20 WEEKS!

Woooooooooooo! Halfway! Size of a melon, what?! We had our first real visit to Andaluz for a checkup with the new midwife. Josh called and broke up with our old clinic a couple of days ago. I was too shy to tell the the truth of why we were leaving them, but he's good at that stuff.

Apparently when you hit halfway, you can start to feel the baby move, which means, I'm awake, blogging, at 4am on a Sunday. Little jerk has been kicking me all night! I have to be up in 20 minutes anyway to head to the airport to catch a flight to new orleans for Julie's wedding, so I guess it could be worse.

I kind of can't wait for this whole month to be over. Have I said that already? It has just been too stressful, and too much going on. I'm excited to travel to see my family and Josh's family one last time, but then I'm just ready to be settled in at home and start the new year calmly and quietly. Um, isn't that called nesting?

While I was in Texas, Julie, Mom and I went to this store called Baby Earth, which I think we all loved. I did anyway. I'm struggling a bit with Babies R US having he more natural items that I want so I've started a registry there. They even have the car seat we want a bit cheaper, and the cloth diapers too. You can go to Babyearth.com and search our names, or here's a link: http://www.babyearth.com/lists.html?list_alpha=K12L99IUK
They have way cute, gender non-specific baby clothes too! Lots of stripes and solid colors.

I'd better get ready for my trip now. See you all really soon!

Baby Shower Planning

My friend Michelle has generously offered to host a baby shower for us, and she even said there will be no dumb games! yes! We're trying to plan it way in advance so any of our family that would like to come can have lots of time to make traveling plans. So far, we think that Saturday April 2nd seems like a date that will work, sometime in the afternoon, like 3 or 4 pm. We want to have a co-ed shower, so Josh will be there, and our dude friends, and if dads want to come, they can.
We would love to have any and all of you family members join us, but we promise not to be heartbroken if you can't, since you'll probably be coming out again only a month later for baby time. We're happy for whatever time we get to spend with you, and if you'd rather put your resources into visiting when you'll actually get baby face time, it's fine with us! I know we'll need lots of helping hands after the birth.

We sure are getting excited! Last night while we were watching TV, Josh finally got to feel the baby move. He/she was moving a bunch on my right side, and Josh was able to feel some good punches in there. He was so excited that his hand was shaking! It was cute. He also kept going *GASP!* every time he felt it. He's silly.

Things are much better now that he's home. He's leaving again this week, but just for Tuesday night, which is a big relief. All that alone time was too much.

Pity Party!

This has just been one of those weeks. Pregnancy wise, everything is going fine, and I feel pretty good, and I just want to rest and eat and eat and eat. And I want to eat sort of weird things finally, like last night, about an hour after I ate my dinner, I ate an entire can of black eyed peas. Then today, after lunch, I ate a whole can of beets, with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Sudden canned food cravings?! I dunno.
Regular life though, has been extremely annoying this week. Work is super slow, slower than the usual between holidays slow, and I can't shake feeling really stressed that I'm going to have to lay one or two people off in January. We got a citation and fine from the city this week for our grease trap being more than 25% full, which I didn't even know was a fine-able thing, or that there was even a city inspector for that.

Josh has been out of town all week, and it sounds like he has to leave again next week. Then, my car broke down again, probably because a few months ago I went on and on about how awesome my car is and how it never breaks. Then, $1600 timing chain, and now… the clutch. I haven't even taken it to the shop yet, because I can't handle hearing how much it will cost. It's been pouring rain for 2 days, and isn't supposed to stop for the next 2 weeks, so going outside for exercise, or anything at all, has been pretty much impossible. Katie threw out her back again at work and so I had to go in today on my day off and cover her shift, and we'll see about tomorrow I guess.

And now tonight, my sewing machine broke. Usually I can fix it, but I can't figure it out this time, and I'm right in the middle of making everyone's christmas presents! I was trying to save money by making gifts instead of buying them, and it was going so well, and I'm getting a lot better at sewing and I think the things I was making were cooler than stuff I could buy. I have like 4 projects going at once and none of then are done. I might try to finish up one tonight by hand, and maybe tomorrow I'll take my machine into the shop.

Whew. I feel better now that I wrote it all out. I know it will all be fine, but man, I can't wait for December to be over already.

New midwives in our future?

Today Josh and I went for a consultation and tour at a local birthing center called Andaluz Waterbirth Center. We are really excited about it! We loved the midwife we met, and the facility is gorgeous.  I wish I could steal a photo from their website to put here, but it won't let me. We are thinking that the cost won't be anymore that where we are now, and the standard of care will be much higher and with a more individual and nurturing focus. We have to wait a few days to see what our insurance will cover and figure out costs, but hopefully our next midwife appointment will be there!

18 Weeks

In my head, this is officially half way! Julie says it's time for another belly picture, so here it is. I don't think I've gotten much bigger, but I've also been trying to watch my weight gain a bunch.

Also, Stella wanted to lick my hand really bad during this photo, that's the dark brown spot in the lower corner of the picture. I'm heading out to my first prenatal water exercise class in a bit. Can't wait to be in a pool… hope my swimsuit will still fit.

Blogging about resting is boring.

I don't have much to report to you guys this week. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I pretty much just rested, and had a quiet weekend with Josh. We did some house things, cleaning, rearranging some furniture, and bought a rug for the living room and the rug for the nursery. I also took several naps, and read an very large book about vikings. Today I went to my yoga class, and someone else asked if we could spend extra time working on loosening our hips, and I was glad because mine have been starting to hurt, mostly from sleeping. I would have been too shy to request it though. I've been paying attention to how much I eat, and I weighed myself yesterday and don't seem to have gained anymore weight, so I'm feeling happy about that. We'll see what the scale at the clinic says though, I swear it is always 6 or 7 pounds more then my home scale.
Looking forward to seeing the new Harry Potter movie this week - anyone else?

