the smalley ladies

Here's the big one:

And more importantly, the little one:

it's a . . .

GIRL!!!

We just got back from our 18 week ultrasound and found out the good news. We're so excited! I was a bit shocked, having convinced myself it was a boy after first thinking it was a girl. I should have known my first instinct would be right. Jay was not shocked at all, given, as he says, "Well, there were really only two options."

She's developing right on schedule, and she's got all her limbs and appendages. I think she's quite cute already. It's remarkable how much she's developed since our last peek at her five weeks ago. Her arms and legs are all in normal proportion to the rest of her body now, and her body has caught up with her big head. The ultrasound tech was a bit stoic -- we had to ask if everything looked good, and when we said we wanted to know the gender she focused between her legs and calmly said, "See that area there? It's a girl." I guess we were expecting a bit more fanfare, like, "Oh, look! It's a GIRL!" But as we rationalized, they could care less about the gender, they just want to make sure the baby is healthy (as do we). So in the end, a most excellent visit all around.

We got lots of pictures and I'll post the best ones tomorrow. We just wanted to spread the good news as quick as we could!

Five more sleeps . . .

until we find out the gender! I'm so excited that I've been waking up at night and not able to fall back to sleep because I keep thinking about it. I know there are only two options, and that it's pretty much a 50/50 chance of one over the other, but it's just overwhelming at times to think that soon we will know one more thing about the baby we didn't know before. Of course, the larger point of next week's ultrasound is to confirm that everything is OK, anatomically speaking. All its fingers and toes, no cleft palate, brain and heart growing without issue, etc. I'm not worried in the least about those things. I just want to be able to see the baby again and give it a name.

This week has been great. Here's how the belly's doing! My hair wasn't did so I though it best to spare you from my face:

Saturday night we had out first date night since our honeymoon, going out to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in the city to celebrate my birthday and enjoying every last bite of our butter-drenched $40 filets. We had gotten a very generous gift card to there from Bill and Joanne for Jay's 30th birthday last May and had yet to spend it, so it was a real treat. We kept looking at the menu saying, "Maybe we'll try that next time we come." But who are we kidding! There won't be a next time! Too much of a treat for our wallet to handle regularly, but it was so wonderful to get dressed up and be out.

We had a lovely Easter on Sunday with Jay's family, complete with very generous birthday gifts for me and an ice cream cake -- my favorite! By the end of the day my hands and feet were swollen from all the salty foods, but it was totally worth it.

Then on Tuesday, my birthday, these arrived to the office first thing in the morning:

I have the best husband in the world for many reasons, but sending me flowers just took the cake. And my favorite flowers, no less! The ones we had at our wedding! And, he had already gotten me the shoes I've been dying for for years and a new dress! He really has been a saint this entire pregnancy, making me dinner every night, getting up to get me things when he's all situated and comfy on the couch, rubbing my feet and my back when they get sore, asking me if I'm OK when I get up in the middle of the night to pee or blow my nose. He's going to be such a good dad, I just can't wait for the baby to be born to meet him.

Last night I got to go shopping and get some new maternity clothes with some of birthday gifts I got, and it was so nice to get a good bit of clothes that fit that will take me through the whole pregnancy. It's amazing what a difference it makes to me to be in clothes that fit properly, especially when you're pregnant. It makes you feel less like a blob and more like a person who still has a semi-regular body underneath all the belly. I know I'm only going to get bigger, so it's good to be armed with the right clothes now.

We'll update everyone on Tuesday when we get back from the doctor's. Cross your fingers that the bean will cooperate and not try to hide the goods from us. I can't imagine, give its parents, that it will be a shy baby, but we may have a rebel on our hands.

my first labor dream

So last night I had my first ever labor and delivery dream. It was weird and funny (at least to me and Jay) so I thought I'd share. I'm sure these types of dreams will become much more frequent very soon, and I promise I won't bore you with all of them, but this one I thought was classic:

So I'm in labor and it's not progressing and they tell me I have to have a c-section because my pelvic bones have not spread like they are supposed to so it's too tight for the baby to come out. I argue with them that my hips are plenty wide and they get exasperated and storm out. I'm writhing away in pain and they finally come back to wheel me to the operating room, obviously irritated with me. As they cut me open, they tell me that because I fought with them for so long about having the c-section, the baby had a bowel movement from the stress of the delivery and it got into its lungs (this can actually happen.) Therefore, I wouldn't be able to see the baby after it came out, it would have to be rushed to the NICU where it would stay for two months and we could come back tomorrow to see it.

