Quick update...

Hey everyone...Just wanted to let you know that today's doctor's appointment went fine. I'm up three pounds since last time (still less than the average pound per week, but they didn't seem concerned so I'm ok if they are) and the baby's heart sounded good. I swear I could listen to it all day. Of course, that sneaky baby moved while we were listening so the doctor had to move around to find it again. I'm still not big enough to measure, I guess, because I saw the tape measure on the desk but she didn't use it. Next time, I guess.

I just saw a picture of Jessica Alba on the front of a magazine at the grocery store. She's pretty big already, and she came out with her news just a little before we did. Only reason I remember is because we were in Florida when she did it. So either she's a bit further along than me, or I'm just incredibly lucky to stay as small as I have so far. I'm just happy there are a couple other cool celebs pregnant right now, like Nicole Kidman and Gwen Stefani. It's just fun to see famous people with their baby bellies, although they'll obviously be much better dressed than me throughout :) Oh well...hopefully off to Old Navy this weekend to rectify that. I feel like I'm buying a lot of stuff, but when you go from a big closet to this handful of wearable stuff, it's a little scary. I'll settle in eventually.

Juno

So we got to watch "Juno" the other night. Interesting movie if you haven't seen it yet. And if you haven't heard about it, it's about a 16 year old that gets pregnant after some experimentation with her best friend and decides to give the baby up for adoption. Overall I liked it, but there was one plot twist I didn't enjoy very much. Some of the writing was fantastic, with some really funny zingers, but I will say that some of it brought to mind the criticisms of Dawson's Creek way back in the day...that the characters were a little too intense and intelligent to be believable high schoolers. I got a bit of that in "Juno" as well, but then again, it was about a topic that is really beyond high school maturity level anyway...or at least, it should be. To be honest, I couldn't even fathom being pregnant at sixteen. High school was such a hyper-emotional time anyway, and that was just about annoying first-love type stuff. Not that that stuff wasn't traumatic, because it was, but compared to having a baby? Yikes.

Some stuff in the movie was perhaps a little more flippant than I figure it would be in most real life situations (like her parents handled it REALLY well), but seeing a movie like that while pregnant myself added another dimension to it. The ultrasound scene made me smile, and I couldn't help but laugh at the revelation that babies have fingernails, that Juno was made aware of outside the women's clinic before she went in to "procure a hasty abortion." The fingernail thing reminded me of all these emails I get each week about the baby's development...all the minute details about what's forming this week, etc. This week the baby is the size of a bell pepper, by the way. I suppose stuff like fingernails does make a baby seem a lot more real, doesn't it?

I also saw "Knocked Up" when I was pregnant, albeit early on. There were a couple things that stuck in my head from that one (still trying to get the delivery sequence out)--the original ultrasound and when they tried to have sex when she was 5 or 6 months along. The original ultrasound was misleading, at least in our case. We were convinced when we went for ours that we were about 8 weeks, which is what she was in the movie, and all she saw was a blob. As evidenced by our ultrasound, which was actually at 10 weeks, there was way more than a blob. As for the sex thing, I'll be honest...it freaked me out a little to see a woman with a baby belly trying to have sex. Considering I'm rapidly developing a baby belly, I'm going to have to get past that (and hopefully Craig was fine with it from the beginning!). It's not that she didn't look good or anything, but let's just say there's a reason why most forms of mainstream sexual media don't focus on pregnant women. It's just...odd. Beautiful in its own way, but odd nonetheless.

That said, not all pregnancy movies give me a complex. I'm very much hoping to stumble upon "Look Who's Talking" playing on cable sometime soon...I think I'd appreciate Mikey's in-womb commentary that much more :)

Not a thing to wear...

I'm still struggling with my figure and how to dress it. It seems like every day my stomach is getting a little bigger, but it's still not round enough to look like I'm actually pregnant. I still just look like I've put on some weight, all in my stomach. I still contend that the difference between looking fat and looking pregnant is a distinct horizontal crease in the belly button region. It's from the natural separation of my rolls of fat when I sit (dating back pre-pregnancy). Right now I still have that crease. Once the baby pushes its way up, it should fill it in.

