The four pounder!

Tomorrow marks 33 weeks of plumping and growing, the baby is meant to be about four pounds by now! That is only 1/7 of the weight Dani has gained, seems pretty excessive. Even though it is so very apparent that there is something in there, it is still not completely real to me. When it kicks and fidgets my first thought is major digestion issues. I have to remind myself that Dani is not just faking it by pushing out her belly and making her intestines dance. However, last night I had a bit of a freak out and had anxious waking moments of car seats, strollers, breast pumps, diapers, and all the related stuff. Never thought that shopping for a stroller before bed would make for a restless night, probably a natural response to get me ready for the all night alarm clock that is to come!

Updated profile

This is what Dani looks like when she is trying to smuggle a dodgeball.

From Belly 12.19

Aforementioned Mound of Baby

What a cutie!

Campy

The trip to Geneseo was canceled due to stomach issues. It was very sad to come home last Friday and feel so sick that I just colapsed in bed, to make it worse we were to leave in less than 12 hours. With a 104 temp and fast and loose stools, I decided this may be the worst time to fly. Though we were both despondent at not being able to see the family around the holidays and show off the mound of baby, it was for the best. I am just now back on real food and got my lab work back with a positive culture of Campylobacter. This too will pass and we will come show off the baby soon enough and probably when there is no threat of wintery mix and the only fecal matters will be the babies.

Gifts from Granny and Auntie G

Appearantly Kate wants us to have a very frilly girl and/or a "furry monkey".

Regardless of the gender- or species- it will not get to enjoy my new "Big Game Bib", sorry kid.

(Yes, cousin Cassidy has the same one. ) Go Bears!

Yoga baby

I love going to my prenatal yoga class on Saturdays. It is such a relaxing way to start the weekend. Each class begins with us mommies sitting with our eyes shut breathing in deeply and out in a breathy sounding "Ohm". We do this three times. The room resonates with the sound and I can feel it deep in my belly. I think the baby likes it too. Some poses are challenging (I really dread Pigeon Pose), but overall they are great breathing and moving techniques which prepare my body for the big day. The photo doesn't have much to do with yoga, but I thought it was funny that this free-range chicken had chosen the seed bin in which to push out an egg.

I love him or her so much...

I can't seem to find the clip online to link, but if you are familiar with the movie Raising Arizona, you probably recall the scene where Ed (short for Edwina) holds their "new" baby and hugs him sobbing "I-i-uh lo-uh-ve hi-im so-uh mu-uh-uh-ch". It's a pretty hilarious scene, and lately I feel like I could break down and start crying that I love our baby so much. I'd have to say, H.I. McDunnough says it best.

Beach belly

While on Marco Island, Baby G kicked just about everyone in the family, including cousin Cassidy as I held her on my belly.

He asked for it...

You might recall an earlier post in which Alex talks about having a geek kid. While we can't really know that our child will have a proclivity to geekiness, there is one thing we can be sure of - that he or she will have a geek dad!

Some new additions

A new, stylish rug that can double as a roadway for baby's toy cars sometime down the road. A closet organizer that Dad lovingly created, and a wood transition that he so artfully crafted. Just a few finishing touches, some furniture, and a happy healthy Baby G, and the room will be complete!

Quote of the day

Transportation by bike means you are riding in, not driving through like a car. You are life-experiencing, not sight-seeing. You are in it and of it, and the beauty goes so deeply inside you that you could weep, and you just never want to get off the bike again. - Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man.

Getting bigger, together

And, no I don't mean Alex and me, although he'd like to think he's eating for two too (couvade?). The baby's kicks are getting stronger, and I can feel its shoulders, head, and rump as it tumbles about in the womb. I've been thinking some pretty profound thoughts about how the baby is all alone in there, and only knows its own experience - kind of like humankind here on Earth, not quite knowing what lies beyond our universe. What a shock it must be to be born!

Getting out there

On Sunday we took the first snowy trip (keep it broad because we vacillate between snowshoes and cross country skis) of the year and had a great time! On our way up we grabbed a bite to eat in Hood River, and Dani laughed so hard she started crying and then really started crying. Neither of us know what was so funny, or what was then so sad/ emotional. Chalk it up to baby taking the helm for a moment.
After about a half hour of plodding around in knee deep snow we had the requisite snowball fight, made some yellow snow and headed back refreshed. The tranquility of being in the snow muted forest is my second favorite part of living here in the winter. The other being that the snow is on our terms: we visit it, instead of it haunting us for months. And when it does make its way down to the lowlands of Portland it is hilarious pandemonium that shuts down the city. To me this is a win-win. (see photos in the bar on the right)-->

Hand on the belly

Kicky Kickerson is rockin' the womb! Feeling the thumps and imagining how the baby is positioned in there, how it looks, what it's thinking; all these things are indescribably amazing. I look forward to actually communicating- beyond talking at a fleshy globe and feeling for morse code replies- with my child when it is done baking. For now it is the coolest thing in my life!

Near escape!

Last night our friends, Kristin and Zakk (pictured as the bird whisperer and inspector #42), threw a Halloween party: costumes required!
We had a great time, baby got a driving lesson, some hand shakes and of course candy but thankfully decided to go back in at the end of the night. Oh, and I got to show off my sexy stems!

