Another baby related update

Nope no baby yet. The Schmoo is still chillin' on the inside, but I did have my 39 week appointment yesterday with my wonderful doctor. I'm 80% effaced and 2cm dilated, but the baby hasn't dropped. Apparently, this little one is too enamored with sticking its tush up into my ribs to drop yet. Oh, well, at least he/she is having a good time.

I also had an ultrasound done, which revealed an approximate fetal weight of 8.5 lbs. My doctor wanted to know if I would prefer to wait or "do something". I told her I might as well wait...I'm not uncomfortable other than being hot and tired, so I consider myself lucky, and I'm on vacation for another month or so (not to mention maternity leave after that)...plus, the house is getting closer to finished with each passing day.

No Baby Yet!

Yup...I've got 10 days left until my due date. I'm still hanging strong. Just maxing and relaxing because anything else makes me exhausted. Ah, the joys of pregnancy!

My last doc's appointment was on Tuesday and I'm still 50% effaced and no dilation to speak of. I have my next appointment on Tuesday and I get to go for an ultrasound to check the baby's size and weight. I figure it's an extra opportunity to see the little one, so I figure I might as well go for it. I'm hoping they'll print out a new ultrasound picture....I'm having this one done at a different place, so their answer might be "no", however, my insurance is paying for the damn thing, so I don't see why they wouldn't.

Now for some house details. The kitchen is just awaiting the counter top to be installed with our fancy recessed sink...then the last of the cabinets can go in and the kitchen is done! The major home store that we have been dealing with hired yet another crack team for us...this time it was the wood floor guys who thought it would be cool to put down the new wood floors without adhesive and thereby making our warranty void. Very nice. They were forced to rip it out and the whole thing has to be done again. My mother-in-law has been in contact with said home store and we'll see what happens. It would just be nice to have all of this out of the way before the baby comes. We have the apartment until September 1st, so we have a place to live...I just want Chris to be able to enjoy the new baby and not have to worry about what's going on at the house!

After the wood floors comes the carpeting, but that's minor in comparison to the floors, which once they are delivered have to sit for 72 hours in the house to acclimate. And there might still need to be painting done, but that's being done by my father-in-law who is a professional decorative painter, and we trust him implicitly. It doesn't hurt that he's one of the top in his field in our area to boot!

Still Here!

The Schmoo and I are still occupying the same space, which is cool because I don't have to change diapers and I only have to feed myself. My doctor doesn't think I'm going anywhere this week, so I'm cool with that. I'm not dilated at all, so I'm still floating around the pool, which is my favorite thing to do.

Today is my 35th birthday and my mom took me to one of my favorite places for lunch. Silver Tips Tea Room rocks the house! We had high tea...tea sandwiches, iced chai, a scone, and a slice of cake. Divine!

The house is still under construction and poor Chris is freaking out. He wants the house to be ready to move in to before the baby comes. He doesn't want to be moved in, necessarily before the baby comes, but he doesn't want to worry about the house. He just wants to enjoy the baby. I can't blame him. I don't know how much is left to be done. I get the feeling that his part is nearly done, and that the next few things are really up to contractors...like installing the wood floors and carpeting kinds of things. I just feel terrible for the poor stressed out guy.

hooded hoods trying to hoodwink car hoods

Good Lord I love the subject generator on Yahoo Beta Mail. Some of the subjects are awesome!

I can not believe that I haven't been here in 11 days or so. Apparently, I've been crazy busy...or super lazy. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Anyway, I will catch us all up!

