Preparing For Ethan.

After three consecutive days of shopping until I literally wanted to drop, I am still having a blast preparing for Ethan. Tonight my husband and I will be measuring his nursery to finalize our furniture plans. I have such big plans for his nursery and playroom and it's so exciting to actually begin to execute these plans.

Ethan is already loved by so many and one necessary item I needed for his nursery (atop his dresser, specifically) is a photo album. A photo album to hold photos of those who love him meeting him for the first time and all of his other special first photos. I wanted something to match his nursery (which will be an under the sea theme) and something that he could cherish for years to come. I knew Etsy would be my go-to place. From there, I found:


Click on the banner and it'll take you directly to her Etsy shop! Not only was she seriously a dream to work with, but she (extremely quickly!) created exactly what I had in mind, and then some.



How incredibly cute is that album?! I hardly do the "advertisement thing" but this is one shop that needs to be checked out. If the cuteness alone didn't sway you, I can only say that Miss Sew N Sews made it seem like she shared the excitement of welcoming Ethan with us! Thanks to her, we now have this wonderful keepsake for Ethan as we prepare his nursery and plan his arrival.

It's moments like these where I see his name and can't believe that I'm going to be a mommy to such a wonderful little son in just a few months. He already has a closet full of clothes (what?! I couldn't help it!) and I know every piece we add to his nursery will just make it feel all the more real and wonderful.

I already love him so much!

And it's a...

...BOY!

--

True Blue - Bright Eyes

Today was our anatomy scan. I took the 8:15 a.m. appointment because I knew I'd be so impatient all day. They didn't take us back into the room until 8:50 which made me so antsy! We got called into the room and I totally just pulled up my shirt and was ready to go. The tech took a ton of pictures and then said, "uh oh, Baby just won't open it's legs!" I swear, I was about to cry. My husband was yelling at me to calm down but, come on!, that couldn't happen!

Eventually baby cooperated and, behold, there was a penis! We didn't have a preference for either sex and we both were guessing boy, but it was still such a surge of joy! Joy and excitement and a desire to bust out of there (after the doctor confirmed everything looks fine) and buy up all of the adorable baby boy clothes the world can make. Which we did. More on that later.

I felt like I was walking on air! "The Baby" had a name now: Ethan Nicholas. We could call him Ethan instead of "baby" and "he" instead of "it."

Our first stop was to my parents where I played them True Blue by Bright Eyes (the song accompanying this post!) and made them guess the sex of the baby. My mom got it on the first mention of the word "blue." My dad sat there intently listening until my mom couldn't stand it anymore and we all laughed as he tried to understand what the song had to do with boys. Oh, dad!

Aaron went off to work and mom and I went off to shop, after a delicious lunch. We picked up Megan from school and played the song for her. She, too, got it on the first "blue!" The three of us went to Babies 'R' Us where I'm pretty sure we literally went on a shopping spree. After, we went to Macy's where I'm pretty sure we went on even more of a shopping spree. Once we got home, my best friend brought over more clothes. Ethan officially has more clothes (in one day!) than I've had in my lifetime. Not even kidding, see?


That's my coffee table underneath all of those clothes!

As for me, I'm feeling wiped out. I couldn't sleep last night due to nerves and excitement over today. Now I get to go read my son (whoa!) a bedtime story before I totally pass out. ♥

Halfway there! (Whoa, livin' on a prayer!)

Okay, I'm cheating a little bit. I'm not officially 20 weeks until tomorrow. However, I'm making this entry today because tomorrow is our anatomy scan and I'm sure I'll come waltzing (or, you know, running) in the door, throw my stuff down and excitedly make the "boy or girl" announcement -- thus forgetting all about my weekly post. And, really, how can baby ever grow up feeling complete without knowing what fruit or vegetable he/she was compared to at 20 weeks? See my predicament?

Aside from the huge pain in the ass that is getting comfortable to go to sleep, falling asleep and staying asleep, I'm feeling pretty good. I have energy and have actually been cooking dinner and acting like, you know, a human. When I finish this post, I'm actually going to run multiple errands. On my own. Without crying and/or falling asleep at the wheel. These are things that exhausted me to even think about earlier on in my pregnancy so I'm happy for this little energy surge. Comfortable sleep (or lack thereof) aside, I've been plagued with heartburn for a solid 20 out of 24 hours daily. It doesn't matter what I eat, be it fruit or a baked potato or a sip of water. It's totally obnoxious but I can't even be too upset, just because I've been feeling so great in general.

As for Baby, he/she (ohmygosh, we find out tomorrow!) is the length of a CANTALOUPE. Does that not seem insane?! A cantaloupe! Baby is approximately 10.5 inches from head to toe and weighs 10.5 ounces!

