Nesting. Check.

We're learning that there are varying degrees of "We're Ready". Last week, we were physically ready, with a place to put a baby. And that was a relief. So this week, we've had some time off together over the holiday so there has been quite a bit more Getting Ready.

Meet the official, finished (except for pictures on the wall) nursery:


The thing hanging down from the little pink shelf is a ribbon for barrettes and hair stuff. So cute that it almost hurts to look at it ;).


A very comfy chair, with gliding footrest. Some assembly was required.


That bookshelf was mine when I was growing up. It initially (like in 1980) was pink. Then teal (1986ish, when everything was teal), then a very unpleasant green (I don't know what happened there...) then kind of a neutral beige. It is now pink again. It's the circle of furniture life, and it truly does move us all. We stripped it down to bare wood, and it's now ready for the next generation of color experimentation.

This has been kind of a tough few days. I'm not sleeping very much (yeah yeah practice for when the baby gets here, just hang on, just you wait, blah blah blah) and so it was nice to have some time off where I can just sleep when the mood strikes. She's moving around a lot. I'm kind of high maintenance myself (just ask Rob...). Speck is taking my very carefully-cultivated Princess-and-the-Pea thing to new levels. It's becoming very clear that she has a narrow definition of what is comfortable, and I am at her mercy right now. More than once in the wee small hours of the morning, I've thought wistfully about a day that I'll be able to hand her to someone (like Rob...) and maybe score five minutes of comfort on my stomach. I know I'll miss how amazing it has been to have her all to myself--except for the times when Rob gets brave enough to put his hand on my roiling belly until she shoves it off. But I think We're Ready for the next phase to begin. Remind me that I said this in 6 weeks when I'm running on 8 minutes of sleep and my unwashed hair is permanently fused to the scrunchy holding it out of my eyes.

So that's what the expectant parents are up to. And here is the expectant dog:


Freshly groomed and hoping that someone will come to grab that duck out of her mouth, Gracie also patiently waits for the new arrival.

The Home Stretch

So today I am 34 weeks. Babyfit.com says:

Your Baby This Week A bouncing bundle of joy at 5 pounds (2.5 kg) and nearly 20 inches (51 cm), your baby's organs are almost fully matured with the exception of the lungs, which will continue to develop almost until birth. Though you can't see your baby, her skin is turning from red to pink. While her fingernails are fully formed, the toenails still need more time to grow. Some babies will even have a full head of hair by this point.

Aw, she's pink. She matches her clothes :). And I can attest to the five-pound thing. It's pretty obvious where she is (on my right side) and when she moves (generally, right when I'm trying to go to sleep).

We're at the point where the big stuff is done. The crib is together


and we have a nice comfy chair


and we have breathed a sigh of relief because we now officially have a place to put her when she arrives. We've got some stuff to hang on the walls, and a bookshelf that is ready to paint, and that can happen this weekend. And then there's nothing left to do except wait. We're starting to take care of the business as well--we've found a daycare that looks to be just about perfect (it's right on campus and about a 5-minute walk from my office). We'll get on the waiting list as soon as she's born, and chances are good that we'll get into that. It's time to complete the FMLA paperwork so that I have a job to return to when my maternity leave is up. I'm setting up my office so that my assistant and my director can do what needs doing while I'm out without too much interruption to the workload. Stuff like that. It's weird to finally be at this point, where we're suddenly hurrying to get everything lined up. It's gone by pretty quickly.

And here's what I look like today...


Maternity clothes aren't exactly flattering, but you get the general idea. She's still pretty high up, and I think she's still pointed in the wrong direction. There's time for her to remedy that. I go back to the OB after Thanksgiving, and then weekly from there on out. Next perinatalogist appointment is the week after that. This is when the docs start figuring out whether anything is starting to happen and how ready everybody is to move out.

Coolest. Pictures. Ever.

It's been 10 weeks since we've seen the Speck show. We've gotten some feedback from people who tell us that they love seeing the pictures but it's sometimes difficult to tell what we're looking at. These might be a bit easier to decipher.




And the obligatory, super cute "Look At Her Little Foot" picture..


