"When are you due?" "Yesterday."

No baby yet!

I feel good.  Ready for the baby to come, but not uncomfortable or anything.  The baby has dropped but I haven't felt a single contraction and though my cervix was soft on Monday, I wasn't dilated at all.  We're going for a non-stress test tomorrow and to check my blood pressure (it's been a little elevated lately).  Then if still no baby, I have another non-stress test and an ultrasound on Tuesday, which would be 41 weeks.

Everything's ready.  You can come now, baby.

5 more days?

Well, it is 5 days until my due date (October 7).

It's been a busy couple months.  Everything is ready. I've been off of work for more than a week now, which is nice.  I have only gotten bored once. So far I've just been cleaning and organizing and tidying.  The nursery is all ready.  We have a downstairs napping/changing station as well thanks to a playyard.  We've had 5 baby showers -- one at each mother's, one at my work with the office and a surprise one over video-conference with the east coast admins and also a surprise one at church!  Lots of fun!  We have plenty of Pooh-Bear themed outfits and blankets and things for the bedroom.  I'll try to get some nursery photos up, but here is one of me loading up the dresser/changing table.

From New pregnancy

I know you want to see some more belly pics.  Here I am at about 34 weeks:

From New pregnancy

That's about when we found out that the baby was transverse (sideways) which is a type of breech presentation but really can't be delivered because while babies can come out butt- or feet-first, they really can't come out sideways.  So I tried various things to get the baby to turn.  Crawling around on hands and knees, playing music down near my pelvis, having Jen talk to the baby near my pelvis, putting an ice pack near the head to get the baby to move away from the cold, and this fun thing:

From New pregnancy

I don't know if any of those really helped, but by 36 weeks the baby had turned head down.  Here I am at 36 weeks:

From New pregnancy

From New pregnancy

The baby is head down, but face up at the moment.  I'm not worried about that though because babies will turn during labor, though it might take a little longer. :)
Here I am today with a frontal shot!  No stretch marks (yet) though I do have a cat scratch and a faint linea negra (and my bellybutton is off-center).

From New pregnancy

From New pregnancy

Man, I need to brush my hair.  That's what happens when you get off of work 2 weeks before your due date. You stop brushing your hair.

From New pregnancy

I'll try to post another picture from on my due date if the baby isn't here yet.  Then I'll be starting a new picasa album just for the baby!

2 more months!

I'm updating before a whole month has gone by!!

I'm 32 weeks pregnant now. My feet are swollen and I can't wear my rings anymore. But I no-longer feel like I have a bruised rib and my back doesn't bother me either. So, really, I have no complaints.

The baby is just lounging around in my belly horizontally. As though it was a hammock. I like it. :)

I like being pregnant and feeling it move around. I can see my stomach move around when it moves, like in Alien!

I had a baby shower a few weeks ago, you can see photos here. It was a lot of fun! :)

Here are the most recent belly pictures from about 31 weeks.





And here is proof that I look like I'm smuggling a watermelon:

3 months to go!

Well, I'm 28 weeks pregnant. That's definitely third trimester and less than 3 months until the due date.

The baby is squirmy and I like feeling it move around a lot. I can tell when it gets the hiccups, which is funny. I always end up drinking more water when the baby has the hiccups, as if it will help!

I most definitely look pregnant now. We went to my friend Erin's wedding in Key West about a month ago and I think I pulled off the pregnant-in-a-bikini look and passed the "fat or pregnant" test.




Here's a cute picture of me and Jen from the actual wedding.




We used the wedding as an excuse to go take a vacation. :) It was nice and relaxing. And hot and humid!

People at work are starting to realize that I'm going to be leaving soon. I get 18 weeks of maternity leave (as long as the baby is born after my 1-year anniversary, September 24; the due date is October 7). We'll hire a temp and I'll train her. Or him.

Here are the most recent pictures of my belly, taken last night:





I can't hide it anymore! :) I'm starting to get sick of the same clothes all the time. Oh well.

My only complaint about the pregnancy so far is that I have this spot on the mid right side of my back that often hurts. Probably because the baby likes to kick my ribs on the right side. It definitely hangs out kind of asymmetrically.

Everyone seems to be guessing that it's a girl. So of course I think it's a boy, just to be contrary. Really I don't have a clue.

We'll see in about 3 months!

Halfway there!

It's been a month and a half since I last posted, I figure it's about time for an update! ;)

Let's begin where we left off. I was very antsy around the time when Jonathan died. Then we heard the heartbeat, saw a beautiful ultrasound with no omphalocele and I felt much better. I didn't realize how nervous and on edge I was until after the ultrasound when I felt such relief. A few people at work even noticed that I wasn't quite myself.

So let's catch up on some belly pics.

This is 6 weeks.

That's 8 weeks.

10 weeks.

