swim season

swim season is over. At least, the classes are over. We could, of course, keep going to the pool on our own. But, as I figured, we haven't. That's why I signed up for the class - to get us out in the water. It worked & we had a great time. By the last two weeks Molly was blowing bubbles, kicking, and even considering going under water on her own. Most importantly, though, she was having a goood time. So, here are the last of the swimming pictures, enjoy! (PS, check out that belly!)

some interesting sites...

What a baby sees...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode1/infantvision/flash.html
(courtesy wendy chaney)

What a baby name does...
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html
(courtesy barnali ghosh)

Berkeley Baby Bonanza Pictures

(previously linked to http://www.tuchus.net/Galleries/Bonanza/. Edited to include photos below.)

click on the belly...

...for more belly pics

(previously linked to http://www.tuchus.net/Galleries/37weeks/. Edited to include photos below.)

On being 37 weeks pregnant

Technically speaking I'm not 37 weeks pregnant until tomorrow. But interestingly (so I think) today was filled with questions and comments that led to my unilateral decision that basically I'm 37 weeks pregnant now. For those of you that have been paying attention, you'll remember the significance of hitting 37 weeks. For those of you (like me) that need a reminder it is at this point that the potential birth of the child is no longer considered premature.

Of course, the past week has been filled with reassurances that most first pregnancies hit the 41-42 week mark no problem. In fact, until today, almost every birth story I had heard involving a first pregnancy had also involved threats of induction (ie. pregnancy gone long). Even the doctor calmly smiled and confirmed that yes, first pregnancies tend to go past 40 weeks, she saw no reason why ours wouldn't, and so we should settle in for the long haul.

Today, oh today, all that changed. With no prodding whatsoever I got no less than three stories of women delivering their first child before 40 weeks and two of them at (gasp!) 37 weeks. Um. Yeah. That's this week. This has also been accompanied by an interesting shift in belly comments - suddenly I'm "huge", "ready to pop", "bigger every day!", etc. One person even decided that I'd "dropped", which I would argue against, but there it is.

But, the reality is I'm more likely to deliver later, rather than sooner. Which basically means that I have up to 5 long weeks ahead of me, with each day a new wave of anticipation, fear, excitement, and the realization that more than half our house is in complete disarray at this point.*

* disarray - On Saturday evening, with dinner plans canceled, Zach and I debated going to a movie, but instead decided to... paint our living room. Now, to our credit (or not), we had decided to do this months ago. In fact, we had already bought the paint and the gear but had never gotten around to the actual painting. So, we figured, why not just do it now? Except now the living room is torn apart, the "dining" room is a combination of living room furniture and baby gear that we started to sort through, and the 2nd bed room (aka kid's room?) is full of unsorted baby gear. Now would be an excellent time to deliver.

Tie-Dye-FUN!

This weekend (and heck, the last two weeks!) was filled with several notable baby events, but #1 on the list has got to the fantabulistic Berkeley Baby Bonanza! held by none other than the amazing Rebecca and splendid Barnali. Apparently they have a good grasp on the many issues that Zach and I have and held a most appropriate tie-dying party. We are now the proud owners of a wonderful collection of onsies, t-shirts, socks, and other baby clothing items in a range of enviable swirls, circles and stripes.

We are now also overwhelmed by how wonderful our friends are - not only are they quite talented tie-dye-ers, but they are also incredibly supportive and sweet as we embark on this crazy adventure. Thanks to everyone who came and twisted those little onsies up into colorful knots. It means so much to us that you haven't all gone running and screaming because we've gone and done this crazy procreation thing.

FAQ #3: are you ready?

We're over the colds (mostly) and on to a million other things. The baby shower last weekend was lovely. And the best part was a special treat organized by Susie (my mother-in-law): a surprise visit from my very own mother! She flew out from Maryland/DC just for the weekend. What a wonderful weekend. And a wonderful present. The shower was mostly an "advice" shower, which was perfect since I was feeling a nervous about being "showered" with gifts from folks that I didn't know at all. And there were some lovely used baby items from these women (who were lovely themselves. Apparently I'm also now officially one of the "Mamelas").