OMG!

What is this?! HAHAHAHAHA!

Momo Baby Anti-radiation Maternity Jane Dress

Day off, finally.

Thanksgiving was awesome, and I really couldn't be much happier with how everything went at the bakery. We sold as much stuff as I felt like we could handle, our staffing situation was just about perfect, and everyone got along, worked hard, and seemed happy. Today, unfortunately, it caught up with me. I did so well when I just had to keep going, going, going, but now that I've slowed down, I'm exhausted and sore and cranky. I had to go in at 5am this morning again to finish up some non-Thanksgiving cakes, but was home again by 8am and in bed. I've been trying to just take it easy today, but as tired as I am, I just can't sit still!
My most wonderful friend Michelle (who cooked the best Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had last night) gave us a closet organizer that she used for Ruby when she was little. I put it up in the closet today and filled it with the few items we have. I'm happy to see we have lots of little blankets so far, I'm feeling like they will be immensely practical.

As to why there is a filing cabinet in the closet, you can feel free to call Josh and ask him, because I don't know.

I spent some time sewing today, in an effort to do something that required little exertion. I made a couple of burp cloths, from a simple tutorial at Prudent Baby. After seeing how much meredith used hers with Tripp, I've decided to make sure I have plenty. I made them with some scraps I had around, and they came out okay. I ended up feeling really frustrated with my sewing machine today, which is unusual. It just wouldn't stay threaded, and was sounding really clunky and balling up the bobbin thread a bunch.

This is my machine. I'me really attached to it, because it is one of the few things that has stayed with me though the 20 different places I've lived since high school.  Mom and Dad bought it for me when I graduated, I used Mom's ANCIENT machine all through high school, and then this one went off with me to college. It's been great to me, but Josh and I were having a conversation yesterday after I saw this machine online and said I liked it. He thinks I should think about getting a new one, since I've been sewing so much again, but I sort of feel like getting rid of what isn't broken is wrong. Maybe mine just needs to be cleaned and tuned up. But what if I had a new machine that was quiet, and had an auto thread cutter (dreamy!) and could even do embroidery?! But then, what if after the baby comes I don't have time to do much sewing? I do have a bakery to run too. But what if i'm sewing while the baby sleeps and the old machine is so loud? And so on and so on…

Anyway, as for the Bloob, he/she is making me feel crowded. My belly is pushing out and out and standing up from sitting is getting hard, and I can't eat a full meal because I feel like my stomach and the baby are so tightly packed in my belly that it just aches. Lesson learned with thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It's all okay though, because I think I've felt the Bloob moving a couple of times, but I'm not totally sure. The first time felt like little tiny karate kicks near my belly button, then further to the right, all within a couple minutes, and the second was more of a soft, brushing feeling below my belly button. Could have really easily been gas, or digestion though, it's pretty hard to tell. I'm still not quite ready to yell "The Quickening!" and run around freaking out. Soon though. Soon.

Ultrasound, surprise!

We had sort of a last minute ultrasound on Wednesday to resolve some questions with our dating. The ultrasound tech said our due date is probably closer to April 30th, but they won't say for sure until we talk to the midwife again. The Bloob is apparently a wiggle worm, he/she wouldn't stay still and we didn't get any perfect side-view pictures. There was a lot of upside down and child's pose going on, and it was cool to get to see those little hands and fingers moving around like crazy! These are the pictures the tech gave us, look how metal our kid is! All Skulls and Horns.

The first picture is the baby laying sideways, with it's head turned facing front. I LOVE the little dots of the spine going down it's back. The second is just of it's arm, and its giving a little thumbs up, but we think it looks like horns. You can sort of see the head, facing down, in the background.

Cold, clothes, and lentils.

It's cold here! The forecast said snow, and we got a little but, but mostly we just got cold. I don't need a snowstorm ruining another holiday at the bakery, so I'm glad, and the cold just makes it feel more like holidays. I love the cold weather but I'm struggling with clothes - do most women go through 9 months of pregnancy wearing the same 3 outfits? I've been shopping for maternity clothes, but so much of it is short or 3/4 sleeve, or looks like a tent. I'm probably being too picky, I know. I just want some nice plain shirts and sweaters! Gap maternity online has a few I like, I probably just need to break down and order them, and hopefully they'll fit. Luckily in the late 90's Mom bought me a wool peacoat with a hood, which I've kept all these years. That was during the years when wearing clothes too big was cool, so it's a size too large, and is now the only one of my coats that fits. I think I can get another couple of months out of it, so maybe I won't have to buy a maternity coat.

I got a letter in the mail about my blood work from my last appointment that said I am very slightly anemic. Very Slightly. Ha! I'm not too surprised since I've been having a lot of trouble swallowing my giant pre-natal vitamin every day. It makes me gag just thinking about it, so I haven't taken it as much as I should be. I've forced myself every day since then though! I've also been trying to eat more iron rich foods, and one of the best is lentils. And beans. We've eaten lentils and beans for almost every meal since then, but I don't think Josh has noticed yet. His favorite restaurant, Ya Hala, has lentil soup we both love, and it takes very little work to convince him to go there.

I worked on a registry at Babies R US, since we're all done with the nursery, I guess we're ready to start putting things in it! It started with the big stuff, and I'll work on adding the smaller items next week I think. I found another crib there that we both like, and it's cheap! We want to spend less on the crib, and more on the mattress, so we don't have one of those vinyl covered mattresses that everyone says smell really bad. This crib turns into a really cute toddler bed, and then a full size bed!

To get to the registry, go to Babiesrus.com and enter this number Registry #: 46217971 or search by our names. I also put a link over to the left side of the page. If there is something else I should add let me know, it's helping me to have a list to look at of what we will need! I guess you can buy stuff, and then arrange for us to pick it up at our Portland store, to avoid shipping. If you're dying to get me those washable nursing pads (ugh), then go for it, haha!