I may be a Mormon

What religion should the baby be raised under/ around? I think when the time is right we will let them follow this simple flowchart.

What would Tony Danza do?

He would have some cupcakes to celebrate 23 weeks of a healthy pregnancy! Since he is the boss (screw you Springsteen), we must abide and indulge in the awesome goodness of St. Cupcake. Pictured are the malt ball and the spice cake with cream cheese frosting (obviously Dani's favorite) and hidden- see the shadow?- is the Fat Elvis: banana bread cake with chocolate frosting. Eating for two is fun, Dani likes it too.

The handyman himself

He even finished up the under-layment tonight. What a Dad!

Coming along

Alex has been hard at work "landscaping" the baby's room. We are going to convert my old dresser into a changing table, and the drawers are seen here with their brand new coats (to match the scenery). The cork flooring that we chose will arrive this week, and next weekend we will finish things up! More photos to come...

In the midnight hour...

Like so many nights before, I woke up last night to the sound of my stomach gnawing on itself. I drowsily wandered into the kitchen in search of something (anything!) to eat, and decided upon pretzel nuggets. In the silence of the midnight hour, the crinkling of the pretzel bag was like fireworks, and if my growling stomach hadn't woken Alex, I thought for sure this sound would. Tonight, to keep both sounds at a minimum, I have prepared an easy to access bedside snack.

Feva?

With the 20 week ultrasound a few weeks behind us, I have begun thinking about how it would be nice to know the sex of the baby just so that I can call it by name. We are still going to wait to find out. In the meantime I will continue to call our baby "Baby" and hope that doesn't stick in the long run, because that is way too Dirty Dancing.

My, how I've grown!

People are starting to notice that I haven't just let myself go. In the past week I've had a few total strangers ask me how far along I am. I am very happy to be at the noticeably pregnant stage, though I feel like I am getting pretty big, and I still have a long way to go! Eek!

Dad's a painter

Finally moved all our junk out of "the baby's room" and Alex is prepping to paint! Here he is doing a "Dad dance" and if you've ever seen a Dad dance, you'll notice that they always throw in a bit of silliness. After some deliberation, we have decided to rip out the carpet and put in a cork floor. I think the baby is going to have the best room in the house when we are finished!

Super Loo!

Found at the Milwaukie Masonic Temple. Not only do those guys run the world but they are totally into peeing toward, but not on, each other. Unfortunately it was out of order, the Mason's power is limited only by decent plumbing.

Salmon Watch!

This last Friday Dani & I taught some kids about water quality, and in the process learned a lot ourselves. Sounds pretty cheesy I know, but up until Friday afternoon I was under the impression that nearly all teenagers, especially in a classroom setting, are devil's spawn. This impression came from two sources: 1. I was once myself devil's spawn, particularly toward substitute teachers, and I remember how much I would push the envelope of mischief on field trips, and 2. My last experience trying to control the chaos I once fostered in a classroom was at an alternative school in Macomb, IL. This experience left me with the firm belief that the vast minority of teenagers are decent people, and even though most grow up and become okay adults, during the teen years they should not be trusted. Basically: let your guard down and one of them will shank you.

Naturally, my expectation of a of leading eighth-graders into the woods was to end up floating face down in the river with them throwing rocks at my bloated corpse. But, here I am without scars from stone or shiv and a new feeling that teens are not all that bad.

The program that we participated in was "Salmon Watch!" which is put on by a client of mine, that describes their efforts as conservation 2.0. This idea takes the best parts of conservation: quick, effective action toward actually conserving and does away with much of the b-s surrounding conservation: particularly bureaucratic inaction and politically motivated finger-pointing. Rather, they focus on improving water quality by working with people that have an interest in water (really all of us) like farmers, fishermen and power companies. The vast majority of their funding comes from private contributions and volunteer's time. The piece that we were working on was educating the next generation on the importance of the clean water, not just for the sake of salmon, but for the sake of jobs, power and quality of life.

So besides learning a lot about the intricacies of ecosystems, the strange behaviors (and smells) of eighth-graders and that they are not all evil, we got to hang out on the Salmon River on a beautiful fall day!

Allergies

From New Album 9/14/09 10:02 PM

We came across this 'dog' in Stevenson, WA and I thought how it would be a good dog for me with my allergies. But it is a juniper and, you guessed it, I am also allergic to the pollen of this sculpt-able shrubbery. I guess the only pet we can have without claritin booster shots is a human child; I think I may be allergic to their feces.

Hello from the inside!

Here is the link to the stills from baby's first photo shoot!!

