Four Weeks Old!

Henry is 4 weeks old today!! How has the time gone that fast? He already looks bigger than he did when he was born! i'm kinda sad!


here he is smiling in his sleepies today :)

here's what a baby can do at four weeks old:

- babies can lift their heads a little bit by now (Henry is like crazy and can totally lift his head a lot at this point)
- he starts to coo and make sounds
- he can recognize my voice which isn't new but he will start to turn and look for me when he hears me in a room

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Henry's milestones are that he is talking to his toys, he is talking to me and Ryan sometimes (and by talking i obv mean cooing at), he smiles sometimes and i think they're real smiles...like i kept saying something about his little leggies to him last night and he smiled at me a bunch of times, it was soooo sweet!

He totally does this thing when you're holding him over your shoulder where he like flings himself to the side if he wants you to cradle him instead lol it's really funny.

he still makes the super contemplative face:


lol

he's so cute

anyways! he's perfect and awesome and i'm obsessively in love with him :)

when he sleeps he makes SO much noise omg he talks in his sleep and grumbles and grunts and it's like the loudest roomate ever. My sister bought us this little sleepy thing that goes next to the bed and he was in it last night and kept me up half the night with his sleep grunting haha

so yay! i cannot believe he is four weeks old already - how has the time gone this fast?? Four weeks! my baby!

Back on Track

today i rejoined Weight Watchers.

I had been a member of WW back in 2005ish and had had a lot of success with it. At the time I only wanted to lose 10 pounds and was thrilled when i lost 12 with very little effort, just counting points.

Now this is serious. I'm only 4 weeks postpartum but i still feel the need to get my weight situation under control. So far I've lost 26 pounds but since I gained 40 total in pregnancy I still have a way to go. It's okay and I'm trying not to be too on my own case about it but I had to feel like I was doing something proactive about the whole situation at least. So that's why i joined back up.

They've changed their whole plan around so I feel like I'm learning everything again and i guess in a way that's a good thing (but in another way i can't just jot things down from memory in a hurry which sorta sucks bc i've basically only got one arm available most of the time since i'm holding a baby in the other arm the rest of the time).

I've heard that while breastfeeding you should aim to lose a pound per week. That means it would at best take me 14 weeks to get back to my pre pregnancy weight. 14 weeks is a long time! That's March 14th. Oh well, though. What am i gonna do? Like i said, at least i'm doing something here.

i am hoping to use this whole Weight Watchers thing as a way to jump-start me back into cooking as well. I have been doing a really dismal job of making dinner since even before the baby was born and I am looking forward to getting back into the kitchen again.

This post is completely all over the place but I just thought i'd document the weight loss component since that is so very much a part of this whole pregnancy/post-pregnancy/mommy journey that i'm finding myself on. Good luck to me lol

okay off i go

tubby time!

my baby hates the bath. hates it with a passion. He screams and wails the second that his little body touches the water. I feel so bad! He wails and looks at me with the saddest little expression on his face.

tonight i tried to bring him into the bath with me in the hopes that he would take to it more. It didn't work. He still screamed only this time he was up close and clinging to me like "why mommy??" it broke my heart!

i gave him to Ryan and wrapped him up in his Shark hood towel (thanks to Emma for getting that for us!) and dressed him but i still wish he didn't hate it so much. Poor little guy!

my mom assures me that eventually he'll come around and like the bath. I hope so! Until then, sponge baths it is :)

about the baby

I am going to work on updating this thing more often. That was always my intention once the baby arrived - to document his growth and experiences (and my growth and my experiences) in a public forum like this. I think it will be fun and worthwhile.

Of course, i had no concept of how difficult it would be to get onto a computer at all in the first few weeks of mommyhood, let alone having the time to update my blogs properly with photos and witty little quips (please let me think that i am full of with and quips here).

I would like to also mention that it just figures that the first time i sit down to do this my son who was blissfully slumbering in his fisher price my little lamb swing (such a great swing) wakes up. Ohhh but he seems to be falling back asleep again. Let's hope!

Also, this blog works best if you leave comments here and I get a chance to respond. Especially if I am asking questions and you know the answers or have some helpful advice. I would love to have an archive of that advice and the best place for it to go is right here in the post where I am asking for it! Just my thoughts on things :)

His little eyes are open again so I'm on a limited time-frame here because he is making little monster grunting noises.

I wanted to just say the following and then hopefully the next time i come back I will have an actual topic to discuss: motherhood really is the most insanely challenging experience ever but it is also the BEST thing I have ever done.

I know, i know, how cliche right? That's what everyone says. But like everything else, people say it because it's TRUE! It's so great. He's so precious and wonderful and just all around perfect and i love him more than i thought possible. And at the same time being a mommy is like running a marathon that never ends. I am exhausted, i've reached my "limit" several times already but have somehow powered through. I guess it just shows that there is no limit and that really all of life's difficult moments and experiences are basically just a matter of getting your mind in a place of empowerment and positivity.

It's not all easy and rose petals but there ARE more wonderful moments than ones where you want to pull your hair out (or other people's hair out). I have had to put the baby down (somewhere safe) and walk away just to regroup and regather myself once or twice but that's okay, that's normal, that's part of adjusting. And other times I haven't wanted to pass him over to anyone else to hold because i wanted to just keep him snuggled in my arms for hours and hours where i can shower him with kisses and snuggles any time i want. Most of our experiences live in between those extremes which is a good thing and which i think shows us that we're adjusting well to one another (he to me and me to him).