I can't believe I'm writing this today. I thought for sure I'd be stuck at work all day, but we are right on schedule, and we even have a record number of orders for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to all of the fun pie baking tomorrow!

16 Weeks, now with blurry photos!

It's been awhile! A week? We're 2 days past 16 weeks now, and the time has gone by quickly since I went to Austin. It was so much fun! I miss all those ladies so much already. I have a bunch of pictures, which one should I start with? How about the one where I feel fat. Looking forward to 5 more months of that feeling. And while I'm having a low self esteem moment, I hate my hair at this length. I know it's part of the growing out process, but I want it either shorter, or longer NOW.

I'm surprised by how much all the crazy hormones make me feel like crap one minute, and like a sexy pregnant lady in the next. I don't know why I'm surprised, every blog or book I read says it will happen, but as someone who has never cared much about my weight, it's a weird feeling.

In less whiney news, here are the before/after pictures of the nursery! We finished painting it, and now I guess we just need furniture to fill it up. The closet already has tiny hand-me-down hangers (thanks michelle!!) and some clothes and blankets from my family. We have gotten a couple of toys too, but we have to hide them in a drawer or Stella will rip out all of the stuffing.
Before:

After!

The second photo is a better representation of the colors, the first one was at night and it's all yellowy from the flash. I still have to put the closet doors back on, or figure out a different solution, because they are really dirty and splattered with paint.

Here's Josh, who isn't getting as much face time here, since he doesn't have a growing belly to document. He is working on a nice beard though.

And here are some pecan custard tarts, I accidentally uploaded the photo with all the others. mmmm.

This one is a preview of what I'll look like with a baby, in case you're having trouble imagining. It was so fun to meet baby Tripp and to see Meredith as a mom. Traveling with a 5 week old baby is brave, and she handled it so well! I got to carry Tripp around for an entire day of shopping, and I loved every minute of it. Julie and I were in Pier 1, it was very christmasy in there.

And the last one! Julie and I on our last day together. Miss you Jules! Thanks for driving us everywhere.

A-OK

We went to see the midwives again today. Everything is great, pretty uneventful visit. Hear the heartbeat briefly again, much stronger this time, 148 beats per minute. Josh got excited. I forget that since he doesn't feel the day to day changes of carrying the baby that things don't seem as "real" to him, so it made him really giddy to get to hear the heartbeat again. I had blood drawn for general blood work, and a "quad panel", which is a screening for abnormalities like down's or spina bifida. The lady who drew my blood used one of those rubber strips to wrap my upper arm before she drew my blood, and I have never had anyone do it so tightly! I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but I was gritting my teeth the whole time! Usually they take it off after they start drawing blood, but she left it until the end, so I sat through four tubes of blood with it. I'm interested to see if I have a bruise from it tomorrow. She did a good job putting the needle in though, I didn't even feel it. Although, in hindsight, maybe that was because I was focused on  the pain in my upper arm.
I'm off to Austin in the morning, bright (actually, dark) and early. Josh has the day off tomorrow, because the new furnace is being installed. He made himself a mile long to-do list for the weekend that includes cleaning all the carpets, cleaning out the car, touching up the paint in the nursery, cleaning the whole house, getting tattooed, and taking Stella on long walks.

Next appointment is Dec. 15th for the big 20 week ultrasound at the hospital, then Dec. 17th for the next one with the midwives.

15 weeks dudes!

Booyah! Doesn't really feel any different than last week though. I've been working away on the nursery, and I will post before and after pics tonight. It's been raining so much, it's been nice to have a good inside project to work on.
Also, I've been doing such a good job of eating relatively healthy food, but this week I screwed it all up. I had a coke. Okay, fine, I had two. Not in the same day though and oh, they were SO DELICIOUS and hit the spot. Then today, I had a boston creme doughnut. A vegan one of course, from voodoo doughnuts, so it was probably all food coloring and hydrogenated. But I wanted it SO BAD! To make myself feel better I bought Josh an apple fritter, so he wouldn't give me a dirty look for poisoning our baby with (delicious) doughnuts. My guilt is only mild though, since I watched enough 16 and Pregnant to know that you can have a perfectly healthy baby while subsisting only on McDonalds, pizza, and soda. I also learned from that show that if I was 16, I would be sitting around on the couch being bitchy all day and yelling at people, while my Mom did everything for me, although she would be complaining about it bitterly to the camera behind my back. Guess that's the drawback to having a baby at 34. Mom, why do you live so far, I have dishes for you to do, and laundry to be washed!

Do you see that pregnancy ticker up there? It says "Movements more coordinated, eyebrows and eyelashes appear". FREAKY! We have an appointment with the midwives again on Thursday, in the afternoon. This time I get blood drawn, and they are doing a test for Down Syndrome markers. Because of my age, there is a higher risk, but no one in either of our families has it, so hopefully that's a good sign. Plus I'm still banking on this Higgins' Magic Fertility, where you get pregnant in 1st try (or without trying, ha), bounce right through your pregnancy with a smile, and pop out a perfect adorable baby. Right Ali? Right Mom? I guess I'm the test to see if Ali was just lucky, or if its true.

We won't have another ultrasound until 20 weeks or so, and then we are hoping to make that the last one if everything is going well. Normally that would be when we find out the gender, but we're not gonna! I did read somewhere if you are craving lots of salty foods, its going to be a boy. Which I was, until that doughnut today.