Really amazing, huh? We thought Dad & Florence might get a kick out of seeing not only the pictures but the live show as well, so they joined us this morning and I'm so glad they got to see her moving around. The staff at CMFM is great, and we've had the same ultrasound tech for the last 3 visits. She tends to narrate what she's looking at, so we got a full tour of Speck's functions and bloodflow and "princess parts" (i.e. she's still most definitely a girl). She's measuring at the 60th percentile for growth, which is well within the normal range , and she weighs 4 pounds 12 ounces, give or take half a pound, which is right where she needs to be at 32 weeks.

The tech actually commented on how active she is: "This has got to be the most active 8AM baby I think I've ever seen!" Yikes. That sentence should be followed by a gong or the music from the Psycho shower scene. I hadn't even had my single precious cup of coffee yet when she said that, either. The more time that passes, the more we realize that this kid is going to keep us jumping.

In other news, I had to take that stupid, awful 3 hour glucose tolerance test again on the weekend. Seriously, that makes for an awful day. Fortunately, my system seems to have leveled itself out and the numbers were about where they should be. This was good news after a month of fingersticks and blood testing four times a day. I'll get the details at the OB's office tomorrow morning, but it was good to hear that the results were better overall.

Let's see, what else.... the nursery is perilously close to being finished. We need to build a crib and that's about it. This is what it looks like right now. It's green, and I don't know if that's represented well by the current lighting we have in there...


That big box is the crib. Maybe this weekend? We make no promises.


This one's not a bad shot of the color--you can kind of tell that it's green. Note the stroller and the very small, very cute clothes hanging in the closet.

I just finished painting this nightstand--it's pink and super cute. The lamp was my mom's when she was growing up in Ventura.


So we're very very close to ready, roomwise. We have a bookshelf that was in my room when I was a kid that we'll paint to match the nightstand. A glider/rocker has been ordered, and hopefully will be here before the end of the month.

One last thing before I finish (I'm getting kicked pretty good by our active little princess which means that it's about time to go lay down) in regards to her name. We're pretty sure that we've come up with one that we like, and we've decided to keep it to ourselves until she gets here. It's a good name, that is easy to spell and we think it sounds nice with our last name. So bear with us, and play along. It's our turn to have some fun here, and we're looking forward to sharing it with you when the time is right.

We Don't Know Nothing 'Bout Birthing No Babies

Well, we didn't. Yesterday was our Childbirth Education class. We've heard mixed reviews about such things, so our expectations were pretty low. My OB recommended that we go, just because we haven't done this before and we might learn something. And we did. Quite a bit, actually. The teacher was a Labor & Delivery nurse from the hospital where we'll be delivering (check it out). She's been doing this for almost 30 years, most of which have been here in Vegas. She was a cross between Julia Child and Cloris Leachman. Very knowledgeable, lots of good information (like "Don't forget to bring lip balm" and "Make sure your car seat is installed before you show up to have a baby") and instructions. She warned of possible complications without being an alarmist and gave good advice about what to do if Something happens. She also gave us her home phone number, and invited us to call anytime with questions. Nice. We also got a tour of the hospital and now we know exactly where to go and what to do and say when we get there. They let us pre-register so we don't have to go through the whole admissions process. It was a long day, but we were pretty impressed with what we got for our 35 bucks.

This morning we put the stroller together. It's been sitting in its box for 3 months, and it was time. Not the most difficult thing in the world, as it was mostly intact. It folds up almost flat, so we won't be tripping over it for the next 2 months (HOLY CRAP TWO MONTHS OH MY GOD). There's a way to fold it up smartly with one hand that I haven't quite mastered yet. I'm going to be the over-excited expectant mom who practices folding up the stroller ;).

We have officially stopped sleeping. Not entirely, but we're down to about 5 hours a night and we're not sure why. I suppose there will be days ahead where we'll look back fondly on five hours of generally uninterrupted sleep and wish we could get that much again, but right now it kind of stinks. Waking up at 4:30 makes for a long day, and the earlier we go to sleep the earlier we wake up. So this morning, on this fine Sunday when we don't have to work and there are no real commitments at all, we were up a good 2 hours before sunrise. Yuck.