1. Tomorrow is the last day of school All I have to do is take my 3 posters down off my ways (1 Corpse Bride, and 2 Edward Gorey) and turn in my keys. The rest of the day is a BBQ thrown by admin. I love my job.
2. Tonight is graduation. I have to talk about my 2 leads that are graduating. I don't want to, but I'll do it. What cheeses me is that the social worker who insisted that lead teachers speak about their students, refuses to say anything at the graduation because it makes her uncomfortable. But somehow she's comfortable with making other people do it regardless of their discomfort. Whatever...I just need to write out a couple of index cards. Humph.
3. I had another check up yesterday. This time with the senior member of the OBGYN practice. The baby's heart beat sounds good. I'm no dilated at all yet (which means more pool time for me!) She also commented that it feels like I have a "good sized baby in there". Then she read the ultra sound results and commented..."Ooooh, about 5 and a half pounds? That is a good sized baby" I think I really might be giving birth to a gorilla in 6 weeks.
4. My co-workers threw me a surprise baby shower. They scared the crap out of me, which they thought was hysterically funny. Bastards. Loving, fabulous bastards, but bastards all the same. They all chipped in and got me my infant car seat! Plus, the shower had a full breakfast buffet with eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, fruit, bagels and coffee. I love these people.
5. My landlords are pissing me off. You see, all in all, my landlords (a husband and wife team) are very nice people. They are just inconsiderate. Chris and I are not allowed to park in the driveway, but the kid down the street is. We were asked to be very gentle with the doors because her father is sensitive to that sort of noise. But who used to come visit him after 10pm and slam doors? She did...now that he's in a home, she'll come to get some of his clothes and guess what...slam doors. And apparently, construction in the down stairs apartment doesn't warrant any forewarning, even if it's going to be occurring after 9pm. Yes, I get to listen to the husband sawing pipes at night. I think I would be pissed even if I weren't pregnant and it didn't throw Reuben into fits. Reuben seems to think that the noise might be coming to harm me. I wouldn't care so much, I don't think, if I hadn't in the last few months of her father living downstairs, had to let the police in a bunch of times because his emergency alarm went off, pick him up off of the ground when he fell, or change the batteries in his smoke alarm. We were also asked to keep an ear out for him, which I did (which is why I knew when he fell, or if his smoke alarm was going off, etc) and I don't get any courtesy in return. Okay...rant over.
6. The house is coming along slowly, but surely. Hopefully we'll be able to move in before Schmoo turns 15.

Yikes!

Here is our newest family photo. My father-in-law took it on Mother's Day and gave it as a part of a photo album to Chris for his birthday at the end of May. It's a cool photo, unfortunately it didn't scan as well as I would have liked. You can totally see my "baby bump" in the photo...I don't know how clear it is in the scanned version. Regardless, I'm here to tell you all about my baby bump.

It has gotten pretty darn big. Like I am starting to have trouble rolling over in bed big. I have to practically roll out of bed to get up in the morning big. I've been taking double takes at small spaces to think about how well I'll fit big. And that's all fine. I can't complain...I don't feel sick, my feet and hands are not swelling up (yet), I can still squat down and get up. If my belly is all I have that is getting unwieldy, then so be it. Although, I'm starting to think it might be the sign of a big-ass baby.

I went for a check up on Wednesday, and as the good doctor felt around my belly she said, " I think you might have a big one in there". I laughed and said. "Only time will tell". Then Friday I went for an ultra-sound and the technician did all the measurements and she tells me that Schmoo is measuring 2-3 weeks ahead in size and that the ultrasound estimates that Schmoo already weighs 5 pounds and 11 oz. I have just under 8 weeks left, people. At a half pound of weight gain expected for little Schmoo (or Big Schmoo?), that could be a 9 pound baby! Dear Lord! Chris thinks it's fascinating and is astounded by that prediction. I told him that it's all his fault because he has gorilla DNA. I have to admit, I think I'd rather have a chunky, big baby than a little Perdue fryer....

Yet another late update

Man, I do not know where time is escaping to! I feel as if time is standing still...I know it's not because my belly is slowly expanding. the house seems to be standing still, mainly because of one of large conglomerate contractor stores giving us the run around. The contractor who arranges for windows to put in tells us that there will be no problems with the type of window we need, that they do it all the time and that if the window guys damage the surrounding concrete it will be fixed. Meanwhile, the guy who actually mans the installation crew and comes to check out the site tells us that our needs are only 1% of what they do, and they have no masons to fix the concrete if it gets damaged. We're a tad peeved, but my mother-in-law (who is a pit bull when it comes to stuff like that) is all over it for us. What really bugs me is that I'm starting to worry that the house won't be done before the baby gets here and I really want to be at least partially settled (read our bedroom is set and ready to go with a bassinet) before the critter comes.

I'm now 29 weeks. I'm back to being really tired at night. Last night I was in bed by 9, lights out by 10:30. I used have lights out at 11:30. Mind you this 10:30 lights out is in addition to a 30 minute nap in the afternoon...I never had to do that to have lights out at 11:30. Sad, but then again, it takes a lot of energy growing a whole new person...or at least that is what I'm telling myself.

I had a check up this week and the baby's heartbeat is very strong. I did not get a "gaining too much weight" lecture this time. And I passed my Gestational Diabetes screening on the first go 'round, so I'm looking forward to more ice cream as the weather gets nicer! Woo-hoo!

Some random things

I don't have much energy at the moment, but I need to update the blog! So I'm going to do yet another list for all of you who are interested.

1) I finally finished registering for baby things. I never realized how tiring that can be. Thank goodness I have people who gave me good advice as to what to get. I don't know who the heck is going to buy me all the stuff I registered for...I don't even think I know that many women!

