Boy or Girl?

This is Josh: There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether we’ll have a boy or a girl. I take the classic stance that a healthy baby is the goal and the gender is secondary.

If I can be guaranteed a healthy baby, and am free to speculate about whether I want a boy or a girl, I still think either one would be cool.

If it’s a boy, then I sort of know what I’m getting because I’ve been there. I see boys in malls or at parks and I know what it felt like to just want to run and tumble and flail my limbs wildly. You’re a kid, and there’s energy to release. Especially at the mall, which is so boooorrring.

If it’s a girl, then that throws a little wild card in there. But more studies are showing that girls are smarter than boys and excel more easily through high school and college, so that’s a bonus. It seems like having a girl would be an amazing adventure.

One of the things I most look forward to is coaching little league baseball or softball, which is what my dad did for me and my brother. The biggest challenge here is not whether it’s a boy or girl, but making sure that our Baby Bot doesn’t want to play soccer. - Josh

Aiming High

This is Josh: I’m happy that we’re going with a midwife. We’ve been watching baby pregnancy shows on Discovery Health over the past few months, and so many of them go the same way. It’s a slippery slope of one seemingly small intervention after another, until you’re dug in too deep and the only way out is a C-section.

Everyone agrees doctors are great for when there’s complications or a high risk birth. Those C-sections and other interventions save lives. But it seems like doctors delivering most babies aim too low. The one and only goal is a safe birth for mom and baby. But for a large amount of women, they can aim higher than that. The doctor’s toolkit is heavily focused on drugs, surgery, and fixing problems. But this presumes that a pregnant woman is sick, which is often not the case.

Women have successfully given birth naturally throughout history. It seems like it can be an empowering and momentous event.

You can say, well, in the Middle Ages women had kids, but like all things, times are better now. Women live longer now than back then, we’re not using leaches to suck demons out of our blood, and overall medicine has gotten so much better.

But data shows that other countries, such as the Netherlands, still use midwives extensively and have very successful outcomes for birth. The data shows that American doctors’ interventions can create new hazards and in many cases, the interventions are unnecessary.

Given the different incentives that exist for doctors today, it’s not surprising that the rate of C-sections is increasing. With a C-section, doctors know that they can have that baby out in a half hour. The high cost of major surgery is not taken into consideration over the low cost of a natural birth, because of our health care system.

If all signs point to a healthy pregnancy, it seems like a natural birth can be a powerful experience. The more we’ve read, watched, and talked about it, it seems like the best way to go down this route is to have a midwife. It seems like the care we get is based more on the philosophy and perspective of the caregiver than anything else, and a midwife puts the odds in our favor that we won’t have unnecessary intervention in our birth. – Josh

How far along?

How far along? 14W5D

Total weight gain: 3 pounds (lost two in the past couple weeks :()

Maternity clothes? I bought some shirts but I desperately need some pants. The Bella Band can only do so much.
Stretch marks? None.

Sleep: I wake up at least once every night to go to the bathroom. I find that my back is starting to hurt when I wake up on it.

Best moment this week: See my baby bump poking out when I sucked my tummy in. It would NOT suck in!

Movement: None yet!

Food cravings: Prosciutto mozzarella tomato panini, kale with lots of vinegar and hot sauce

Food aversions: Tomato sauce, I hate the smell.

Gender: Still waiting to find out. The ultrasound is set for Nov. 12th

Labor Signs: Oh god no.

Belly Button in or out? In, but now I can look into it from a mirror when it used to face down a bit more

What I miss: Red wine, Motrin 800 and my cute button down tops

What I am looking forward to: Feeling movement!

Weekly Wisdom: As my baby grows so will my body. If I stayed as skinny as I was before I got pregnant, the baby would not survive --- This is from Josh when I came out of Victoria’s Secret. I went from a 36C to a 38 D cup. YOWZA!! Milestones: Making it to the second trimester!

Firing my ob, hiring a midwife.

So we went to see and interview a midwife today. I want a natural birth experiences with as little interventions as possible. I don’t want IV’s or to be strapped to a bed with monitors and an epidural. I don’t want pitocin to override the natural oxytocin (love hormone!) I can naturally provide. I don’t want to start on a cascade of interventions which increase the chance of a cesarean section. I have total faith in my body and in the history of women who have trusted their bodies to do what comes naturally. I don’t need anyone to deliver my baby, I just need a person to attend the birth.

