a very prego christmas

what a week! friends and family visits on both sides of my husband and i turned our little vacation in milwaukee into a full out marathon. deep sighs and some tears (mostly mine) on our way back to the airport was indicative that you never really get as much time with loved ones as you want or plan. oh, i love where we live and the life that we've been slowly carving out for ourselves but i do still get awfully homesick for my life pre-baby bump and pre-move to the pacific northwest. i had my hangouts, my groupings of friends and my comfortable routines...and then this guy just had to appear and make me all weak in the knees and sappy as hell and want to do crazy things like run off to the mountains and learn how to snowboard and paddleboard and many other activiites involving boards (hmmm, headboards? oh hell yeah), the bastard. ;)

anyway, no need for an exhausting rundown of all the people and places but there were a few significant moments worth mentioning:

1. snuggling my first newborn in quite a long time (given that my nephew is almost 5 years old already, good lord). my cousin gave birth a month ago and i got to hold and feed and photograph her little darling, lily. (not to mention watching ND with her was really comforting. he is sooooo good with kids. i think i mentioned before in a previous post that if we weren't already expecting i might be hurrying the process along a bit - and coming from me, severely frightened by something so life altering, that's saying something). it definitely helped solidify a lot of things swirling around in my head. i CAN do this. it's not always going to be easy, but i can do this. rocking and walking around with her while family sat around and chit-chatted was a very zen-like experience.

2. all the prego cousins swapping stories and experiences thus far. myself and two other first cousins on the same side are all pregnant, all with baby boys, and all due THE SAME WEEK. so unbelievably crazy. family keeps trying to make jokes about "something being in the water" but the three of us all live in different states now. the aunties are all placing bets as to which one of us goes into labor first. connecting with one of my pregnant cousins over facebook at length lately has been particularly meaningful to me. we were the best of friends as little girls and over time have drifted apart but having this major life event in common has been a great unifier. i just love talking to her again.

3. time spent with ND's kids. often hurried and with restrictions and limitations placed on all of us by "the powers that be" (that we try very hard not to get us down), it's still so wonderful to see them as much as humanly possible. they are fantastic kids*. plus his mom is just the bee's knees and i can't say enough good things about his whole family.

4. all the friends i got to see - in groups and individually when i/they could get away for small bursts of time. i feel loved and supported x a million.

5. my mom feeling the baby kick. more tears (but happy ones, of course)


*kids? what do i call them? they're 13 and 17 years old, fer crying out loud. but i guess they'll always be ND's babies. ;)

name game part II

i think we've finally come to a solid agreement on our little man's name, thank the "eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby jesus, in your golden fleece diapers with your curled-up, fat, balled-up little fists pawin' at the air"*. and oddly enough the last battle to be fought (and won by me, ha!) had only to do with the spelling of the middle name. i cleverly realized weeks later that by using my choice of spelling, that he could have a rather wicked choice of logos and branding options with his initials (should he ever be interested in such a thing). once i showed ND my crude drawing of one such example, he came over to the dark side. muahahahahaha. wish i could show the drawing but that might give too much away and after our baby/wedding news announcements were thwarted by nosey family members, we're guarding this little tidbit until he's born.

*Ricky: Dear Tiny, Infant, Jesus...
Carley: Hey, um, sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call him baby. It's a bit odd and off-puttin' to pray to a baby.
Ricky: Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want.

baby bird lists

what we've lovingly been calling you these last few months:

sprout
peanut
little man
lil' fishstick (ND somehow came up with the nickname "fishstick" for me a long time ago so baby bird therefor is naturally "lil' fishstick")
bebe
bebe burrrrrrito (must be said with lots of r-rolling)
bun
bun-bun
wee bitty bumpkin
babushka
tadpole
mistermister
ralphalfa (ND HATEShateshates this one, but given his last name i think it's cute/funny).