I have more to say but i also have more to do before I have to get him and feed/change him (lather, rinse, repeat) so I'll be back, i promise. I want to get better at taking photos of him that are with a camera better than my phone camera but for now that's mostly what we're working with.

my birth story

I was originally intending to write a separate version of this for this blog. But i have no time ever and since i just want to get this posted i decided to cross post this from my Friends Only blog to here. Feel special lol

here it finally is, my birth story...directly posted from my more personal blog so it's got all the details ;)

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okay this got VERY long and took me an incredibly long time to write. I would love it if you would read it though...this is definitely a story about the most significant thing that has ever happened in my life. And i don't mean that just because i had my baby but because of what happened during the birth...i just, i'm not sure even how to begin recovering honestly but i know that i can.

so here we go: The Birth Story of Henry Ryan

so it's my due date.

I'm posting because i feel like I should since it's officially our Due Date™. As of now, there's no baby in my arms. He's still scrunched all up in my tummy and despite the fact that I have been in prelabor (affectionately also known as "false labor" (sarcastic emphasis on the word "affectionately" there in case that wasn't obvious)) for a full 23 days of torture and torment at this point, it doesn't seem like he's too eager to make an appearance today. Although there are still four hours of today left so who knows (how's THAT for optimism? the glimmering little thought that even though i am posting this at seven pm that i could 1. still go into labor today and 2. that if i DO magically somehow go into labor (oh please oh please oh please) that he would be out within four hours. Ha!)).

I am so distraught over this whole i-haven't-had-the-baby-yet scenario that I am actually on a hiatus from the internet at the moment (aren't i doing a good job? lol. Although in my defense, this is literally the only site i am at and i will close up firefox after i'm done updating this blog). Why am i on an internet hiatus? Because I just can't handle it. I just can't. There are a lot of well-wishers out there and my phone, my facebook and other blog have been all atwitter (oh, and twitter) with comments to me today wishing my luck and pointing out that The Day has officially arrived. And while I honest-to-god do appreciate the kind sentiment behind the well-wishes I guess I can't fully handle all of them. I specifically can't handle the "so where's the baby" comments (even though they ARE being made with a smile and I know that they are meant well). I just can't. I can't even handle the "Happy Due Date!" comments because with every ticking minute that goes by it feels less and less happy honestly. 

Every day that passes with more fake-labor and less baby-birth makes me feel like some kind of failure in some way or another. That and it makes me cry my eyes out because it signifies another day that I have to go through being massively pregnant and equally uncomfortable. Truly at this point I am a globe. A huge, hormonal, uncomfortable globe with a pulled muscle in my hip and thigh muscles. And i have one resident who lives on this giant cranky globe and despite the fact that the globe is closing up shop soon, he seems to refuse to take a hit and GTF out of there.

So that's sort of my current state of existence at the moment. I am a hormonal, crazy clock-watcher who pretends to distract herself with other things but who is really unable to focus on much besides the millions of Braxton Hicks contractions I have per day (or the times when I'm not having any and wondering why). It's really a lot of fun to be me/to be around me at the moment, I'm sure you can imagine (which is another reason why i went on hiatus from my internet life).

Oh, and I really have done EVERY trick there is to naturally induce labor aside from Red Raspberry Leaf Tea (i'm allergic to raspberries) and Castor Oil (waaaay too dangerous for me to even consider doing). Nothing seems to be working. I've massaged pressure points, I've walked at least a marathon's worth of laps around the mall this week alone, I've taken baths, I've eaten spicy foods, i've done jumping jacks...I've done it all, i swear i have. This is just one stubborn little baby. I blame his father for that one (even though i'm sure that's my trait...but Ryan is a taurus so i get to shift the blame to him for stubbornness).

If you're the praying type, please send me some prayers right now (i've tried that too though, obviously. I've prayed, meditated, talked to the baby and outright begged God to help me with this...none of it has worked yet but i'm still trying to find the magic combination of deities to make my case to).

so there we have it. My Due Date update. I really was hoping that I would have a baby by now and that he and I would giggle as i kissed his little feet and said, "today was supposed to be your due date little cutie!" but i guess he'd rather shove his feet up into my ribs than let me kiss them with my lips. *shrug* to each their own, i suppose.

our journey

We're getting closer and closer as the days go by. As of Tuesday we were officially one month away from our Due Date! This is so exciting and so unbelievable to me.

I remember in February on the day when I took the pregnancy test on a whim and found myself looking at two little pink lines instead of the one I expected. November seemed to be a lifetime away from then (and i guess, technically it was, wasn't it??). I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be winding down my pregnancy, I had no idea what I was going to go through in the coming months. All I knew was I was (and am) elated and overjoyed and somewhat terrified, too.

I took three tests that day at least...all while Ryan was at work. I went out shopping and bought the baby his first stuffed animal, the namesake for this blog actually: a yellow giraffe. I also got the movie Juno and bought Ryan a book called The Expectant Father. I waited nervously for him to come home and when he did I handed him the bag of items with a shaky hand and watched as he took out the book, a confused look on his face.

"Thanks!" he said, thinking that I was somehow hinting that we should start trying for a family or that I was getting him ready for some distant day in the future when he would be an expectant father himself. I looked at him hard and said, "Do you see the name of the book?" and he looked at it again and then back at me and i nodded. Then i said, "Dude, I am so pregnant."

Ryan really didn't know what to do with himself. He smiled and hugged me and I showed him the pregnancy test - by this time i had several but i showed him the one that was the clearest...a digital test that said "yes" on it. He kept saying, "really? really?" over and over again and I nodded. He said, "can we trust these tests? are they real?" and i said, "yea they're real." and he hugged me and wandered around and said, "I think i need some water" hahaha

and over the next few days as it all sank in we just became more excited and more in awe and more thrilled to realize that there is a little life blooming in me and that sometime in the future that little life would become part of our family. That he would become the most important and driving force in our lives.

