tad paranoid

The baby continues to move around every now and then, although sometimes I have to slow down to really notice it. It seems to move more after I eat and when I lay still. For a little while I was somewhat paranoid that he/she should be moving more, but I think it's normal. In the other paranoid realm I was nervous about the color of the wet, because people I've talked to and websites I read mentioned that it should be yellow and thick now and clear closer to actually giving birth. My big ball of hormonal emotion got all wrapped up in this idea that my body was thinking the baby should come sooner and that something was wrong. I've been out of town, then I had visitors while working all last week, so I never got a chance to call the doctor. I kept saying things like, "what if when we get to the doctor she is shocked I didn't call her, and tells me it's not right..." I finally swallowed my worry that I'd be wasting their time or I'd come across a crazy first time mom, and I called the office nurse. She called me back saying that there is absolutely nothing to worry about (although she couldn't specify that the color made any difference at all - and numerous websites mention the distinction - but I can talk to my real doc this week to clarify) - She said it will just mean that it should be easier for my milk to come in should I decide to breastfeed. I liked that her statement implied no pressure to breastfeed, but I am definitely interested in giving it my best shot. I think my biggest lesson is to not let these little worries fester, and whatever you read or hear can be different for everyone. I will not worry about wasting the doctor's time and I will just call when I need to - that is what they are there for, right?!

popped

This is my baby belly. It is 19 weeks and 5 days old. It likes to be rubbed (mostly just by J). It grumbles when it's too hot or empty. It is a tough belly.

invigorated

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to remember to blog this, but one of the best parts of the 12 hour flight extravaganza overnight back from portland - yes, there is a best part! - was around 2:30am in the Seattle airport while delayed. I was trying very hard to stay awake hugging my purse with my head against my bag full of pillows/blankets, when I started to feel distinctive baby shifting instead of just heavy eyelids. When I woke up enough to recognize that I wasn't delirious, I was sure that the movement was distinctive - not gas, not hunger pains, not just a slight fluttering, but baby shifting. It wasn't as comfortable as I expected - who knows what to expect anyway - but it was definite baby action. I was invigorated by it and it put a delirious smile and friendly little bounce in my step as I dragged myself through the next two airports.

portland energy

I came home with a lot more than the three new shirts I can wear now and after the baby is here to cuddle. I was excited that I could keep up and shop right along with my friends - thank goodness for this flowy high waisted new fashion trend. The trip out there was a highlight. I made friends with a random friendly girl from Kuwait on the first flight to Chicago. She knew I was pregnant and wasn't shy to ask me how I was doing, so I guess I don't look chubby anymore. On the second flight I switched seats (to get next to my two chicago friends) with another guy who was willing to move because he knew I'd need to pee a lot, because his "wife had to pee all the time when she was pregnant". Great, thanks for being so thoughtful. I guess I must really look like the big walking belly I feel like...ah, it's only just begun. I was able to pace myself and keep the blood sugar going with a little apricot gelato and maybe a peanut butter donut every now and then. I was glad that Portland's fresh air and friends were able to keep my energy high.

fourth flight

I think tomorrow marks the fourth trip planned prior to our baby news. This time it's all the way to Portland by myself (without my husband/massager/guardian when I fall asleep in the airport) to visit my girls. It will totally be worth it, but the flights are not what I would pick in pregnant mode. I get in tomorrow night at after 1:30am my time (after a full day of work), then I leave on Monday night for a red eye getting back (after three stops!) at 10:30am on Tuesday morning. I'm just goin to choose to have a good attitude about it. The doctor better really mean it when she says that it is completely safe to fly. I was visiting the hospital with a group of students today to get their photos with their doctor mentors. We were all over the place in the CT scan rooms (with no running equipment), and I asked not just one but two people to be sure I was safe in there. They assured me it wasn't a big deal, and told me that I would get more radiation up in an airplane. Oh great, that alleviates all my concern. Oh well, I will have to hope that our medical knowledge is keeping up with our techonology developments.

the wet

Do you ever feel compelled to talk about things that you know may make other people uncomfortable, mainly because it makes you feel strange and you can't stop thinking about it? But there is something that causes you to want to talk about it. This blog is mostly for me, and I don't think many people read it. But you've been warned, if you are at all squeamish do not read on - if the word breast makes you flinch or blink one extra time it's time to stop reading this entry.

