Happy new trimester!

TODAY, New Years Eve, marks the first day of our third trimester - wahoo! There are zero more trimesters after this one. We are in the homestretch! Here is the current pregnancy status as we begin the new year and new trimester:

• Hannah likes to kick a lot. And jab. And stick her head or butt or some large part of her body out so that I can see it from the outside, which is both weird and spectacular.
• My hands keep falling asleep. True, I am becoming more tired again all over, too. But for some odd reason my hands are out sleeping the rest of me these days.
• It is possible that the sweet little stomach sleeper is dreaming. Apparently brain wave activity measured in a developing fetus shows different sleep cycles, including the REM phase where dreaming occurs. She's dreaming about pacifiers and Pampers, no doubt.

Other great news about this stage in pregnancy is that she would have a good prognosis even if born premature because her lungs have pretty much reach maturity. However, she is welcome to stick around in there for several more weeks because I need her to keep growing and her nursery furniture hasn't come in yet!

How to glide peacefully into debt

A girl who isn't me doing what I did all morning

Who knew that gliders were so expensive? I spent much of the morning visiting Treasure Rooms and Babies R Us in Chesterfield Valley trying out a few glider/ottoman combos. Given how expensive they were, I thought I might get charged a quarter for a test sit! Just like with anything, it appears that you get what you pay for. Some of the chairs on the cheaper end felt like sitting on the monkey bars. However, some of the chairs on the more expensive end felt like sitting on an empty wallet. Yep, you guessed it: I feel a comparative spreadsheet coming on!

Progess report:

Hallelujah for workplaces that close the week between Christmas and New Years!  We have made so much progress in the world o' baby over the past few days and beyond. Here's the latest...

1. We took care of daycare. After a scrutinizing review process, we have chosen West County Day School as the place that Hannah will spend 3 business days a week beginning in July. We like everything about this place from the cleanliness, structure, fun environment, staff, and location. The price isn't necessarily free but it's not the highest either. Hopefully Hannah will enjoy her time there.......and if not we will yank her out of there so fast and write terrible reviews about them online. Wheeeee!

2. The registry is complete. We've made a few online additions since we first started this adventure, but I believe we have officially registered for just about everything but the kitchen sink at Target and Babies R Us. There are a handful of things we left off on purpose (sorry but I don't want anyone buying me breastfeeding apparatus) but we've made up for it by registering for everything else under the sun.

3. Bedding has arrived. And, holy crap, is it cute! I located this fancy little number at Pottery Barn Kids and it completely threw off my whole nursery direction, but that's quite alright because I was having a hard time getting settled with the original concept.


Stinking adorable

4. Nursery is in surgery. I can't wait to post pictures of Hannah's room when it's done. Today, Jason and I painted the top half of the room "royal plum" and we've purchased the wainscoting bead board and chair rail that will go on the bottom half of the room. I'm sorry, but it's going to look fan-flippin'-tastic. Yay!


Cute-cumber

Cute-cumber

At the ripe old age of 26 weeks, Hannah is the size of a cucumber! We have transitioned now into measurements spanning from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet (no more rump), so we're now talking 15" and 2.2 lbs. Big girl!

Speaking of big girls, here's the 26 week shot compared to the 16 week shot:

Week 16 vs. week 26

Poor yellow tank top. Poor, poor yellow tank top. What you can't see from this angle is the fact that the front of ol' yeller doesn't quite cover up my entire stomach anymore, so there's a tad of bump hanging out. It's attractive. I might just keep the tank top on and belly up to a bar somewhere.

A child is born! The greatest gift.

Luke 1:30-31 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

Today is Christmas Day, which happens to be a top 10 favorite day of the year for me. On this day, I think about the numero uno madre, Mary. As a pregnant person, I am currently consumed with the idea of being comfortable. I desire stretchy maternity pants to let my stomach jut out unrestricted, bigger shoes for my swollen feet, a body pillow to help me sleep on my side, monthly prenatal massages, and comfort food for my cravings. I enjoy the luxury of support from many generous and loving people. And when it comes to the idea of actually enduring labor, I have a nice, warm hospital suite waiting for me with medical professionals to tend to me and epidural cocktails to soothe my woes. With all of this, I will give birth to Hannah - the greatest gift.

Mary carried Jesus while bearing the glares of a judgmental society that likely didn't buy into the whole virgin story. She wore the same garb, trudged her swollen feet along in woven sandals without Dr. Scholl's inserts, and likely slept without a big fat body pillow. And, on this day thousands of years ago, she gave birth to the son of God...in a smelly farm animal infested stable on a bed of prickly hay. The greatest gift. There are plenty of wails and complaints from people in the Bible, yet I haven't been able to find one from Mary in regard to this situation.

I am blessed to know a lot of good mothers. I hope that all of them are aware of the appreciation so many others have for them and know that while situations aren't always going to be divine, they have, like Mary, found favor with God. Mary didn't desire a stable birth for her precious baby, but that's what she got.