We decided on names awhile ago, it wasn't really that hard, but lots of people say not to tell, so people don't convince you otherwise. But I'm telling you guys. If it's a girl, we chose Ada Elaine Kubisch, and for a boy, Arch Higgins Kubisch. I never would have thought that I'd want such family names, but I really like the idea of having your name connect to someone else.
Ada is no one's name, we just like it. But Elaine is my Mom, sister Ali, and niece Meredith's middle name. Arch is Josh's Dad's middle name and maybe someone else's in his family? I can't remember. Higgins is my last name, obviously, and I like it that Arch Higgins sounds like Art Higgins, my dad's name. Even though I'm keeping my last name, we're giving the kid Josh's. We didn't even fight over it! I just don't really care, and he does, so there you go.
I'm talkative today! This is what happens when I'm home alone all day. Only two days until Austin, can't wait to see everyone! Julie I'm going to make you try on my maternity jeans.

Good thing I checked

Because that crib from Ikea is UGLY in real life. Beech color is not good. It's too bad, because I liked the bed it turned into so much! I'll find another.

Domestically productive day!

Except for an hour this morning, when I had a wedding tasting, Josh and I got to spend the whole day together at home. While I was at work he went and picked up a load of mulch and finished the front yard so its ready for winter. When I got home we prepped the front room (previously called "the art room", now called "the nursery") for painting by moving all of Josh's art stuff out. Then he got to work on stripping the paint off of the dresser that I bought all those weeks ago (YES! finally!). He just walked by and told me to make sure to tell all of you that he says Hi! and to remember to mention that when he was working on the yard, he cut all of the last dahlia blooms off the plant and left them on the porch for me when I got home. That plant ended up getting so huge and had the most beautiful pink blooms! It was sweet.

Anyway, while he stripped the dresser, I painted the room with a coat of primer. I realized Josh has a boom box with a tape player, so I dug out all my old mix tapes from the 90's and had such a great time listening to them! I was glad I was painting alone, because I sang along the whole time, until my throat was feeling kind of sore. We took a break for awhile to make a run to home depot, and let the primer dry, and now I'm ready to put on the first coat of paint! We got a creamy ivory color, called Custard.

I started picking out some things that we'd like to go in the room, and since they aren't all from one place I'm just putting links here. We've looked at cribs, and feel like a lot of them are just too expensive, so we're going with Ikea for the one we want. This one becomes a toddler bed too, which is great. I can't figure out the mattress situation - they have quite a few choices, and it doesn't seem like an infant needs to have a pillow top luxury mattress, but what do I know. I'll just link to the general mattress section HERE, and maybe someone can tell me what to choose.

Crib

I've also been searching for a rug for the room, since the floors are wood, and I really like this plain brown one from Ikea too. Since the walls will be Custard, the curtains I bought are Cranberry, It seems appropriate to have a rug that is Chocolate brown. Sounds like we're making some kind of delicious dessert. Plus, the size we need is only $149 and for a rug that seems like a sweet deal. Ikea really is pretty great for some things, except for kitchen utensils, which they are no good at.

Rug 

We decided awhile ago that we wanted a co-sleeper for the first few months, before we start trying to use the crib. I thought we had picked out the one we liked until we found this!!

Some teeny tiny mom & pop company makes these, and the design is super simple! It has wood arms that slide under your mattress for support, and adjustable legs to fit the height of your bed. They're kind of pricey though, so Josh is just going to make one. The company that makes it also shows you how to turn it into a toddler bench when you're through with it. We're scared to have the baby sleep in the bed with us, because we both toss and turn in our sleep so much, so this seems like a great option. Plus, look how smiley that baby is!

The other day we briefly hung out with Leela and Spencer, while Leela's sister and her 5 month old daughter were visiting. We both got to hold the baby, and she was just super sweet and adorable. It was so nice to be around a baby, and I loved seeing how natural Josh was with her. His hands were half the size of her little body! I think we both feel anxious to have a baby we can hold!

Time to get back to painting! I miss all of you guys and wish you were here to shop for baby stuff with me. That includes you too Sherry and Mary! I'm so looking forward to spending time with my family in Austin next weekend, and Josh's family at Christmas. Being pregnant has made me really miss being close to family. Crap, I just made myself all teary eyed. Silly hormones!

Is that some extra weight you're carrying?

At work yesterday, Katie, Kim, Laura and I all accidentally wore matching outfits, so we recorded it with a photo, of course. I am wondering now how many customers are wondering if I am pregnant, or just getting chubby, and are too scared to ask that question, and be wrong. Ha!

14 weeks

It's been a busy week, and I haven't had much time for blogging, or sewing! I did finally take some pictures of the curtains though. I only had enough fabric to make cafe curtains if I wanted to do both windows, so that's what I did. It's just enough to cover the neighbor's window without blocking all of the light, so it worked out.

Look, I'm in there too! And it was a sunny day! Josh has been in eugene for work the last few days and I've been holding down the fort. Work and the animals and watching the election coverage pretty much took up all my time. We bought paint for the nursery, which I thought I'd have time to do while Josh was gone, but nope. My belly is still getting bigger (guess that's gonna happen) and it is starting to feel heavy. Other than feeling tired, I'm feeling very irritable, in a way that I know is just hormones, but it's pretty annoying. I know Josh is tired of it! I'm hoping this phase doesn't last very long. I keep using the "other pregnant women are probably WAY more crazy!" excuse, but I don't know if it's working. I also missed my yoga class this week because of work, which isn't helping any.
Looking forward to holidays, and heading to Austin next week! Can't wait to see everybody and hold a tiny baby.

