “Chaos, what chaos? WHOA!!!!” See this image larger.

More play while the moms watch with folded arms… See this image larger.

Yay, smiles!… Hey, no shoes on the bed! See this image larger.

Pre-sleep tea party for two! See this image larger.

Just to kind of keep you on the timeline… THIS night and on to the next morning we ended up in the ER… again I want to thank everybody for picking up Melissa and I’s slack while we slept in the whole weekend.

Our story continues soon!

June 2009 Ohio Trip, Prologue

We had a great time in Ohio seeing family, but a really tough week overall.

The short of it is this… we arrived in Ohio after a long trip, and announced that Ian was going to be a big brother. Huge and awesome news. Hours later Melissa developed symptoms of a miscarriage, and we ended up in the ER. We spent many hours waiting and making ourselves sick with grief. At around 4am Melissa faced the ultrasound portion of the morning alone, or so she thought. A seemingly healthy fetus waved from the monitor, and we discovered the fetus was about 3 weeks older than we thought, around 11 weeks old.

The weekend progressed, Melissa was on bed-rest. Grandma Barb, Grampa Ray, Aunt Melanie, Uncle Ben, and Cousins Connor and Kaylee stepped up to the plate and watched, fed and entertained Ian for us while we slept, and we can’t thank them enough for that! Don’t be surprised if I mention that a few more times, we were out of energy and I don’t know what we would have done without their thoughtfulness.

We got back to Michigan, the next day got some bloodwork done, and then waited yet another day for the results. We had a scare when some hormone levels dropped in the results of the bloodwork, (but again long story short,) it turns out that a healthy ultrasound trumps said results. We had a second ultrasound here in Grand Rapids, and we were exhausted, scared, and it was a cold, grey day in July — we tried our best to have faith and were extremely thrilled to find out the baby is fine, and 12-13 weeks in development. This is according to the ultrasound tech, of course, we’ve still not spoken to our physician person-to-person. (No, not even on the phone.) We’re not happy about that. Wednesday is our appointment, I’ll update this then, hopefully our list of questions will be fully answered.

Ok, now that you’ve got some background, I will tell you how the visit with the family went with pictures, next entry!

In the meanwhile, this is the picture we planned to use to joyously announce the coming of our next child…
Big brother-to-be… we hope and hope and hope! Thanks for your thoughts, wishes, prayers and help! See this image larger.

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