stuff i'm looking forward to:

little kisses, cuddles, and new baby smells
outings (and eventual hikes and camping) with our new little family
seeing ND bond with the little one (swoon)
the hard work involved that can be so rewarding
new books and toys
all the firsts
having a daily subject to photograph
going back to taking hot, hot, hot showers - the kind that makes your skin all pink and probably isn't good for you but i loved them
getting to have that glass of wine or beer with dinner again (and moving on to a nice glass of scotch or bourbon when i'm done breastfeeding).
being able to start running again

stuff i'm afraid of: 

not being able to breastfeed
feeling lost, overwhelmed and unprepared
the hard work that can seem like it never gets done and just keeps piling up
not working with a steady income for an undermined amount of time (srsly. omg. freak out).
losing touch with friends because family suddenly becomes priority
not being able to create or have time for side projects
not having anything to talk to or relate to people about other than babies/baby stuff (just shoot me)
not being able to go to concerts or bars on a whim anymore
not being able to lose the weight
having ND's other kids feel left out or not as important to us

away we go...

we had an appointment (meet n' greet) with the midwives of Seattle Midwives in Greenwood last night and i just adore them. oh, i feel so much more relaxed and at ease now knowing that this process is going to be a joint effort among like-minded women. i filled out my transfer paperwork right there after the meeting. our first actual "official" appointment is getting bumped until around my 27th week due to the fact that ND and i will be in wisconsin for the week of christmas - but it's on my calendar and i'm ecstatically happy.

also! i learned something from them i didn't know from all my extensive reading - did you know that you can labor in water in a hospital but you have to get out to push? they make you. some legal mumbo-jumbo. but i can have a perfectly safe and legal water birth from start to finish at home or at the birthing center. score! and suck that, ms. doctor lady, who kept trying to convince me i could have the same birthing experience at evergreen as a birthing center.

i do, however, have a call into the nurse's station there as we speak because we watched the movie "away we go" not too long ago and though maya rudolph's character is only 6 months pregnant (exactly how far along i will be at christmas time) they tell her she can't board the plane because "she's big"/they think she's farther along than she's saying. they then have to scramble to make other travel arrangements - a la uncomfortable time consuming train car. noooo, thank you. i'm all about romantic train rides, but not when the only week off i have is going to be hectic enough as it is with trying to squeeze in multiple family visits, a photo shoot, friends, and time with nate's kids. so, i'm seriously wondering if i need a doctor's note and maybe i should have one with me just in case. i AM NOT going to take the risk of being a preggo lady crying into her cell phone to her parents saying she can't come home for christmas because of something like that. and knowing my luck, the airline wouldn't give me the bad news until AFTER the TSA agent had already gotten to 3rd base.

seriously though. can.not.believe. how fast this is going. and el bebe ear of corn is kicking harder and harder and more frequently too. enough so that i tend to let out little surprise noises when he gets a good one in. it took a few weeks but ND is getting used to my "ufs!" and "ohs!" and "GOOD LORD almighty, kiddo, what in THE FREAKING HELL are you doing to your mama?!!" we were sitting on the couch a few nights ago when he started doing laps in the embryonic sac pool or playing womb-wii or something of that nature and i pulled my shirt up because i wanted to see if we could actually "see" him. oh yeah, we could. i'm so glad ND doesn't get freaked out by stuff like that - we mostly just sat and watched in silent dumbfoundedness at his strength so early on. i know i'm in for some rib or kidney bruising in the last few months due to my little ultimate fighting champion but instead of worrying, i'm so happy that he's healthy and strong and definitely responding to the sounds of our voices. oh, and james brown. bebe LOVES when i crank that sweet soul music on the car stereo...

- mama bee and james brown say baby baby baby, baby baby baby...

24 weeks

i had the glucose test at evergreen yesterday which was...eventful. ND and i kept laughing at the fact that they called it "glucola" on the instructions as if it were a sparkling, thirst quenching soft drink: "mmmmmmm, glucola: it probably tastes like pedialyte but with all the sugar of a redbull." "mmmmm glucola: keeps you and baby bouncing off the walls." "mmmmmm, glucola: welcome to the diabetes side of life."

