Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Another.

So I had another harrowing pregnancy experience this week - entirely because of my own personality, not because it was actually painful.

I've been avoiding purchasing bras for several weeks because I'm just over halfway to my due date and I know there's no way the ones I buy now will still fit later. I hate shopping, I hate bra shopping because no one in the world makes well-fitting bras, and I particularly hate spending a lot of money on something I know I will only be able to wear for so long. "so long" being at maximum about three months at this point.

So Monday night, Tim and I head to the mall (confession: because of my work hours, we only got there about an hour before closing time). We start with a big department store with the biggest selection of lingerie I've ever seen.

27 bras later, I've got a stuffy nose because the dressing rooms aren't cleaned regularly, I want to kick someone because of two 17 year olds in the dressing room who may have been drunk and were loud, giggly and generally rude, and I haven't even been able to find a bra I can put on, much less wear comfortably. And I've been trying on the largest sizes the store carries.

We run across a few spindles of the wheel, which is how our mall is set up, and try the motherhood maternity store. Aha, I think, there must be some more comfortable and better fitting bras here.

A short wall of black, tan and white greets me. Look, I know I'm not a teeny person, but I would like to know who made the rule that once you pass a c-cup, you only like to wear these three colors.

Anyway, I'm already upset because of how many I tried on in the department store that didn’t remotely fit - I hate shopping, I hate bras, etc. I've graduated to my whiny voice, which no one should ever have to hear and Tim finds extremely ridiculous, so he is in "lecture mode" whereas he explains to me that I need to get over the fact that I hate shopping and man up. I try on a handful more bras, going up significantly in size just to find one that fits.

I still can't find one big enough. Even the maternity store doesn't carry anything remotely comfortable. I burst into tears in the dressing room - the store's closing in about ten minutes and I've had no luck at two of the places I assumed would be the most successful.

I buy two of the largest ones I can find - they at least provide some support, even though they squeeze my ribcage. They're better than what I already have, and I'll return them if I can find better ones. Tim continues to lecture me both on the way home and when we arrive, because he can't understand (nor can I, to be honest) why I get so upset about just finding something that fits. None of this helps. I end the day in tears, without the bras I need, not so excited about another day without one. (Caveat: I've had some upheavals in my job situation recently that sort of resulted in good opportunities but mostly left me feeling of no value or talent, requiring me to spend the next several months in my third trimester and during maternity leave working very hard to find new opportunities, and I'm still recovering from that, so the upset-state could be residual)

Last night, we tried again. Shopping two nights in a row, hurrah, right? No.

We started at a maternity plus store, which boasted a whole section of plus-sized clothing. They had a total of four bras that were possibly big enough: two covered in nasty, itchy lace and the other two with fabric as thin as the new fad of "green" TP that seems to be everywhere and requires three handfuls to utilize properly. Yes, I did just put a toilet paper reference in here. Neither the lace nor the Saran-wrap thin fit well at all. I asked the employee if any of the other bras came in larger sizes, and she said only the ones I had tried on.

Great. The plus-sized maternity store doesn't carry anything that works for me.

So we descended into Lane Bryant. No offense to anyone who has ever or regularly shopped there - they have very nice clothing, but I have never had to shop at a store because of the number size on my clothes before. That was a little disconcerting.

However, I shall be lauding Lane Bryant forever in the future: they had everything I needed. A huge selection (with colors other than tan and white!), several different fits, many of which would have been okay, and I found one style in particular that is marvelously comfortable and a perfect fit. They had a buy two-get two sale, (BTGT, instead of BOGO) and though the prices weren't super cheap, they were about the same as I would have paid at any other store. Plus, I got four instead of the two I had resigned myself to living with for the next several weeks.

Thank. Goodness. We left triumphant, and thanked the salesman (yes. Man. In Lane Bryant. I refrained from asking why he worked there -- I was slightly afraid of his answer. I did, however, ask why in the world some of the bras had little air pockets in them -- he informed me it was for cleavage purposes. Said air cups were very uncomfortable!).

It was not an experience I'd like to ever repeat, though I fear for what I will need to do in another few weeks/months.

