time from home

So life in the Bay has been okay. First of all, we are SO glad we are here and not in Sac at UCD b/c here we have family. The Marik's have been a huge blessing to us, we got to see a bunch of Yaya's at Susan's last night, and being the holiday season, families are traveling from home to home so we get to catch up with other's we haven't seen in a while too. We would be so lonely and bored in Sac! The hard part about the Bay is how far away it is from Redding. We miss our Stirring family up there, not to mention Elliot wanting to see his grandparents all the time.

He's doing pretty good, but he doesn't like being away from home. In as much as we can't get out of the door fast enough for him when we are headed over for him to play with Ethan and Tyler, he hates coming back to the RMH. We will say that we are going "home" for the night, and when we get in the room and he is lying in his pack'n'play he says he isn't home and he wants to go home and not go night night here. It breaks my heart. Last night, on our way back from Susan's, he asked if we were going home or to the "Donald" house. We said the Donald house and he sighed heavily in the back seat and asked why we couldn't go home. We let him know that Mommie and baby sister Arden need to be close to the doctors that are here and that after she is born and the doctor's say it's okay, we'll go home again. He sighs again and my heart breaks a bit more. He's such a trooper and definitely finds joy everyday, but we can tell that it is taking a toll on him. Poor guy.

Eric and I are okay. We seem to be on edge more here. Elliot's behavior isn't the best lately which we assume has to do with the above (and we're told with the fact that he will be three in two months), but it makes Eric really frustrated. There isn't much privacy here, so any disciplining or fighting we do is for people to hear/watch and that causes me stress too. The RMH is great and has so much to offer, but b/c of who they are offering their services to, they have a lot of rules which are taking some time for us to adjust to as well. No food or drink in the rooms (or outside the kitchen area) is a hard one for me b/c I'm suppose to eat every two hours. So I either stick with the nuts in my purse (okayed by the night super when we checked in) or I travel from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor to stand my our mini fridge and eat a stick of string cheese. We can't leave Elliot unattended - which seemed like a "duh" rule, but the first time we put him down for a nap, made sure he was asleep and then headed down stairs to check out the house, eat something, whatever, we were questioned as to where he was. We said he was upstairs sleeping and we were told that it was not okay that we were not with him yet alone on another floor. So now we sit in the 3rd floor family room for a few hours while he sleeps, and take turns going down stairs to eat or whatnot. Today Eric discovered that the key they gave us to get in and out of our room and the outside doors does not work on all the doors. So when he took Elliot to play on the play structure, he was stuck outside until someone walked by and let them in. When he asked the front desk about it, they said that was just how it worked.

Arden is doing good. She's still baking. We are told that she will be delivered by c-section now. I think my pre-term labor scare has pushed the doctors to wanting a more predictable delivery. So unless we are told otherwise tomorrow at my OB appt, Arden Jane will be born on January 19th. It's weird KNOWING the date of her birthday. I guess I knew Elliot's too since he was induced a day before he was due, but this seems different. Thanks to all my girlfriends who have had c-sections and helped me know I can do it too! Arden has an ultrasound, a stress test, and an amniotic fluid level test tomorrow and I have an OB and an appt with the diabetic counselor. Any new information, we will pass on.