All Dressed Up

My poor husband had to take a picture of his cranky pregnant wife last night before I left for a mess diner. For those non-military readers a mess diner is a fancy to-do where we all get together (usually in our fanciest and sharpest looking uniforms) and share a good meal with wine and have marches played and toasts and speeches made. Now my fancy uniform (mess kit) was cut for me seven years ago when I graduated from university so there was NO WAY it was going to fit. I wrote a quick e-mail and go permission to wear civilian attire. Thankfully my friend Sue is about three months ahead of me in her pregnancy and she needed a fancy outfit for the Christmas ball so she had a beautiful long jacket made out of some material she picked up while working for a few weeks in China. Better yet, although Sue is a bit more petite than I, the jacket fit and she lent it to me. Back to poor Jason being stuck taking pictures; We’d both just woken up from an afternoon nap so we weren’t at our most patient anyways. He took three initial shots and I complained they were to far away, he took two more from a very unflattering angle which I promptly deleted…we both walked away from the camera to breath. I asked for one more try before I left and here is the result.

I guess I should have kept some of the first ones since they showed the length of the coat and the entire outfit, but as I said I had just woken up and wasn’t too pleased with any of the pictures.

I think a lot of it is stemming from my hate for my hair at this length. I’m still trying (in vain in seems) to grow this mop out. It feels like the only thing that is growing with any speed is (quite annoyingly) my bangs. I made a comment yesterday to Jason about wanting to cut it all off again, he said I wasn’t allowed. Now please don’t misunderstand, much to my husbands chagrin, he has no say in how I wear my hair and I do not need to ask permission. But it was my idea to grow it out and if he had only said ‘do whatever you want’; which is sometimes his reply when I whine unnecessarily about something completely in my control, I probably would have an appointment today to get it cut. Unfortunately without him ‘letting me off the hook’ from my original goal to grow it out long enough to pull back I can’t quite give up that easily. So much for enabling…lol.

Belly pics

What a difference four weeks makes. My belly is now starting to get in the way when I tie my shoes, but I realize that I “ain’t seen nothin’ yet”. Hopefully I can stave off needing Jason to tie my shoes until the weather warms up and I can get away with sandals 🙂

Things continue to go well. I finally got news of my first OB appointment (we’ve been waiting for months to hear about this); I meet him/her end March and Jason is hoping to be able to come. He hasn’t made it to an appointment yet due to his course, for some reason my appointments are always scheduled when he has a critical review or a test. We start our prenatal classes the day after we meet our doctor; once we’re finished with the classes we’ll have a few meetings with our Doula, Donna, to discuss our wishes during and after the birth. I’m still sleeping pretty well, although I do wake up at least three times a night. Baby Towle is kicking up a storm lately and we can now ‘see’ his/her movements through the belly – very cool.

More Pictures of the unborn

   As I said before this third ultrasound was to get some clear shots of the hands, feet and brain since they weren’t all that clear in the 19 week one. Baby T had his/her hands over his/her face for most of the appointment, but with a little cajoling from the ultrasound tech (s)he moved his/her hands for  the last profile picture.

Hands:

feet:

profile:

Randomness

    I went for a third ultrasound today. The results for the second one looked normal, but they did not have good view of the brain, hands and feet so they recommended a re-evaluation. I have more pics to share, but didn’t get them scanned yet…stand by to stand by….

School is driving my crazy at the moment. I have a conference in Fredericton next week and was really hoping to have some computer modeling done by then….the computer has other ideas.

I feel fat today. I know I’m pregnant and I know I’m still at a reasonable weight, but I’ve never weighed 170 lbs before, and now that I have a bit of a bump and it’s hard to bend over at times I feel tubby. I didn’t think I would.

Sleeping is beginning to be tricky…I usually wake up every two hours to switch sides. I hate sleeping on my side. That did not stop me from sleeping 11 hours last night from 18h30 to 05h30 this morning.

I think I’ll still go to bed at 21h00 tonight.

Jason and I do not celebrate valentines day (it seems to random and all commercial), but that didn’t stop us from vacuuming for each other today (because really what says I love you more than a fur free floor)

We’ve decided to get a doula for the birth and have found one who we are comfortable and who is available

I hope next post will flow better, but today I am working in point form

I learned three new carries with my wrap today, I hope I can retie them tomorrow.

Fat or not, I’m happy to be (almost) 23 weeks pregnant.

I’m not excited about the March trip to Disneyworld yet, part of my thinks it’s because I can’t go on all the cool rides, most of me thinks I’ll be pretty darn excited once this conference is over and I get something substantial written for my thesis (project).