But now I am recovered and comfortable again, and getting ready to celebrate my birthday tomorrow!!!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Some fotos

Very late at night we tried to do a baby belly photo shoot.

We ran into several problems.

a. Tim has no training or skill with a camera.

b. Unlike most women, I have a slightly different frame. Namely, well-endowed-ness. So though my belly is sizable at 22 weeks, the top still overshadows the belly-button region. Not much I can do about this.

c. even laying down, there was no way to tell that I was anything but thick around teh waist.

Nonetheless, here are some baby belly pics:




Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Belly buttons and poop

So I'm beginning to lose my belly button.

It's an outie anyway, so it's not like I had much of one. But still. It's very odd.

People are also starting to feel comfortable asking if I'm pregnant - well, at least those people who have known or seen me regularly for some time. For those who haven't I'm pretty sure they still just think I have a thick waistline naturally.

In baby news, I'm starting to feel this kid move more than just a jab or two here or there. Twice now I've felt either half of him rolling inside or his head smacking the edge of my uterus. I gotta admit, I've been researching many, many facets of having and caring for a baby, but sometimes it freaks me out that there's a person inside of me.

He's almost a pound now, and I would tell you the other things my baby book said but it was really late last night when I was looking at it and all I remember is talking about how their first poop(s) will be nasty and blackish green.

Which led to Tim telling me the story of our brother-in-law, changing his first newborn son's diaper, deciding to throw (yep. I said throw) the diaper towards the trash can.

And, you guessed it -- the diaper hit the wall. Splat. Black. Poop. Everywhere.

And then we couldn't stop giggling and then I fell asleep.

In non-baby life information, I've been really trying to go to the gym almost as regularly as before. For the first trimester, I only made it to about 6 weeks in before I was overtaken by what my Grandma calls the "sleeping sickness" and was irritable, tired, and more tired all of the time. I think other than the bathroom, I didn't clean one thing in my house in that entire time. I slept 10 hours a day every day almost.

Once I recovered from that, around thanksgiving, I started to try to go work out more often. My at-home workout videos are a bit too intense for my heart rate and stamina right now (can you see me trying Billy Blanks with a belly??!!) except one that's a dance-aerobics without too much jumping. I pulled about twice/week for the past few weeks, until mid-December when I kicked it back up to at least four times/week.

And don't worry, I work out cardio-wise only at about half the intensity as before, and only walking or biking.

No daycare tours this week as it is the week before Christmas - hopefully no more crazy stories to share like the last one.

Finally, a photo update to come soon!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

It. has been a night.

It started with a pretty bad headache, which my Tylenol doesn't do much about. Tim and I had an appointment to tour a daycare center downtown a couple of miles from our house at 5:30.

So I leave work, make it there on time, and manage to find a parking spot right in front. This particular day care is in a church, and the director told me that the doors would be locked so she would keep an eye out for me.

It's ten degrees outside. I wait a couple of minutes...wait a couple more. Call the number of the daycare - it goes to voicemail. I notice that on the church sign, at the bottom, it says that the daycare entrance is on a side street.

So. in my 4" heels. in the snow. I walk around the block to find the daycare entrance. Also locked. so I wait there for awhile. Then I walk around until I find another door. This one, marvelously, has a little doorbell. The church receptionist tells me that most of the doors in the building (except the two I've tried) are still unlocked. So I go right on inside. She doesn't know anything about the daycare or the director though.

Now to find the daycare. It's a pretty big church downtown, and for some reason, the daycare isn't labeled on the little building maps posted by the stairs. Tim and I wander around, going up and down stairs, down hallways, etc.

Ten minutes later, we smell antiseptic, hear a toddler crying, and have finally discovered the daycare. We walk up to the entrance to the first room, at which point, one of the workers literally points to a little girl and says, oh, she's yours? (what if we had said yes? What if we had taken her???!!!) We say no, and then I am about to ask for the director, Rachel. The woman turns away. There's now two kids crying with no one really paying attention, and another mom chastising her three-year old. We stand there for awhile, waiting for one of the workers to ask us what we need, or at least look at us, but though they are not paying attention to the two kids, neither do they seem to care that we're standing there.