And now here we are, 8 months later and I am getting ready to meet that little man; the one who started this all off and who caused his father to pale in the kitchen on a February night (and who then a few minutes later had the biggest grin on his face that I've ever seen and threw his arms around me and hugged me tight and said, "we're going to be parents!").

So while things have sunk in a little more over the past few months, and while we've gotten used to the idea of it all, it's still been a whirlwind rollercoaster ride. We've had a lot of scares and a lot of changes. I had a subchorionic hematoma which threatened my first trimester with bleeding and modified bed-rest. That was followed by a lovely second trimester with minimal problems and the thrills of feeling the baby kick and move and watching my body grow and change to accommodate him.

and now as the third trimester winds down I find myself anxiously anticipating the moments when I can hold him in my arms and look into his eyes. i wonder if he'll recognize me? I wonder if I'll recognize him? I can't wait for his little hand to close around my finger and for me to lean down and kiss him on his head. I can't wait for Ryan to hold him and to say hi to his little guy and to finally feel like this is all really real.

This has been a real journey. We've moved homes, we've changed plans, we've purchased more baby stuff than I ever thought possible and now we're waiting to meet our little man, the one who all of this has been for, the one who made everything possible.

Sometimes i get to have dreams about him. In those dreams I'm holding him in my arms and talking to him and i can see his little face looking up at me and I can feel his little body in my arms. Those dreams are so perfect and so amazing. I can't wait until they're a reality.

Until then, stay put little one and keep getting bigger and stronger and healthier in there. I can't wait to see you and to hold you and love you. You have been a gift since the very first second I've known about you and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for us all. Our perfect little family. For always.

35 Weeks!

so oh my god, we're at 35 weeks! this means i'm only 5 weeks from my due date and only TWO weeks from full term!! That is SO INSANE to me!

and since it's now officially October, we might be in the month that the baby will be born! how nuts is that??

let's get started:



This week the baby is the size of....


...a honeydew.

Now this is annoying because we were already a honeydew on thebump.com buuuut oh well. I guess this site means a bigger honeydew? And it refers to weight, not length.

Anyway, that means that he is about 18 inches long and weighs about 5 and a half pounds!!! WHOA!



there's not much to report about his development except that now is when he gets fatter and cuter basically. His major focus is on gaining weight and growing.

he's developing his own immune system so he can be independent of mine and he's also growing his little fingernails in there.

apparently the odds of him scratching himself with those new fingernails isn't too high because he doesn't have the room to scratch himself, he is totally squished. see:



yea, for real. And he FEELS squished too. Seriously. I can't breathe or eat lol

He should be flipping over/already be flipped over where he will stay head down until he's born. Let's hope that he's done that already lol. He should also continue to kick me but the wild and crazy movements are basically supposed to lessen now because he has no real space in there to move. Poor little guy.

As for me:

- i am going to start seeing my doctor every week now until I deliver (appointments are on Mondays)

- my uterus went from being the size of a small ball to now being the size of a watermelon. lord.

- 1/6 of my blood is in my stomach

- i am exhausted lol

- i get tested for group b strep on monday. if it's positive i have to have antibiotics during labor. I'm super allergic though to penicillin which is typically used to treat it so let's just pray i test negative and don't have to deal with this.

anyway, here are my photos:


this is how i feel today lol


35 weeeeeks!

and i made this to showcase the difference throughout all of the weeks ending in 5 during the pregnancy. I can't believe how much i've changed! i miss my 5 week stomach (hell, i even miss my 15 week stomach lol) Also, apparently i like to wear purple on weeks that end in "5"...weird?



so yea, that's totally dramatic, right? let's just pray that someday i can get back to that lol

there we have it! 35 weeks :)

sleep? what's that?

I have pregnancy-induced sleep deprivation. Soon, I've been told, it will be replaced by infant-induced sleep deprivation so I guess i just need to listen to what anyone who has kids has been saying to us ominously and often: "get used to it now!!" (and then they laugh it up like they've just been waiting and waiting to poke a hole into the balloon of parents-to-be who think they might EVER sleep again). From the sound of it, I'm expecting to be indoctrinated into some secret night society of sleepless parents. We'll all play cards and watch old black and white movies together and eat caramel apples and popcorn while we laugh and laugh over the days in the past where we thought sleep was actually a necessity.

or, you know, maybe not.

I've been awake since at least 4:00something. And it wasn't even productive awake, i didn't figure anything out, didn't read a few chapters. hell, i didn't even go on twitter. I just kind of stared into the shadows of my bedroom and watched lights move across the walls when cars drove by. and even that sounds much more poetic than it really was i think.

I tried being productive but it just didn't take. For example, I tried to come up with a name for our baby finally but i just keep cycling through the same ones over and over and over again and never making any real progress. So far there is a front-runner that we're pretty sure we're going to use (we've had it picked out for the past 16 weeks) but who knows for sure if that's really going to win out or not.

Our plan really is to wait until we can see him and then hopefully he'll psychically impart his name onto us and we'll just know. I'll say, "oh THAT's your name! Why didn't you say so earlier?" and then sign the birth certificate with confidence. I wish he could tell me his name now, honestly or that it was socially acceptable for us to just wait until he's like four years old at which point i can approach him, lean over, prop my hands on my knees and say, "Hey there little guy, what's your name?" and he'll just tell us what it's supposed to be. Although i guess if that's how society did this whole thing there'd be a lot of adult men named Batman and Spiderman (who am i to talk, my name would be Rainbow Brite if that was how i played it too...although, that might be kind of awesome actually)



if Ryan had his way, i have the feeling that our kid would be named Batman anyway.

