1 month to go!

Here is a quick little shot of my belly at one month left. The Dr. said I was measuring small at my last visit (she thinks Ezra is staying deep and wide?). Ezra on the other hand has been measuring on the large size, so I guess it is a great combination. I have gained 27 lbs. so far.


I only get uncomfortable at the end of the day when my back has had enough, but a good nights rest with a few potty breaks usually does the trick. Bob also has to rub my legs because I have a tendancy to get leg cramps at night but other than that all is well. I really feel exceptionally great. I don't feel like Ezra needs to go, but Bob and I are getting super excited to see him. I plan on packing my hospital bag today and keeping it in the car, so I think we are all prepared (except the bottles).

Fall Adventures

Well here is a little of what we have been up to the last couple of weeks. Uncle Rick, Aunt MaryAnn and Kimberlee (my side) came for a visit to the East Coast and graciously took Bob and I along for a little sight-seeing. We went to Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester, and drove around a lot to see the beautiful fall leaves. It was cold and windy, but we had a good time. As you can see I have been growing quite the belly too. (6 weeks to go!) I was suprised at how little dental talk occured, and how much of what did was between me and MaryAnn. (Rick is a dentist.)

Us freezing in Marblehead at a lighthouse not pictured...Rick is also not pictured.

Bob was sent to the stocks while we were in Salem for his bad behavior!

I also had my baby shower from the ward. I got some pretty cute stuff. I actually enjoyed hearing some of the advice I got, and it was good to get to see people in the ward I don't usually get to talk to much. I feel pretty ready for our little guy to arrive.

If our little guy doesn't like this blanket I am more than willing to use it for myself.

Bob and I also went a little crazy while trying to finish up the baby's room. It's still not done, but I would be okay with bringing him home to its current status. We made our sweet headbands from ribbons off of gifts that we have received.

As you might be able to guess, this was Bob's idea!

We also had the Chase's over for family home evening and carved pumpkins. It always seems to take longer than I ever remember, but I am much more happy with this years pumpkin as opposed to my attempt last year.

I made The Cheat from Homestar Runner and Bob made a Jack-O-Lantern with proper tooth anatomy.

As much as I have loved giving Bob a hard time about being a dental dork, I can't be too rough because some of his dental instruments worked really well for carving pumpkins. I guess we really will get our money's worth out of them.

Check out that molar, it has all four cusps. Ahh! Beauty!

Whether you like it or not

Well, as promised, we are officially announcing our baby's name. We had a girl's name but it took us a long time to agree on a boy's name. I eventually gave in and grew to love EmmaLee's suggestion of Ezra Robert Bowling.

This is on the wall above the baby's crib.

Extreme Close Up!

We just wanted to give a quick update on the baby. Our most recent ultrasound was on Friday (10/3). Not much has changed. The baby is doing good and growing like crazy! They estimated that he weighed about 4 lbs. That means that we are on track to have an 8 pound baby. He might need the extra weight since feeding will be a little tough for him but he's a champ! EmmaLee says that all the sweets she's been eating have been going straight to the baby. She may be right. Anyway, here's the promised extreme close up. He was really close to the uterine wall so it looked kind of like he had a blanket draped over his head. What a cutie!

The cleft is under his big-looking nose. Sorry about the picture quality.

Also we have officially decided on a name. We know a lot of people have been asking in the comments but you will have to stayed tuned for that blog.

And the Verdict Is...

Yesterday we finally met with the plastic surgeon that will be taking care of our baby after he is born. It was an all day appointment at Children's Hospital. We really liked the hospital. It was definitely kid themed which gave it a really warm feel. Everyone was really nice and helpful. We're really lucky to be out here for the great health care.

Children't Hospital Artwork

The appointment was really long. We went in at 8:50 and didn't leave until almost 5:00. They started with another ultrasound. During the ultrasound he starting playing with his toes - it was super cute! Next, they did an MRI to help them determine the extent of the cleft. They told us that it is definitely a complete unilateral cleft of the lip and palate. After the MRI we met with the surgeon and he told us about the surgeries. The baby will need an appliance that moves the gums and palate together placed surgically that will be in place for six weeks. He will need a surgery called a lip adhesion that will start to fix the nose, sew the gums together, and move the skin of the lip closer together. He'll have another surgery to completely seal the lip and fix up the nose more. Finally, at 9 months or so, he'll have another surgery to fix the palate. We were a little overwhelmed to hear about so many surgeries during the first year; however, we got the impression from the team that he will be in really good hands. We still have the same attitude towards the situation, we know that everything is going to be fine and that we will have a wonderful baby, we're just not excited about lots of surgery.

These pictures are actually from the last ultrasound that we posted. They didn't print these ones out for us before, but our doctors made a disc with all the ultrasound pictures to give to the specialists at Children's. Needless to say we took the opportunity to download the images onto our computer before we handed it over! In these you can see the cleft on the baby's left side pretty well. His face is in the middle and you can see the uterus on either side. In the bottom picture, his hand is at the bottom of the picture. Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Abandoned Property?

