Nesting

This is actually our pregnancy announcement for close family. They're hollowed quail eggs that come in a tiny box that says "crack me" with a note inside announcing baby. Right now, this "spring" photo is my secret facebook teaser. When we learn the gender at the end of April, i will update it to a similar photo with the "It's a..." paper beside it. Full disclosure: I ordered these unfinished because we're learning the gender just a few days before we go on vacation with my family, and there wouldn't have been time to order them to take with us. They normally come with the message already inside, but mine came with both "It's a girl!" and "It's a boy!" notes that i'll have to pop inside myself. As you can see, the hole in the bottom isn't even noticeable.

Ok, I'll admit I've officially begun nesting. I don't really count the necessity projects as nesting since they were things that had been on the to do list for awhile and HAD to be done before baby arrived and being type A, it just made sense to get them out of the way- the floors, the library, and if i'm buying paint for one room, might as well buy it for all the rooms on the list, right? Well now, we're nearing the home stretch on the "necessary" projects- both the ones i wanted done and the ones that had to be done, and that just leaves the baby's room.

We moved Honey's bed out of the baby room over a week ago, and she doesn't seem to mind and uses it in its new home in the living room. I boxed up her less-played with toys last night and will find new places for them in the house. Near as I can tell, she already knows there's a baby coming. She humors me in my laziness and frequently lays with her head on my belly.

I moved ALL the little knickknacks out of the room and into their new homes (rather than boxes) last night. . I also moved our more precarious liquor shelf down to our basement entertaining room because 1) it will have to be moved eventually; it's totally a crawling hazard just waiting to happen and 2)we're getting our floors redone in a week and a half, so it was going to have to be moved temporarily regardless. Overall, I've been up and down stairs at least 2 dozen times, and i wore out after an hour or two.

I decided to keep the shelving unit that was already in the room and NOT buy a dresser or changing table. My Dad originally built the shelf in lieu of a dresser for my sister and i and it later became a desk and bookshelf just for me. I bought a memory foam (ahem, dog) mattress to convert the desk portion into a changing table and there are LOTS of shelves- shelves above and below the changing table for diapers etc, shelves on the sides for clothes or toys, and a top to the whole unit for displaying knickknacks. We will have to mount it to the wall, cuz that's a safety thing, but otherwise, it's good to go.

We haven't totally decided about leaving the existing bed in the room or not. It's both our guest bed, and a place I sleep a lot (especially in winter when our bedroom is cold) and it will eventually be our kid's bed so it makes sense to just leave it. It could also be used in lieu of buying a chair for the nursery. I'll officially decide when the crib is here and we're situating furniture.

Craving

Today was my first big craving. Not the general "i only want fruit and vegetables" craving i had all first trimester, but a very specific, i will pout until i have it, i want cake craving. And after much discussion over whether or not the grocery store sells cake that isn't chocolate, Bob went and got me a tiny yellow cake with buttercream frosting. Uber-unhealthy- doubly so because it's grocery store cake and full of soy- and exactly what i wanted.

All the articles...

I've been reading mom/baby articles a lot of late. I've read them for years as i do have friends and sisters with babies, but obviously i enjoy them a bit more now that i'm going to BE a mom. A lot of these articles run along the lines of "It's so exhausting BUT worth it" and "Those years were awful and traumatizing BUT you will look back on them fondly" and "Stay-At-Home-Moms VS. Working Moms- let's bash each other" and "Why my child is/isn't the center of my world". Today I read one about The Selfish Mom, and it is how i have always pictured myself. I intend to love them and be frustrated with them and dote on them, but i don't intend to fall apart, i don't intend to give up everything or make them my *entire* world. It is okay to spend time by myself and it is okay to teach them to play by themselves or say no every now and then...

FTS

Today we went in for our first trimester screening (which includes a blood test, ultrasound, nuchal translucency, and lots of measuring).

The blood test looks at levels of 2 pregnancy hormones in your blood. If they're both super low or at opposite ends of the chart, it's a red flag

The nuchal translucency is part of the ultrasound, and measures the pocket of fluid behind your baby's neck. All babies have a pocket of fluid there, but babies with chromosomal issues will have extra.