My office was incredibly cold today. It was so cold that I had on two scarves. Now we all know what this does to a women's nipples, but as it turns out I think it played a little trick on this pregnant woman. About half way through the day I didn't just feel cold, but wet. I'm not joking, but I was in denial for most of the day. I was leaking this sticky clear stuff. Unlucky for me, the computer guys were working on my computer most of the day, so I couldn't scour google for what the heck was going on. I just tried to ignore it, and we're not talking buckets, but a definite drip. I casually mentioned this to J on the way home. I think his response was something like oh yea, that's normal...yea, i thought normal for an alien or a cow maybe. Then I think my sensitive, not-to-pass-up-a-bizarre-joke husband asked me if maybe I spat or drooled on myself?! I thought about how some of my favorite bloggers would have a field day with this interaction, but I'm honestly too freaked out that I'm intermittently leaking. Then Mr Wikipedia updater/stalker himself whipped out his knowledge as I tried not to think about it too much, and he explained about this stuff colostrum he read about online that prepares you to lactate. I wondered how I hadn't really heard of this happening prior to the baby arriving. When we got home as I lay on the couch relaxing and reading emails, I suddenly realized I actually had a small circle of the wet on my tshirt. It has now crusted to prove that it wasn't a drip of water or something. I can see it for myself. I feel a tingly sensation and if I press, I get a teeny little drip. I won't make it big taking my trick out on the road, but for now I'm hoping the wet doesn't get wetter.

crib calm

The new nursery has its bones. We have the big yellow swivel glider that looks like a real chair (if it were red it would be part of the blues clues). We have the nearly empty dresser/changing table. We have the stroller complete with its zoom check around the hallway. AND as of tonight we have the schnazzy crib with drawer. Minus two broken plastic caster wheels, there weren't any glitches. J and I worked together on it and managed to get it done without any of the notorious trouble that everyone claims building a crib can be. The finished building projects mean many more sewing/decorating projects - note: need some flat panel skirting under the raised mattress above the drawer, ya think?


The vibrant blue was already on the walls (it's looks a lot lighter in the photos), and regardless of whether it's a boy or girl it's going to stay. Gotta love blue.

emergent

Someone used the word popped to describe my belly yesterday. I wasn't sure if I should pack away the skirt I was wearing since it must look like a tent. Tents pop out right?! I'm proud to be popped, but there is still something in me that gets shy and wants to hide it. One of my students asked if I can suck it in, and that is a definite nope. If I try I get a ripple where it pops more on one side and sorta morphs itself. If this isn't alien enough, my belly button aparently got the memo that it will need to emerge at some point. It's got a little round poker that is starting to grow outward like a horn. Luckily the same student that asked if I could suck it in said that she bets she wouldn't be able to tell if I was pregnant from behind. She scurried around me to check and I had a moment of terror that she was going to comment that my "back" muscles must be getting stronger (aka your butt looks big) or that my belly stuck out on the side (aka your love handles are fat)... luckily, she was quick to say that you couldn't tell that I was even pregnant - phew. i'm glad that I have some honest people around.

work out

I've figured out how to compare that achey ligament stretching feeling. It's like waking up in the morning after the first day at volleyball camp. My lower back feels like I just ran suicides bending up and down to hit that line for over an hour. My hips feel like I've just done wall sits until my legs were shaking. I think it has to do with trying to help out with the move and work at the same time. Luckily it's not this bad most of the time, but I have my moments. I figured out why all the counters said different things - some were counting the full 40 week pregnancy and some were counting the 37 week full term baby. I guess anytime after 37 weeks your baby is considered full term although the due date is set for 40 weeks.

We went to visit our friends who just had their second baby five weeks ago. Their son, Luca, when asked who his best friend is, he says, my sister Carla. Then everyone says "aw how cute" including him as he smiles and dive bombs a kiss onto her little forehead. He also ran right over to the present we brought, pulled out the little outfit, and says "this is so cute, thank you." He's the perfect little mimic monster. His bright orange tshirt said "Little Terror" which just made me laugh as he blew bubbles in his mango lassi at dinner. After dinner J and I had a chance to 1-2-3 swing him along the street. His mom said that we may be his new best friends if we continued. He promised to come over to our house to play in the grass sometime soon.

doctor tres

I think the third doctor is a charm. She was easy to talk to and seemed really efficient. She found the babies strong booming heartbeat right away this time, and I just wished she had lingered a bit longer. I really like hearing it. I asked about how much I should worry about moving things and she said not to worry too much but that the cutoff should be around 40 lbs. She joked that everyone that gets pregnant ends up moving to a new home even if they're on their fourth baby. I have to say J has been the dream husband breaking in this new home. He almost singlehandedly took on handling the movers and who knows how many trips up and down those three flights of stairs at our old apartment. I was almost tearing up watching him mow the lawn yesterday with this determined look on his face. I promise it's gotta be the hormones or maybe I've always been a cry baby. Our next appt will be the baby sex determining ultrasound. It won't be for another month or so, but for now we can just play the name game for that elusive perfect little girl name. If we take the pseudo medical myth as somewhat accurate since women on average have higher heart rates, our babies' heartrate is nice and strong so it could be a girl? We'll see... We have the boys name picked out - we just have to figure out how to spell it - Aiden or Aidan?