Over the past few weeks my family has dealt with the deaths of two great mothers - my Grandma Walter who passed away the day after Thanksgiving and my Grandma Thro who died just last week on December 16th.


Grandma Walter

Grandma Thro

These two beautiful mothers were great gifts to me. I will miss my Grandma Walter's sweet manner and the way she hugged like she meant it. I will miss my Grandma Thro's desire to serve others, her cackle laugh and love of fun, and her position as a leader in my family. And she had cute little scratchy, wrinkly hands that I loved holding onto and will never forget their feeling.

As these two mothers aged, I also got to see the next generation of "mothers" step up and take care of them, and set a great example of what mothers do (some of them actually mothers to children, some of them not - so in this sense I mean caretakers). Mothers don't always choose their situations, but they are called to realize that they have favor in God and make the best of things. I pray that all of these mothers know how much their efforts were appreciated although as my grandmas aged and got uncomfortable it was probably hard for them to show it. What these mothers may not have seen was how their examples of love and sacrifice made tangible to others the importance of taking care of those you love and embracing a bad situation with an understanding of that calling, just like Mary.

My prayer for myself as a mother is that I will never forget the example set by these caretakers I just mentioned, and that I will know that I have ultimate favor with God regardless of the circumstance. My prayer for these mothers is that they remember to take care of themselves as well, because it is easy to lose yourself if you focus too hard on fixing everything and everyone else. And my prayer for everyone at Christmas is that they appreciate Mary and the precious gift she gave us - a modestly-born Savior who came so that we can live with more comfort, favor, and appreciation, which represents greater gifts than anything you'll ever find under a tree. 

Swift update

I've had a hell of week so far, so I've neglected to post. That and the What to Expect app has disappointed me again - apparently Hannah is still the size of an eggplant, although she has grown to 9.2 inches and 2 lbs. There's gotta be another fruit/vegetable that size, right? Lame. So I used another app called Baby Bump and apparently this one thinks my baby is a rutabaga. A what? Exactly. That's where I draw the line with that app. I had to look that thing up online. What the heck is a rutabaga? It's an ugly root vegetable that looks like a cross between a turnip and a punch in the face. I'm not posting that to my blog because it's just too terrible looking.

Since I'm slacking I might as well just post a photo of my basketball-sized belly without doing a comparison from previous weeks because I just don't feel like fudging with a collage! Here ya go:

Week 25

Thank you and goodnight!

Baby brain, part 2

Here's a small list of a few dumb things I have done lately that I am blaming on baby brain:

1. Ran an entire load of wash - with detergent added - without putting in clothing.
2. Pointed my car key at the elevator and pressed the unlock button, thinking that would make the elevator door open.
3. Spent half of a morning getting wrinkles out of a suit jacket for a meeting only to drop it in a heap on the way into the office and find it hanging on a random coat rack later, quite wrinkly and unwearable.
4. Closed the garage door on my new car.
5. At a lunch with some of my coworkers (4 female, 1 male, and one female being my boss), my one male coworker commented on another coworker's sandwich bun and how appetizing it looked. I then proceeded to ask him why he didn't prefer my bun, it was a perfectly good bun, is there something wrong with my bun??? Awkward.

Dear wine,

I'm sorry I've been absent for so long. It's not that I don't care about you or want you in my life. In fact, I could have used a nice big chalice filled with you a lot lately. I still want to be friends with you, but I need you to understand that while you're usually very good to me, you are bad for fetal people, and therefore I have to abstain from you. We've had a lot of good times together, you and I. We've danced recklessly at weddings and office holiday parties, done homework together until my essays began sounding like nutrition labels, carried inflatable men named Chachki through wineries, and dazzled many ears while singing mantras to fast food restaurants on stage together. You've always been there for me when I needed you, and even when I haven't. Please plan to have a glass of yourself waiting for me sometime around April 2012.

Your friend forever,
Mutherford

The egg planted and is now an eggplant

Many a month ago, the little Hannah egg planted in thy womb Mutherford, and now she is as big as an eggplant!

Egg planted

That equals 9 inches from top o' the head to bottom o' the bottom. She is approximately 1.7 pounds. She is taller than two stacked juice boxes and as heavy as four juice boxes. According to my research, her little nose-holes are opening up this week so she can start practicing "breathing" although there's no air up in that belly.

Here's what the host of Hannah looks like these days, and what I looked like halfway to where I'm at now.

12 vs. 24 weeks

There will be poop.

Trying to find a "perfect" daycare is really hard. I've been blessed by the fact that my employer has agreed to let me come back part-time after my maternity leave, so now my focus is on finding Hannah a cool place to hang on the 3 days that we're apart. Naturally, so far nothing is good enough or right. Plus, not all daycare facilities take infants part-time, so our choices have been slightly narrowed.