the long page of instructions they give you with this bottle of liquid made the whole thing seem a little more complicated then it really was but i left home that morning and timed my watch for exactly one half hour before my appointment (no eating for two hours before and the entire bottle must be consumed within 10 minutes with a blood test to be given exactly one hour after drinking the noxious concoction, blahblahblah). it started beeping as i was sitting at a stoplight about two blocks from the clinic (thanks seattle traffic) - so i really could have waited until i pulled into a parking spot but the bottle was sitting next to me in the cup holder, so, why not? i chugged that puppy like a good little frat boy. it wasn't the most horrible thing i've ever tasted - a bit of a sugary/flat soda sort of aftertaste. no problem-o. but what they don't tell you is that they then keep you waiting in the doctor's office for 45 minutes with no cell reception (stupid basement suites) just to take some blood. (i should have grabbed a book, or a magazine, or a freaking pamphlet). and in that 45 minutes in the very warm basement suite of the doctor's office, i start feeling a little queasy - nothing horrible - but i'm starting to get uncomfortable and bebe is obviously feeling the sugar rush (hellooooo world!) because he's bending it like beckham in there which isn't helping things. the nurse came in and did a quick fetal heart monitoring - that part was cute because she starting laughing - anytime she put a little bit of pressure on my stomach he started kicking her. that's my boy!

then more waiting...

and some more...

and some more...

the florescent lights are just starting to make me twitchy in a murderous kind of way when my doctor breezes through the door. she says she's surprised to see me because ND and i had mentioned transferring to a midwife/birthing center. i told her unfortunately the Puget Sound was filled to capacity for the month of march (apparently there's a lot of summer lovin' going on because march is a very popular birthing month) so we're still interviewing other places. then it gets all sorts of weird because she goes into a long speech about how i really should give evergreen hospital a chance, and have i taken the tour yet, and blahdee blahdee blah - and when i start to voice my opinion she literally has a counterargument for every reason why i want a natural birth in a birthing center with a midwife. not that she was anti-natural birth but she was really trying to convince me that i could have the exact birthing experience i wanted in the hospital. even to go as far as to say that though the epidural rate is about 70%, that the nurses "get bored with that" and "enjoy having more things to do" concerning an unmedicated/"more uncomfortable for the mother" birth. i didn't have ND there as a support system this time around so i just sort of started nodding my head a lot because nothing i said was getting through to her. thankfully it was finally blood test time so the nurse came back to usher me to the little station and this is where my wuss factor totally kicked in. normally, i have no problem with needles or taking blood but i do know that my blood pressure has this annoying habit of dropping off the face of the earth at a moments notice, leaving me clammy, nauseous and wanting to pray or make some sort of sacrifice to the porcelain gods. and just as the nice nurse was finishing up her last little vile - whoops, there it goes...

"are you ok, honey?" she says. "um, i think i might be sick" and she points me to the nearest restroom where i quickly lock the door and drop to my knees. this is where the fun game of: WILL. SHE. PUKE?! actually starts. my stomach and brain like to duke it out a bit before one of them is declared ultimate champion. thankfully today brain is the winner because nothing is grosser than having to be sick in a public restroom. a women's clinic bathroom is probably exponentially cleaner then say a yankee stadium bathroom or a port a potty (thankfully i've experienced getting sick in neither) - but still, gross. i meekly stand up, wash my face and walk back out to the nurses station. she hands me a juice box and has me sit down until the color comes back into my face. i tell her i think it's the not eating paired with the sugar rush that did me in. "yeah, we nurses like to mess with you pregnant ladies as much as possible." at least she's funny and i was starting to feel better. i asked her if this was normal and she did say that some people do feel a little sick after the whole process.

at work i did a little more research and sure enough, a lot of women experience varying degrees of puke-itude and general nausea. a friend empathetically posted on my facebook wall that she nearly passed out several times (she has multiple children and she always fails the first test so they make the poor girl go through it all again). yeesh. you mean i might have to do this more than once!? fantastic. here's hoping i pass.

"mmmmm.....gulcola. side affects may include barfing, hurling, spewing, tossing your cookies, retching, puking, or technicolor yawns."

23 weeks

things ND has said in the last week that made me spit things out or roll on the floor with side ache laughing pains:

nd: "wait, what's all this about a baby? i thought we were getting a puppy."

after i was telling him about a very restless night due to baby kickings:
e: i think el bebe is trying to prepare us for the sleepless nights ahead.
nd: we'll just deal with it as it comes...with earplugs and alcohol.

seriously, he has me in stitches most of the time. i just love being married to him and i see so clearly what an amazing dad he is. he is so patient with me, so loving, so hands-on, and not to mention his ability to have a sense of humor about most everything. my uncertainty at first has given way to the undeniable feeling that our little family is very meant to be.

our house will be so full with laughter and love.