While I was staring into the bedroom in the dark i did do some mental calculations. If the baby comes when we've agreed upon (yes, i made an agreement with the baby about when he should come provided he is at a healthy weight and development level), i really only have like 25 days or so left of my pregnancy. If he comes by his due date, we have 38 days left. If we're induced because he's late we have 45 days left. Basically, either way: holy shit, this is happening soon.

I really can't believe that it's almost here, that the baby is almost going to be living out here...you know, in the real world. Instead of the safe and comfortable (okay comfortable for him...maybe) world inside my belly.

Speaking of which, I know I have been guilty of complaining about discomfort (and sleep issues) recently but i know, i am just positive that within a few weeks after his birth I am going to envy kangaroos and their ability to swoop up their little kanga-kin and put them in a pouch in their bellies. Why don't we get that option? Aren't we supposed to be the superior species or something like that? I think the baby should be re-insertable when i am running late for an appointment or i just wanna keep him extra protected or i'd rather just feed him through my own stomach. Sounds good, no?

okay like i said, I'm sleep deprived.

I should end this and try to go do...you know, something. My cat is circling around me like a shark and, like the movie jaws, i am never sure if i am safe or not. Several times my feet have already fallen victim to little claws and the gnawing of her little teeth. It's been fun and non-stop excitement. Maybe not sleeping anymore will work out just fine. Or maybe if i got some sleep i might not think this is even remotely awesome. Who knows.

Getting there!

tomorrow is 34 Weeks! We're getting there :)

Recently we've had a new addition to our extended family! Ryan's brother and his wife had their baby - a little boy :) We are so excited and this means that our baby has a cousin his same exact age who is a boy too! yay!

here's a picture of me with the new baby. my belly came in handy as a shelf for him to rest on lol:



We're getting closer and closer to our own due date. Six weeks and one day away! It's really real now :) We've got the baby stuff set up, I've washed his clothes already, we're rearranging the furniture in the livingroom to fit his things...we're really making progress and it's exciting.

I am getting bigger too...like a lot bigger lol

i took this photo on Monday:



whoa, right? that's what i think too lol

so i just thought i'd do a little post. Nothing too much to report, we're waiting for the little man to grow and get nice and healthy so he can join us in the world soon!

an ode to baths I suppose

It's official: taking a bath is not what it used to be.

You'd think that something like bathing wouldn't really be one of those things that are taken for granted. Well, at least that's what I think because I have always been an avid bath lover.

I am someone who grew up with a huge soaker jacuzzi tub (that was a mauvey shade of pink and was fantastic). I took baths at least twice a week every week for most of my life. Bubbles, drinks in fancy glasses, bath bombs, bath pillows, music, candles, i had the works.

When I moved out on my own I did my obligatory time on the circuit of Crappy Apartments and Rentals. My first stop on the circuit (aside from college, of course) was a very run down house which i shared with boys so obviously, there was no bath-taking there. I then moved on to the second floor of a duplex apartment with my then boyfriend (now husband) which had the Standard Apartment Style Bath in the only bathroom it had. That bath was okay but it was shallow and admittedly, there was just something a little *off* about it. You know what i mean, the bathtub that LOOKS clean and has been scrubbed but still somehow just feels grimey no matter what. That was this bath. 

After THAT place i lived in a scaled down one bedroom which barely had a bathroom that was large enough to stand in and only possessed a stall shower.

Yup, you read that right: No bath at all.

This was distressing to say the least and how i made it for more than a year without a bathtub is beyond me.

When i got pregnant, my husband and I were living in a really nice, new apartment with a gorgeous bathroom with upgraded features. Upgraded, that is, except for the size of the bathtub. It was that Standard Apartment Style Bath again. Nothing too exciting about it. But it didn't matter, I would still find myself sitting in it at least once a week with my little cat perched on the edge fascinated by the water. I loved it.



Since I've become pregnant, my husband and I have moved yet again, this time we're back at my original location: home with my parents. We're living here for economical reasons (the starry-eyed hope that one day we will be able to afford a house of our own) but in the meantime we have a great deal: we've got our own bedroom, bathroom and second bedroom that we've converted into our livingroom/office. We have our couch and TV all set up, i think we have as much space here as we did in that scaled-down one bedroom i mentioned. Only this time: we have a bath!

Now, admittedly, the bath in our bathroom is an average bathtub. BUT my parents have the holy grail of all baths in their bathroom. Its a gorgeous Jacuzzi style soaker tub like the one of my youth that I have such fond memories of. And while it's not the same exact one (this is a tasteful ecru colored tub) it is still wonderful and fantastic and amazing and all the adjectives that mean perfection in bath form.

There's just one problem: I'm not allowed to use it.

Yup. It's true.

and no it's not because my parents are mean or punishing us for living with them lol.

Like all things I am currently restricted from, it's because I'm pregnant. And part of pregnancy means: "no taking baths that are too hot". This is because the baby can't regulate his own temperature yet and if I were to get into a bath where the water exceeded 100 degrees, bad things could happen for both of us.

and since there is no point whatsoever in my world to taking a cool jacuzzi bath (and since i would be endlessly paranoid that the temperature was too high for my submerged little baby belly) i have abstained from dipping my toe into that gorgeous specimen of a bathtub.

Instead I have stayed to the bathtub that we have been given in our bathroom: the standard sized tub that i've grown to love and appreciate over the years.