So what's next in our preparations? Finish painting--just touch ups, mostly. Paint the bookshelves, assemble the crib (note to self, buy a crib mattress), stuff like that. I've talked to one day care center--yes, we'll have to put our child in full-time day care and while we're not thrilled, there are several good options available--and we'll meet with a couple more before we commit. There is a ton of very small clothing that needs to be washed before anyone can wear it.

On paper, we're about ready for Speck's arrival. In reality... we'll figure it out as we go :)

What Does Thirty Weeks Look Like?

I'm thinking things are going to start happening now.

Thirty weeks is a big milestone. We're 3/4 done with what is probably the easy part of being parents. I feel pretty good, although sometimes I wish I was about 6 inches taller in order to have a little more room for her to move around. I have to watch how much dinner I have, because we are discovering new and exciting definitions of what "Full" feels like. My blood sugar is running just a bit high--not gestational diabetes high, but higher than my doctor likes to see. So I'm checking glucose levels 4 times a day which is super fun...

So here's what babyfit.com has to say about 30 weeks:

Your Baby This Week Now that your baby weighs about 3 pounds (1.3 kg) and measures about 17 inches (43 cm) in length, you're beginning to feel like your tummy will pop if she keeps growing!

Your little cherub is starting to look more like a chubby little cherub, growing plumper and cuter every day. Her hair is growing thicker on the scalp, and those lashes are lengthening. The hands and feet are now fully formed and baby's head and body are closer to normal proportions. Overall, your baby is beginning to look similar to how she will look at birth--just tinier. To prepare for her big entrance, your baby is now starting to control her own body temperature!

Yeah, that's about right. She moves around a lot! I notice it more in the evenings, when I slow down a little and try to relax. I've read that my movement during the day lulls her to sleep, and when I stop moving that's what wakes her up. We're going to keep this in mind after she gets here. Rob gets a little alarmed at how much my belly seems to jump around. It is a little weird to see :). I was at a meeting last week, and the people sitting across the table from me were pretty entertained by it.

So here's what 30 weeks pregnant looks like from the outside...


In case you haven't seen me in a while and have forgotten what I look like, I'm not the bride. This was taken yesterday at my assistant's wedding. The weather was beautiful, if a little warm. We're relaxed and smiling because there were A/C vents in the floor, and people didn't have a problem if the bride and the pregnant lady staked claims over the biggest vent.

We're just about finished painting the nursery--we just need to touch up around the very top of the walls along the ceiling.. Please note the change of verbiage from "spare bedroom" to "nursery". Yeah, that's where we are. The dresser is set up, and will be filled with very tiny baby clothes (seriously, the newborn onesies are impossibly small) this week. I'm not going to fold them, because I've been told they need to be washed. They're currently in piles, sorted by size. I figured that was as good a system as any for the time being. I'm open to suggestions about stuff like that, though.

I have a quick OB check this week, and then my next perinatalogist appointment is the first week in November. We'll have more ultrasound pictures then.

It's been a while

I think I'm at that point in pregnancy where not much is actually happening. She's growing and moving around a lot, but there have been no real headlines to talk about. My big symptom right now is that my sinuses have swelled up (along with the rest of me throughout the day) and I'm congested. My ENT says this is normal and common, and it will go away once she's born. Fantastic. We're making Puffs Plus rich this fall, let tell you.

Here's what babyfit.com says about week 27, which will start on Monday:

"It’s official—you’re starting your third trimester and well on your way to delivery day!

Your Baby: As growth continues, your baby weighs in at over 2 pounds (1 kg). And because his body is more developed, measurement no longer goes from rump to crown, but from tip to toe—about 15 inches (38cm)! Your baby can suck his thumb now, which is actually a good thing! It helps calm him, while also helping to strengthen jaw muscles and encourage the suckling reflex. Your baby can even cry now, but you won’t be able to hear him. "

Well there's some news--third trimester! Awesome!

The spare bedroom is now the nursery. We put some shelves up in the garage and we've been going through all of the Stuff that was in the room and the closet. There's a lot that we'll keep, but we won't be needing a storage unit! The crib and dresser have been delivered, and Some Assembly is Required. We're going to paint before we put anything together--that should start this week. The color is "mint truffle", and it's a nice soft green. We hope. At least the sample looks nice and soft.