Busy day, winter projects

It's been raining and windy and raining and sunny then raining here the last week, which has made me want to never leave the house. Luckily that's okay, and I've been getting lots of projects done, and squeezing in lots of rest time in between. I'm only working 3 or 4 days a week at the bakery these days, which is awesome, but also really taking some adjustment. I know it's supposed to be the American Dream to own a business and have other people run it, but I LIKE working, and really enjoy my days at the bakery. I feel like it is smart, and important, for me to get used to not being there as much now, so when the baby is born I'm not stressed about being away from work. So I'm kind of just being a housewife most of the week, and it's not so bad!
Today I finally got up the nerve to drive Josh's truck. I wasn't really scared, I've driven plenty of big trucks before. I loved renting Penske trucks when I'd have to move bakery equipment around and they had those seats that sit up above the heads of cars and bounce all around as you drive, and I would just grin uncontrollably the whole time. For some reason it just seemed scarier when it was Josh's truck, and not some anonymous company. It really wasn't bad at all, and I took myself to Target and Fabric Depot. At the fabric store I discovered something called a Jelly Roll - a roll of 2 1/2 inch fabric strips that all match. Maybe this wasn't around when I was strip quilting all the time, but it was like angels were singing when I saw them today. I bought one with fabrics that are so awesome I want to eat them.

I found a pattern online for a quilted pillow and just adapted it for a lap size quilt. I made really good progress on it today, since I didn't have to take 10 hours to pick out fabrics and cut one million strips! SERIOUSLY! Best thing ever. It cuts out everything I didn't like about quilting. Here's what I got done so far.

After I did that much, I paused to make some curtains for the living room. I used some fabric I already had and two spring rods that I bought from Target today. They cover the windows in the living room that face our neighbor's house. Now I can walk to the bathroom in my underwear without running past the spot where that window is! I don't have a picture of them yet, I'll work on that tomorrow.

I was still feeling full of energy, so I ate dinner with Josh and he worked on a painting while I took on a different project - a hooded baby bath towel. I saw the pattern on Prudent Baby, and it is super easy, so I figured I could just crank it out. I used some towels I picked up at Target for $2.99 for 2, and I have to admit, I wish I had gotten a nicer towel. I figured since I hadn't done much sewing in awhile I might be rusty, and I didn't want to waste a good towel. That was a mistake because it came out cute, but the towel is so thin that it looks, well, cheap. I used a piece of a fat quarter I got today too for the accent fabric. Taking a picture of it was difficult.

Can you see the cheapness? I asked Stella to wear it, and oddly enough, she seemed to really like it.

I just decided that maybe it looks a little like a KKK hood, which is creepy. I think that's enough projects for today. And now that we're at 13 weeks, here's a picture! I think I always look bigger at the end of the day, after I've eaten or something. I swear that has to be mostly water and air.

making some decisions.

The first of which is nursery colors! We don't feel like we'll use the nursery much at first, because we'll have the baby sleep in the room with us, but it seems best to get it settled now instead of after the baby is here and there is no time. We do plan to be using it for diaper changing, for clothing storage and nursing/rocking time though. We (and by we I mean I) decided on a relatively neutral color palette, since we won't know the gender and I don't care much about using stereotypical blue or pink anyway.

chocolate brown

ivory

cranberry

Aside from these colors I want to add the option of other matching colors, but I can't decide if I should go bright, like with turquoise (I do love it with the cranberry color!):

ooh, and orange?

or stay in more earthy colors, like sage green, or a pale (buttercup?) yellow.

i have these plates, love them!

I also started looking at car seats, and a co-sleeper for our bedroom (instead of a crib at first) and holy crap there are so many choices. Pretty sure I picked out the co-sleeper, but the car seat is COMPLICATED! Josh and I will have to talk it over tonight I guess. He wants one that will convert into a carrier or lock into a stroller base, but safety wise, I think I like standard car seats better. It seems crazy to buy two, they are expensive! 

I'm trying to work on a registry at babies 'r' us for you guys, but it's HARD!! I thought I'd give you colors, so if you want to buy stuff you can. But honestly, we don't really care that much about things being "matchy" so get whatever you want!

A few things I really like are on this site: babybedding.com

Love the fabrics and you can even buy the fabrics themselves!

I was going to make rocking chair pads for my rocking chair I found on the street, but I am really in love with these: Love Birds chair pads

and they have crib sets and sheets in really great colors and some are organic. Too many options!

That's two blogs in one day again, I need a nap.

Sleep and Yoga

I've been feeling pretty lucky for having what seems to be an easy first trimester. I'm feeling like my normal self now, except that I tire out easily, which seems pretty normal, but I'm struggling a bit to not feel grumpy when I don't have my normal stamina. I worked yesterday, and then I got to come home and watch tv on the couch for a couple hours while Josh made dinner for us. He's pretty great about that stuff, and I eventually fell asleep on the couch. I tried to convince him to carry me to bed because I was too tired to walk, but he wouldn't do it, mostly because of one bad carrying to bed experience we had before.
I go to sleep, and then 6 hours later… AWAKE. Which usually means 4am or so. It's so frustrating! So I get up and watch tv (I've been streaming "Dead Like Me" episodes on Netflix) until 6 or so, when I fall asleep on the couch again. Then Josh gets up for work, and I get back in bed for an hour. I guess maybe this is just my new routine, but it's pretty annoying.

So today I'm up early, but i'm excited since I'm heading off to my pre-natal yoga class in a bit. I've only been once so far, but I loved it. Can't wait for all that great stretching again today. Holding out hope that someone with a due date closer to mine will be there this time.

Don't worry, the urine sample went fine.