As for the girls name, here's a little game - leave your votes on comments or email me! I won't be offended at all if you hate some, I have some rated as bleh as well ;)

Rate these possible baby girl names:
1=hate it
2=bleh
3=indifferent
4=like it
5=love it

(you can use 0.5 increments if you'd like)

Addison (Addie)
Mallory (Jane middle (MJ)
Madeline (Maddie)
Grace (Gracie)
Audrey
Claire
Charlotte (Charlie)
Abigail (Abbie)
Corinne (Cori)
Olivia
Hayden (Haydie)
Haylen (Haylie)
Mayden
Payton
Bevan

Middle names:
Elle
Ellen
Jane
Claire
Ann
Tannen
Tannan

half way point?

The counters, tickers, and calendars don't quite match up on anything when it comes to my pregnancy stats. They can all give me an accurate picture of how many days I have left, but never how many days there are/should be total. I think I'm something like half way through (isn't 4 and a half months half of 9 months? but it's actually 10 isn't it?), although I know some stupid calendar will pop up to say that three weeks from now and I will be disappointed that I thought that I had made it past the half way point... and past a looong time ago. Time moves in weird fits and spurts lately. I think it has to do with water retention affecting how big my belly looks and the weather. I won't go into the belly, but pants will fit one day that I couldn't get sinched up enough the last day. As for the weather, this time last week it was 45 degrees and raining, and I kid you not, it was 93 degrees today (although I have to tune in to the 11 o'clock news to confirm that - I'll be lucky if I make it past 10 with the crazy days I've been having and there are two more days in this grad/reunion week extravaganza). The last time it hit the 90s was Aug 3rd, according to the really excited weather guy standing on Narragansett Beach. That just so happens to be the first insane week that we spent here in RI on our air mattress in our 3rd floor sweat box. That week the temps were higher here than in AZ! Aah, the sticky memories. I can't wait to move to lower ground when we move into our new house on Tuesday (movers come Wed)!!

average age?!

I heard on the Today Show this morning that the average age of an American mother is 25 years old. I was shocked! That seems like it is so young to be the average now a days with so many women having healthy, happy babies when they are older. Hmm, makes ya wonder how they collect the stats? Maybe younger women end up having more babies? I want the stat on the average age of a first time mom, only counting first babies just for curiosities sake.

what are you having?

I'm sure there are other pregnant ladies that will agree - The number one question I get is "what are you having?" I always am in the process of thinking in my head, "A baby," while they go on to say either "you don't want to find out, do you?" or "when do you get to find out?" Both are strange assumptions to me. Why should I really care what gender my baby will be? If it's so I know what clothes to buy, it makes sense, but it still seems like a strange question to be asked repeatedly, all of the time. I'm honestly not exaggerating. No one's asking me what color hair my baby will have or whether it will be tall or short. I get that I can't know this stuff ahead of time, but what if we could - does it really matter? I guess names are picked by gender so that's somewhat important, but that is why I like non-gender specific names (although they are hard to come by in names we both like). I guess waiting to find out the gender promotes some sort of special surprise. But isn't it a surprise now versus later? I know that J wants to find out the gender for sure, and I would never be able to not know if he knows (I'd last less than 20 minutes or the car ride back to my office). I do think it would be fun to make it a surprise that I can tell everyone else in person somehow... but people are scattered all over the country/world. Hmm, maybe we can do a pregnancy announcement in the mail like I've been reading about online or maybe I can announce it at my shower. It does give us something to look forward to for now, but most importantly I look forward to a happy, healthy baby. There is so much more to look forward to already!

tshirt deli delight

It was our 10 year high school reunion. All of my girls, my high school lunch buddies, my after prom dates, my bridesmaids, and my life long friends were home to make the reunion much more comfortable. I was happy to see an art class buddy (which meant we ended up in all the exact same classes) that I hadn't seen since we graduated. She is due to have her baby in September and it was so nice to catch up and swap baby brewing stories. There are a few other married, engaged, and expecting ladies mixed in with our class of 46 women, but everyone seemed virtually the same. Between the school day class visits, Memories-Mimosas-Manicures event on the auditorium stage, our class party at the House of Blues, and the all reunion class Luncheon back at HB there were plenty of QT moments. We made a few of our own too, thanks for Kate and Lara for inviting us over. Kate's snack drawer favorites were even in her mom's new house and Lara made peanut butter cupcakes complete with little Auntie name flags. Then they gave me my new favorite shirt, which for a pregnant lady that is slowly slinking out of her too-short-shirts is a premium item. It was from a place called the t-shirt deli in Chicago were it comes wrapped like a deli sandwich in white paper with a napkin explaining the washing instructions, and a bag of chips. Just so happened that they were "Jays" chips in salt and sour flavor. Can't beat a shirt with a peanut on it for a good smile. This baby is lucky to have such great Aunties!

