Nobody is going to believe this

Nobody is going to believe this.

That’s what I was thinking when it happened.

First let’s take care of old business before we move on to new business. The final cylon was revealed on Battlestar Galactic. Also an unprecedented occurrence happened: Two cylons did the horizontal mambo and totally made a baby! With the destruction of the resurrection ship (which had previously granted immortality to cylons), being able to reproduce the old fashioned way is a big deal for the future of the cylon race!!

Trust me, this useless fact will play into the new business soon. So for all of you who skimmed the last paragraph (mom), you might want to read it!

SO! On to new business! Me and Josh are watching our umpteenth episode of Battlestar on Saturday night. A real marathon that only other fraking nerds would appreciate (frak is the f-word in the future!). During the show, I feel some gas bubbles in my tummy. I figure even if it isn’t the baby, maybe josh should put his hand on my tummy to see if he can feel something too. Not three minutes later it happens!

The baby kicks for the first time, and josh felt the first kick for himself with me! Unbelievable!! It felt like a boop! It felt like a bop! Basically, it felt like a tiny foot kicked me. I had always expected that I would have to dim the lights, sit still and turn off all noise and really focus to feel something. But this was like Pow! -right in the kisser! The best part about it? There was no mistaking it! Finally!

I turned to josh and said “Did you feel that!?” And he said “yeah, it got me right here (points to area right below his ring finger)”. Of course I ruined the moment by making josh do a play by play of what exactly happened, the pressure of the kick and his initial reaction like 5 times. I had him poke me in the arm to demonstrate the strength of the baby. I also corrected him when he pointed to a different area of his hand that was kicked. On and on I went.

I have not felt a kick since. But I am starting to think these rolling movements are the baby. Like a tongue moving on the inside of your cheek. Granted I’m really gassy. So that’s still up in the air.

So, ready for crazy coincidence number 2? Remember that knocked up cylon? Well not 10 minutes later they have their own tender scene where daddy cylon feels the baby kick! Both cylons burst into tears of joy. I gave josh the side eye wondering what happened to the waterworks on our end(!!). Long story short, the cylon baby fetus and his tear jerking kicking scene upstaged us. Big time.

Halftime Update

This is Josh: The ultrasound showed boy, which is supercool, but the really good thing is that everything checked out fine. All the measurements and whatnot. So now we’re at the halfway point, everything has gone great, Stef’s belly keeps growing, and it’s awesome that I’m witnessing a once/twice/thrice in a lifetime event.

During all of this, there’s a feeling of time passing slowly, yet forcefully. It feels like a long time since Stef got pregnant (and I know that means nothing coming from me because she’s the one going through it all). But April is coming quick, we’re already at the holidays with the new year around the corner. I feel like we should do something to make the most of our last days before parenthood, but I don’t know what.

At the same time, there’s something about having our kid growing inside Stefanie’s body that makes the passing of time very cool, and I want time to continue moving. Each week brings a new adventure. Once time drums forward to April, the future of life will arrive.

(And then that future of life has 20 years before they’re outta here! Hey, maybe that’ll be his name: Future. I gotta run that one by Stef.) - Josh

How far along?

How far along? 20 weeks
Total weight gain: 6 pounds. They say you should gain 25-35 pounds, so I can’t wait to start eating my way to that! Oh boy!
Maternity clothes? There are a couple shirts I can still wear, but the maternity pants are a must!
Stretch marks? None.
Sleep: I hate sleeping on my side. The body pillow helps nothing.
Best moment this week: Having the ultrasound. I can’t believe there is a baby in there. He was moving so much.
Movement: I don’t think so. Nothing that shouts baby. Instead it could be gas, round ligament pain, or even just my uterus growing. Sometimes I think something rolled over, but the feeling lingers way too long.
Food cravings: Buffalo chicken dip (shredded chicken breast, cream cheese, frank’s hot sauce, blue cheese) heated up until it is melty and spread on toasted French bread. YUM!
Food aversions: Pizza sauce- still and salmon
Gender: It’s a boy! 75 percent for sure!
Labor Signs: Negative
Belly Button in or out? In, but starting to stretch a bit
What I miss: Sedatives and sleeping on my back
What I am looking forward to: The holidays with my family! Thanksgiving with the in-laws and Christmas with my immediate family. So excited!
Weekly Wisdom: I am not deformed. I am pregnant.
Milestones: Healthy baby at the midway ultrasound.