Our appointment was great! We filled out a bunch of paperwork (some of which I had completed before hand at home) and Josh ran around searching for the bathroom, because he had apparently been drinking lots of water, unknowingly in solidarity with me. He couldn't find one, and then a lady came out and sent me straight off to the bathroom to pee in the cup. I did pretty well I think, filled it almost half way! Whew. Then I could point Josh in the direction of the bathroom, which was good for him, since we were there a little over an hour.
First we went back to a little office with the financial person for the clinic. She walked us through all of the general costs of our appointments, the birth, and the hospital stay. She also covered what our insurance would cover and how much they estimate that we will be paying out of pocket when all is said and done. If everything goes normally, with a vaginal birth, no epidural, and only a 2 day hospital stay we should end up with about $2200 out of pocket cost. Seemed like a lot to me at first (today's lesson: babies are expensive!) but I guess for 9 months of care, plus hospital time, it's not too bad.
Then another woman came in and took my medical history and blood pressure (normal) and then while we waited a few minutes for the midwife, Josh looked through a bunch of the office drawers, which is apparently what he does when he is fidgety in doctor's offices. Linda came in and she was great. She was very motherly, and funny too. She took more history and asked questions about what vitamins and medicines I've been taking. She finally asked Josh some questions (do either of our families have a history of downs syndrome? we didn't know of any.) and he finally felt useful. She did say that our risk for downs is 1 in 400 because of my age, which is still fairly slim I guess. We'll have a blood test for it in 3 weeks just to be sure.
Maybe I overdid it on the water, because I had to get up and pee again before we went into the room with the ultrasound. We had thought they would just do a doppler ultrasound, where we would hear the heartbeat, but she offered to show us a picture too, and we were secretly like "YESSSSSSS!', but tried to keep our cool. Their ultrasound machine looked like it was from 1975, and the picture was definitely low-tech, but she found the baby right away, and it was big, like the size of a tennis ball! It was curled on its side, so we could see the head and its little body curled under, and one of it's arms was bent at the elbow (!!!) and it's hand was up near it's face. We could also see the little heart beating. I wish it could have printed a picture, but seriously, that machine was as old as me. At one point Linda said "well, there's only one!" which has been a big secret fear of mine… twins! I really really didn't want to try to juggle two babies at once, so I feel really really relieved about that. Also, calling the baby "it" feels sort of weird, but doing the he/she thing just seems annoying since we don't know, so I'm going with it.
Then Linda grabbed the doppler wand, got the two wands all tangled up, and was really funny trying to untangle the cords. When she got it sorted out she searched around for the heartbeat, which took 20 seconds or so to find. Then all of a sudden it was really steady and fast! She said about 150 beats per minute.
After that I had a flu shot (non-mercury kind, which they had on hand, whew) and then we made another appointment for three weeks later, on Nov. 11th. We headed over to Blossoming Lotus for lunch, where Josh told me he couldn't even figure out what he was seeing on the ultrasound until almost the end. Ha! Poor guy.

FIRST APPOINTMENT EEEEEEEEE!

I'm just waiting for Josh to get home, and we get to see the midwife today! They said to expect blood work, urine sample, lots of questions, an exam, and a doppler ultrasound to hear the baby's heartbeat. I don't know why I'm so excited, except maybe that it will feel more "real" after we hear the heartbeat? And I guess just knowing everything seems to be normal will alleviate some underlying stress. We're using Providence Hospital's Maternal Care Clinic, which is really close to my work (3 blocks from my last apartment too) and is staffed by 6 midwives and a full time doctor. Today we have an appointment with Linda Nelson (a midwife), and at some point we will see each of the midwives. That way, whichever one is on duty when we are ready to give birth, we will have met and worked with. I've heard good and bad reviews of this system, we'll see how it goes. I'm nervous that I will be particularly happy with one or two of them, but end up with one of the others for the birth. Or what if one of them is weird about me being vegan? Or maybe it will be awesome and I'll love them all!
I've been pounding glasses of water all day today, so I can be sure I'll have to pee when the urine sample time comes. Am I the only one who has performance anxiety about this? Josh is home! Time to go!

maternity jeans, mom! you were right!

I did some searching mom, and found some other jeans with a different system! I mean, I knew they had they demi-panel ones, but yesterday I found some that have two elastic triangles cut in at the hips, (at Ross of all places, for $17) and they are so good! Plus they're black, and they are skinny jeans, so I can tuck them into my boots for winter. Now I'm going to go buy this sweater from Motherhood Maternity that I'm in love with, and I will look more fashionable than I ever did before I was pregnant.

Today is officially twelve weeks along... I feel like things are going well. I feel pretty good, except for the occasional gag fest when I least expect it, and also when I say the word gag, I gag. Typing it doesn't seem to have the same effect though. Swallowing my multi-vitamin and my omega-DHA capsules is pretty much the low point of my day. Why are they so big and bad tasting?

I also haven't been eating quite as well as I was at first. Everything sounded good for awhile, but I'm going through a phase of only wanting specific foods now - mostly yogurt, thai food, and peanut butter and banana on toast, and apples. Not much green in that list!

12 weeks!

Almost anyway, close enough! Next week is our first appointment with the midwives, finally. It seems like we've been waiting forever even though it's only been a month. Although from what I understand in baby terms, a month is forever! We'll get to hear the baby's heartbeat (with Doppler), which we're both very excited about. I have lots of pictures for you guys for this post. Sorry it's been awhile. For awhile there nothing was really going on, but I've started to actually show in the last week or two. A few weeks ago I was extremely bloated and looked like this:

I am now fairly certain this was all air, and I did really good job of not farting in front of Josh even once. Stella, on the other hand, has been farting up a storm lately, and since she follows me around constantly, I'm sure I can easily blame it on her if it happens.

Around the same time, this is what Josh looked like. He decided that since he bought brown pants for the wedding, he could turn dressing up for work into an excuse to look like he was auditioning for That 70's Show.

I spent a day off shopping. It started with me looking for maternity clothes, until I realized that if I was going to buy maternity clothes from resale stores (that was my plan) I would end up looking like I was auditioning for "Blossom". (Julie, I know you'll be the only one to laugh at that.) So I ended up at my favorite antique mall, which is what I always do when I feel sad. I bought this dresser, which Josh wants to turn into a changing table. Seemed like a great idea until I stared sanding it (while wearing a dust mask, of course!) and the paint just won't sand off. Now we have to try a paint stripper, which I can't do (chemicals!), so I have to wait until Josh does it, which means it's gonna take forever because he has like 12 projects going at once. I don't think he reads this, which is why I can post funny pictures of him and write whatever I want. He's actually standing right next to me, but I know his attention span isn't long enough to read this whole paragraph.