stroller hunt

We've been not-so-secretly copying all of our other friends' baby registries onto our very own, which we've decided is best to put up on amazon since it is a powerhouse of every possible vendor. I was avoiding the babies-r-us grandma's china stroller pattern, so we tried out a bunch of strollers. J loved this one particular easy ride model - easy everything - easy carry, easy collapse. It even claims you can do everything with one hand. I guess that would work if you had three extra fingers and you've been busy with bicep curls. So I was happy when we found it in a cute pattern called Zazoo. It was a big improvement over the exact stroller base covered in blue and green semi-plaid at babies-r-us (They really mean "R-US" - in our RI store they have a gigantic bare baby bottom plastered across the top of the high wall - We're talking at least 12 feet across). We put the new stroller on our new baby wish list (I know it's early, but it's fun to figure out how many thousands of dollars we will need to spend). In the mean time we checked out the matching high chair and playard - check check. Then, a couple days later the wonder stroller popped up as discontinued! Uh oh, what do we do now. We ended up running out to the store, buying one off the shelf before it was swooped off the shelf being the only cute pattern in the one-handed-wonder model, then hiking it up our three flights of stairs into our apartment because we couldn't fit it in our trunk (yes we do move in less than two weeks - oh well - it's worth it if it saves me from the plaid-not-everyones-nightmare-but-definitely-mine). The crazy thing is that we have a stroller already and crib to be delivered the first week in June! Aah, new accessories are creeping into our lives - and I couldn't be more crazy happy.

double fun

We have doubled up trips this month. Back to back weekend trips, back from AZ and off to OH today. I'm feeling it since the baby is now practically doubling in size every week. I got to meet my friends' 6 day old little girl yesterday. Talk about adorable. She was popping out in the elevator on the triage bed and was born in less than 20 minutes after hospital arrival. Chaos was the word my friend used. She is a calm, tough pregnant lady and when she started describing how she couldn't stop screaming, I silently freaked out. Maybe I was flinching, but I hope not. My dumb question of the day was - "Well, no time for drugs then?" - uh no lauren, get with the program. eeek. I also couldn't stop staring at the babies' little perfect head - but how did that come out so quickly? Two other friends had babies within the last week and I have yet to hear their stories. Looking forward to it though.

happy belated mother's day

We spent our mother's day with both of our mothers in Arizona. We enjoyed good food, a good game of scattergories, and a good swim in my in-laws pool. J and I celebrated moms-to-be day a few days later. I know it's a hallmark invention to suck you in or maybe the motherhood maternity shop just wants a reason to have a sale, but I still think it's a sweet gesture. J gestured with jewelry. The original idea was a band ring to add to my wedding ring - since we're adding to our marriage with a new baby. But my setting really isn't set up to easily be added on to, so I ended up with a right hand ring with two linear inset bands coming from one direction and two arms coming from the other direction. I think of them as a very symbolic embrace. So sweet.

mixed reviews

Just got back from a hot visit to Arizona! It was hot like 100 degree heat hot and like Paris Hilton hot. I realized how much easier it is to hide my little tummy wearing big pants and layers. The heat prevented this look, so I really felt big. I had very mixed reviews on whether I look pregnant at all. My review is that I'm definitely showing, but I agree there are people with fancy bellies that can puff them out to look the same. I braved the pool and in a bathing suit Pip definitely made his "first appearance" as my dad put it ;) The dessert party and the snack bbq were highlights to catch up with everyone. I miss everyone in AZ! Thanks for all your warmth.

second trimester

I've completed a third of this pregnancy. I have many more big changes ahead, but here's what's changed so far. The little worry voice in the back of my head has been squashed. The hips have spread out making some of what my sister affectionately refers to as my saggyass pants fit perfectly. I have about a third of my stock of pants left to zip up AND button without hiking them so high that my socks show. I'm hungry all the time, but no big change there. I'm not 100% sure what I have to look forward to, but I know that the changes will be much more significant. For now I just can't stop imagining little pips expressions.

we missed out!

Since we were married on 06/05/04 this would've been fun to win!

Chrysler to Shower Lucky Baby Born at 2:03:04 a.m. on 05/06/07 with all-new 2007... - Auto News from May 1, 2007
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., May 1 -- The Chrysler brand is announcing the birth of the "Chrysler Sebring Bundle of Joy" contest that gives new parents a chance to win an all-new 2007 Chrysler Sebring if their baby is born at 2:03:04 a.m. on 05/06/07. This sequential time and date is novel because it won't occur for another hundred years. Chrysler wants to celebrate this history-making moment by awarding a family-friendly vehicle to parents who give birth at this exact moment in time. In addition to bringing home their new baby, one lucky family will also bring home a new 2007 Chrysler Sebring.