We wander around to more rooms, find no one. We finally see a sign that says office, which is a little weird, because its a room and closet crammed full of toys, baby stuff, etc. with a desk. The employee within cracks open the door with her foot and I ask for Rachel, the director, b/c we're supposed to go for a tour and ask her some questions. The employee apologizes, saying the center will close in 15 minutes, and the director is already gone for the day. Perfect. The employee answers the phone before letting me continue, when it happens to be the director. She asks if theres an email or phone number I can call the director at to answer a couple of questions, and the director says to call her back at the daycare the next day. Which is clearly why I scheduled a tour with her two weeks in advance....

The employee tells the director that they've lost not one, but two baby strollers (owned by parents) and no one is sure where they went.

She says we should call another time and we can set up a tour with Rachel...which I already did and already told her....

So Tim and I let ourselves out. and crossed. the place. off. our list.

The good news is that after we went to our favorite dirt-cheap authentic Mexican restaurant after that. The further bad news is that Tim then left for Bible Study while I came home to a house of 25.5 degrees....

Good gracious. That's my baby-related story of the day :)

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A Cantalope.

Baby is now the size of a cantaloupe, according to one of my weekly emails. about the length of a carrot and three-quarters of a pound. I feel like its slightly odd to always be comparing the poor child to fruits - but the visual is still useful.

This update I'll put what we accomplished in line of baby this weekend: nothing :) But it was nice to just do whatever we wanted over the weekend. Which clearly involved sitting around, watching TV, hanging with some friends and going to the gym. Oh, and the best donuts in the whole world.

We did loosely plan the two dates of baby showers - one in Pa. and one in Mass. The one will definitely include wings and maybe.....football? Bet you didn't see that one coming :)

I've also been reading up on various things - some of them scary (post-partum care for myself) and some of them cuddly. I've got a handful of baby books, and I try to read a chapter each day - all dealing with post-birth. I got Tim a couple as well - one of which I believe is called a caveman's guide to first-time dads, which should be interesting. So far I've learned a lot of random stuff I wouldn't have thought of - like that many babies come with "state" control - or the ability to control their own level of alertness (awake and bright-eyed when they wake up, closing their eyes when they're sleepy), whereas fussy babies tend to lack that intrinsic control (refusing to close their eyes no matter how tired they are, etc.) how you should start babies using bottles a couple of times a week (after 4 weeks) if you plan on putting them in any type of child care where they will need to bottle feed, etc.

who knew???

I promised I'd tell you about free stuff we've been trying to collect. We wanted a video camera for baby and had planned on spending the money at some sale or another - Tim found that on Cyber Monday, our rewards points on our credit card also had deals - so we bought a....flip...camera..thing? That should cost around $140, and just used our points to get it for free! it works pretty well, takes some low-quality photos, and you can use it underwater as well! It's made for wear and tear, very resilient. We're excited :) We've also gotten something called a Rainbow Tabletop air purifier, thanks to Tim's family, Krista and Jesse, and our friends Becca and Matt, for sitting through a sales pitch for us. It's working great guys!!!
As I've said before, pretty much all of my maternity clothes have been free - and there's some stuff that's really a perfect fit, which I love love love!]

Oh, in other news (sorry I forgot this, it already seems normal) but I've decided I have been able to feel the baby kicking! It's not all the time, and it's only in certain spots, and it didn't feel anything like what people told me it would feel like. It feels like a tiny (not painful) muscle spasm, which I suppose it makes sense, its just a little arm or leg stretching the muscle a little bit, for just a moment. I can only feel it on the low side of my belly, right at the bottom, and in one spot on each side. I thought I would be able to feel it all over my belly, and I thought it would feel different. But anyway.

I don't think I have any other updates right now. The nursery is still not even near being complete - still waiting on that free insulation. I'm trying to be patient...but I told Tim if we don't have it by this weekend, we're finishing the bathroom instead (baseboard, painting minimal trim and new faucet). that's certainly a weekend job.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Forgot!