If you know me, I am not natural in any other way. I love drugs. LOVE them. I miss them. I have chronic back spasms that I have muscle relaxers and the occasional script for vicodin. And if you ask josh, I’m sorta into mother nature, but I won’t go out of my way to recycle. I eat organic when possible, but I have no problem driving thru a McDonalds for a tasty McGriddle. And why walk when you can drive!

But if you think about it, and read the research, you put yourself and your baby at less risk going the route I’m going. Of course the most important thing is a healthy baby at the end, but that is obvious. I would love to have a birth process that is powerful, healthy and spiritual for me, josh and the baby. I have a plan. And all plans can be derailed. But I want to put my best foot forward. It’s the least I can do.

2nd Trimester!

We made it! I’m 14 weeks! We made it to the 2nd trimester, where there is only a 1 percent chance of losing baby bot. Not to say that there isn’t a chance that something can go wrong with the baby. But there is only a tiny chance that my cervix will open and my womb will spontaneously expel the bot.

I still get nauseous occasionally during the day. It doesn’t linger for hours like it used to. And I find when I lay on my left side it is easier to manage. It is a walk in the freakin’ park compared to the earlier weeks.

I’m feeling good! More like myself. Like before I had felt all these symptoms, and I felt like my body wasn’t my own. I miss my sleeping pills a little now. Especially now that my chronic insomnia is coming back a bit. I always have heartburn with a headache. A headache can come on its own, but the heartburn needs its headache buddy. But I will take all this crap over sickness any damn day of the week. I almost feel like I have PTSD from the first trimester.

Hmm, but besides symptoms. I am still getting used to the idea of being pregnant. I mean I am so used to seeing a cute baby in the library and having that longing feeling. And now I have to say, oh wait! I’m making one of those cute things right now!

I can’t see a car seat in my car come April. I have no lollipop visions of a nursery. I haven’t bought one baby thing. Not a sock, not a onesie, not a thing! Before it was because I was being cautious. But now I think it is just me being neurotic. I’m sure once I step a foot into Babies R Us it will be like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. My face will melt off and light beams will shoot out of my butt.

You know the first couple of weeks I was pregnant, I wanted to tell everyone. And then for a week before we told everyone, I was in a panic. Just freaked out. I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted to move to a convent and have my baby in secret. Maybe this has something to do with the way mammals like to just crawl under the porch and give birth. I don’t know. Anyhow, I think buying baby stuff is just another crazy thing that I can’t subscribe to yet.

I hope I don’t have a baby as crazy as me. Cause I am sure it will be some different kind of crazy that I will make me wring my hands, and tsk my tongue.

When I heard

This is Josh: I’ve been thinking about the time I heard I’d be a dad. I got home before Stef because it was a day when she worked until 9 pm. I came in just a few minutes earlier after working late. I was in the kitchen getting some food together when she came in and I gave her a hug. We talked about our days for a few minutes and then headed to the bedroom to change out of our work clothes.

Once I was in the bedroom, Charlie came in with something around his neck. Stef often puts things on our animals (socks, hats, t-shirts, cell phones, pretty much anything to liven up those animals’ lives for a second) so that was no shock. But then I looked down and saw it say “I Love Daddy”. And then I saw it was a baby’s bib. And then I looked up, Stef was holding a pregnancy test in her hand, and she said “I’m pregnant!”

I was so happy. It turns out getting pregnant isn’t as easy as those junior high health classes would have you think. So I had had some time to think about how I wanted to have a kid, and to hear Stef say it was just magical. I think I expressed my happiness with a combination of “oh my god” and “are you serious?” as I sat down on the bed. I probably should’ve quoted Shakespeare or something to catch the life-affirming moment, but that’s not my style.

Afterwards, Stef admitted that she almost had the bib on Charlie when we were in the kitchen, but I turned around too quick and she had to cheese it. It’s really cool how she told me the news. It was really creative. And she incorporated Charlie into the action. I’m thinking Charlie better enjoy his attention now, because once that baby comes he’s going to get demoted to the backburner with those cats. - Josh

Heartbeat and feelin' better!

Hi Everyone I’m not sure who is still reading this because I have been a horrible blogger. I am starting to feel better, and it is FAN-freakin’-tastic. I haven’t thrown up in a week. I am queasy before meals and at night. But nothing I can’t handle. In fact, right now, I am hungry! Which is weird.