That's it--I have a doctor's appointment this week, just a check-up for me.

Hi, I'm Kristie and I'm a Bounce House.

You know those inflatable bounce houses that people rent for their kids' birthday parties and stuff? And the kids get amped up on whatever it is kids eat (yeah, I know, we'll learn...) and drink and then they go inside the bounce house and jump around like this but much much faster (push play):


Yeah. That's me. Oof. During the day, she's either pretty quiet or I'm moving around enough that I'm just not feeling her as much. But when I lay down, or stretch out on the couch and try to relax, this child gets inspired to jump around. A lot. Constantly. She weighs maybe a pound and a half, and she somehow managed to gather up enough velocity to wake me up last night. I am officially nervous about whether she'll be like this once she's on the outside....nice and quiet all day and then she comes to life like a Tasmanian devil once the sun goes down.

This would be a good time for all of our friends who have already done this to tell us their stories about how their active little pre-natal beans got it all out of their systems and were happy little swaddled angels once they came out.

Stalked by the paparazzi

We're starting to realize that Miss Speck is not a fan of having her picture taken. People go to a lot of trouble to record every facet of her development, and she just doesn't cooperate. Like today, for example. Very important milestones needed to be confirmed, and she did her best to make everybody beg for it. She rolled around and flipped and put her arms over what they were trying to look for. But we did get some good shots.

Work with me here...
OK, if you squint a little you can see a big blob that is her head, looking at you (kind of scary, we know). The one little floating circle on the left is her right hand, and her other arm is folded over her chest. She spent most of the exam with her arms up around her head like that, much to the chagrin of the sonographer.

Another head shot. Top of her head is to the right, and the pointy part on the left is her chin. Her nasal cavity has formed, as have her eyelids and ears. Evidently, this is a good picture. We'll take the tech's word for it. She's beautiful :).

Profile! How cool is this!? The white spot above her head is her hand, in a gesture of drama and exasperation (she is my kid, after all...). Look at that little button nose. CUTE.


Another profile, and she's looking away now. You can see more of her torso, and that black spot is her heart. The tech looked at her heart quite a bit, and all four chambers are pumping furiously (136 bpm today...). The sonogram machine has a function that adds color to highlight bloodflow, so this one was all lit up blue and red. Super cool, that.


This is her right foot. The smaller blob behind it is her left foot. She crossed one behind the other like I do. Awww...

So that's where we are today, at 22 weeks. Speck has 10 fingers and 10 toes, and we also got to rule out spina bifida, which is what happens when the skin doesn't cover the spine (there's more to it than that, but visible spine with no skin is a big indicator of Bad Things Happening). Today was also really cool because I could feel her moving around while watching her move on the TV screen. It's just overwhelming. She weighs about 1 pound 1 ounce, and she's about 8 inches long. She's still measuring right where she should. We also re-confirmed in no uncertain terms that she is most assuredly a girl.

I'm back at the perinatalogist in 10 weeks. While I'm bummed that we won't have any new episodes of the Speck Show until November, this means that there's nothing that they're monitoring us for, no issues that we're anticipating, no reason to hurry back. She's healthy and growing, and there's nothing more that we would wish for.

It's Just Rob!

First, a bit of background...

You've all met Rob, a/k/a "Mr Hilarious". Years ago for Halloween, he dressed up as the androgynous character Pat from Saturday Night Live. In case you're not familiar...

The whole premise was that it never was revealed whether Pat was male or female. And it was impossible to guess. Pat's companion was named Kelly, and the sketches were full of clever red herrings. Pat's gender was never revealed.

That is, until now. Yeah, I know. Alarming. Disturbing. Shocking. And, to those who saw it in person, utterly hilarious. Jokes like this don't die in Rob's family. Oh, no; funny once, funny forever. So a few weeks back, before we knew that, unlike Pat, Speck was most assuredly a girl, Aunt Janice, Uncle Ken and Cousin Anna gave us a gift. Rather than tiptoe around the whole "we don't know if it's a boy or a girl" issue, they dove right in.