Also, I forgot to upload the picture I had Tim take special last night with our new, free video camera thing!

More about the camera later. With this marvelous profile, in front of my super cute Christmas tree that I insist on putting up every year even if not even one person other than Tim and I see it, you can see my tummy

The planning never ends...yay!

If you know me, you know I love to plan. Tim and I had a conversation about this - he's much more of a visionary, strategic planning sort of personality, but I am more of an executor - following through on plans. However, that doesn't diminish my love for details and preparation and research. Baby time then, is not stressful but fun in that weird, also why I love to clean the house or planned my entire wedding by myself (except the catering, thanks mom!) kind of way.

That said, these last few days we accomplished several things:

We purchased a small, comfy chair glider. Not nearly as nice as the $400 gliders you can find in Babys-r-us, but an older, mini-lazy boy glider. I prefer gliders over rockers, but don't want the wooden rocking chair with cushions - I hate ottomans and I don't like that the arms are so high. So we found a small, useful one for $60 at our favorite local used furniture store. It does happen to be mauve velour, which is a problem, but furniture covers were made for a reason!

I've also booked appointments at four of the five local day cares we're looking into. Who knew only a few of them even take infants, and many of those only take infants through pre-school age - we'd like one that we could continue with later, if possible. We're visiting the two most expensive in town, a medium-priced one, a small, church-run daycare and have some time eventually set up to meet with a mom who lives near us and does child care in her home. We'll have all the day cares toured except for the mom before we leave on our cruise!

Next is pediatricians! My family always had a particular relationship with our physicians when I was growing up -- namely that we knew them very, very well. And not just because with four of us, someone was always sick :)We went to a small practice with only one female physician and one female NP, so I was close with both of them. I would like a small practice with doctors of both genders, and NPs or PAs as well. When I asked my mom friends what practices they go to, all of them said the huge, mega-practice in town with about 17 physicians. One mom told me it was great, her newborn visited each different physician at least once and then they picked their primary and "backup" primary. which can only be seen for well-child visits planned far in advance, otherwise you just get whomever is on call. This. does not sound like what I like. at all. Though they have more office hours, smaller practices have nurse triage numbers around the clock, urgent care centers in town are only five bucks more of a copay than a doc visit and the smaller practice I'm looking at has evening hours every day. So I'll be meeting with one of their male PAs late in January, and I hope I like him :) I chatted with my all-knowing mother about good questions to ask a physician, so I'm all prepared.

Also, I need to give a shout-out to one Megan Fisher, as promised for all of her registering advice (another post later) and for her 18 buckets of maternity clothes. I'm a hard fit, and with all of her resources I found several things to get me through without having to purchase anything for either our cruise or the cold, winter months.

All right, that's enough for this time! If there are any requests for topics, please let me know :)

~Holly~

Friday, December 3, 2010

Yoga, registries, and research


Well, I still haven't felt Dwighty move yet. at least I don't think. There's once spot at the very top of my pelvis bone where twice I've felt something, but let's face it, its most likely my intestines :)

I'm wearing a dress today, wonder of wonders. I don't wear dresses for two reasons: 1) they are way expensive. Why would I buy a dress for $50 that's only one outfit when I can purchase multiple items for the same price to make many outfits and 2) from the waist up, my body is one size, and from the waist down, my body is another size. This can be incredibly hard to fit for, and it's a wonder I didn't start wearing two-piece bathing suits until after I was married. anyway. Today I have a marvelous polka dot dress on. I uploaded a picture - don't laugh, I'm terrible at taking photos with my phone still. A volunteer at my FT job told me I look nice and have nice legs, which made me laugh b/c she's about 70 and I've only met her twice in my life :)

other things going on in our life with baby: still organizing like mad craziness. I have great plans for adding a shelf to our one and only non-bedroom closet, to one of our kitchen cabinets, and cleaning out all dressers and other storage spaces full of things we rarely use. I threw out all of our wedding cards that I saved for unknown reasons, but kept all of my coloring books. which I think I might bring on the cruise with us!