I take a cool bath every night now and i read my book while the water pools around the giant volcano-island like mass of my stomach that rises from the water. I take my cool bath and I smile while the baby kicks when the water runs because he likes the sound. I reach my hand over the side and pet my cat who loves to lay curled up on the towels i keep next to it. I read and i refill the water when it gets too cool and i love it. And occasionally i daydream about the day when i can get into that jacuzzi tub again.

but i have a fear, and it's becoming more and more legitimate every day...

I don't know how much longer i can take my nightly baths at all; even these compromise baths in the littler tub.

See, getting in and out of this bath just ain't what it used to be and each night i get worried that I am going to end up like that old lady from the "I've fallen and i can't get up" commercials. I literally have to hoist myself up using the knobs and the side of the tub.

And getting down requires some crafty maneuvering also. My knees don't seem to know where to go while I lower myself. I end up basically just giving the job over to gravity at a certain point and after I land with a splash every night I think to myself, "well, I hope i can get back out of this."

I know my husband will help me if i'm ever stuck but I also know that that will be the end of my nightly baths. And i don't want them to end, i love them.  They're the only baths i have!

Weird how so many things change just because someone takes up residence in your body. Who knew that taking a bath would simultaneously be so great and so difficult?  Who knew that the idea of not being able to take one, even in the littler bath, would be so sad?

I guess a lot of things are bound to change when your stomach is the biggest part of your body and someone is living in it, huh? Duh. Too bad that getting in and out of the bath is one of them. I guess my job now is to soak for as long as possible while I still can because something tells me that even when I am allowed to get back in a nice hot jacuzzi that I won't be able to do it for very long once the baby is here. Just a little notion i have. I haven't heard about newborns being particularly sensitive to their mother's schedules, not even when it comes to luxuries like spending a few hours reclined in a bubbly paradise.

oh well. at least i know that when my time in the jacuzzi bath does come, i will revel the entire process: from being able to sit down with ease, to being able to climb out all on my own. I guess it really is the little things in life, huh?

31 Weeks!

So today is Friday! You know what that means!

It's Weekly Update™ Time!



This week the baby is the size of....



...lol four oranges? okaaaaay.

Apparently this is a measurement of his weight. Which is, interesting? I don't know lol.

ANYWAY this means that the baby is about 16 inches long (wow!) and about 3.5 pounds!



the BIG NEWS this week is that the baby's lungs are now producing something called surfactant. This is important because before this week, the baby's lungs wouldn't have been able to inflate properly (even though he did have air sacs, they wouldn't have worked). but NOW because of this surfactant he will be able to take in breaths and his lungs can expand and contract! YAY! The lungs aren't matured fully yet but this is a huge step in the right direction. That's really his last system that still needs to develop more.

the baby is going to gain about half a pound a week until delivery. whoa.



He is turning his head back and forth in there and now due to space constraints he's in the classic "fetal position" with his arms and legs kinda curled up at his body. Yay!

here's what it looks like right now:

i'm not sure how i feel about this photo lol look at the line just labeled "fat" hahah don't call my baby fat, punk!

As for me, my muscles are expanding and stuff and that's why my back (and legs!) will hurt from now on. I might start getting more frequent Braxton Hicks contractions as well to prepare my body for labor.

We're getting closer and closer to baby time though! We're now in the double digits! 9 weeks until our due date, 6 weeks until i'm full term! (although of course he could be late, but he won't! lol)

here are my weekly photos:






so yay! 31 weeks! not a ton going on this week but it's still exciting! Next week I'll be 8 months pregnant! YAY!

30 Week Update!

Sorry I've been not updating you guys weekly! i'm back though and this one is exciting because it's 30 weeks!

oh my gosh, can you believe it? I'm 30 weeks pregnant!! eeeeep! I'm SO EXCITED about this!


this week the baby is the size of....



...a cabbage. Though the website specifies that his weight is the same as the cabbage, not sure about his length (well, i know he's longer than a cabbage). edit lol oh my god one site just told me he's about the weight and length of Britney Spears' Yorkie hahaha here:


hahaha this is the picture they showed me on the site

Anyway, that means that about now he weighs around 3 pounds! and he's about 15 and 3/4 inches long! whoa!

He's swimming around in about a pint and a half of amniotic fluid (is it bad that i just visualized that by thinking of glasses of beer in the bar?) but that amount of fluid will reduce as the space in there also diminishes.

He's working on his eyesight still buuuut he won't really even be able to see that great even after he's born. Eyesight is one of those things that you have to use in order to have it really work well. His vision when he's born will be about 20/400 (perfect adult vision, as you know, is 20/20 so at first he will only see things that are really super close up to him or high contrast in color (that's why a lot of new baby toys are black and white))

here's the monkey baby who has actually gotten kinda cute in the past few weeks:


that's what he looks like in there! what a difference from what he looked like at 20 weeks:

(20 weeks...i think this is the week we started calling it the monkey baby)

and WHOA an even BIGGER difference than what he looked like at TEN weeks:


10 weeks! alien baby!

pardon me for a moment while i marvel at the absolute amazingness that this baby went through in only 20 weeks. Like, really, wow. He was an alien and now he's like a real little person in there! that's SO freaking amazing, right??

so anyway, more about what he's up to...

his brain is starting to wrinkle and grow and get bigger (because he's so smart!) and his fingernails and toenails are done finally as well. This actually kinda freaks me out lol, can he scratch me from the inside now? is he gonna like claw his way out of there?