At that moment, I knew that the in-laws had truly accepted me and were welcoming our child into the hilarious fold that is the Family Berthelotte. Note the authentic wig and glasses. I was, and will forever be, truly touched by the gesture. Naturally, retaliation is both anticipated and expected. We'll get them back in true hilarious fashion.

I'm at the perinatalogist's first thing tomorrow morning, and I should have a slew of cool pictures to post tomorrow night. Check back later!

Kick Me!

Speck has made her presence known. They tell you to expect a flutter, or some other really light delicate sensation. Night before last, I'm laying down poking around my belly hoping to feel something, and I guess she got tired of being nudged around and she SHOVED up against my hands. Scared the hell out of me. Once we established that she was indeed still safely in utero, we came to the conclusion that our offspring may turn out to be a bit, um, active. Pray for us and anything that is breakable in our home...

For the record, she's poking me right now, and has been all day.

This morning I had another OB check--heartbeat (hers, 156 bpm), blood pressure (mine, 112/60), weight (mine, no comment but still within reasonable parameters). Right now, she's about the size of an average banana. She's measuring right where she should, and we're feeling very smug about our ability to make such a perfect child. Remind us of this feeling someday, perhaps after we catch her borrowing a car without permission, or some other such shenanigan that may or may not have had a precedent set by one or both of her parents.

This weekend we'll be in San Diego, and we're really really REALLY looking forward to getting out of town. Between the weather (hot, sticky), work (crazy), school (Rob, and he's seeing the light at the end of that tunnel) and preparing for our Blessed Event, we're a bit frazzled.

That's about it. I'm back at the peri next week, so there should be pictures and much gushing from us :).

Half Baked!

Today, we are 20 weeks! According to babyfit.com...

Weighing in at about 9 ounces (.25 kg) and measuring over 6 inches (15 cm) long, your baby is aware of all kinds of sounds, from the beating of your heart and growling of your tummy, to songs on the radio and the buzzing of your alarm clock. If you feel a "bounce" in your tummy when you hear a loud noise, it's because your baby hears it, too! This is the start of your baby's active phase. You'll feel every twist, turn, and wiggle. You may also hear your baby's heartbeat through a stethoscope, and it's probably faster than you expect — 120 to 160 beats per minute.

That's pretty exciting. I can feel that there is *something* going on in there, but it's still pretty fleeting. I'll feel it but then it's gone. She's sneaky.

Last night, Rob looked at me and said "WHOA, you're showing!" I have been looking like I'm just swelling up all over, so this was good to hear. I look pregnant, and not just fluffy. I'll take a picture this week and I'll post it.

We're getting a lot of suggestions for names. Our niece in Virginia sent a rather extensive list of ideas. Alyssa, if you read this, you gave some good ideas. Bonus points for the excellent handwriting :). We're going to stand firm on the "No, we're not telling anyone what we're naming her" rule. You'll find out in January what the winner is.

In other news, we're making progress on the room.


Really, this is, indeed, progress. That desk is empty and by the end of this weekend it will be cleaned off on top. The bed is now up at the cabin in Utah. Note the stroller which is still in the box. Yeah, we'll get to it. I think I have an idea about what it will look like in there when it is no longer a spare bedroom and is instead a nursery. More on that when we get some paint happening.

Last weekend I went shopping. I waited until the whole boy/girl thing was determined, and I took some girlfriends and went to the mall and lost my freaking mind. Holy cow, shopping for baby girl clothes is so much fun! It's better than shopping for shoes! Everything is embroidered with little flowers and ruffles on the tush. This kid may grow up to be a tomboy, but for the first year or two, her wardrobe is going to be as girlie as I can make it. SUCH cute stuff.

That's about it. I see my OB in two weeks--probably just another measurement and heartbeat check, and then back to the perinatalogist in early September for more pictures.

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice

Biggest news yet! Well, biggest news since actually finding out that a baby is going to happen...

In case you haven't noticed by the new decor, we have determined with 99% certainty (per the doctor) that Speck is a girl. Rob is already considering what convent she'll be moving into when she hits puberty, and I believe he's also eyeing the door on the soon-to-be nursery to see how hard it would be to take it off the hinges.