I've so far gone through 19 pounds of hand-me-down maternity clothes. the bad news is that I hate shopping and trying on clothes, the good news is that they are FREE and of a variety of styles and sizes, so I'm bound to find a handful of items, which is really all I need. Kara has been wonderful for shirts, since I'm not the tiniest framed person like a lot of my friends (swimmer shoulders and skier thighs, hard to fit, yeah?)Krista's given me a couple of pairs of jeans which are a magical fit (the length works because they ride lower than regular jeans with the belly lowering the waistline!) and several otter folks have contributed to a rather large and varied collection.

I've been taking yoga, surprise to all, kind of including me. Though I have nothing against the basic premise of stretching, focusing and relaxing, I believe that dabbling in spiritual realms we know nothing about and have no control over is always a bad idea. Luckily, I know the teacher, a Christian, and she's great at certainly helping us stretch better and tying in what we do with our pregnancies, but not talking about the inner eye or any spiritual realm like that. There's also a relaxation time at the end of every class which is pretty much nap time for 20 minutes, hurrah! The stretching is good and I need it, though, not to be braggy, the balance poses aren't usually too challenging. I like the mini-workout more than I thought I would.

Some of you have been asking about a baby registry, which we have set up on Babys R Us - just search by my or Tim's name. We are completely okay with hand-me-downs, so feel free to give used items as you wish- with the exception of the stroller, which we are both partial to -- though the orange color isn't a necessity, just what they had in our particular store.

next post: daycare and pediatrician research.....

Monday, November 29, 2010

18 weeks - what???

Hello friends and family,

So tim and I aren't generally over-gushy about our lives, and I feel that since so many of you live far away, you must be just waiting for updates from us, which we fail to provide regularly. Until now, our lives have been mostly uneventful aside from major life changes like jobs, but other than that relatively stable.

However, the days and weeks of pregnancy leading to an entire life upheaval of a newborn and first child is certainly a rapidly changing state to be in, and y'all deserve to be a part of it, even if only through a blog!

Sadly, I don't have any photos yet. My tummy is in that "hmm..is she just getting fat?" stage - I think I've put on about 8 pounds total. enough to tell now at my waistline but not enough so that it looks out of place or uncomfortable. If I stand face to face with Tim, my tummy touches him first though, just by a hair :)

On a hilarious note, my boss at my Full Time Job, Hospice, who is the sweetest, most respectful, unnassuming and clear-headed executive I've ever known in my decade of administrative assistant work repeatedly reminds me that any weight I put on now will be hard to lose later. I confess, about halfway through my first trimester, I had a cinnamon bun for lunch - the first time in three years I've even eaten a cinnamon bun at all. Since then, it doesn't matter what I'm eating, could be veggies and rice, could be some fat and sugar free chocolate pudding, could be gingerale - she'll comment about how that weight will be hard to loose later. Maybe my chunky sweaters make me look chubby....

We're startign to discuss both serius and not-so-serious items to do with baby. Serious? Writing a will and who will be the guardian, back-up guardian, and executor of our very small estate should anything happen to us. Not so serious? Tim wore the baby bjorn I bought for $14 at a consignment store for an entire evening. He put my sugar canister in it to test for weight and size, and walked around like that for four hours. yes.

Our nursery has been in the works since early Octber, and I believe will be complete before Christmas -- that will give me a photo to post! We're painting the small bedroom on our second floor a pastel orange color, very pale, with a white chair rail and vertical 1" stripes around the bottom half of the wall. I'm super excited about it! Our floors we refinished a couple of years ago now during a back-breaking weekend, and Tim has already installed a new ceiling with light fixture for the baby's room. We bought a very nice crib from Craigs list for $50, which I'm very proud of, and will be hitting up Ikea for other items in the coming weeks.

We've already received some fun gifts for Dwight - including ankle rattles and hand-made noah's ark wooden animals from the illustrious and ever-impressive Julie White, promised hand-me-downs of bouncy chairs and bumbos from Krista and/or other friends, and a couple of snuggly jammies from Kara and Matt. Mostly all of those because we've already had the White family Christmas :)