11 weeks

14 weeks

Smuggling a small beach ball today, at 19 weeks, 6 days.

Same day, no shirt.

Now some pictures from our three million ultrasounds:

at 6 1/2 weeks

12 weeks

Yikes! An alien!

Beautiful profile at 16 weeks

Best thumb-sucker ever, at nearly 19 weeks.

Had enough of the pictures?

In other news, I've been feeling the baby regularly since about 15 weeks. At first I wasn't quite sure what it was. Then it started feeling like someone was flicking me on the inside. Or like little legs kicking. One of the engineers at work said maybe the baby was headbutting me. Perhaps. :) Now it feels strange and weird, but in a good way. I'll feel a movement as the baby moves from one place to another. I like it. I wish I felt it all the time!

We did not find out the sex and we are not going to! So there!

We painted the baby's room a few weeks ago. It's a pretty sage green color. We have a cradle that my sister-in-law used (which had come from a cousin before that) set up in there now, but otherwise nothing else is set up. We haven't fully registered yet. I've put on some things just online, but we really need to go to the store. We have time though. This time we're not in any hurry.

I've signed us up for childbirth classes and myself for a breastfeeding class. The childbirth class is at the hospital and should cover a bunch of things. It's 2 hours/day for 6 classes. I'm also planning to read a bunch of books on different methods of pain management. Birthing From Within has been recommended a lot, so I've borrowed it from an engineer at work whose wife really liked it. She also lent me a hypnobirthing book and another general book.

I can't wait to see our little baby. :-) Yay!

Yes, yes, everything's fine.

I promise I'll post more belly pics and ultrasound pics soon. I've been busy!

I'm now nearly 14 weeks. I told everyone at work yesterday. Yup, on April 1st. It was pretty funny. Some people didn't believe me until today. Tee hee hee. I was told by one of the engineers that it was the best April Fool's joke she'd ever heard since it was true and the joke really was on them. Woo hoo!

So everything is fine. We had another ultrasound at about 7 1/2 weeks and had a really good heartbeat that time. We heard the heartbeat on the doppler at 10 and 11 weeks (I was paranoid; we went to the midwive's office a lot) and then we had an ultrasound last Friday, at 12 1/2 weeks. We saw a baby! It even looks like a baby! (I'll post pics tomorrow or this weekend, promise!)

Everything looks great. The Nuchal Translucency was great, the heartbeat was great, the baby was great! It was moving around and putting its hands to its face and we even saw it swallowing water. They said the way the baby is measuring, my due date is October 4. I love how they just move your due date around at random, as if it means anything. That baby is coming whenever it want!

I'm starting to show, at least to me and Jen. My engineers at work say they can't tell. One (more honest one) said that it just looks like I've been eating a lot of cake. Hehe.

I have gained a whopping (not really) 7 pounds. I'm almost at 160. I was 152 when we started, then I actually went down to 150 before going back up again. This morning I was 159.

I'm not really feeling sick anymore. That started going away about 2 weeks ago. Now I occasionally feel a little queasy after dinner. Today I felt a little queasy after an afternoon snack, but then I was fine. I hadn't felt sick in the afternoon in awhile. I seem to have a tiny bit more energy. I still crave eggs often. I even had eggs for dinner!

I don't feel nearly as paranoid and worried now that we had the ultrasound. I have another at 16 weeks, then I might not have anymore at all. At the last one they were able to see that it looked as though the abdomen had closed over completely with no herniations or omphaloceles! So it's unlikely that they'll see anything like that at 16 weeks. They'll do all the normal counting of fingers and toes then too. And we may need another one around 18 or 20 weeks if they can't see anything, but the doc knew that I might be a little antsy and so she scheduled it sooner. That week we have a regular midwife appointment on Tuesday and then the ultrasound on Friday. Lots of appointments that week. :-)

Next time, pictures.

I'm gonna puke on you!

I don't know why they call it morning sickness. I feel great in the morning. It's the afternoon around 2 or 3 and for sure after dinner that I feel queasy. I don't feel like puking though, just queasy.

I'm back to my non-sweet cravings. I had scrambled eggs with ketchup for a snack the other night. That was yummy.

We had our ultrasound on Monday and there was a little baby in there with a heartbeat. We get a follow-up ultrasound on Thursday to make sure the heartbeat goes up (it was a little slow on Monday) and then we'll be on a regular appt schedule I think. No more "viability" appointments. That'll be nice.

I'm going to have to post some pictures of my bellies and of our leeetle baby (who is currently the size of a lentil).

Here's right at the beginning, probably about 4 weeks and a few days. Just my normal tummy. I do think I'm starting to pooch out sooner than I did last time, but that's because my body already knows what to do. Nobody but me would notice it though. Everyone else will just think I'm gaining weight.
Here's my uterus. The white snake-like thing is the baby and the yolk sac. Still very little. :)