2) Work is going okay. My new lead student is still having trouble adjusting, but she and I are certainly seeing eye to eye more often now. She understands me for the most part and that's a big step.

3) I have an odd hobby to share. It makes me think of my friend Cathy from work, because she will probably find this to be funny. One of my favorite thing to do is to appear in stranger's pictures. If someone is taking a picture and if I'm even remotely in the background, I will turn to the camera and smile like I'm supposed to be in the picture. There have been occasions at shows, or at the zoo when people take a huge group photo with a singer or in front of an animal cage, and I've found my way in to the picture. Don't worry, I don't stand in for every shot. And I don't do family shots...that's just wrong. I have to admit, it makes me chuckle to think that someone, somewhere got pictures developed and they point to my smiling face and ask "Who is this?" Good times.

4) I'm now in my third trimester. I waddle, I get really tired at night, and I have trouble bending at the waist. I think about chicken pot pies all the time.

Tea!

Just a brief post to tell you all how happy I am that I got to go have tea with my friend Christina at Silver Tips Tea room in a town very close to mine! I love visiting with my friend, Christina, whom I haven't been able to sit down and chat with for a very long time...and I love the fun of sitting in a tea room, sipping iced chai and eating fancy sandwiches and scones. Yummers! The Schmoo really enjoyed the yummy food to because it was doing a nice little Schmoo dance afterward!

Dreams

Just checkin' in...doctor's appointment went well yesterday...baby's heartbeat sounds good...good growth and the like. I like good news.

Here's what I really want to tell you. Last night I had a dream that Chris and I had a baby boy and when we brought him home all Reuben wanted to do was lick the baby's feet. I hope Reuben's real life adjustment is just that easy.

And the pic? Reuben sleeping under the covers. Too cute.

Is fate trying to hint at something?

Chris and I decided not to find out the gender of our baby. We figure it's one of the last big mysteries that people can still have in an age where you can Google yourself to remember all the wonderful and stupid things you've done. I think fate is messing with me. Before I told anyone about my pregnancy, aside from Chris, two different friends from work on two different occasions had dreams that I was pregnant with a little boy. These women claim to have predicted the gender nieces and nephews perfectly over the years.

Today I'm working at the library. Last week, I put some dog books on hold for one of my brothers who is thinking of getting a dog. Those books came in today. This is what I found under the pile of dog books, with a slip a paper with my name on it:



I think someone or something out there is trying to tell me something.

My new favorite thing

Can I tell ya'll how much I love lemonade and limeade since I've gotten pregnant? I looove it. I love that it's sweet and tart all at the same time. And today I discovered my favorite so far. Target was having a sale on Simply Limeade and man is it awesome!

In other ridiculous food related news, I had the worst food day ever. All I wanted to eat was junk. I actually went to McDonald's lunch. For dinner I had instant Hamburger Helper. I have never, ever had any Hamburger Helper ever before in my life. Not once. I just couldn't say no to it when I saw it at the store. I think the baby must have like it because now it's turning somersaults in my belly...either that or it invited a lot of friends over or something. There is some serious business going on in there. Yikes.

On the other hand, I did make sure that I got in 5 fruits and veggie today so all is not lost.

20th Week of the Schmoo

I promised Auntie Marta that I would post about my ultrasound. I haven't gotten the blood work back, but the tech told me the heart rate is excellent...the heart has 4 chambers, I saw the brain, the spine, 2 hands, and 2 feet. The funny thing is the tech needed the baby to open its hands but the baby wouldn't. It had its hands on the sides of its face, so she jiggled my belly. The baby then crossed its arms in front of its face. She jiggled again...so the baby put its hand behind its head. Too strange. The tech made me go eat a Twix bar and come back. When we continued the ultrasound the baby was playing with its feet...which made the tech laugh out loud.

I have to say...ultrasounds are super cool. The baby was moving its mouth while we were watching...I never would have expected that. I thought leg twitches and arm movement, but to see it moving its little mouth? Unbelievable.

I go to my regular doctor on Monday to talk about the ultrasound measurements and the blood work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all looks good. The baby looked good to me, but what do I know?

So, yeah

I am totally a terrible blogger. I would like to use the excuse that I'm too tired and have been too busy to hang out...but it would be a total lie. I'm too lazy. Not lazy enough to not read your blogs...I have been..but too lazy to write anything. Shame on me. In order to run through my updates, I might have to do it list style.