Baby already has a favorite sleep position and can be falling into a (soon to be) noticeable cycle of sleep and activity. Baby's #1 goal from here on out is to keep gaining weight. Go for it, Baby. I'll take any and all stretchmarks for the team. He or she is swallowing more these days, which is awesome practice for the digestive system. Baby is also producing meconium which is the black, sticky substance accumulating in his/her bowels -- which my lovely husband will be changing out of those first diapers. Baby's bones are continuing to ossify and get stronger. If baby ends up being a boy, his testes are descending but have not yet passed the abdominal wall. Probably (okay, most definitely) the cutest part: Baby's little eyelashes are now present!

Today is my last day of not knowing if I'm having a son or a daughter. I can already tell I'm going to be so anxious that I won't be able to sleep tonight. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that baby cooperates (or that I get an understanding tech who will understand that I'm not going anywhere until we find out!).

So, any final guesses?!


What do YOU think? After some last minute flip-flopping, I'm sealed in my original guess that Baby is a boy. Aaron finally admitted that he thinks it's a boy, too. Any other guesses?

Baby Bedding, Oh My.

We're officially at six days -- less than a week! -- until we find out if Baby is a boy or a girl. This is well and good save for one little detail: our dream nursery bedding if Baby is a girl is being discontinued. No, shut up, this really is a big deal.

Over the days, I've watched the number of sets in stock dwindle down to a point where I started feel squirmy and nervous. There are, quite literally, no other bedding sets that we've managed to love like we do this one. Apparently bird themed nurseries for baby girls containing no pink at all is quite a specific request with very few options (read: one option). And, as luck would have it, it just so happens that this one option is breathtakingly beautiful and more than I could ever imagine in a set of nursery bedding.

I've struggled with rationalization. Plain and simple: we don't know if Baby is a boy or a girl yet. It's absolutely ludicrous to just order this bedding set and then be stuck with it, discontinued and all, when Baby ends up being a boy. I've been saturated with gut feelings that Baby is a boy since I tested positive. Not that my gut feelings are scientifically accurate but they did aid in my attempts to rationalize. Rationalization worked in other ways, though. I saw that people were listing the sets on E-Bay and getting bids. People were going to want this set. If our baby proves to be a boy, I can always list the set on E-Bay and make someone else happy with it.

I went to sleep last night and, right before I crawled into bed, checked on my girl bedding. There were 5 left. Five was a very, very low number. I dreamed about it a few times during the night. I bolted out of bed at 7:30 this morning and checked on the bedding set again: only three left. THREE.

I had to act fast. So I ordered it. I ordered the bedding set and the window valance. As soon as that e-mail hit my inbox confirming my order and an expected arrival date of February 22nd-24th (the latter being our anatomy scan, of all the irony in the world), I breathed a sigh of relief.

The funny part is, I still think that Baby is a boy and now I've gone from worrying about not having the bedding to wondering how we'll get rid of it. Peace of mind renders priceless, though. The bedding will soon safely be in transit to our home where it'll either be turned into a brilliant no-pink-welcomed, bird-themed nursery or where it'll sit in a linen closet until I find someone who is seeking it as badly as we were. I feel so daring and impulsive. I feel so fiscally irresponsible (I've been married to my accountant husband too long) and spontaneous!

...I feel like I just gave myself another dose of impatience to see me through the next six days.

19 Weeks!

After The Storm - Mumford & Sons

Today I'm 19 weeks along! In addition to difficulty falling asleep, copious amounts of heartburn and the almighty leg cramp, this also means there is exactly ONE WEEK until our anatomy scan. Wait. Maybe you didn't grasp the sheer awesomeness of that statement. Let me try again: IN JUST SEVEN MERE DAYS, WE FIND OUT IF BABY IS A BOY OR A GIRL! Though a great deal can be attributed to a growing belly and general discomfort, I am admittedly responsible for part of my paralyzing nighttime insomnia. Thoughts of "boy or girl?!" go running through my mind until they're running so quickly that my whole head becomes a blur.

Some of the ladies at my sister's dance studio made me do "the ring trick" last night. According to that totally scientific, not at all unreasonable old wives tale, I am having a boy. Then there are the people who tell me I'm carrying high, which without flaw or uncertainty means I'm having a girl. My mother begs me to pee in a cup of Draino because even though during her pregnancy that test of unbridled accuracy claimed I was a boy, she's sure it can't be wrong. I'm just trying to cover my ears and sing a song in my head and get through these next few days until the anatomy scan.