So out comes the baby, and it's a girl. They stitch me up and I hop off the table in shock at how good I feel and how small the scar is. I show everyone around me how tiny and clean the scar is. They release me and tell me to come back tomorrow to see my baby girl.

So Jay and I go back the next day, and in the NICU are a bunch of cages lined up against a wall like at a pet store, and there on the bottom is our little girl. Except she's a labradoodle puppy. Spotted like a beagle but with curly hair. And the nurse tells us, "Well, because you were so selfish and didn't want the c-section, the baby has no ears. It has holes where the ears should be, but no outer lobe or anything." But we don't care, we talk to her and tell her we're her Mom and Dad and that we'll come back and visit her the next day.

So the next day I call work and tell them I had the baby but I'll be late today because we have to go see her in the NICU. We show up to the NICU and the nurses are all flustered, saying just wait until we see our baby, so many things have changed that we probably can take her home before two months. So we excitedly approach the cage and instead of our labradoodle baby girl, it's Owen Wilson (the actor), scrunched up in a ball in the cage saying "Mamma! Dadda!" The nurses open the crate and say, "Just watch! Just watch!" and Owen crawls out, jumps up, walks over to a toilet next to the cages, lifts up the seat, whips out his penis, and pees in the toilet. He's grinning ear to ear and we're all clapping and saying "Good boy!"

Then I wake up.

Care to interpret anyone? I can see a few clear translations:
1). I worry my childbearing-sized hips will fail me
2). I didn't think I was scared of a c-section but I guess I am
3). I feel guilty about being off work to have a baby
4). I'm nervous that if they tell me it's a girl on April 1 it will end up being a boy
5). I like the name Owen?

two weeks to go . . .

before we find out the gender! We can hardly wait!

We had a great week. We went to a St. Patty's Day party on Saturday night with some of Jay's college friends that was SWARMING with babies. It was pretty eye-opening. No Bailey's for me, and lots of babies to make Jay glassy-eyed. Sunday we went to Southie to Chris and Angela's for their annual parade party, which was a blast and overwhelming at the same time. Being the only non-drinker on one of the biggest drinking holidays of the year was interesting~by the end of the afternoon, walking the drunk high school kid-lined streets back to the T was a test of my patience. I felt old and pregnant and very uncomfortable with the whole thing. I'm all for having fun, it just seemed so far away from me. I got tired just looking at everyone.

Maybe that's because I am old and pregnant, I suppose. On the road to old at least, as next week I'll be 31. I must say, though, I've LOVED my 30s and wouldn't go back to my teens or 20s if you paid me ten million dollars. And 31 will be exciting because I will be celebrating my first anniversary AND meeting the little one. I anticipate another good year . . .

Here's what I look like today (ignore the fact that I look like I'm about to pop a squat):

15 weeks . . .

. . . and getting bigger by the minute!Still no flutters from the baby though, which I'm looking SO forward to. Probably not for another 3 or 4 weeks, and then it will take another 3 or 4 weeks after that for the kicks to be strong enough for Jay to feel.

I'm feeling good, although I've gotten my first pregnancy cold and got the official bad news from the doctor -- I can take NOTHING to make myself feel better but plain old Tylenol. Ugh. How exactly is that supposed to help decongest me?

I think I got sick from doing too much this weekend. It's hard to remember that even though I feel good, I'm still pregnant and don't have quite the energy I used to. We had an awesome time Saturday night visiting Amanda and Andy and baby Ella, who is just gorgeous and so much fun to play with. But first, on our way there, we went to Babies R Us to look around. My word it's overwhelming there!! So many millions of things to choose from. There were like 40 cribs! We just want a basic ol' crib, we don't need 40 options! But it was fun nonetheless, and was a good reminder that when we register we need to go on a weeknight when it's not swarming with people.