Babywearing

   So before we were even pregnant (but almost everyone else I know was) I got very interested in anything baby. I followed a few links and viewed a few blogs and decided baby or not, I NEEDED an Ergo and a Mei Tai Baby (MTB). Somehow I even convinced Jason to support this purchase with the notion that while we’re not pregnant yet (or not even trying at the time..too early in the school year) we know we want kids, and beside if for some reason that didn’t work out, they’d make marvelous gifts. Not sure how that worked, I think he might have still been suffering from speaker glee (common side effect of spending what your wife thinks is too much money on a new set of speakers or some other stereo component). Anyhow we’ve had the Ergo and the Mei Tai Baby in the closet for awhile, then once we found out we were expecting I decided that I need a wrap. After seeing Lorne and Angela’s Moby in action and seeing a picture of Dale with Nate in a Moby I decided that was what I wanted, but while researching these I discovered Gypsy Mama Bali Breeze (GMBB), gauze wraps that are not stretchy but are said to be nice and cool for hot summer days. Since we’re expecting a June baby I decided a GMBB would be a better choice. I became rather addicted to thebabywearer.com (TBW) and found a used one in Jason friendly colours. Once it arrived I decided I need to learn how to use it so I looked up babywearers in the Kingston area. There is a group that meet once a month and I went to a meeting and got to try one of the ladies woven wraps a BB Slen (until then I was thinking I wanted a Didy after reading countless posts on TBW). So then I decided that a) I needed a woven wrap and b) I wanted a BB slen and c) you need at least two colours of wraps so as not to get bored. Anyhow over the Christmas period I acquired two beautifully broken in previously loved BB Slen wraps…now I’m done…at least until baby gets here. I should note I’ve been interested in baby wearing since before me and my friends even thought about having kids. I’d seen a lady wearing her toddler in Vallhalla downtown Courtenay and after staring for about two minutes finally approached her and asked about it. I loved the idea of not having to maneuver a stroller through the store and her little man just seemed so happy. Enough talk, here is the good stuff – stash pictures:

From left to right: MTB with dragon flies, blueberry BB Slen, MGBB Gaia, paprika BBSlen, and Black Ergo with camel lining.

Close up of beautiful blueberry

Close up of savory paprika

You’ll note all carrier (save maybe the shimmery dragonflies) are in papa friendly colours too!

Pregnancy so far in pictures

Hopefully no one is offended by me in a sport bra with belly bare. If you are sorry, but it’s my site and well my belly…lol. First shot was taken at 6h30 on a sunday morning when I took the second pregnancy test of the whole lets get pregnant saga.

This picture was taken later in the day when Jason was awake and heard the good news, I’d be about 4 weeks with the current counting system of a 40 week pregancy. I’m keeping this photo as a goal to see if I can ever get into Nijmegen shape again (Nijmegen was a 160 km march I did this summer, but I’ll get into that in another post). You’ll be able see from the next few pictures that I’m trying to grow my hair long before baby comes (I love it short, like in this photo, but I get wicked bed-head in the morning, and while that is half the fun of short hair, I hear you don’t always get to shower when baby is around and pulling it back in a braid seems a lot more fun then walking around with bed-head all day).This is me at 8 weeks and uhhh… that’s not baby so much as bloat…

12 weeks (the toque is due to bad hair day as my hair is at this awful akward length and it seems plans to stay there for at least another month until I can pull it back)

16 weeks note the move to maternity jeans (even with no belly, buttons where just becoming too uncomfortable)

and finally 20 weeks

Half Way

            Half way there and this has been a pretty uneventful pregnancy so far.  As excited as we are about this pending arrival it really doesn’t seem that real yet. Even though I have a room full of baby gear already…and I went shopping for some more little outfits over the weekend, it’s hard to believe that in 20 short weeks (give or take) we will be parents. I know this will be a life altering moment and our world will never be the same, but to be honest at this point it’s hard to fathom.            

       I do have a question for the moms out there though (especially the new ones who have it fresh in their memory) what the heck to I need for this impending bundle of joy? I think we’ve got the basic gear covered with a car seat, crib, change table, carriers (maybe next I’ll post about my newest baby wearing obsession with pics of my new (to me) toys).            

       What really hit me was yesterday while cruising the consignment shop for some clothes (all clothes ½ price to clear current inventory) was I have no idea what one needs for a baby. I have at least 10 diaper shirts that should fit right away, but I suspect eventually this child will need pants of some sort and maybe a sweater or two to keep warm, because even in summer months, it can get chilly at night. Will I need  a little coat or can I get a way with blankets and bundling for the first three months?  Then I got to thinking about receiving blankets and hooded towels….what do I need ladies?!?

You’re pregnant?

  Still getting a lot of that. Approaching five months I’m still at that stage where you just look like you’ve packed on a few pounds but have no significant baby belly, mind you does anyone ever look pregnant in combats? The pregnancy has been blessedly easy so far. I had no morning sickness at all, but was extremely tired for the first trimester. Thankfully I had  no classes and was just working on my project, so I was free to make my own hours. I’m feeling less tired now, but getting up at 5h30 every weekday morning takes it’s toll and I’m trying to get into bed for 21h30 every night…some days it happens, others not so much. My class hours are still pretty flexible (I only have class Monday morning and Friday afternoons) so I can still catch a nap when I feel the need.

I’m starting to get belly pains as baby grows past the capacity of my abdomen. I can feel the baby move and have been able to for a few weeks now, nothing consistent, but it is very cool and reassuring (I figure a moving baby is a healthy one…flawed maybe, but don’t tell me that…I won’t listen anyway).  I keep flipping back and forth between wanting it to be June already (so I have a baby to love and hold) and hoping June takes forever to get here (since I have a tonne to accomplish between now and then in the school department). Really not much more to share…as I said it’s been a pretty uneventful (thankfully) pregnancy so far. I’m sure the worst is yet to come when I can’t reach my shoes to tie them and when sitting in class for 1.5 hrs is going to seem like torture…but I can wait (and I can’t, see told you I was torn). For now I’ll enjoy the stage I’m at.

19 week ultasound

Pictures from my 19 week ultrasound. It was not as cool as the first one…we did less gushing over the moving baby and more anatomy measurements, but the pics are pretty neat.

Hmmm…don’t know why two turned out avatar size, but you get the picture…baby’s right hand is up near his/her face for all three profile shots.