So the most expensive part about attending Boston University School of Dental Medicine, after tuition, is by far housing. When we were moving here, no one wanted to rent to us without actually meeting us. We eventually signed a lease for an apartment which we saw no photos of and paid the entire first years rent all up front. It actually worked out really well for us and we like our place. Our landlord is okay but I think he stopped paying his landscapers or something. Our front yard has weeds as tall as I am and the back yard is too overgrown to even venture into now. I thought maybe he would send the landscapers at least once this summer...but now summer is officially over. Maybe I just need to borrow a weed eater from someone.

Our neighbors on the first floor were gone for a week awhile back when I took these photos so their newspapers piled up on the stairs adding to the abandoned lot effect.


We promise that we're not just squatting but at the price we're paying, we kind of wish that we were.

Bunkin' with the Bunkers

Bob and I went camping with the Bunkers at Camp Joseph again this Labor Day weekend. Bob has been wanting to go camping all summer, so we took advantage of our last opportunity. We had a really good time and the weather was actually great. I feel like all we did was eat and eat and eat. I never once got hungry, but I attribute all the eating to our baby weighing in at 2 lbs 4 oz at our last ultrasound. (That bumped him from being a little below normal to a good way over normal.) We also joined the local "hill billies", according to Bob, and went floating down the river while we were there. It was a blast, and even though the "rapids" were pretty puny Bob and I both managed to get flipped over. I don't have any pictures of us going down the river because I forgot our camera, so you will have to watch the Bunker Blog if you really want to see some. I am posting this blurry picture of me looking pastey because this was the size of my belly at 100 days to go (and yes that is my pre-pregnancy swimming suit stretched over my belly).

A Whole New World

If any of you have ever been shopping with Bob you know that he really enjoys pushing the cart. He loves to pretend he is looking the other way and run into a display, or drive the cart on two wheels. He seems to never get sick of it. So keeping this in mind you can only imagine what it was like with Bob at Ikea. For those of you who don't know they have carts that manuever really easily. You can spin them, or drive them sideways, or on an angle. So as you can imagine that is exactly what Bob did THE WHOLE TIME we were in Ikea. I had to take a picture of him even though this was at one of his more mellow moments. The purpose of our trip was to get us new dressers. We are going to give the target stackable drawers (they are really crappy, but we more than got our money's worth) to our new little guy. So we needed something cheap but not as cheap as what we have been using for the past two years. We went with two three-drawer dressers, rather than the six-drawer dresser for the ease of moving and versatility, plus we saved like ten bucks. Although it is still cheap furniture, I'm way excited for our new drawers. They are soooo much better. It also cleared up some much needed closet space because I can fit more clothes in them.
Bob recommends that any of you who have never been to an Ikea go just for the experience, plus you'll probably find a good deal on something you like. This was his first time and he considered the whole thing quite "trippy." He said he could spend a month in there if he was building a house. They also have a little food place, so you could get some cheap grub (and they have a place for the kids to play) so you could even make it a date night. We didn't spend much time looking around, but it still took us almost an hour when we already knew what we were getting.

Don't be jealous but this is #4!

Well back on the 8th we got yet another ultrasound. We were supposed to be finding out more about whether or not our baby had a cleft palate in addition to the lip. As it turns out the ultrasound was not as informative as we had expected. I walked away a little disappointed. (I think I was just tired and ornery because it was early.) The first tech that we had wasn't so good at figuring out how to give us a good 3-D picture, but she got some pretty good profile shots. They always seem to take them on the side opposite the cleft lip.

She left the room and the tech we had last time came in and took some better pictures. He got some really amazing 3-D ones showing us the cleft lip, but then he ripped them off and kept them. I was kind of mad because I knew all of you would be able to see the cleft in those, and actually tell what you were looking at. Next we had a doctor fresh out of school come in and practice, and then the main ultrasound doctor came in and looked at our little guy. She didn't really have any news for us except that he was growing normally and looked good. A nurse and our genetic counselor came in and they got a consent to send our info to the surgeon at Childrens Hospital and scheduled us another appointment. We are pretty popular when we come in. It looks like we will get an ultrasound every month until our little guy arrives.

All in all it was really fun to look at our little guy. His skull was more formed so he looked more normal. They told us it will be even more fun when he starts to fatten up. We will get a better idea of what he will look like. We will meet with our surgeon in October, and that ought to answer a lot of our questions. As for now we are loving feeling and especially watching my belly move as our little guy shows us just how much he loves to be active. We are getting more and more excited for him to come out so we can snuggle with him. But all in due time I guess.

Shower the People

Today was my first day of classes again at BU which is no fun but between APEX and today I had two weeks off. During the 2nd week we flew out to Utah so EmmaLee's family could throw her a baby show-er. We received many of the baby essentials including lots of onsies and blankets. I was actually quite surprised by the amount things that had been handmade. For those of you who attended, thank you very much for your generosity. For those of you who may still want to get something for our baby, we didn't get a lot of outfits, you know, pants to go with the onsies.

We really enjoyed being able to spend time with EmmaLee's family especially Andy who just got home from his mission. We went to see The Dark Knight (which everyone should go see so it beats Titanic, and it's really good), and we went mini-golfing with EmmaLee's cousins Trey and Tate. Other than that, we didn't do too much exciting, it was just nice to be with family and get away from Boston.