Category Archives: Pregnancy

Random Weekendness (18w2d)

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We are now the proud owners of two bumpers and a baby comforter. They’re sitting on the green couch in the front room, and they look SO WEIRD to be in the house.

I went to Target today looking to buy a set of the blankets or something from the nursery stuff we picked out so we could figure out paint colors this weekend. But what do I see on the shelf? Both the bumpers and the comforter. None of which was at the other Target we went to on Thursday – they just had pictures and empty shelves. So I jumped on it and bought all three. I was grinning like a loon the whole time I wandered the store to pick up toilet paper and other exciting items, while glancing at the treasures already in my cart.

I’ve also found a new favorite activity. Wandering baby clothes stores. I went to the outlet last night to look for some shirts for an upcoming family gathering. But there happens to be a Gymboree outlet and a Carters Store there too. I went into both to poke around and see what outlet prices work out to. (Gymboree had some good deals, but I’ve seen better prices on the Carter’s stuff at BRU and Kohl’s.) What I LOVE about this though, is that I can talk about baby stuff and being pregnant and 10 years of trying and whether it’s a boy or a girl, and THEY DON’T MIND. Not only do the shopgirls not mind, they seem to be interested in what I’m saying and will actually converse with me!! (Yeah, I know – they’re hoping I’ll buy something… but I really don’t think that ladies who are giving me their names and reaching out to hug me as I’m leaving are being completely insincere.) It is SO NICE to find someone – ANYONE who will let me talk about this stuff without making me feel like I’m boring/annoying them.

I guess being pregnant is a lot like planning a wedding. It’s the most exciting, all-consuming thing in your life. And no one cares even remotely as much as you do. You find yourself craving to talk about the minutia of the whole journey, and since you’re researching everything – your mind is bursting with new information and ideas. But within 30 seconds of bringing it up, everyone’s eyes glaze over and they start scanning the room for methods of escape. I think everyone forgets pretty quickly what it’s like to be pregnant for the first time.

So I’m taking full advantage of shopgirls at baby stores. I’m not buying anything yet (I bought one clearanced pack of adorable onsies at Target on Thursday, but that’s all the baby clothes I’ve bought.) But it’s just so great to walk into a store like that and not be choking back tears or feeling an icy stab in the heart. It’s like I’m finally a member of some secret club, and they’ve got really adorable swag. (OMG, little onsies with monkeys and dinosaurs on them!!)

But speaking of clothing, I’m continuing my quest to find maternity clothing for me. I’ve found three websites that seem to carry maternity bras in a size that will be appropriate for me at the end of all of this. Even better, they seem to have really reasonable prices too. Maternity clothes are another story. The “plus size” maternity fashions fit me now. I’ve got room to grow in them, but I doubt they’ll be cutting it in June. But before that, we have a Gorman family gathering for Paul’s grandmother’s memorial service in mid-April. It’s in Orange County, and there will be a lot of family there. I’ll be 27 weeks (6.5 months) by then and hopefully showing. I want to find outfits that will make me look more pregnant than fat. (I know, tall order.) I found a couple of pretty good tops last night, but I’m still looking. I want to make a nice impression on the family as Paul’s wife. Not that I haven’t met them all before… just wanna make carrying our baby look good. I don’t want to be sloppy. Ah well. If this is the worst thing I have to deal with, I’ve got it easy.

Nursery chosen! (18w)

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After thinking about things a lot yesterday and talking them over with Paul and his mom over sandwiches after my appointment, I made the executive decision to go with a neutral nursery. I was already leaning towards a neutral color palette (if you know me, this comes as no real surprise.) So this allows us to move forward with the nursery planning, which means wall colors can be picked so we can paint before having the new carpet put in. We’re hoping to have the carpet done by early or mid-April.

I came home from school this afternoon with a mission in mind. I wanted to go to Target and Kohl’s to see what bedding options were available in-store vs the myriad options online. Paul was game to look at baby stuff at Target, and expand our fledgling registry.