When I was looking for maternity clothes I also went to target, where I managed to buy one shirt, and tried not to gag at all of the large floral patterns, and the flare legged maternity pants (who wears those?!?) I wandered up and down all of the baby aisles and got really really stressed about all of the baby stuff, and how little I know about all of it. It scared me into spending the last week doing internet research on baby items, having baby item nightmares, and making a target baby gift registry! Target's selection is pretty limited, so I'm thinking to make a Babies'R'Us one too, even though I swore I would never go in there. Just like I swore I'd never have kids! HAHAHA jokes on me. I thought that having the registry might be a good way for us to have a list of what we feel like we'll need, so it won't feel so overwhelming. I am pretty stoked on Target's "The Little Seed" line, which is organic cotton and comes in bright gender neutral colors. It's all on clearance at my Target, but not online? Anyway, I did get my first item of baby clothes (that's not counting the bibs I found on the street in a "free" box a few months ago) because I couldn't resist the sweetpea. Then I realized that there are probably thousands of baby items that say sweetpea, and maybe I shouldn't be so excited about it, or our baby will be wearing a sweetpea logo every day of his/her life.

So. I got Josh to take a picture of what my belly is actually looking like now, and here it is! I'm also wearing my new maternity jeans, which I have such love and devotion to that I have to give them their own blog post later.

9 weeks is really not that exciting

It's been more weeks and I have little to report. feeling much less nauseous, in fact almost not at all, and a little less "I'm going to starve to death" all the time. My belly is growing, slowly, and I finally got a new bra. Whew! I'm actually really happy about how good I'm feeling at this point.
I have been having some trouble sleeping, getting about 4-5 good hours and then waking up at 3 or 4am with a racing mind and even what feel like a fast heartbeat. I've been watching episodes of Arrested Development until I can fall asleep again, the last couple days around 6am or so. My body getting ready for interrupted sleep already?
Josh and I got married last Friday- it was the perfect day. Now I'm all set with health insurance, and our first midwife appointment is on the 21st, which seems like a really long time to wait. We'll be 12 weeks along by then!
Also, I've decided that I think we are having a boy, but everyone else I know is saying they think it will be a girl. Josh refuses to weigh in.

Monkeys and weddings

So I added the little Lilypie ticker to the top of the blog page, which is showing the baby at the size of a raspberry. In 2002 or 2003-ish I started reading this page called One More Monkey. I came across it somehow when I was in college, you guys know how I love monkeys. This woman in Australia was working on her drawing skills and gave herself the assignment of drawing a monkey a day. I kept up with it, and unfortunately she didn't do it super long, because I loved her drawings. Somewhere in there she got pregnant, had a baby, and invented the Lilypie tickers. I've sporadically kept up with her blog and her photo album over the years, and kind of watched her daughter grow up. It feels a little creepy and stalker-ish to admit that for some reason, but I always sort of felt like I wanted her to be my friend, if she didn't live on the other side of the world. Anyway, I'm excited to finally have a reason to use on of her tickers myself, since I feel some sense of attachment to them. I've also always wanted to buy one of her monkey prints, but I never do it.

Tomorrow Josh and I are getting married, pretty short notice and very informal, but I think it will be fun. Feeling a little sad that our parents won't be here, but I'll look forward to the party we will have next year. It's supposed to be 78 degrees and sunny tomorrow, so our bike ride downtown is looking good! I've been feeling pretty good the last few days, so I'm hopeful for having lots of energy tomorrow. I also did the yoga video again today and saw some small improvement already. Gonna try to keep it up, and become a contortionist at some point.

chest pain

My chest has been hurting for the last couple of days, and I was worried I was having an anxiety attack, or that my blood pressure was high, and that was making me more stressed and then I was worried I was making it worse. Today I finally realized that my boobs are getting so big that my bra is just too tight. Can someone send me a new bra? ugh.

I also just attempted a maternity yoga video that I was able to get instantly on Netflix, called Yoga Mama (very creative name). I discovered that I am quite possibly one of the least flexible people on the planet, and that I really can't get into women saying stuff like "connect the love in your heart with the energy of your growing baby" while I'm groaning through my robot-like attempt at the warrior pose. Can someone also send me a yoga video for "modern, non-hippie mamas"? It probably doesn't exist. I wish that naps were yoga, because lately I'm really good at naps.

8 Weeks, oops

Today was my first visit to the midwives. It was just a consultation, I got a tour of the clinic and decided if I liked it enough to spend the next 9 months letting them poke and prod me. It was good, I was into it. Josh was out of town for work again , so I went by myself, which was a little sad. Leela had breakfast with me after, so then I felt better. Anyway, they assigned me a due date of May 12th, 2011.  When I got home I was talking to Ali and we figured out that every time they ask me "date of last menstrual period?" I give them the date it ended, and really they want the date it started. I don't understand why doctors are never more specific about this. I want to hear "On what day did your last period start?", which leaves it much less open to interpretation for people like me, who have a period, but are relatively clueless to how the whole cycle thing works. So, that means I screwed it all up, and I'm actually 8 weeks pregnant, not seven. Which means all this week I've been thinking my baby is the size of a blueberry, when the internet tells me it's really the size of a grape! Ali also said I need to start having pictures of my belly so I can compare as it grows, but I'm too shy to take one with my shirt pulled up. Here's the tank top covered version:

That bump you're seeing is my normal level of pudginess, so don't get all exited. And the plastic bag in my back pocket is a poop bag from the walk I just went on with Stella. There is no poop in it.

cat's outta the bag

We got to tell our families today! A tiny part of me is worried that it is still too early to be telling, but Josh's parents were here visiting, and we just couldn't resist telling them in person. They were very excited, as we hoped, and I can't wait for Josh's mom to start sewing adorable baby things. We got to call Josh's grandmother (who cried!) and then my Dad, who I made sit down and hold onto the arms of the chair, and then my mom and sisters who are all together in Oklahoma right now. It was so fun to surprise everyone! My older sister, who is already a mom and grandma, will now get to be an aunt.