We're are now at 35 weeks. It occurred to me today that what this means is that I'm two short weeks away from answering FAQ #1 with "any day now". Which leads me to FAQ #3: "are we ready?" Yikes. That's a loaded question. Fortunately, from what I can tell, there's only a few precious things needed to be prepared for an infant: a car seat (to get the kid home from the hospital), diapers (to catch the poop), warm things (to, uh, keep the baby warm), and working boobs (ie. food). The boobs are clearly working, we've got a serviceable carseat, we've got some clothing items, and they sell diapers in every corner store. So, uh, yes? I think we're ready?

But the question often is phrased with the words "baby's room" in it. On that front, no. Right now that room is a pile of baby gear of many many varieties. But that doesn't matter, right? The kid doesn't need a room to itself just yet (although it's stuff clearly does!).

Sometimes the question is phrased in a more pointed way, as in "are you ready for it to be over?" To that, in general, Yes. From what I can tell there are a couple of general camps that pregnant women fall into at this point in the pregnancy. One is that they are so gosh durn uncomfortable they just want it over. Another is that they're enjoying the pregnancy so much they don't want it to be over. Then there's the different types of worriers: the ones who want to keep the kiddo inside so they know all it's needs are taken care of; and the ones who want the kiddo out ASAP so they can see with their own eyes that everything is A-Okay.

Generally speaking, I'm pretty comfortable (except for that durn round ligament*) so in that respect I fall into the "doin' okay" camp. I also find it super cool all the things my body knows how to do to make a baby. And it's cool to feel that kid inside of me, just rolling around. As for the worrying - I'm firmly in the second camp: until I see the kid I will worry that something could happen at any moment. While there is only a remote chance of something going wrong at this point, that chance is still there. And it's very real for me as I miscarried my first pregnancy (which is sadly so common) and my mother lost her first child at 8 months.

The good news for the week is that everything looked great at our Dr's visit on Monday. She did an ultrasound to check the kids position (head down, facing to the back, ready to go!), we heard the heart beat, and she switched us from the leisurely monthly visit schedule to a weekly visit schedule. (!)


*For the uninitiated - the round ligaments apparently are the ligaments holding up my growing uterus. I find it interesting that these ligaments are rarely mentioned amongst the pregnancy woes, as I have found them to cause some of my worst pains of pregnancy. Basically, as I understand it, as the uterus grows these ligaments stretch. Yes. If you've ever sprained an ankle, you know that ligaments aren't so good at that. Calls to the advice nurse or mentions to the doctor come with knowing nods and reassurance that everything is normal. And no, there's not much that can be done. Except what my wonderful amazing Zach does, which is remind me to breathe, breathe, and everything is okay.

Baby U.

Zach and I now have nearly enough credits to graduate from Baby U. We got 2 units for the newborn care class, 2 more for breastfeeding, and I'm pretty sure it was 3 for the birth class. Next month we have a Kaiser birth class, which gives us 2 extra credit units and should be enough to actually graduate! Um, yeah. About that graduation thing - I've got to admit that it's looming awfully large these days. But if nothing else, we'll be prepared. For the birth.

It's the rest of those details that I'm not so sure about. Name? what name? you mean we can't follow in my parents footsteps and wait a few months to give the kid a name? Oh, and those pesky things like "clothing" and "diapers". I guess we have to figure that out, too. Right now we have one foot in the "less-is-more" camp and one foot in the "yeah, I guess we need some baby stuff" camp. I'm excited to see what comes up at the "used baby shower" this weekend, and we've had wonderful offers from other recent parents.

Even more importantly, we need to get Zach over his fever. This is three days running now! Fortunately, I've skipped the hot part of the cold and I'm just enjoying the congestion/cough.

Previews of Coming Attractions

So our next-door neighbors just had their baby last week. It'll be wonderful to have a child of a similar age living next door, but for now it's just cool getting a sneak preview at what's going to happen. Of course given that baby Nathaniel weighed in at 9 lbs. 11 oz., maybe we hope that the sequel is somewhat slimmed down...