Well besides the ins and outs of stef’s stomach, I’m happy to report that we confirmed a heartbeat (again!) at the doctor’s on Wednesday. She said that I am actually three days ahead of what I think I am. While she moved the fetal heart doppler across my belly, I asked what the baby was doing right now, and she said “He’s just hanging out”. That mental image just cracked me up. The nurse kept losing the heartbeat because I couldn’t stop giggling. The heartbeat was 140 bpm, and the nurse told me that I was having a boy because anything 140 or lower according to the old wive’s tale is a boy! Now I am can’t get that out of my head. It’s funny because when I saw the ultrasound at 8 weeks, it just screamed boy to me. Mother’s intuition maybe? :) The other day I could feel the top of my uterus pushing out past my pelvic bone. It is all becoming real. I am going to let myself stop worrying and just enjoy. Finally!

We’ve come a long way from a poppy seed! Hello baby plum.

9 weeks belly pic

Here I am at 9 weeks. It is all bloat and bowel. The uterus pushes everything up and out. So that is no baby poking me out! More like my dinner that night. Still, it is funny to have such a round tummy.
Scroll down to the right for our baseline pictures of 4 weeks.

Vacation pictures

Our tandem bike ride in Vancouver's Stanley Park!

I have to put in a picture of the lunch I had that was so delicious! It was like a miracle that my nausea let me enjoy this. I felt like it was the best meal of my life!

Some big bridge in Vancouver. What was the name of it? La chupacabra or something?

Me and Josh on our bike tour of Portland.

The fab view from the Seattle Space Needle. We stayed for like 10 minutes, and were like, okay, let's get the hell out of here!

I had to lay on the street to take this picture. Josh and the Seattle Space Needle

Josh at the very first Starbucks in Seattle's Public Market (where they throw that fish around)

Our vacation to the pacific northwest

Well, we booked the flights before I found out I was pregnant. We took a gamble on priceline to save 50-75 percent on our hotels before I found out that I would get morning sickness (from which point I will just call it the pukes). A little less than 2 weeks before the big trip I started to get the icks which later turned into the pukes. What a horrible time for a vacay right? Wrong! I found being at work was just plain awful. I couldn’t lay down when I wanted to, I couldn’t puke where I wanted too. And reading on the computer is a huge trigger for me (I’ll pay for this entry, I’m sure). I found that going at my own pace made things a bit easier. And good god was I ready for a vacation!

The bad: I was sick on the vacation. But I would say only 2 to 3 hours of the day were pretty bad. I didn’t have as much energy but that just meant I had to walk slow. It felt sometimes that I was made of lead (also some meat). I also had a touch of the rage at times. By rage I mean pregnancy hormones, but you know, toMAYtoe, toMAHtoe. I love you josh!!

The good: I had a great time! It turns out that the whole exercise thing is no bullshit. I would get really nauseous right before lunch. Josh would say maybe we should sit down, but I said, no, lets walk (abet slowly). And after an hour walk, exploring the city, I feel better and I enjoyed pretty much every lunch and all afternoon excursions. That means we had a blast riding our tandem bike in Vancouver (details to come! Well, maybe). Mornings we started late so I could peel my stomach off the bed, and the evenings we took it easy too. A great balance of activities and relaxation.

The awesome: Halfway through the vacation, I was feeling a lot better. I didn’t throw up, and I only felt queasy at times. And get this: I enjoyed all three of my meals on Thursday!!

The paranoid: Well there is nothing worse than having puke time in toiletville, but there is no way to feel sick and simultaneously worry about the baby. All your brain can think is “I don’t want to throw up, please no, not again, NO!” And that pretty much blocks it all out. Well with my boobs feeling less sore and not feeling very nauseaus today, I was really scared that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. But silly me because just when you think its over.. BAM! At 9pm tonight we begin again. I can’t say that all I did was to shout: “Jeebus take the wheel!” while withering on the sofa, because a tiny part of my brain (the sadistic part) was whispering, “yay”. Because nothing says happy baby like a sad tummy. 9 weeks today, and hopefully in a couple of weeks I will feel better with no paranoia either.

So tomorrow I will walk for an hour and see if the exercise was really the key!
More on the vacation laters! And pictures too