I also want to start calling the baby by his or her name instead of, you know, Kid Rock -- which is what we've all admittedly been calling it. Or KR as a short, less-offensive nickname for my adorable little baby who is not straight out of Compton nor straight out the trailer. I'm hoping by the time my child is old enough to read back on these blogs or my Belly Book, he or she will not have the slightest idea who Kid Rock was. That will save me some kind of embarassing explanation as I reluctantly hit play on my Kid Rock CD that noIswearIdon'treallystillhave from 8th grade. Ahem.

As for little KR, my usual trusty fruit or vegetable comparison website kind of failed me. This week, it compared KR to a...mango. We're pretending that didn't happen. See, I'm allergic to mangos. If I touch them by accident at the grocery store, my fingers turn red and blotchy and itch-itch-itch, which is a more pleasant version of what happens when I actually ingest them. I cringed at the sight of that mango on my computer monitor this morning and decided that, no, that won't do. So I found another website which compared Baby's size to something way less frightening (and, oh, so delicious):

A 6-inch Subway sub!

Sold! We'll stick with that one. With turkey. And Provolone. Oh, yummy. Gosh, I miss cold cuts.

Anyway, Baby is having a pretty exciting time in there lately. Baby's sensory development is exploding (in a good way!). His or her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Baby is 6 inches long and 8 1/2 ounces! Baby's arms and legs are finally in proportion now. The hair on his or her head is sprouting -- and if this child is anything like it's father or me, I'm sure there's already a ton of hair coming in!

Vernix is coating Baby's skin now to prevent damage from the amniotic fluid. Under the vernix, a fuzzy layer of hair called lanugo now covers baby's body.

The gums and teeth are now starting to develop in Baby's cute little mouth, too! If little KR really is a girl (like my mother insists she just HAS to be!), her ovaries are already producing 6 million eggs!


Commend Baby for all that hard work he/she is doing in there! Give us a click at the link below and we'd surely appreciate it! A click is all it takes.

Doctor's Appointments & Boca Ladies.

I get so nervous before my doctor's appointments. I don't know why. If the nurse even tries to take my blood pressure prior to my seeing the doctor (and thus getting a confirmation that I have nothing to worry about), it sky rockets so high that I'm almost embarrassed it'll break her machine.

Today was my monthly OB appointment. That means that I tossed and turned for most of the night, unable to get much sleep at all. I watched the Headline News programs repeat themselves again and again until Robin Meade took over in the morning.

I tried to trick myself into believing I wasn't really worrying: I planned dinners for the week, thought about what I've been reading and the most interesting parts of the story...nothing worked, though. Nothing ever does.

I crawled out of bed at 7:30. I gave myself a face full of make-up. No, literally: skin primer, foundation, powder, eyeshadow base -- the works. My OB office is located right smack in the middle of Boca. These ladies who share a waiting room with me look like they're always about to walk a runway. They can be nine months pregnant but still glammed out in couture track suits or designer dresses with stiletto heels. Their hair is always blown out and styled just so and their make-up leads you to believe they just had it done prior to their appointment. They have nannies chasing around their other child or children and they sit there contently in the seats, reading Vogue and sipping on their $12 decaf lattes while never ever messing up their lipstick. For the first few months, there was me: barely out of my pajamas, my hair a mess, my skin broken out, a cup of Ginger Ale in one hand and a tube of Saltines in the other. I was constantly running to the bathroom to vomit and staggering my nauseous way back to wait. Now that I officially beat morning sickness, I make it my mission to at least put on make-up and share a lobby with dignity. It's a quest I can never win, considering I'll always be 9-inches shorter than these other woman and I don't know what to do with a hairdryer even if you were to give me one. I may go down in flames but, damn it, at least I try!

Today I arrived and shared an elevator with a woman who stood about 5'10" (10 inches taller than me!) with her perfectly formed baby bump and her perfectly designed dress (and stilettos). She smelled like perfume and fruity hair products and stared straight ahead and I climbed into the elevator like a lost child (albeit one with make-up!). I may have lived here my entire life but, damn it, I will forever fail at being a Boca Lady!

My doctor's appointment went well. I heard the baby's heartbeat play from the doppler and finally breathed that sigh of relief I've been longing to breathe. I start off my appointments shaky from nerves and leave feeling wobbly like gelatin with the soothing feeling of relief running through my body. On my way out, my wonderful OB reminded me that there are only NINE DAYS until we find out what Baby is. NINE DAYS until I know if I'm having a son or a daughter. The closer it gets, the more excited I get to find out.

Either way, this is one awesome Baby and I am already so proud to be his or her mom!

18 Weeks.

I am 18 weeks along today.