33 weeks and counting.... :)

Belly thoughts

In the past few weeks I have officially passed into the phase where people can not only clearly tell that I'm pregnant, but they feel compelled to comment on the pregnancy. Up to this point I pretty much only got comments from folks who already knew I was pregnant. Just before the new year, though, I started noticing a change. First at work with folks who had watched the gut take shape. (There was often a sense of relief when they finally talked to me about it, like they hadn't been sure and didn't want to say anything until they were absolutely positive.) And now with complete strangers. (Clerks seem particularly interested. I guess it spices up the ol' "how can I help you, have a nice day" deal)

I'm sure the "how far along are you"/"is it a boy or a girl" routine will get old soon, but for now I find it sweet that folks are asking. I've spent so long (nearly 7 months!) getting no props, or worse getting grief for being too "small", that I find it fun to have the pregnancy publicly acknowledged. At one point, when I was about 5 months along, one woman actually asked if I had been to a doctor because she simply could not believe I had a healthy pregnancy! (Zach, the wonder husband, promptly looked up a Salon article about a woman having a small belly and all the grief she got for it before birthing a big, healthy baby).

Regardless, even though I have yet to get a seat on Bart (the subway) because of my belly (although I have noticed that women even further along than I are not offered seats - for shame!) I feel similar about my very visible belly as I have felt about the kicking - I actually like it! Maybe this will change in the last month, but at this point I figure I'll be uncomfortable one way or another. The baby's kicking is very reassuring, and, as I said, the comments on the belly are, well, sweet.

#2 FAQ: Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?

In a nutshell, nope, we don't know.

At the 18 week ultrasound (below) it may have been possible to find out the gender. The ultrasound technician was wonderful and spent at least an hour taking measurements of all sorts of baby parts, but couldn't see between the legs. She carefully explained what we were looking at (good thing, because what looked like gray fuzz to us was clearly things like a kidney, brain, or bladder to her) and showed us the cool things like video of the blood pumping through the umbilical cord & a little footsie.

However, the little nugget wasn't so cooperative - it danced and twirled, and generally made it difficult to measure, but never gave us a glimpse between the legs. The technician tried various methods to get it to move differently (including tilting me at various angles), to no avail. Mostly, she just pushed her magic ultrasound wand into my hip. Not that I minded, you see. I was more than willing to sit through all this to find out that the kiddo seemed to be developing (and dancing) quite well. In fact, because all fetuses develop at the same rate until something like the 20th week, they can use the measurements at this point to better date the pregnancy. Our little guy measured exactly to the day what we were expecting based on the menstrual period method described below.

So, after an hour or so of prodding, turning, etc., (and having the radiologist review all the measurements) our mighty technician offered to try to get a glimpse at those private parts. I was tired; we declined the offer.

As I say, we'll find out one way or another.
As Zach says, it's awfully intrusive to ask a fetus to show it's privates if it doesn't want to.
As we both say, it doesn't really matter, anyway.

A little later on ...

This is a profile of the baby's head at 18 weeks (early October). The top of it's head is to the left, and it appears to have it's hand at it's mouth.

#1 FAQ: When's your due date?

Short answer: "March."

Long answer: "Early March."

There's two things to remember with due dates: 1) No one tells the baby; and 2) the medical world doesn't count pregnancy in months. So, forget 9 months, and remember 40 weeks. Just for fun, the due date is calculated as 40 weeks after my last period. Most women (apparently, myself included) typically ovulate about 2 weeks after their period. Thus, we get 2 weeks credit just for... well, you know. It's kinda like how on the SAT they gave us 200 points just for filling out our name. Not a terrible deal. Plus, 40 is a nice, even number.

Next up to confuse folks is the fact that the due date isn't actually the date that anyone expects the baby to be born. That baby's got it's own agenda. A pregnancy is considered "full term" anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks along. Thus, Zach and I hedge when folks ask for a due date and give the general "early March" response. No sense in pinning us down to a specific day! If you must have a time frame, I'll let you in on a secret: very few doctors will let a pregnancy progress past 42 weeks. In this case, that's March 23rd.

Which brings us back to our original answer: March.

Let's start at the beginning (or close)

... here's the little alien back in July, at just 7 weeks.