As the tech so eloquently labeled it, there is an absolute, unequivocal absence of certain key elements. So there we go. We're having a daughter.

We do have other pictures as well. The actual ultrasound lasted probably 45 minutes. She took a ton of measurements. Speck (we'll still call her this...) has 2 functioning kidneys, the right sort of stuff going on with her heart (aortas and veins and such) and good bloodflow through the umbilical cord. She's measuring right where she should for 18 weeks 2 days and she weighs 9 ounces.

This is her profile. She was moving around quite a bit, so we didn't really get a good clear shot of too much that translates well into still pictures. Plus, she had the hiccups. OMG so cute.


That's her foot. Awwww...

OK we're taking a leap of faith with this one, and we'll believe what the tech said about this being a really good picture of her face. I can't tell. Somebody give me a Mother of the Year award for not being able to identify my child's face.

So that's what happened today. Naturally, we would have been thrilled either way because right now all signs are pointing toward a healthy baby. I maintain that all of my friends who didn't find out what they were having are nuts because finding out today was no less of a surprise than it would have been in January.

So everyone who voted for "girl" in our poll, rock on for being right! And for the record, I knew she was a girl too. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. It's another good day :)

No news, but progress is being made.

Last week's appointment was a check up--more for me than for Speck, actually. We checked the heartbeat, which was solid and steady. Most of the time was spent on how I'm doing. For the last 4 months we've been focusing on Speck's health and it was weird to be thinking about my own again. Blood pressure is important right now--if it's too high it can be an indicator of something being wrong, and it can also be a risk factor in itself for all sorts of bad things. Mine is good. She also measured my belly, which can be affected if Speck is growing too large. While we want a good-sized healthy baby (not too big, mind you...), if the baby is growing too quickly it can be a sign of gestational diabetes. We want to avoid that :). But all is well. We didn't find out the sex, as she just used a Doppler to find the heartbeat. I'll have a series of ultrasounds at the perinatalogist this week and we *should* know after that. They make no promises and therefore we don't either.

In other news, we did make our first Big Purchase, as far as equipment goes. We bought a stroller and car seat.

Very exciting, right? Judging by the shape of the box, we're predicting that Some Assembly is Required. Let the fun begin!

Some quick Speck Stats

According to babyfit.com:

YOUR BABY THIS WEEK

Your baby is on the move, and you may start to feel it! Your baby weighs almost three ounces (.08 kg) and is close to 5 inches (13 cm) in length.

Your Baby: As this week begins your baby has fingernails, and the hair on his or her head is starting to grow. Although baby's brain is still tiny, it is beginning to send signals to muscles that allow arms and legs to begin moving. The motion, called "quickening" can be slight or more robust, but don't be alarmed if you don't feel it this week—you will soon enough.

Haven't felt anything yet for sure--maybe a couple of quick "something just brushed past" sensations, but that could also have been a result of the spicy food that has happened this week.

Well it's been a big week...

Just when we were starting to calm down and just sort of sit back and avoid the heat, we found a car that was just what we were looking for: big enough to haul a baby and accompanying gear, a 90 pound dog and accompanying gear, us and accompanying gear, but not so big that it would break us one $4.25 gallon at a time. It was rapidly becoming time to part with Rob's beloved Mustang, which has been a great car but is on the verge of needing some work if we were to keep it. So on Monday, Rob left the house in this

and returned that night in this



It's a Honda Pilot, and it is awesome. It's a 2006, and it's in great condition and we think it's going to be just what we needed. It's got enough ground clearance to get us into the cabin in Utah without getting high-centered. We're pretty happy with it.

Nothing new as far as the baby goes. I'm 16 weeks along, and everything seems to be normal. We're making progress on the room--the bed and desk are cleaned off and we have a plan for the rest. A couple more months and we should be ready to start making it into a suitable room for Speck :). Next doctor's appointment is on July 31, and then I see the perinatalogist on August 6. While I don't want to get my hopes up, I'm thinking that at one of those appointments, we'll find out if Speck is a boy or a girl. We'll keep you posted.

As an added bonus, here's a pic of how Gracie is staying cool this summer :).