He hasn't really gained a lot of weight or grown a lot this week because most of his energy has been devoted to making his brain grow more this week. After this though the weight and things will come on :)


looks kinda cramped in there

When he's awake now he spends all of his time with his eyes open and looking around! this is SO cool to me. He's awake right now so i know his eyes are open! i wish i could see him :)

he's gonna shed the lanugo now (fine hair covering his body) because he is gaining weight and his body is able to regulate temperature on it's own at this point (at least to some degree (lol get it? degree!?)).

here's what it looks like in there:


that's really impressive. He's really big! i'm kinda freaked out lol

so there we go! that's everything! my baby is getting smarter and looking around more and clawing me with his little nails and he's about the size of a very small dog hahaha hooray!

as for me, one site told me i should try to avoid dangerous falls. Obv. lol. I'm apparently doing nothing now but getting bigger and bigger which is also obv and it is suggested that i roll onto my side before trying to get up from a laying down position because i won't be able to. The other day i tried to do this and i couldn't. I said in despair "I'm like a weeble wobble" and Ryan kindly corrected me and said, "actually, you're not because you fell down." hahaha thanks, Ry. xoxo

Okay so yay! Baby! 30 weeks! He'll be here SO SOON!

here are pictures of me now:


the color balance was all kinds of off on my webcam for these, not sure why



and there we go, finally my face exists again lol (it's weird having headless photos)



YAY 30 weeks! only 7 - 11 more weeks until he is here! (i won't be going past 41 weeks according to my doctor's office...which, honestly, i'm fine with)

i can't believe it! i made it to the 30s! yay!

lol weird products

lol look how awesome these are:


Baby's First Boxers!

you just put them on over his diaper hahaha how cute is that? They make 0 - 6 month ones also! And they're only $4.99! haha i totally put them on my wishlist on amazon haha i just think they're hilarious and adorable

oh weird products, how you amuse me.

Tags:

where your organs go when you're pregnant...

one thing I am most looking forward to after having the baby (aside from, you know, actually having him and finally getting to see what he looks like and look into his eyes and all of that stuff) is for my internal organs to just go BACK to where they BELONG.

I know this might seem like a really weird thing to look forward to but trust me, it's not.

here's what a woman's body looks like inside during pregnancy:



See where the stomach is? It's all squished at the top there. Yea, that is not the most comfortable experience in the world although I know it must look like it lol

Cause right now, I can only eat reallllly small meals. If i don't, i feel nauseous for a long time afterwards. It's just, not the most pleasant experience to say the least and I'll leave it at that.

So yea, i'm at the point in pregnancy now where i'm just missing the little things. Where I'm saying to myself, "won't it be nice to have a normal stomach and normal digestive system again?" lol truly, you learn to appreciate all kinds of things through a massive change like this.

Just thought i'd share. Ah the beauty of pregnancy.

it's Friday!

Amazon sent me an email letting me know that Kindle covers are on sale. They then proceeded to link me to the ones that are on sale and the first row of them are all designer covers and they are on sale for $85.00.

LOL

sorry but who has/spends $85 on a kindle cover? even if it IS some kind of uber trendy sparkly animal print cover?(which by the way, i kinda think are getting overrated...animal print has seriously lost it's appeal to me)

here, look:



and hahah omg this one is even MORE expensive:


$165.00?? for a kindle cover? That's more than my kindle cost! ahh! hahah

so yea, that was amusing.

another thing that I found funny was this little gem from thebump.com....

so every Friday they send me an email announcing what week I am in my pregnancy. Typically i delete those emails because, as you know, I do my own little weekly thing and find all the information that way and whatever.

this time i clicked the email and it took me to my checklist of stuff that has to be done before the baby gets here. I don't know which of you guys are familiar with thebump but it's just like theknot but for baby stuff. So anyway, they have a whole countdown/checklist for me to go by and typically the stuff is pretty helpful overall i would say.

But then today I was looking through the upcoming things for this checklist and i saw the following item and i just had to LOL



Get an easy to maintain haircut?? like that is SO important that it is one of three things on the checklist for week 32? hahaha and i enjoy the assumption that we can't figure out how we want our hair on our own or that we can't come to the conclusion that we might want to change our hair or something without this list telling us to? it's so funny/bizarre to me!

like who was the editor writing this that thought, "okay, so in week 31 we'll discuss the signs of preterm labor and then in week 32 we MUST remember to remind these moms to get an easy to maintain haircut. Who knows what chaos and mayhem might ensue if we leave that off the list!"

lol so funny and SO WEIRD to me!

also, as a note while we're on the subject, i am not planning to get an easy to maintain haircut. I am super obsessed with my hair being long and it's a big part of how i identify as myself, i think it's important for me to still feel like ME once the baby is here and not completely give myself over to this role that i made up of "mom" that includes a haircut and Lee jeans or whatever. I really want to let the mom thing just organically become a part of me, not something that i try to put upon myself.

And not only that but i LIKE having long me hair. I like how it looks when i actually take the time to do it. I know that the odds are that typically my hair will be a scraggly mess for a while (like how it often is now) but that's fine. I'm sure once a month i will be able to pull out the straightener and still feel like myself. And to me, feeling like myself means having hair at least to my shoulders or longer.

so there annoying checklist, i will not follow you!

okay, i'm gonna go. I want to finish writing a few more thousand words and then i have things to do (including making my 29 week update! Emma has already reminded me haha) aaaaand tonight is super exciting because me and Ryan are going on an ice cream and movie date tonight!!! it doesn't get much better than that, i don't think! YAY! We hardly ever have the time or money to go out together on dates so I'm reallllllly excited and looking forward to it! hooray!

what are you guys doing tonight/this weekend?

we're baaaack!

I enjoy referring to myself in the plural. I think that it's more accurate right now anyway since there really ARE two people in my one body at the moment.

Anyway, like my subject suggests, I'm (we're) back. I've been on quite the hiatus from blogging but I'm back and full of spit and vigor and whatever other weird things there are sayings about that imply that I'm here with enthusiasm.