Depending on what I'm wearing, the belly is still not that noticeable. However, tight things are pretty much a no-no at this point if I'm not wearing pants that camouflage the chub and provide a nice transition for my shirt. For example, I'm wearing a fitted shirt today, but because of where my pants fall, you can't really see much belly...except that the pouch below the waistline is bigger than it used to be. But really, I suppose I just look average now.

Last night I was at the gym, and I brought my loosest tank top with me. It's still a little fitted, but compared to the stuff I used to wear, it's pretty loose. Again, it wasn't bad, but I felt like I fit right in with the folks who are still getting into their new year's resolution trips to the gym. Guess I'm stuck with baggy t-shirts now, particularly when I go to class and look in a mirror for the entire hour.

I'm slowly but surely running out of pants that fit, and I think I need to go get some new panty hose. I still don't think I'm big enough for my one pair of maternity pants, but I do need to try them on again. For now I'm stuck with a couple pairs that just fit, a couple pants from my heavier days that are still a little big, and any elastic waist skirts (assuming I get the bigger panty hose). Shirts I can make work here and there, but I did go out over the weekend and buy a bunch of regular tops (all on clearance) with empire waists and flowing bottom halves so I didn't feel like my only other option was maternity wear. Even still, it's a big step to take. Almost like, once you go there, you can't go back. I know that's not the case, but it's just odd. Getting up every day and trying to figure out what to wear is torture...and I thought it was bad before when I was just sick of everything in my closet. Ugh.

And I know that one of these days when I try to wear normal clothes, I'm going to run into the obstacle I've been waiting for...my belly will be out enough that my belly button ring will be visible. Right now it's still hiding in the belly button crease, but when that's pushed out farther, I'll have to finally make the call to take it out. I'm ok with it, but hey, it's been part of me for over 7 years now...another big step. I'm sure that will be a whole post in and of itself...so stay tuned :)

Playing around...

I wanted to check out the photo features of this blog so I knew what the heck I was doing once I had something real to post. I'm getting close to a belly shot at some point, but honestly, right now I still look like I've just been eating too many cheeseburgers. No one needs to see that...and really, I can still hide it pretty well. I'll post something when there's something to see.

However, in the meantime, I figured I'd test out the photo features by uploading the "official" first baby picture, from way back at 10 weeks. We get a new one in another three weeks or so, the one that determines (if we were finding out) what the baby's sex is. As of now, we're still not, so you don't have to worry about asking :)

In the meantime, here's a "before" picture of me from our trip to Florida in December. See, I'm still a kid at heart :) I know you can't see much detail, but rest assured my stomach was pretty flat...so consider that the starting point.

I guess that's all I've got for today. Have a great weekend if I don't get around to posting...

Concerns...

I hope the blog title didn't freak anyone out...everything's fine. My brain, however, has fast-forwarded a few months and is starting to think about some of the less fun parts of parenthood. It's mostly the result of the two blogs I read everyday, the ones that I originally mentioned sparked this creation. Both women who write them had kids a while back, and it's interesting to read some of the things they're going through, knowing that it'll be me in the coming months. They've both had their share of issues (one got that nasty MRSA while in the hospital (the one that's already a cancer survivor, no less) and the other is a single mom), but everything seems much better everytime they post pictures of their cute little boys...both are adorable. And isn't that what it's all about anyway?

Well, lately there have been a couple things that have come up on the blogs that already had me worried in the back of my mind. The first is marital difficulties after the baby is born. The thing is, Craig and I have a great marriage...we're genuinely happy and have a great time together. Sure, Craig's job gets in the way a lot, but maybe that makes the time we do have that much better because we know it's limited. And anyway, if he never had that job, we wouldn't be together. But you hear periodically about marriages that crap out right after kids because of the added stress. Despite the strength of our marriage currently, every time I hear stuff like that I cringe a little. No one goes into parenthood expecting it will make them hate each other, right? We'll obviously do all we can to avoid being a statistic...but it's still such a scary, unknown world. My fear has always been that I'll be left to do the vast majority of the child care because my work schedule is shorter and more normal. Craig has to work games, go on the road, etc., and that means a lot of nights and weekends of solo parenting. I can see how that could get frustrating and exhausting. I know he will do everything in his power to devote as much time as possible to our new little family, so on that front I'm not that worried. But then when I read in this one blog that some major life changes (a new baby, new house and new NYC commute) were causing some marital strife (she hasn't elaborated beyond that yet), it was a little scary. After all, this was a relationship that survived cancer. Yikes. Maybe it's not that serious, but it still gets you thinking. Hopefully Craig and I will remain blissfully in love no matter what parenthood throws at us, but there's no denying that big changes are ahead and we need to get ready for the challenge!