I've started feeling much better over the last two days, a lot more energy and way less queasiness, and just a better general mood. Hopefully that's good, and I'll be lucky to only have one week of early pregnancy symptoms!

the bloat

as i've mentioned, i don't have the flattest stomach to start out with. in fact, i'm surprised i haven't spent the lat 10 years of my life saying "no, i'm NOT pregnant" to random strangers. so now, with some pretty serious fluid retention going on, i'm experiencing extreme bloating. i didn't expect to outgrow my jeans so quickly.

this picture makes me laugh.

When I was a Rad Pregnant Lady

Alright, fine, I never was. I thought for sure I'd be one of those awesome ladies like my friend Michelle who had no morning sickness, no crazy moodiness, and well, just nothing but a growing belly. That apparently isn't my destiny. I haven't hurled yet. My stomach says Let's do this! but my clenched teeth say No! Also, in other news of my physical well-being, I'm HOT. Not sexy hot, but sweating and flushed face hot. I am having brief chills, then hot hot hot. What fun all of this is! I'm feeling a little guilty for not just having pure baby excitement, but honestly I feel pretty yucky, and it's just hard to be happy about that. Yesterday I figured out that exercise seems to really help my nausea, so I'll be doing a bunch more of that now.

On the upside, I've been getting really excited about sewing baby stuff. Found some great websites with fabrics and patterns for awesome baby things, so hopefully we won't have to buy so much stuff, and I can just work on my sewing skills. Having trouble wanting to spend money on baby stuff yet, but picked out this high chair that you can use as a regular chair, so it's not so disposable. What a great design! Stokke Tripp Trapp

a question of gender

What do people call the baby besides "it" when you don't know (and aren't going to find out) the sex? I'm having trouble imagining this androgynous being. If I talk to Josh about the baby (it?!) I find myself saying "I hope he wants to skateboard! Or she. She can skateboard."  How can I start pushing all my hopes and dreams on this unborn child if I don't know it's gender?!

Ugh and Yay!

I'm waffling a bunch between feeling exhausted and mildly nauseous to being really excited about the baby. My schedule at the bakery has been pretty rough this week, and I thought I would handle it pretty well, but I wasn't expecting how tired I would be feeling, or how HUNGRY. I need to eat every half an hour or so or I feel like I'm going to pass out. I haven't had any typical morning sickness, just really mild queasiness if I don't eat often enough. I feel like a squirrel, I've got cashews and dried fruit in the pockets of my hoodie, so i can just shove some in my mouth as soon as i feel hungry. I know my employees are thinking its weird.
Josh was out of town all last week for work, and that was unexpectedly rough as well, I mostly just missed him, and was overly emotional about it for a couple of days. I feel worried about the amount of traveling he will be doing not only while I'm pregnant, but after the baby comes. It didn't help that he ended up in the hospital instead of flying home, and that added quite a bit of stress to the weekend. I'll be pretty happy when my weddings taper off after this month, it should free up my schedule more, and maybe I can get more sleep.
Speaking of sleep, it's not happening very well for me these last couple of weeks. I have to get up to pee 10 times a night (I'm considering a diaper), and every light or movement in the room wakes me up. I told Josh yesterday that he had to stay on his side of the bed all night, and he did a pretty good job of it, I think that helped a bit. My boobs (which I'm sure everyone wants to hear about) are slowly getting bigger. They're sore but not as much as I expected. I guess overall, being pregnant hasn't been very bad so far. The problem is mostly that I don't lie resting, or sitting still all that much, and I think I tend to push it too far when I really need to rest. I just get mad at feeling tired, when I should be listening to what my body needs.
I was going to take the obligatory "belly at 6 weeks" photo, but I can't tell any difference so far. My belly is always so poochy anyway, it just looks like always. I'm most concerned about how my roach tattoo will stretch. Ha!
I've been waiting and waiting for this coming weekend, when we finally get to tell all of the grandparents!

5 weeks?

I'm really close to my family, and it feels really awful to have to keep being pregnant a secret from them right now. So I'm keeping this blog so they can know how it went these first 2 months, and keep up with how it's going once I finally get to tell. I've struggled a lot with the notion of keeping things a secret for a couple of months, it seems like this is a time when I could use a lot of family support since this is all very new and slightly scary. We decided we will tell them after 8 weeks, and tell friends and employees after 12 weeks.
I haven't been to see a doctor yet, but I think I'm at about 5 weeks pregnant right now. I had my IUD removed, had an awful heavy, scary period, then got pregnant two weeks later. I was kind of hoping for it to be a month later than it was, but this is pretty much the story of my family's fertility. We were born to breed. I took a couple of pregnancy tests that were negative, but I guess they were just too early. One night I couldn't sleep, so I got up to watch some tv at 4am. As I was sitting there I realized I had been peeing every 15 minutes all week, and that my boobs were really sore, in a much more sensitive way than if my period was coming. I waited until 6am when Josh's alarm went off, and went in the bedroom to tell him. Took a test and it was positive! Thought the moment would be more exciting, but we were both kind of shell shocked. We hugged and looked at each other and said "now what?". It took until later in the day for both of us to get more excited, and less scared.

In the 2 weeks since then, I've been mostly just really hungry. My breasts are sore, but not every day, and not miserable. My sense of smell is intense, and going to work is crazy, because I can smell everything at the bakery. Also, when I'm a little sweaty I can smell it and I've been worried everyone else can smell me, but I think it's just me. I should shower more. No nausea, and only one day of serious tiredness so far, but it could also be from that weekend of making and delivering 5 wedding cakes!