We looked at a place I will refer to as "Daycare A" a couple of weeks ago and my immediate thought when walking into the infant room on the tour was, "My lord, it smells like poop in here! I can't have my baby in a daycare that smells like poop!" Come to find out after turning a corner in the room, I had walked in right at changing time for one unlucky kid whose family must have given him something he shouldn't have had for Thanksgiving. It was a two-person jobber - quite the cleaning crew, scent, and spectacle.

The rest of the tour was actually great. Such a nice facility and cute mini people doing their thing, looking happy and un-traumatized by the joint. They had lots of entertainment and educational activities (even Spanish class, which might be a bit on the overkill side for me), and I even witnessed one tiny girl cleaning up after herself at snack time. At some point I had to come to my grips about the poop thing. There will be poop. Lots of it. Not just at the daycare - at my house, too. Oy. I guess that's not a deal breaker.

So the final drawback to Daycare A was the cost. I get two paychecks a month, and once I go part-time, pretty much one entire paycheck of mine would be dedicated to paying for this daycare.

Then yesterday I ran through "Daycare B" - and I'm serious when I say "ran"...I pulled a jerk maneuver and dropped in late on a Friday when they were pretty much closing up shop and the owner gave me a personal tour while her own 15-year old daughter scowled at me for extending their stay there. Whoopsies.

This place was a lot less state-of-the-art than Daycare A, but still a good size and felt safe. The major perks of this place is that it is literally half  the price of Daycare A and less than a minute from our house. But when we were on our tour and the owner was showing me around, she opened a cabinet where food/supplies were stored and a shelf was cocked and falling over. For some reason, that bothered me. And it bothered me that they had turned a closet into a tiny room with a toilet in case the under-2 kids were disciplined enough to give it a go. Do I want Hannah relieving herself in a tiny closet? It felt weird. Plus, the babies sleep in pack-and-plays and one of the dads picking up his kid smelled like booze. Am I being nit picky? Who cares if it's a pack-and-play or if some dad had a little Friday night sauce before picking up his kid, right? Are those deal breakers?

But, of course, in comparison to nice, shiny (albeit temporarily odorous) Daycare A, Daycare B felt like a downgrade. Yet, a fiscally responsible downgrade that's close to my house and would probably be just fine if I could stop being a snot.

There's still a "Daycare C" that we need to check out, but I already know the cost of C is close-but-slightly-less-than A and much higher than B, and I'm sure I'll see a kid picking her nose there and decide my sweet Hannah simply cannot associate with such despicable behavior. Heaven help me.

Baby registry: Stuff, stuff, and more stuff

Scary building with baby stuff in it

Tonight we took our friend Kelly - who is experienced with two young girls of her very own - along with us on our first ever baby registration adventure. Holy crap. We hit up Babies R Us and left no aisle unvisited. I'm overwhelmed. We registered for many an item and still have more to go. There were some things we didn't shoot with the registry gun because we have a little more work to do where research is concerned. Apparently, there's a lot of stuff for babies and since babies don't come with a manual, I'm trusting friends and the interwebs to tell me what I need. Otherwise, Jason probably would have used the registry gun to shoot one of everything. We're still going to go to Target to see what kind of crap they have and then probably adjust our list, but for the time being, here is our Babies R Us registry.

Getting corny

In her 23rd week of lodging at Rutherford Resort, baby Hannah is now approximately 8.5" from head to bottom (not including the feet that kick me) and a mammoth 1.5 lbs. Mama needs to lay off the sweets! She is approximately the size of an ear of corn:

Corny

 

At this point, the yellow tank top is actually getting a bit difficult to squeeze into. I'm going to do my best to wear it for the next 16+ weeks, but to be honest with you, there might come a time when I'll have to cut it down the middle just to get it over the gut. Heaven help me.

Week 13 vs. week 23

Spongebeck Squareback

I'm not going to claim that I had some sort of Gisele Bundchen figure pre-pregnancy, but at least I had a shape. My waist was cinched where it needed to be, and my butt was in suitable proportion to the rest of my body. Now? Well, I just checked out my backside in the mirror, and I have decided that I look like this from that view:

Spongebeck Squareback

From behind, I look like a rectangle on top of two tiny walking sticks. However, from the front, I kind of look like a snake that stood up in the middle of swallowing a whole watermelon. From the side, I look like an upright isosceles triangle.

I've decided to take the exercise up a notch. It's not too hard to take it up when your starting notch is zero. I was in a pretty good routine before getting knocked up, but that first trimester derailed any regimen I had. And then I went ahead and capitalized on my status much of the second trimester. I may have gone on a few walks, and it's not like I've been just sitting on the couch eating Twix all day. I've actually kept pretty active. But, with the way my legs have been hurting lately and the fact that I've already pretty much gained the majority of the target weight for a pregnant person at my starting size, I think I need to get it in gear or else I'm going to find myself sinking to the bottom of the ocean living in a pineapple.