My second issue is day care. This is a big one on a number of fronts, from fears about the staggering costs (which I keep hearing about from all over) to how horrible it's going to be to drop off our six week old newborn and then sit at work for 8-9 hours a day...then come home, spend a few measley hours with the baby before it (and we) fall asleep. It all just seems so sad.

While we haven't done major calculations as far as daycare, we know we can't afford to have one of us not working. But however the budgeting goes, we'll just have to make it work. It seems horrible to not have kids just because you can't budget around daycare, you know? What happens when there's more than one to pay for, I have no idea. Hopefully we'll be in a different situation by that point and it will be less of an issue by then.

Picking a daycare scares the crap out of me...just too many stories on the news about psychos working at them or running them. We might have a bit of an "in" for one, but we haven't even gotten close to looking into it yet to know if it's a good one.

So overall there are a lot of scary things coming up...and while I know we'll have to confront them one of these days, right now I just want to stay calm and enjoy our relative sanity while we still have it...

Nothing new...

I don't really have anything to report today, but I've decided that even if I don't have anything to post, I'm going to make an effort to somehow reward those that decide to visit with something. So...

If you want to go back to your childhood (for some of us young folk), here are two great sites:

http://www.thuletrail.com/ - This is a modernized online version of the old Oregon Trail computer game. It's really goofy but I couldn't help but laugh thinking about all the ways people used to get sick and die in the original game. "Zeke has dysentery." (Oh, and I just looked up what dysentery is...ewwww.)

http://www.virtualnes.com/ - Click on the letters at the top of the screen to be whisked away to a magical land where your original Nintendo console still works! This site has recreated a ridiculous number of original Nintendo games for online play, and it is amazing. I'm a huge Super Mario freak and all three are on this site. It's amazingly close to the real thing. The only thing I've noticed is that you can't make Mario duck and slide at the same time like you can in the original. But other than that, the site is truly awesome. Sorry, no Duck Hunt, though.

Enjoy...maybe I'll have something better to report tomorrow :)

Waiting for movement...

Now that we're into week 17 (the baby is the same weight as a turnip this week, by the way...they must have run out of fruits and vegetables that are comparable in size), I'm getting a little anxious to start feeling the baby move. They say it's usually anywhere between 16 and 22 weeks, so I may still have a decent wait. I'm thinking I'll be sort of in the middle because I'm thin (which means that I should feel things earlier) but this is also my first baby (which means that the muscles are firmer and I'll feel less early on).

I've had feelings somewhere in my belly periodically in the last few weeks, but honestly, it's so hard to know if it's just gas bubbles or actual movement. Supposedly they feel the same until you get used to the feeling. I've been trying to figure it all out based on the location of the fluttering feeling...it actually sort of feels like a muscle spasm, like when your eye gets a twitch or something. The optimist in me wants to believe it's actual movement, but the pessimist in me thinks back to an evening back in the summer where an area of my stomach visibly twitched on and off for about 20 minutes...but obviously that was either gas or a muscle issue. The feeling I've had lately is really similar but not as freakishly visible as it was that evening. But that just proves that one can masquerade as the other.

Even though I have fears that the movement is going to keep me up at night (more than, say, trying to stay on my side or 5am bathroom trips already do), I'm eager to know for sure someone's in there and at least have a clue that all is well. I really think that has to be where the bonding starts, when the baby really makes its presence known without hiding behind other devices like morning sickness, exhaustion, or cravings (none of those yet, in case you were wondering...at least, nothing beyond what I experienced in my pre-pregnant life). Knowing that you're feeling something and it's actually the baby, not just caused by the baby, has to be pretty stinkin' cool. And I'm getting tired of waiting for doctor appointments to have that sort of direct connection, you know?

In any event, I'll let you know when it happens :)