So off we went to Target. Paul happily took charge of the scanner gun thingie and was scanning baby products willy-nilly. (I had some clean-up to do online when we got home…) But he was interested in the options available – and was surprisingly conversant in the language of baby gear. I guess he has been listening to my babbling for the last 2 months.

Paul was very happy (as was I) to get our hands on the car seat for my car and really check it out. We’re both confident in my researched choice (a Graco MyRide 65) and happier now to have seen it in person. No one seems to carry our stroller/carrier combo in-store, but that’s OK.

We cruised all the baby aisles, scanning little bits and pieces – with Paul pulling stuff of the shelves to ask me what on earth it was for or why one would want one option over another for some items. It was really great to be picking stuff out for our baby and talking about various options. (Altho honestly, I have no idea why one uses baby oil…)

When we got to the bedding aisle, my suspicions were confirmed: we don’t want a “set” that someone else has packaged up and named. They’re too expensive and a little to precious for my tastes. We decided to put together our own crib set with pieces from several themes, all with a brown, green, blue, beige color scheme. So without further ado, here’s the nursery so far: (click the pics for a better look!)

crib
The baby’s convertible crib in Distressed Black
dresser
A MALM dresser from IKEA in black-brown from Mama & Daddy’s bedroom. Rails will be installed on top so it can be a changing table too.
comforter
The comforter for the crib – not that it will get much/any use in the crib, but it sets the tone for the rest of the room.
blankets
Blankets that seemed to go with the colors & style of the comforter. The front blanket there is the same patter as the reverse of the comforter.
blankets
More blankets. I love the ones that say BABY all over them!
bumper
Bumper option #1
bumper
Bumper option #2.

It feels really good to have that settled. Now we can work on picking wall color(s) this weekend. No idea if we’re gonna do one or two colors – I’m thinking one, but that’s mostly because I’m feeling lazy. But I really don’t think the baby will care if there’s more than one color on the walls.

Kohl’s was a bust for anything other than OMG cute baby clothes on OMG OMG OMG sale and clearance. Paul and I were both showing each other cute sets, most of which ended up having monkeys on the bottoms. hee! I’ll go back to Kohl’s sometime to set up a registry there so that if nothing else I can get a good coupon to use later in the summer. Most places (I’ve heard) give good coupons and discounts for registry participants – especially on unpurchased items after the due date of the baby. We’ve got a Kohl’s gift card laying around, so I’ll wanna use that with whatever discounts I can snag!

It turned into a long evening, but we finished up with BBQ at Famous Dave’s and discussion of the world we’re bringing this kid into. (Heavy conversation for BBQ if ya ask me…) It was great to spend the time with Paul doing baby stuff. I’m looking forward to doing more!

Little Stinker… (17w6d)

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For those waiting with bated breath: WE DON’T REALLY KNOW. Sorry.

Our kid is a little stinker. The baby spent basically the entire time sitting on it’s butt, directly on top of my cervix. The tech tried and tried to jiggle it outta position, but nothing doing. (a couple of Andes mints didn’t help either.) She had a hard time even getting the measurements she needed for the anatomical ultrasound (femur, abdomen, head) because the little critter wouldn’t cooperate. And the couple of times it did move where we could get a look: it put it’s hand(s) between it’s legs.

But the good news is that Dr. Schwartz says everything looks fine. Some of the measurements are measuring “ahead” by nearly two weeks, but Dr. Schwartz says that’s because Paul and I are both tall, so we’re having a tall baby. It’s weight clocked in right at 8oz.

For those interested or who know what on earth this relates to:

  • Head Circumference: 16.25cm (6.4″)
  • Abdominal Circumference: 12.42cm (4.8″)
  • Femur Length: 2.5cm (1″)

The heartrate came in at 161, so according to old wives – it’s a girl. Dr Schwartz and the tech gave us a guess, but they both strongly cautioned us not to paint anything yet. I tried to explain to Dr. Schwartz that I’m a planner and I really need to know… he chuckled, told me to deal, and then listed his favorite neutral nursery colors.