This is exciting for a few reasons:
I am unquestionably pregnant now. People are a little bit nicer to me in the grocery store (i.e. The Boca Bitches let me get to the milk first without ramming me with their carts atleast 15% of the time now).

I am two weeks closer to my anatomy scan and finding out if Baby is a SHE or a HE! On this topic, I must also admit that my girl-brained family and friends are doing a decent job at convincing me that Baby might be a girl. I find myself now facing a toss up when it comes to what I think Baby is. I'm almost leaning towards girl these days.

I have officially stopped vomiting in the mornings. I actually wake up feeling hungry and not like there is a volcano erupting in my stomach and the lava is thisclose to spewing out, out, out. (This bullet is followed by a knock on wood heard around the world.)

One of the most exciting parts about being pregnant these days, though, is that I (finally!) got to feel Baby move for the first time! I hate throwing the word "finally!" around when all of my pregnancy books say to expect this between 17-22 weeks on your first pregnancy, but I started to feel like the only pregnant lady on any pregnancy forum who hadn't felt any movement yet! Neurotic Mom-To-Be is Neurotic. Yet on Tuesday, February 8th, as I was laying on the couch hugging my Snoogle and watching How I Met Your Mother reruns, I felt Baby move for the first time. I don't know how to describe it other than a conglomerate of faint tapping and fluttering little pops. It's as weird (but wonderful!) a feeling as it sounds!

Baby's development is also super interesting this week. We're 5 days away from our next OB appointment and two weeks away from our anatomy scan. That means it's a busy week for Baby! But it's a busy week for Baby for other reasons, too, not involving white coats or ultrasound wands.

Baby is busy growing-growing-growing! Up from last week's onion (thank god, because the smell of onions haunts my dreams at night these days), Baby is now the size of a sweet potato (but much cuter, I'm sure):

Holy god, why don't you just tell me that I have a football field in my belly, too?! (I know, I know. Again: this is nothing.)

Baby's ears are now facing forward and are completely formed! This means Baby can actually hear those bedtime stories I've been reading to him/her every single night since my positive pregnancy test. (This probably also means time to put away the Alkaline Trio CDs in the car and put on some Rockabye Baby!) Baby's bones are hardening and his/her senses are working hard at developing! Smell, taste, sight and hearing are all busy developing rapidly this week. A substance called myelin, which makes nerve connections travel faster, is now coating Baby's nerves.

If you can believe it (god knows I can't!), Baby now weighs between 5 and 7 ounces and is about 5½ inches long!

Commend Baby for all that hard work he/she is doing in there! Give us a click at the link below and we'd surely appreciate it! A click is all it takes.

17 weeks

Sunday Best - Augstana

Earlier this morning (only about an hour ago), I declared today a good day because I didn't vomit. I'm still vomiting every morning, mind you (with an extra-large puke fest on my birthday this past Tuesday. Thanks, Baby!). I shouldn't have spoken so soon. I guess Baby didn't like my yogurt and banana breakfast.

So, I'm 17 weeks along now. In addition to still puking every morning and getting that unbearable wave of fatigue in the afternoon, my face still looks worse than any "before" shot from a Proactiv commercial that I've ever seen. I in-all-seriousness look like I have some mutant version of the chicken pox and while my face may be the worst victim, it's not the only victim. I have weird piles of acne popping up in strange places: my neck, my scalp, my arms. This all convinces my mother that I'm having a girl but it convinces me of nothing other than the fact I very well may be having a Chuckie doll.

It's getting closer and closer (but not quickly enough!) to our February 24th anatomy scan. Last night, I had an extremely vivid and specific dream that Baby is a girl. This is only the second time I've pictured Baby as a girl this entire time. Girl, boy, whatever -- I just want it to be February 24th already!

As far as Baby goes, he or she is the size of...

...an onion this week!

I look forward to the fruit and vegetable comparisons each week and it always is the same thing: I can't believe how big Baby got and I can't imagine he or she getting any bigger. (Yeah, I know. This is nothing!)

Over the next four weeks, Baby's weight will increase approximately six times! His/her fingernails and toenails are beginning to grow from their nailbeds. Baby is perfecting his/her sucking and swallowing reflexes (and no matter what this says, I feel like Baby is practicing a kickboxing routine in there, too). Baby weighs five ounces this week and is a little over five inches long!

Baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone. The umbilical cord is growing stronger and thicker, too. Baby can move his/her joints now and even sweat glands are starting to develop. Baby's limbs are almost at their proper proportions and will now continue to grow evenly with his/her body. Baby is now capable of hearing and reacting to sounds even though hish/her ears are not yet structurally complete or fully functional.