1. We bought a house. We saw it, we bought it. We closed in a week. It was a for sale by owner and the lady selling it (for her mother who is now in a nursing home) needed to be rid of it before the bank foreclosed. It was a sad situation, but she was happy that we were buying it and that the bank wasn't going to get their hands on it. She told me that it warmed her heart to know that a new family was moving in instead of a contractor flipping it. It is a bit of a fixer-upper...but no structural repairs are needed. I'll post pictures soon. I have them, I just haven't uploaded them.
2. The baby is doing well. I got for "the big" ultrasound next Friday where the doc looks at the heart and lungs and all those important parts to make sure everything is growing the way it should. I'm confident that it will go well enough...after all whenever I go for a Doppler or a regular ultra sound the baby is swimming and kicking. The only issue is that Chris might have jury duty, but we're working on that. He has a copy of the 'script and of my appointment confirmation. Hopefully that will take care of it.
3. Work is going well. I still love my job. I think that 3 of the kids have realized that I'm pregnant. Half the fun is waiting to see which kids figure it out. I'm thinking of making a betting pool. Maybe like the Dead Pool, but with a better name. Maybe the "Duh Pool"
4. I saw crazy co-worker today, who is due around the same time I am but will probably go earlier because she is carrying twins. During our department meeting she looked like she was going to cry the entire time. She does not look happy. In fact, I'd venture to say that she looks miserable. Afterwards, when the new teacher remarked on her belly, Crazy immediately blurted out "Alanna has one, too" because she doesn't want any attention to any belly. In fact, the rumor is that she's been telling people that she only eats one meal a day so she'll only get a bubble and not a real belly. Yeah, she's like that.
5. I've been treating myself to massages on my teaching payday. It rocks. Since I've gotten pregnant, my left hip aches and the massages really help. It usually keeps the ache away for almost the entire 2 weeks between massages.

I think that's it. Number 5 was not actually a real update, but I threw it in there because tomorrow is payday so I have a massage appointment and I'm psyched.

I promise that I will be better about blogging. I've got to stop being so scratchin' lazy!

It's been way too long

Life has been an interesting road to follow these last 9 days...it's been going from dull slow to fast, fast, fast! Chris and I are feeling well. I'm on vacation, but we're trying to buy a house, and there has been a lot of phone calls, looking at houses, making appointments, doing mental math...blah, blah, blah.

Last week is also is the week where I woke up one morning and my pants just don't fit anymore. I finally look pregnant and not just chunky.



On a happier, more fun note I am on vacation and I'm hoping to get a ton of sewing done. I'd like to start the alien baby quilt this week plus a few other minor projects. Nothing big.

The last thing I want to share is the lovely, lovely, lovely orchid I bought myself at the bulk buying club I belong to. the quality of this orchid is incredible...it has 3 branches of buds. I got it for 15.99...anywhere else it would have cost upwards of $35.

Where does the time go?

Sorry I haven't been around recently...I had about a million meetings after school this week, so by the time I got home, I was exhausted...so I sat around and did nothing. Not a thing. Sad, because I really should be purging the apartment of things we don't need because we will eventually have to make room for this baby if we don't find a house. And even if we do find a house, we're going to have to purge before we move just to make things easier.

To make it up to anyone who visited and was disappointed, I took pictures this week for your entertainment.

This is especially for Marta who requested a picture of Reuben in his new hoodie.

Reu will whimper when he's on his dog bed if he's cold...the result is a snuggle up with a blanket. Sometimes, when we're lucky, he gets up and walks around wearing a cape for a while.

This is the fabric that I stashed away to make a baby quilt with. I actually bought it when my friend CA was pregnant and I wanted to make her baby a quilt. I think that whether I have a girl of boy...it's my kid and it will probably love aliens as much as I do...right?

Thanks for stopping by!

Cootie Box Central

My apartment is cootie head quarters. Poor Chris has the flu. I took him to the doctor on Tuesday. Since then, he has gotten worse. He developed a horrid sore throat and a choking cough...plus his fever has gone up from an average of 100 to 102. Not cool. I took the day off from work to keep an eye on him because I've never seen him so sick (scary!) and I took him back to the doctor. Doc put him on anti-biotics because he's afraid Chris might be developing a secondary infection so the anti-biotics are a precaution. Meanwhile, Chris has to sleep on the couch (doctor's orders) and I'm not allowed to spend time with him. And if I go near him, I have to wash my hands (obviously). As a result I have old lady hands. I'm serious. My hands do not look a day under 80 years old. I've been using Gold Bond Foot cream on them. I figure if it can soften crack feet, it'll do a number on my hands. It does work.

