December 27

Thanks again for everyone who gave Will a wonderful Christmas! We're giving him a couple of his new toys every few days so he doesn't get overwhelmed and he's having a ball. He's really loving his drag around puppy, yellow phone, sing along stage, baseball, fuzzy board book, blocks & puzzle. Most of the rest are still packed up so I can give him new stuff to keep him excited and busy for weeks. Making my life much easier, when he has new stuff he's more interested in the toys than in trying to get me to get up and play with him most of the time, which I can't do on bedrest.

We all did really well this year! I combined all the Walmart gift cards yesterday and ordered the crib, mattress and mattress pad which Justin should be able to pick up in a couple weeks. After that and Aubby & Uncle Phil's very generous gift of the double stroller we'll have everything we have to have for the new baby, and we still have a couple more gift cards plus cash to get diapers and anything else that comes up. I'll probably pick up a couple items of bedding and girl clothes closer to when she's born so she has some girly stuff, but we have Will's hand-me-downs to use too. Thanks very much all, it's a big relief knowing it's taken care of!

I'm officially further along than I was when Will was born, so every day is that much better than last time. I apparently had an infection without any other symptoms that was causing most of the worst contractions, after a round of antibiotics I'm doing better than I was a week or two ago but still having more contractions than is acceptable. I have terbutaline to take when I need it, which seems to be every couple days. So I'm still not allowed to do anything, on modified bedrest which means I'm on my feet only for what I must do, taking care of Will and myself and even that causes too many contractions. She'll be here in at most 10 weeks and a couple days, I'm 27 weeks 6 days today, 37-40 is full term. She'll be a c-section and she'll be born as soon as she's ready so we minimize my risk for rupture, ideally about 37 weeks or if the contractions begin to cause changes she'll be born sooner. Her odds for any long term damage from prematurity are dramatically decreased now, tomorrow I'll officially be in the 3rd trimester (7 months). For anyone that hadn't heard yet, we've probably settled on a name - Evelyn Marie. We may call her Lyn for short.