We also went on the almost-futile search for maternity work pants. Until this weekend, I'd been doing the old rubber band through the buttonhole trick, but that was starting to fail miserably and I was needing to use a binder clip to secure them even further. (Don't ask, it was weird and uncomfortable.) We'd been to one Old Navy earlier last week that said they had a maternity section, which turned out to be a lie, so we found another one on our way to Plymouth and stopped there. No luck. Old Navy pants never fit well pre-pregnancy, and they didn't have anything that looked or fit remotely appropriately. I was frustrated and about to give up when we found a pair at Target.

Then Sunday I got up early and had brunch with the girls, went and saw my dear friend Amy and her beautiful daughter Elizabeth (and got a TON of amazing baby stuff to borrow), went to Pam's house for a Tastefully Simple party, came home, had to WORK until about 9, then was so tired I hemmed one leg of my pants inside out. It was a long day. Even if I wasn't pregnant, I would have been a mess. We all know it's a rare occasion when I'm not at least in my PJ's by 9 p.m.

Needless to say, the sore throat hit the next afternoon. But I'll survive. It's all worth it for the little one! The only pregnancy side-effect I've cursed so far is the peeing. I get up every night without fail at 2 a.m. to pee (I know, I know, it's only going to get worse), but now I feel like I'm losing bladder control in general and now I almost (OK, well, sometimes I do) pee my pants every time I sneeze. Don't laugh!! I hear it happens to lots of pregnant women. It's embarrassing, but what can I do.

Next appointment is not until March 26, so that's all the baby update I can offer for now. Hope everyone is well. XOXO.

we're in . . .

We made it safely to our new home in Waltham. As many of you know, we were given very short notice by our landlord in Norwood that we had to move because he sold our condo (huh? in this market?), so we basically had two weeks to find a place and move. On our first day looking, we found a lovely apartment in Waltham, about four miles from my work. Jay's commute, while farther than ever, has him traveling against traffic in both directions, so he was a real sweetheart and agreed to take on the drive. Our thought is that it will be easier when the baby comes, since we hope to be able to have Jay stay home with the baby during the day and work part-time in the evenings while I continue to work full-time. I'll be sad to leave the bean at home, but it helps to know I'm only four miles down the road.

Of course on the day we move, March 1, there needs to be a snowstorm. When we moved to Norwood there was the worst rain storm I'd ever seen, and now we got snow. Lucky fellas who helped us move. They were troopers. Bud Light and pizza cure many a woe.

I, of course, was no help, since I couldn't really lift anything. So I went early to wait for the cable guy with Miss Etta, who was very confused.

Of course the cable guy didn't come until the END of his window, I didn't know I needed to turn the furnace on to get the heat going so the house stayed at 49 degrees until the guys got there, they didn't have the right size U-Haul for us, we had to make three trips back and forth to Norwood in our cars, I forgot to get the cable installed in the bedroom (whoops!), and I got my first taste of swollen pregnancy ankles from standing for too long, but all in all, it went as good and as bad as I expected, and we're in and getting used to the place.

Since many of you may never see it firsthand (although you are always welcome!), I thought I'd include pictures of the place. We're not exactly set up yet, but you get the idea:

This last room will be the nursery. It's about the same size as our bedroom, with a nice big closet and two windows. We'll be able to paint it.

On the baby front, we get to find out on April 1 whether the bean is a boy or a girl! We're very excited. I know there are a lot of opinions on whether or not to find out the gender, but we just really want to know. There will be enough surprises come labor and delivery day that we don't think this is spoiling anything for us.

My belly is growing by the minute, so I finally had to break down and tell work I was pregnant. It went OK. I'll be missing the biggest event of the year (that I plan), so I knew going in that I would be putting everyone in a tough spot. While I get 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave through FMLA, if I want to get paid for any of it I need to use up all of my vacation and sick time to do so. By the time the baby comes, I'll only have accrued about 6 weeks combined, so that's probably all the maternity leave I'll get to take, unless we win the lottery between now and then. I don't know how we would even manage to go two weeks without my paycheck. It's just impossible. So that soothed the blow to my office a bit more, reassuring them that I'll be coming back full-time as soon as I can. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the baby and I stay healthy and that I won't need to go on bed rest or take off any extended period of time before the baby comes. I plan on working up until the head crowns (just kidding, but barely).