They use the ultrasound to get a picture of that fluid pocket for measuring, and also measure your baby's total length etc. The ultrasound is also important because it allows them to look at structures that should be there in an average pregnancy, but tend to be missing in babies with trisomy 13, 18, or 21- specifically, they look for a nose bone. They can also measure the baby's heartbeat during the ultrasound.

The results don't tell you if something is definitively wrong with your baby, but they combine those numbers with the risks for your age and weight for a new risk number, as well as note any red flag results. If there are red flags, we would go in for further testing- first another blood test, and then possibly more invasive tests. FTS detects ~91% of down syndrome and ~95% of the more severe trisomies, so mostly we're just hoping for no red flags and a healthy baby!
Results take a week, so today we: Got to see our baby, again! Such a little wiggler! See and measure our baby's heartrate (155)! AND we DO know that our baby has a nose bone! That nose bone is a BIG indicator that we have a healthy baby with no trisomy abnormalities.

Our 10 week ultrasound was a transvaginal/internal ultrasound, which made for a clearer image, but was more difficult to focus on the whole baby at once. Our FTS ultrasound was an external/belly ultrasound, which has a lot of white noise, but still totally showed us our baby and its little hummingbird heart fluttering.

12 weeks

Big changes this week!!!

This is our last week of the first trimester. We saw the baby (and its heartbeat) at 10 weeks, and we get our FTS (first trimester screening which is an ultrasound and blood test to determine risk of birth defects) on Monday. Fruit wise, we have graduated from lime to plum size,

Movement: I KNOW they say you aren't supposed to be able to feel anything until 15-20 weeks, but my doctor asked me and you know what, as someone with a food allergy, i'm pretty familiar with what gas feels like, and gas does not feel like a little fish in a bowl. I can tell when the little Rebel is moving in there, and that's kind of fun. We confirmed during the ultrasound that we have a little wiggler.

Me: Well, it's official, my boobs are going to be huge. Right now, they're kind of a spectacular size for me, and i'm enjoying it. They are a little sensitive and I am down to my very loosest/least padded bras (of which i have maybe 4-5). I was a 32B and am pretty much spilling right out of those. At 12 weeks. I've never been a C in my life and they are clearly going to get much much bigger. I'm hoping my boobs don't get too stretch marked but will not be surprised if they do. They are growing NOW though which may mean i accumulate it over time and not stretch as bad. fingers crossed. The belly has begun to pop, not enough that anyone who doesn't know i'm pregnant will be like "oh! baby!" but enough that if you know i'm pregnant, you can tell my belly is ever so slightly rounder. Obviously it pops a lot more after meals because there's less room to hide my eating habits. lol.

Changes at home: There are changes to the house that we've planned for 3 years so... we painted the bathroom because i wanted it that way and have been asking for months. We installed a large bookshelf in our bedroom today, because our books can't stay in the nursery. We'll be painting that room also. Our living/dining room floors are getting redone in 2 weeks! yay! smooth, durable floors!!! That i a baby can crawl on and that wipe clean with ease! The nursery will be painted and i'll choose a gender appropriate decal when we learn the gender at the end of april (either cherry blossom branches for girl, or bare tree branches for boy). We've already moved Honey's food dishes to the kitchen and she doesn't seem to mind one bit. We'll start finding new places for her many possessions in the coming weeks. We've moved a total of 7 times with her, and she's a pretty go with the flow dog. I think wherever her favorite bed goes, she'll go.

Baby stuff: In general, I'm not letting myself get super excited until i know the gender, because it just sucks not being able to look at all the cute little gender specific things, but being "out of the woods" means i can be a little excited. I had done some of the baby registry stuff online, but today and yesterday we went and did the registry stuff in stores (mostly, i'll admit, so i could get the free goody bags). We never did the in-store registries for our wedding, so getting to go around and scan stuff was actually pretty fun. For me: Bob bought me a "mama to be" kit at motherhood maternity with sugar scrub, body oil, and body lotion. For baby: we're trying not be purchase heavy, but we bought some baby proofing things(like outlet covers) at Target, and a soft knit blanket and plush elephant at Baby's R Us. Like I said, mostly we went for the goody bags. Our freebies, amongst many coupons, included: some baby proofing stuff (free by mail), 2 pampers sample bags in cute little pouches, 2 types of baby bottle, a pacifier, and lots of little skin samples. i also did one of the just pay shipping baby slings. The bag for the target goodies is actually a pretty decent bag itself, and definitely reusable.
Random fact: motherhood comes in a sealed plastic envelope package, target comes in a reusable waterproof low grade vinyl bag with velcro, and baby's r us comes in a paper gift bag.

