Allie Marie Gale

The Happy Family

Allie was born June 12th 2009 at 8:06 am . She weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs 2 oz, and she was 19 and a half inches long. Her C-section was a " text book c-section" and the Doctor had to chase her down after she came out (she started running around the oberating room... manners manners... J/k). She is amazingly beautiful!!! She was having a little bit of a hard time eating, but now she can eat with the best of us. (We have to watch the food that they bring Nikki; she was grabbing for the roll. I guess she's taking after her daddy and likes food.) Since she had feeding problems the first one and a half days, she's now a little jaundice... but we're hoping now that she's eating better it will resolve quickly.

Nikki is doing great. She is a little tired still, but we're doing laps in the Mommy & Baby unit (the nurses get dizzy with how fast we cruise around). Anyway, life is good. I'll be quiet and let ya'll see the exciting stuff, the pictures.

Summary: Nikki is doing well, Allie is doing very well, and Jared.... well, he's trying to keep up.

The first few moments

This is how her legs were in Nikki, straight up and down

The legs up again

Holding the legs for a picture

In the Nursury

Grabing her foot while eating

Proud mamma and baby

Papa and his new little gal

We'll be Parents in 5 Days!!

Well, for any of you who have not heard yet, we have our c-section scheduled for this coming Friday, June 12th at 7:30 am. As long as Nikki doesn't go into labor any sooner, of course. It is exciting knowing when we will have her. And it is nice being able to plan and make sure we are prepared. Or as prepared as we can be anyway. We pray to be prepared for parenthood; it is weird to think that we only have 5 days left until we take on those new roles.

One of our friend's, who also happens to be our hometeacher's wife, had her breech baby by c-section last Tuesday. We went over to their house tonight and got to hear all about their experience. She was pleasantly surprised with how easy and wonderful it all was. It was fun hearing about what we can expect, and I think it helps us to mentally prepare for it a little better. Their little girl had such a beautiful, round head, and our little girl will, too. Another bonus from having a c-section, I guess. We are just excited to see our little girl!

This will be the last picture of Nikki's tummy with the baby inside... The next post should have pictures of our precious little girl.

38 Weeks and 2 Days

37 weeks and two days

We had the version last week, or at least we attempted to have a verson. They kept trying to move her and then take a quick look with an ultrasound. After a little searching they'd say, "We've got a mellon up high..." or "Her head is still in the same spot." Nikki was amazing!!! She just laid there and took the abuse, though it was quite painful and she was very sore afterwards. Thankfully one of our hometeachers brought us dinner; that was such a blessing. Nikki is starting to feel less sore, yet is still tender in a couple places. We are going to have a C-section, but we don't have a for sure date yet. We're visiting with our doctor on Thursday and should be scheduling it then. We're thinking that it will either be June 12th or 17th, (he only does C-sections Wednesdays or Fridays). We'll keep ya'll posted.

Now the weekly picture of our baby... well what you can see of her right now.

Nikki is now 37 weeks and two days, isn't that great? ANYTIME and well... the world will be blessed with another princess.

Baby Update

We had our appointment last Thursday. Our little girl is still in a breech position, which was confirmed by ultrasound. We didn't get any new ultrasound pictures, though. Dr. Meredith says she has a big head. Nikki is excited about that!! After much thought and prayer, we have decided to try and have her turned (have a version) at the hospital this Friday. We will be scheduling it at our next appointment, which is Thursday, so we don't know the exact time, yet. It is supposedly very painful, so again, Nikki is very excited!! If we are unable to turn her, then we will end up having a c-section sometime around 39 weeks. We figure that it is worth trying to turn her, but ultimately we just want what is best for the baby.

36 Weeks and 4 Days

For our day off yesterday, we did some nesting. Jared cleaned the inside of the cars, we packed our hospital bag, Nikki filed important paperwork, and we shopped, mostly for groceries. After all of that, we went for a walk to the Nature Park, which is probably around a mile from our apartment. When we were almost there, we heard something behind us... some heavy panting. We turned, and to our surprise, there were 4 rolly-polly labs, 2 black and 2 yellow. They were trotting toward us and then decided to grace us with their company for approximately 20-25 yards. They seemed so happy and tired, but as we approached the park, they waddled on ahead of us. We next found them at the pond/small lake. They were attracting quite a bit of attention as they were splashing in the water. Another couple even took their picture. They were pretty cute and funny. And when they had had enough of the water, they waddled up the hill and then continued to run around and play at the park.

We also fed the ducks at the park. Some ducks are smarter than others. And quite possibly, some were just fed more often than others. Some took very little interest in the bread we were offering them, while one probably would have eaten from Jared's hand if he could have. The duck was probably only a foot away and would jump up as Jared would release the bread. It was funny and kinda scary at the same time... Jared was afraid he may lose some fingers...
Overall, we had a wonderful Memorial Day. It was great getting to spend so much time together.

Fun at the Gardens

Hello All!

First we will put up the updated picture of Nikki's tummy. She is 35 weeks and two days as of today. We are not positive as to whether the little girl is still in a breech position, but it feels a lot like it did when the doctor said she was breech. Thursday we have another appointment, and the doctor will confirm her position at that time. If she is still breech, we will have an ultrasound and discuss possible options for the future (turning her at the hospital, c-section, etc). We are hoping that she has either turned and what we now feel is her bum, or that she will turn on her own still. We'll let you know what the doc says after the appointment on Thursday.

35 Weeks and 2 days

Today, after church and our nap (it is tradition; we nap every Sunday afternoon), we went to the gardens up on the campus of BYU-I. It was such a beautiful day and the gardens were likewise beautiful. We enjoyed being outside and even did some duck-calling. Well, we saw one duck and joked about calling it. We had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures of us from our visit to the gardens. Sorry, we didn't get a picture of the duck. Some kids scared it away before we had a chance.

Only 8 Weeks Left!

We really need to improve at updating our blog. But it seems that whenever we decide to do so, our internet doesn't work. Luckily, it started working today, so here's another post.

First of all, we will update you on the pregnancy. Nikki is about 32 weeks now. She had an appointment with the doctor yesterday, and all went well: she is measuring how she should, the heart rate was great (143 bpm), and despite feeling huge, she has gained a healthy amount of weight (approximately 25 lbs). The baby is breeched at this point, but she still has plenty of time to turn. It is kind of neat being able to feel her head above Nikki's belly button and know that it is the head. The night before the appointment, we were wondering whether it was her head or her bum that we could feel; the doctor confirmed that it is her head. It is such a neat experience being able to feel her move, too. She really is pretty active. It is hard to believe that there are only 8 weeks left.

31 weeks and 4 days (but who's counting?)

Last weekend, Jared went to an engineering competition. He submitted a poster that he had created based on the swing that he designed in one of his classes. He took 2nd place in the competition. Here is a picture of the swing-set. It is the one that is able to produce power as you use it and is intended to be used in Ghana so that kids can then use the power produced to study at night with light.

Before the Blog

Being pregnant motivated us to start this blog. But obviously some pretty big events happened before getting pregnant. For example, we got married (imagine that). And so we thought we would share some pictures from that event, as well as from where we went on our honeymoon.

We were blessed with a beautiful day for our wedding. It actually snowed the Friday before and the Friday after we got married. As you can see from the pictures, the weather was great and we had beautiful cherry blossoms in bloom. It was a wonderful day!

We went to Wallowa Lake in eastern Oregon for our honeymoon. It was beautiful. It snowed while we were there and we even had a power outage, but it was great. We were the only ones at the state park, so we took all of our own pictures. We hope you enjoy them and can appreciate the beauty.