First i have to point out that I have an AWESOME and amazing and incredible new layout thanks to Becca from Jumping Jax Designs. Seriously, that girl is incredible. I threw a bunch of adjectives and ideas at her and she came up with the absolute most perfect layout of all time. I am swooning with love for my blog and I wish I could hire her to come work her magic on my house and wardrobe as well. She is that good.

I also thought i'd take a moment to explain my new blog title since it's cute and important to me.

Back when my husband and I were getting married, we thought long and hard about disregarding both of our last names and instead making up or finding a new one that would represent us and the life we wanted to lead together from our wedding day forward. We went back and forth a lot and couldn't come up with anything that was the perfect fit.

Finally one afternoon, while sitting in the car outside of our apartment at the time, our discussion really focused in on what mattered: we just really wanted to represent what our new life together truly MEANS to us and we couldn't find one single word that did that to our satisfaction.

So our solution? Instead of changing our name, we would just change the MEANING of our last name.

We decided to go forward and keep with the tradition of me taking my husband's last name as my own. The reason for this was purely logistics...it's much easier for a woman in this culture/society to change her last name than it is for a man. For me, it required one form and about five phone calls and a trip to the DMV. For him it would have required a lot more and a lawyer (which, okay, there are no shortage of in my family but still) and a lot more time and money. It just was a headache. Also, i kind of like the tradition.

We wanted to make sure, though, that this next step was instituted. The priority for us was to create a family that was unique to us, that was our own, that meant something really REAL to us.

And so we invented a new meaning for our last name. And it belongs only to us and it's really very real. because the truth is that things in life truly only have the meaning that we assign to them anyway, so why not give our name it's own meaning? So we did.

And even better, my husband came up with the specific wording of that meaning and that fact alone makes me smile whenever i think of it.

So what was the meaning we gave? Our last name officially (to us) means: Together (for always).

the parentheses are an important part. We clarified that they were there back when we first came up with the name in the car on that autumn afternoon. I don't even really know why they're so important but they are. They truly capture the whole essence of it.

And so when i was trying to come up with a new name for my blog, I wanted it to be something that really captured the essence of what i want this space to represent. i didn't want it to just be a pregnancy blog or just a baby blog or anything like that, i wanted it to be more than that because I wanted it to be about us, and about our lives together...and about our future.

and i realized that these things will always be what i want to blog about and that no matter where life takes us: through highs and lows in life, i will always be me and there will always be this part of my heart that belongs in this life and this family that we have made. and importantly, no matter what happens, i will always be a mommy to the little boy i have in me and Ryan and I will always therefore be united, as a family. No matter what happens, disasters befall us or luck smiles upon us, it will always be and we will always be Together (for always) because of the things that have taken place so far in our lives and in our hearts.


So that is why i named the blog {for always} because it can be that little place in the internet world where i represent that and where i discuss our lives and share the experiences of our hearts and the things we do.

At our wedding my father wished for us a Great Adventure and I know that so far we have been on one. i can't wait to share that adventure here with everyone and I know that there are beautiful and wonderful things to come. There always are in life and there always will be.

So for anyone reading this who still follows me, thank you so much for sticking it out and still being here. I promise not to disappear again and I am truly looking forward to the journey ahead!

22 week update!

Here's my 22 Week Update! Brought to you slightly later in the day than usual because I've been hella busy getting ready to go on vacation tomorrow and doing errands! now i'm "recovering" because apparently normal errands are exhausting at this point so i figured i'd update you all on the progress! Hooray1

ANYWAY here we go! 22 Weeks! Party it up!



This week the baby is the size of....





...a papaya! (don't worry, i had no idea wtf that was either when i first saw it). Meanwhile, my source for weekly baby-to-produce-comparisons has flaked out on me and is from now on doing a MONTHLY comparison. NO BUENO PRODUCE WEBSITE. So i've diligently found another source for this crucial element to our weekly updates. According to the new site, this week the baby is the size of a...


spaghetti squash! Weird but i'll take it.

So from now on we'll be using that site until my months change...which is another confusing game all on it's own (if pregnancy lasts for 40 weeks but is 9 months long, how many months pregnant am I at 22 weeks? i don't freakin' know. I found a chart:


which tells me that i'm now in my six month which i guess means i'm officially 5 months pregnant and working on my 6th month. So we'll just say i'm 5 months. Works for me.

ANYWAY.

What's the baby doing?

The baby's hands are growing and the nerve endings in his fingertips are working so now he can touch things and feel things! He's testing this new development by touching his face, grabbing his umbilical cord and other cool stuff! (hitting mommy in the stomach :) hehe)

here's the creepy cartoon monkey baby photo for this week:



oh oh and THIS is cool: the baby's hair is WHITE. No matter what color hair he'll have, all babies have white hair at this point because they are lacking pigment! WOW! His irises are also lacking in pigment too but his eyelids are still shut in there so we don't know what that looks like (which is kinda good cause that sorta freaks me out...does he have white eyes? whoa!).

the baby can now have visible reactions to things that are happening...so for example, since he has tastebuds AND facial muscles now, he can make facial expressions at the things i eat! so if he doesn't like broccoli he can grimace when i eat it lol isn't that cute??

oh and he weighs almost a pound now! That's amazing!


(check out the WHITE eyebrows!)

The baby's brain has started to rapidly grow now. It will continue to grow at this rapid pace until he is FIVE YEARS OLD! He's a genius already!

his organs are also doing cool thing and creating blood cells (fetal bloodcells have a shorter lifespan than adult bloodcells so he's making a lot in there) and his pancreas is creating lots of important hormones. He's getting stuff done!