So, I've got Chris on the couch, I've got Reuben who wants to be on the couch, but can't because 1) Chris is taking up the entire couch and 2) I'm Reu's primary caretaker, and sole caretaker now that Chris is ill and I can't have influenza cooties on the dog who will be sleeping with me because I'm the best human ever in his eyes.

I hope all these precautions are going to keep me form getting the flu because apparently, there is nothing that pregnant women can take for the flu...except for tylenol. Chris is miserable with alka-seltzer with tylenol taken intermittenly with advil. Can you imagine having an extra horrible flu and all you can take is plain tylenol? Not even Tylenol Pm so you can sleep through most of it? Frightening.

So as a result of all this I canceled all our plans for the weekend. Out for Mexican with my parents? Canceled. UFC at his boss' house? Canceled. SuperBowl at CA and Mikes (with Baby Kyle)? That's a super big CANCELED! Who wants to feel responsible for giving an infant the flu. Not me.

Hope all of you are well...or are on the mend, Marta!

Eating better

Just like when I wasn't pregnant, I'm struggling to eat healthier. Ugh. Today I made Black Bean Quinoa salad that I totally stole from the Zumba Queen herself...Kimberly. It's right up my alley and if you can eat it slow enough so that it's four servings...it's core.

I think I'm going to try to going back to eating core...more of it and ignore the flexies...but I think I need to fill up my dietary day with more fruits and veggies rather than bagels, butter, and candy. Seems to make sense to me.

I'm also not used to this hormonal stuff. I never really had bad PMS (curse at me if it makes you feel better) but I left work "sick" today because I was afraid a library patron would come in and make me cry...I was *that* on edge all day. I just do not feel like myself today and it make me feel yucky. I think it's a combo of stress, looking at houses that Chris and I can't agree on, and the fact that I'm not sleeping so great. To remedy all this, I set up an appointment for a prenatal massage tomorrow. I told the appointment lady that I didn't need the special table, but I needed someone who was certified in prenatal because the rumor is...if you're massaged "wrong" you can have weird stuff happen like dizziness, headaches and in rare cases...contractions. It's an extra $5 but I think it'll be well worth it.

And Marta, I never responded to your comment, so I'm doing it here. We're not going to find out what the baby is (aside from human) before it's born.

Changes

I can feel this blog slowly changing into an annoying mommy blog...at least for the time being, the only things I've got going on are the pregnancy and house hunting...so that's what I'm going to be writing about...sorry.

Today I went for a Down Syndrome/chromosome screening. I sent in blood work months ago and today I was scheduled for an ultrasound. Very cool. I was instructed to eat something sugary about an hour before the appointment. I love eating ice cream for breakfast! As a result of the sugary breakfast, the baby was wiggling in the ultrasound. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. My mom came with me and got to see my wiggly baby and hear the heartbeat. She filmed it on her cell phone. Yeah, I've got that kind of mother.

The cool thing about this screening is that the doctor sees you about 10 minutes after he analyzes the ultrasound and the blood sample. He told me that my screening couldn't go much better. My risk for Down Syndrome at this point is 1 in 6,000 and for other chromosome abnormalities I'm less than 1 in 10,000. Those are much better odds than those associated with my age (1 in 304 for each!). I'm supposed to do another one of these during the second trimester, but it's seriously painless and since you get instant results, it's even better.

Guess What...

Evil coworker is also pregnant and is due two days after me. She has always said that she doesn't want kids, but her husband does...and the deal they have is that she'll have a baby and he'll take care of it. That way she can continue to be focused on her course work (PhD) and career, and he'll leave her alone. Well, she's pregnant with TWINS! Fate has it out for her. The rumor is her pregnancy plan is to only gain 15 pounds....with twins. With a singleton you're expected to gain 25-35 pounds. She's a bit twisted...don't you think?

Confessions

I have to confess to all of you in blogland that I have not been doing WW for ummmm...like two months or so. I have moments of uncontrollable hunger, slight nausea, fatigue...it's unlike anything I've ever experience before.

Yeah, you guessed it. I'm pregnant. I'm due on August 6th. I'm hoping that once the baby is born I'll be back to tri'ing like I get paid by the hour and not turn this into a mommy blog whose title has been changed to Cry Like You Get Paid by the Hour or or something equally obnoxious.

So there you have it...now you all know why I've been mostly absent and evasive when I actually have posted. Sorry for the delay! Now that my big secret is out in the open, I think I'll be around more often as I'll be able to share more freely.

Chris and I are also house hunting, so this is a time of exhaustion and stress! Nothing like making 2 major life changes at the same time, right?