Aside from home improvements, this "weekend" was our first real go at "baby stuff" and i think we both thought it was kind of fun. we only spent 1-2 hours doing it so we didn't get worn out.

The only other baby thing I've bought is blank board books to put my own children's stories ("Grandma Knows Everything" "All The Things That Pappy Does" and "Kissed By The Fairies") on, and baby announcements. Since we find out the gender 3 days before a big family vacation, they custom made my "crack the quail egg" announcements so i can pop in the note with the appropriate gender right before we go. Mind you, these are $7/each so i bought 5. One for my parents, one for Bob's parents, one for each of my two sisters that will be on vacation (the other is in Africa, so no mailing eggs), and one just for us to keep :) I suppose i'll mail out a basic baby announcement after, but really only care about announcing to our immediate families. My co-workers will find out with cupcakes when we return from vacation. Shhhh ;)

Irritable

I'm not actually blaming this on baby, just venting. I am super super irritable lately. Co-workers that suck at their jobs, my choice of paint color, my husband's tired crankiness, the neighbors F-ING cat that is peeing all over my yard! I just feel the need to let out that frustration ALL the time. Not that I'm ashamed of the things that are irritating me- I'm not- in general they're all valid complaints- I just feel so whiney.

Mostly I'm sure this has to do with the fact that winter and I don't get along very well. While I've never been diagnosed and don't consider it a real issue for me, I do tend to get some sort of winter depression with the lack of warmth and sunshine. Winter is nearing an end and my pregnancy sickness is significantly improved but i'm still in that hibernation lull where i don't want to GO anywhere or DO anything, and truly dread the idea of going to work everyday (i still go, i just don't want to). Add to it that Bob has had some weird hours lately so he's tired and therefore cranky and I just "can't even".

I'm trying to cope by sprucing up the house, finding little activities that i can do for an hour or so.

Painting
I bought lots of paint- the bathroom, the bedroom, and the baby room. I wanted the bathroom the same color i painted it at our last house, but they don't make that color anymore and then the first color i picked ended up being so so wrong. The Valspar guarantee means i'll get my money back, but it was a source of great frustration for a day. Of course Bob's wary of letting me paint, but it's not like he's proactive about the painting (and he is already whiney about the painting). We opened the windows and i put a bandana on my face yesterday. The only confirmed dangers to pregnancy are based on lead paint and the rest is kind of a, use good judgement thing. My deal was i would ventilate, filter, and just do the edging.

Living Room
 I got the new ottoman I've been wanting for a year so our living room is completely furnished now. At most, it may get a small chair someday, but that's not important to me. I want to get the floors redone before baby because they are rough, trap dirt, and sometimes splinter the way they are. That process is again a HUGE frustration for me. I used an internet app to find refinishers in my area, and that app emails them a request describing what i need. Regardless, they all want to make an appointment to see my floors which i am fine with. What I am not fine with is my phone just rings off the hook with dozen of redneck messages "this is blank flooring. Call me back". Every. Single. One. If I wanted to call 3 dozen places, i would not have used an internet app in the first place! One almost made it. They sent an email contact, i emailed the very detailed job description back, they emailed me an appointment for tomorrow and then yesterday my email has a "Call me" message. I'm not calling. If I had perturbed face emoticon i would use it right now.

Bedroom
Another pre-baby project that HAS to be completed is that we've been meaning to build a large bookshelf in our bedroom for a couple years now. Right now, our "library" is in the baby room, and it can't stay there. In my proactive springtime mode (which is pulling out of irritable hibernation mode), I order the wood and blueprint the shelf and tell Bob we'd pick it up today- to which he promptly began whining about his precious time (even though i have to use MY precious time to take his car for inspection tomorrow- 2 way street?). So when I woke up today, I took my pregnant self to Lowe's, bought different paint for the bathroom, had the nice Lowe's people cut the wood based on my blueprint so it would fit in my shortbed and load it into the back of the truck for me.