Paul’s mom Jeanne came along today and seemed to really enjoy herself, especially when the tech turned up the sound and the WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH of the baby’s little galloping heart stopped our chatter for a moment. I wish the kid would have cooperated a bit more so she could have seen it wave and face us like Paul and I have seen before. I invited her to come to the next appointment if she wanted to, since we’ll try again then to get/confirm the sex.

In the meantime, there’s new pictures that I screen grabbed from the DVD we got today. (I’ll get a DVD of the next appointment too.) They’re mostly body parts, but there’s a couple cool profiles – and an awesome 3/4 full face image from the heartrate image. It’s small, but if you’re good at all for looking at ultrasounds, I think you’ll see it. It’s kinda like the face on the moon… the baby is looking to the left. You can see the chin, lips, nose, cheeks, forehead and a dark hollow where the left eye is.

Blurry face
Labeled blurry face

The rest of the appointment was pretty ordinary. Insulin and one BP med were upped a tad. Weight is up .5lb for a total of 4.5lb in 18 weeks – just fine. My next appointment is in 3 weeks, which is great. The fewer appointments I have for a bit, the less paid leave I have to burn. (Last week’s illness cost me 3 days of maternity leave…) They drew blood for TSH, a1c, and the 2nd part of the quad screening. (Dr. Schwartz took a copy of a bill I got from the lab for $700 worth of “genetic” tests that my insurance is denying from my first visit in November… I LOVE that he’s willing to take on that kind of stuff for his patients.)

So for now I guess we’re looking at more gender neutral stuff, since we might not find out the sex of our little stinker until July!

Amateur Doctor

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We had hoped that today we would discover who’s father I become: a baby girl’s Daddy, or a baby boy’s Pop. Well, the skilled technicians and doctor couldn’t make the call since the little punk kept turning its back on us. So, I would like to introduce myself to our blog by opening up a poll to our friends and family: Can you decode the image and guess what the sex is of our baby? Take a look here, or click the image for larger, and take a guess! The technician and doctor reported that this was the definitive image to go by…
Can you tell the sex of Baby?

So, is our baby a boy or a girl?

Boy:


Girl:

Here’s the current results of others who have played doctor:

So we’ll have to wait another 3 weeks till the next ultrasound to find out for sure, but until then, I can at least get to work emptying out the baby’s room and preparing it for painting and new carpet. The decision on paint and furniture color will just have to wait.

Getting Bigger (17w3d)

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I’ve been trying to find ways to make the baby more real to Paul, since all the books say that this whole thing won’t be real to him until he can feel it kick. (Which I guess makes sense… since he doesn’t have to second guess every move he makes based on what it might do to the baby.)

So based on my weekly e-mails (and that nifty little fruit widget on the right side of the website) I find things in the house that are the same length and weight of the baby. It’s been a neat thing for Paul to be able to hold something in his hand that’s the approximate size of the baby. (And then holding it up against my belly really puts it in perspective that there’s something *growing* in me.)

Tonight it was the 3/4 full Mrs. Dash container. (5.5″ long and 6.5oz) Two weeks ago, it was the container of poultry seasoning (4.5″ 3.5oz). Prior to that, there’s been convenient fruit to approximate our baby. It seems amazing to me that in a matter of weeks it can go from a tiny clementine orange to a seasoning container.

I don’t know if I’ve felt it move yet or not. I may have felt some flutters, but they’re not regular or anything. Neat thing though… I can feel my womb now. It’s high enough out of my pelvis that I can feel it when I’m laying down. I hope to start feeling something soon though. That’s gonna be so neat. I cannot wait until Wednesday. Here’s hoping the little critter cooperates and tells us what it is. I wanna start looking at Pink or Blue things. :)