In the next few weeks he's going to grow a few more inches and gain some more weight!

as for me, my uterus is now supposed to be 2 centimeters above my belly button. I should look and feel pregnant (duh). It should still be pretty easy for me to bend over and sit comfortably (it is thank god) and I have a big increase in blood flow right now...specifically in the plasma (the liquid part) which makes it easier for me to get a positive test for anemia because there's more liquid yet the same amount of iron (does that make sense?). My breathing might start to bother me (GOD is that one true) because everything is getting squished (seriously guys i like cannot breathe, it is really disturbing...i just can't take deep breaths!)

so yea there we go

here's my

Weekly Survey

What symptoms are you experiencing? difficulty breathing. total exhaustion.

How are you feeling? i feel good, a little stressed when i can't breathe but otherwise good. I spend time talking to the baby each day and he hopefully likes that. He hasn't been kicking as much recently which of course makes me nervous but They say that's normal at this stage so hopefully that's true.

Anything big happening in your personal life? We are going on vacation tomorrow!! Down the shore for a week! YAY!

Any food cravings? Sweets. It's bad, i know. I've been trying not to indulge in this though and have decided to combat it by getting bags of gumballs and eating gumballs when i'm craving something sweet. gumballs are much healthier for me and baby than bags of cookies lol (and there's no aspartame in gumballs, the ONLY GUM left on earth without aspartame in it! score!) so yea that's what i've been doing lol

okay let's do some comparison photos because I am so huge compared to the beginning!


here i am at 5 weeks. sigh! lol

and here's today at 22 weeks (only 17 weeks later):


wow lol big difference


please notice my blue nailpolish for the baby!


yay Zoey got in on the photoshoot today too lol :)



so HOORAY! that was a good one, right? lol

22 weeks! cannot believe it! Now i'm DEFINITELY crossed over the halfway point (the longest he can stay in there is 42 weeks) so we're definitely at 20 weeks or less until my little man is here in my arms!

so weird and so amazing at the same time lol

20 Weeks!

So here we are! 20 Weeks! We're halfway there (livin' on a prayer!) and honestly it feels like this pregnancy is flying by...that's both wonderful and SCARY AS HELL lol

so let's see what our little boy is up to this week...



This week the baby is the size of...



holy hell he's the size of a cantaloupe!! omg that's insane lol

He's about 6 and a half inches from head to bottom and 10 and a half inches from head to toe. And he weighs about ten and a half ounces! He's getting big!



at this point he is developing his own sleep patterns and has a favorite position to sleep in in there! that;s so cute :) If i pay attention to when he's moving I can figure out if he's a morning person (like his daddy) or a night owl (like me). We'll see!

his digestive system is making meconium which is a fancy word for in-utero baby poop. Gross, i know. It is made up of swallowed amniotic fluid and skin cells and stuff like that and hopefully will stay in his body until after he is born.

His boy bits are fully formed now (as we saw) and his sex is able to be determined on an ultrasound (as we know!). We go back on Tuesday for another ultrasound where it will be reconfirmed for us that he is, in fact, a he :)


here's what a baby at 20 weeks looks like - he's big!

he is developing additional layers of skin now and has about 4 layers total. The vernix (the waxy coating on his skin to protect him from the amniotic fluid) is covering his skin still and will stay there until he is born.

From now on the big thing the baby will be working on is gaining weight. His organs are all developed and in place and everything is working. He's just gonna grow and get bigger.

Also from now on his measurements will be from head to toe instead of from head to foot because it's easier to get an accurate idea of his head to foot measurements now that he's more stretched out.

As for me, my uterus is at or just below my bellybutton (it's just below, they checked today at the doctor) and it will continue to move up and that is when my belly button will either flatten or become an outtie.

I will really start to gain weight now (i'm up 7 pounds total) and so will the baby. Things like stretchmarks will become possible as well as maybe breakouts on my skin etc. So far i've been lucky in regard to both.

So that's about it!

And since there's not going to be a ton more developmental information, i thought i would fill out a little survey each week and we'll see how that goes...here it is:

Weekly Survey

this week...
What symptoms are you experiencing? I'm exhausted and also having trouble with sleep. I wake up for at least an hour every night (last night it was three hours) and yet during the day i'm completely tired.

How are you feeling? Overall i feel great! I really don't have much to complain about at all. I had some trouble breathing earlier in the week but it seems to be getting better and I'm just feeling good and happy :)

Anything big happening in your personal life? Not really at the moment, just continuing to get unpacked and get organized. And we got our baby's crib this week because it was being discontinued! it's so awesome:


check out the stars! and it's a lifetime crib so it turns into a toddler bed and then a twin bed for when he's older :) YAY

Any food cravings? I've been craving ice cream, chocolate, pop-tarts and orange juice. I've been resisting the pop-tart craving because honesty, they are just terrible and have no nutritional value at all. I've been very in moderation with the ice cream and chocolate and have been good to go with the OJ :)

Anything else to add?
we completed our registry this week! yay! it was lots of fun :)

picture post!

I thought I'd show off cute pictures of our baby :)

So on Wednesday, as you know, we went and had our anatomy scan done. She couldn't get everything measured cause our little baby wasn't being especially cooperative and he moved away from the ultrasound device a lot. I get to go back next week sometime to complete everything :)

but we DID get a few good photos and I thought it would be cute to post them!

here he is waving at the camera! So pleasant already! and posing! lol :)

here he is again! :)

he's so cute in there :)

I am really excited to have gotten such cute photos!

And i'll post one more of me..yesterday I wore blue to celebrate my baby being a boy:

I definitely am starting to show now!

I would write more but blogger is frustrating me at the moment. I'll be back later.