Honey hurt herself yesterday so part of my brain is devoted to keeping an eye on her at all times. She jumped from the couch onto a styrofoam cooler in a barking tizzy and fell off of it. I'm pretty sure she sprained her little ankle. She's still walking, running, and getting on and off of furniture, but occasionally she winces or yelps when she hits it wrong. It seems a little better today. If she still seems in pain in a couple of days, we'll go get an x-ray, but she is using the leg and not limping.

Last night Honey was barking at a window for 5 minutes before i got up and turned on a porch light to see that damn cat staring at her from the patio. It pees on the barn, it plays in the shed, i'm pretty sure it's the cat that peed in our car when we moved in. It's clean, fluffy, gray, and cute AND I DON'T WANT IT. I'm 90% certain it actually has a family that just sucks at life, but now i need to catch it. If it has a collar I will probably go be a bitch about keeping your cat indoors with a warning that if it happens again their cat will end up at the nearest zero-kill shelter.

I know Bob is tired and cranky; I'M tired and cranky, I get it. Everytime I try to pull myself out of tired and cranky there he is to yank me back down again. And it's not like the things I'm asking for help with are a surprise or even that optional for some. We agreed that the shelf needs built. We've talking about it for 2 years with express timeframe of "definitely before baby." We agree that the floors need redone before baby because it will be safer for our baby. We agree on painting the baby room. We've agreed for 3 years that we'll paint the bathroom (and i started asking earnestly in January). We agreed on the bedroom color 3 months ago. And then he tries to throw being pregnant at me like it's something I did to him (I didn't. This is a planned baby that we discussed for many years and agreed on a timing and mutually and knowingly had fun conceiving on purpose) because he doesn't want me to lift this or paint that. I "can't" help because I'm pregnant. Not once have I said I don't want to or even "maybe i shouldn't..." when it comes to doing something. I'm a waitress- I walk an average of 8 miles a day and lift 35-50lbs repeatedly all day everyday. As far as I'm concerned, my body is used to this life, and I'm not straining it because I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary for myself. It's just one of those times in life where we're mentally not there for each other because we're both tired and cranky.

10 weeks

Well, i feel much better. I still get nauseous pretty often, but mostly when i'm hungry, and in comparison to the all day every day kinda deal, i'll take it. My boobs are officially going to be huge- luckily i have some bras that ran a little big depending on the day, so they fit me right now, but i'll have to go bra shopping soon.

We got to see!!! We got to see our baby. I wasn't kinda bummed about not getting to hear the heartbeat, but we could SEE the heartbeat so there's that. I know my baby HAS a heartbeat which is important. I know the pictures are still ultrasound pictures so not awesome, and trust me, it was way cooler on the screen, but this one is my favorite cuz you can see the little arms and legs right down to the hands and feet. Our baby wiggled around in there for us which was also pretty cool. I felt such relief getting to see it.

That said, we are still getting a First Trimester Screening at the end of the month. They told us some insurances don't cover it, but I know i want it so insurance or no insurance we're getting it. The one that almost all insurances cover isn't until 20 weeks. I would rather know if something is wrong earlier than later. I have no reason to believe anything will be wrong, but my paranoia/anxiety needs eased. What IS cool is a FTS includes another ultrasound (@ 12.5 weeks)! and more of my blood. meh.

We've told a few people, my parents, a boss, 3 discrete friends, but mostly keeping it quiet. I'll notify work at 12 weeks, and maybe start a little nesting. I did let myself do the baby registry, but haven't touched the baby room or bought anything at all. I don't want to let myself get all excited just yet. (even though i am starting to get all excited- i mean look at that picture. And in person the ultrasound has a little more dimension, i got to watch it wiggle and everything!)

Projected gender date is April 30th, right before we go on vacation. I'm debating telling my family on vacation or doing what I showed Bob (and he really wants to do) which is little "crack me" quail eggs with the gender inside. I'll probably hold out for the egg. I can make it another month and a half of not telling people. I have my little group. It's enough. :)

I have started jogging short distances, and i hate it, but i'm doing it. Bob totally tried to lecture me after our appt with "you're not on pre-natal vitamins" and i said, Bob, I sat down and compared everything in my current vitamin to every in a prenatal vitamin, and the only things lacking in my vitamin are better absorbed separately or through food, which is exactly why i eat spinach 4-5 times a week, which contains all of those vitamins, and safe seafood, which contains those vitamins and extra omega-3s. Chill. Then i showed him the printout with the vitamin comparison and he got off my back.