Ultra Baby

The baby was super cooperative for the photo shoot, posing just so, so that the radiologist was able to measure the different parts of the brain, see the chambers of the heart, and see other organs and take other measurements. The baby only squirmed a little (it was 7:30AM - usually the baby starts kicking around 9:30 in the morn), but aside from seeing the baby itself, those movements were the most endearing. A little flicker of a grasp - as you'll see in the second video, moving hands, lips, and feet in other shots. The ultrasound took quite a while, and we soon learned that the radiologist was taking time to study the baby's heart because she had just returned from a conference on neonatal vascular radiology (in Sydney, Australia!) where she learned new ways of viewing the different parts of the heart. She said that she would use our baby's photos to teach the rest of the radiology staff what angles to take (after exclaiming how perfect our baby was for letting her capture some great shots!). The baby has a normal heart rate - 147 beats per minute, is 13cm long, and weighs 9oz give or take an ounce, which is consistent with my doctor's previous declaration of 18.5 weeks (rather than 20 weeks). Alex will post some still shots on Picasa to link here soon - but for now, enjoy these videos of our little baby G!

Rats!

Last night Alex and I headed over to my Mom's condo to drop off some food, since she was going to be arriving late, and would probably be hungry by the time she got to her home away from home. We hadn't been there in a couple months, and when we opened the door the first thing we spotted was a mass of fur and droppings on the otherwise white bedsheet. There were other droppings on the floor. The biggest mess was in the bathroom where the toilet was black and crusty with a big spatter on the floor next to it. Putting the pieces together we determined that there had been a rat in the condo. The water in the toilet had evaporated in those couple months (I guess we did have some really hot days), which revealed an inviting tunnel from the underworld. A rat that had come up through the sewer, had nested in a pillow on the bed, had searched the condo and found no food, and then had returned to the sewer. We were completely grossed out and a little traumatized. We searched the whole place for the creature (with a shriek ready to escape our throats at the slightest sign), but it was no where to be found (thankfully!). After flushing the toilet a couple times, and setting a couple traps from Fred Meyer (with some of the cheese that we had intended to leave for my Mom), we closed the door on that mess and picked my Mom up from the airport later that night. Needless to say, she is staying at our place for now, and will probably spend the day trying to find a cleaner to come and sanitize (dear god, just burn it!) the place. Aside from that drama, the ultrasound is tomorrow, and I'm glad my Mom will be here to witness it. If possible, we will capture some video to post here, but at the very least we'll post pictures. The radiologist told me to arrive tomorrow with a full bladder. Little does she know that I will have no trouble avoiding toilets, now that I know what can surface from beneath!

Not just gas!

Felt a little flick of a kick... at a loss for words.

Yay for BMs!

Though I did at first just think it was my bowels moving, I now know that what I felt was a Baby Movement! It was small, but even Alex could (kinda) feel something beneath the skin of my abdomen. I'm guessing it was a tiny foot stretching out and causing the ever so slight bump that seemed to move across a small section of my lower stomach and then disappear. It has happened a few times since then, and each time I am completely in awe of this little life inside me.

GeeKid

"Are you going to find out what it is?" This question keeps popping up, and my response is simple shrug and 'no'. This is really my way of avoiding the pink tidal wave that would undoubtedly come at us in the form of onesies, rain coats, bows, blankets, bags and squeaky creatures. So, surprise on this one and see how we feel going forward.

I have tried to come up with a more interesting response than, "Just want it to be healthy." Mostly, because there is very little that I can do at this point to produce a healthy baby, the work of nature is fairly dialed in in this regard. And frankly the statement goes without saying.

Nurture, on the other hand, is where I can make my mark and making sure the child persues its inner geek is going to be pretty fun. We are all geeks on some level, usually manifesting itself in heightened interest (near obscession/compulsion) in an activity. Eg: I am a bike-geek and beer-geek with a, somewhat reluctant, side of insurance-geek. The inspiration for this post came from two things I was very geeky about when I was young that come together so nicely in this posting: Origami X-wing instructions. So, to replace the generic healthy baby request, I just want it to be geeky.

TRIPLETS!!!

You read right, we are expecting not just one, but three bundles of joy. If our hands were not going to be full enough with one? It as been years since either of us have even been around one for a significant amount of time. This is what happens when you are haphazard with your seeds. WOW, I just didn't expect that we would have so many pumpkins, especially considering our sowing method was "smash and scream". I think we will be able to handle the triplets that are taking over our front yard.

Pants

Didn't think I would ever be so concerned about tiny, fat pants but it seems to be the thing that is keeping Dani from being comfortable; so it has become my mission to help out... so it goes.

piglet

check me out!

6 July 2009

Ultrasound. I was so nervous that my heart was beating rapidly and I was on the verge of tears. Dr. Cohen spotted the "baby part" on the monitor from an abdominal scan, then quickly prepared for the intravaginal scan that magnifies the uterus and its contents. She steered the probe across the gestational sac (or "yolk sac"), and exclaimed that it was nice and healthy, and then she found the fetus which was flickering onscreen with a pulsing heartbeat. Tears started gushing from my eyes, and I squeezed Alex's hand. Immediately I felt relieved. Our baby is alive. Dr. Cohen stated that the baby is small for 9 weeks, but then went on to explain that since I've been having longer time periods in between menses, that I may be ovulating later too, and hence the baby is younger - more like 7-8 weeks. We are still in the vulnerable time where anything could go wrong, but the baby has made it this far, and I feel confident that it will continue to thrive. I can't wait to let everyone in on this special secret that we've been keeping. I can't wait for all that's to come.