It's a GIRL!!!!!!!

Yes that is right most of the people that visited this blog were WRONG we were blessed with a beautiful little Girl on October 5th at 3:34 pm. Her name is Ashlyn Kelly Zeal and she was 7lbs. 14oz. and was 20 inches long. She has been home for a week now, she spent a little extra time in the hospital because she went to the NICU but we have been reassured that it was nothing that will have long term affects and she has been to her first doctors appointment and everything looks fine. She now weighs 8lbs. 2.5oz and is 20.5 inches long. She has been doing pretty good and loving all of her visitors thus far. We have had most of our family here to visit and her friend Luke came with Mike and Angie. She is on a pretty consistant schedule of eating about every three to four hours day and night and sleeping in between. It is tougher for us to get used to especially for me since I went back to work this week, but Tara has been great about letting me sleep as much as possible at night when I have to work the next day. Tara doesn't have to go back to work until the 5th of January and then I am going to take some time off to stay home with Ashlyn. We are very excited and would love to have visitors so any time people want to come over just give us a call first and make sure we are here, becausae we have had Ashlyn out and about shopping with us and she has been very good. I will keep updating the blog periodically as we have more developments. Thank you again to everyone for your support and all of the very generous gifts we have received.

9 Months......and counting

Well, we are still hanging in there. We just had another appointment this afternoon and the doctor says that everything is looking good. She seems to think that the baby will come close to the due date but at this point it is anybody's guess. Tara has been feeling pretty good other than a little soreness in her back and some heart burn, but other than that we are doing just fine and are very excited for our little bundle of joy. If it waits a while longer though it may not be so little. Tara and I are both excited for her to be off for a couple months with the baby and then I get to have some one on one time in january.

9 Months

Well we just got back from our 9 month appointment. This one was a little more intensive than usual because they thought the baby was breached, so we got to have another ultrasound, which was exciting. The best part was that the baby had flipped and is now head down and ready to make it's way out. Actually Tara is already 1cm dilated, which doesn't mean a whole lot other than the baby's head is fitting into her where it needs to go. They did some measurements and they told us that there is some degree of error but that the baby looks to be about 7 pounds and the due date is staying pretty close but it seems like things may start to move rather quickly. So from here on out everyone is on call, this baby is going to come when it is good and ready. We are VERY excited to become parents and can't wait for the baby to meet all of its family and friends.

8 Months

Well we are at the start of the eighth month. Things are really coming along nicely Tara is feeling and looking great. The baby is doing good according to the doctor except the the fact that it is breached still but it is not a big worry right now because there is still time for it to flip. This last week we had our Preparing for labor classes, which were pretty informative and we got to tour the hospital and see exactly what the rooms look like and where we need to go when the big day comes. Also since the last post we had a shower at Grammy and Pops Zeal's house. That we fun and we got to see a lot of people that we hadn't seen in a while and they were all very generous to baby. We got all different predictions on the baby's birthday and sex (lots of strange questions too). I just hope that the people that guessed an early date are wrong. We are very excited and have everything at home pretty well ready to go and Tara is going to a car seat safety inspection on thurday to make sure the car seat is installed correctly. Tara has to start back to work a couple days this week, which is depressing, but she will only have to be there for a little over a month until baby comes. Then 12 weeks off!!!!! That is about it, hope everyone else is doing well and we will keep you posted on upcoming events.

We are back again and it has been a long time. A lot has happened since the last time I posted a message. We just had an appointment today and the doctor says everything is moving along just fine, Tara is measuring right on track to have an average sized baby, so there will be no challenging Luke Dreidric. Tara is feeling pretty good, especially helpful is the fact that we got A/C installed in the house. She had been getting sore pretty quickly so we went and invested in a velcro belt contraption that is supposed to help support the belly a little bit better. As you can see from the picture the belly is beginning to need some support. Erin and Ellison came over the other day so the baby Zeal has already met a couple new friends in Luke Dreidric and Ellison Matta. We also had a baby shower at the Kelly's and were fortunate enough to get a lot of family and friends all together, including my parents who drove up from New Glarus and the LoPresti family who were in from California. We received a lot of nice gifts for the baby and it was great to have our close friends and family together. We get to have another one with more friends and family at the Zeal's in august and we are very excited for that. Zoe and Whisper are both getting very anxious too, they can tell something is up. Zoe has been great with all of the babies she has met, whisper on the other hand still needs some work.

Six Month Update

Hello All,
We just took Tara's six month picture and she is really getting her baby bump now (if you can still call it a bump). She looks great as you can see, she is feelling better and looking forward to getting done with summer school so she can just relax as much as possible. The doctor told her the other day to just be careful and not stress her body too much and to make sure she gets as relaxed as possible before she goes to bed so she sleeps very soundly. She is really appreciating the body pillow that Mike and Angie gave her about now. I just had my first unofficial father's day and it was a blast going on our annual golf outing and celebrating Carley's graduation. My parents got me a cool book for father's day so I have been reading it to the Baby the last few nights. We are going to be signing up for classes at the hospital soon so I will keep you posted on how that goes. From what Jonathan told me I am getting a little anxious. Anyway, that is about it for now I hope we get to see everyone soon and if not give us a shout sometime.

Ultrasound Update

Well we had our ultrasound last night. As you can see from the picture on the bottom, the baby was not very cooperative. We got a couple of good pictures but this one shows the foot really well and is pretty cool. Overall the ultrasound went well they got all the measurements they needed even though the baby was in an awkward position and made it pretty tough. The doctor says everything looks great and we are right on track for our original due date of October 7th.