First Outfit/First Gift!

First outfit!
So yesterday I went to Target to see if I could find an outfit that would inspire me. I hadn’t bought any baby items yet, and I was determined to make this whole baby thing more “real”. It was actually harder than I thought! First of all Target’s newborn boy section was sprinkled throughout only one and half racks. Secondly, there were a lot of too warm wintery type things, Christmas type things, and a lot of sports themes that didn’t have single baseball on it (my compromise to josh). I immediately nixed the outfit that proclaimed “Here Comes Trouble”. I also gave the side eye to the one that declared “I Like Mud!” I refuse to raise a messy delinquent!!!
So basically I ended up getting a very gender neutral, arguably boring sleeper. I think the stars say, “I’d like to be an astronaut, mom!” or possibly inspire him to be a star on Broadway.

But, when I got home this little outfit completely transformed. It was like the baby was partly home. I can’t stop stroking the little tummy and fussing with the buttons. I didn’t even take it up to the baby’s room. We have it laying on the couch, and I periodically pick it up to fiddle with, lay on my tummy, or just hold up in front of me and sigh.

First gift!
A huge thanks to Adam and Keri for sending us a baby gift! I feel like there is something in there for the whole family. I’m sure josh will benefit from the stretch mark cream. Although if they are coming, they are coming! And josh: We are already married, so tough cookies if your woman goes all crazy body with the map lines post-baby. Nobody said motherhood was pretty! :)

side shot

I've had a few requests (Mom! Janeen!) for a side shot of the old belleh. Here is me at 18weeks exactly.

Where am I?

I'm trapped in hormonal HELL that's where I am. Abandon all hope, ye who cross my path. I'm not saying I agree with what Christian Bale did...

…..but... I did indeed feel like channeling him on several recent occasions. And worse, I had a very clear image of me being arrested at the following locations:

My favorite Italian café. The cheese was still cold on my mozzarella, prosciutto and tomato panini. I told those bastards I wanted it warm damn it!!! Stop rushing the sandwich out of the grill just because you get a line of customers in!

The post office today: That surly jerkface postal worker made it seem like I was a problem customer. Why didn’t he want to help me deduce where a missing package was? I know it wasn’t his fault, I just wanted some freakin’ insight. Did he realize how close I was to Hulk smashing the place? HULK SMASH!!!!

My stupid neighbors: We share a WALL. Please stop playing your athletic version of beer pong at 1:00am on a Thursday night. You sound like a bunch of drunken elephants. I was this close to going over there in my pajamas and flipping over that freakin’ ping pong ball table. And then I was going to set fire to their porch because those beer cans have been out there since this SUMMER. Where are you going to drink now, huh? Huh!? Your porch is torched! HAHAHA!
Patience Stefanie. You will get your sweet revenge when bot is screaming all night long. I shall hold him up to the wall.

It's a BOY!

It’s a boy! Baby bot is a regular robot and not a fem-bot. My favorite part of the ultrasound was when bot was lying face up and you could see his profile. All of a sudden I blinked and he had turned his back. I was like, wow, they can do that? He had legs and arms flying everywhere because I drank a gallon of OJ which was supposed to get him moving.
The doctor said he is 75 percent sure it is a boy. I guess his boy bit could be the cord, or a hand or whatever. I really don’t want a lot of boy type things, more neutral… so either way, ya know? I am excited that josh has someone to do sports and outdoor activities with while mommy nurses her martini. Haha, just kidding.
Hmm, I feel like this whole blog has been about the anticipation of having a boy or a girl. I think it just hit me that I am not just having a baby but a SON! I want him to be really into dinosaurs and sci-fi. And of course we will love to read. We will read the same books…. Together! Here is a picture of him right now. Well, you have to hold a ultrasound machine up to the computer screen. But he’s in there!

Finding Out

This is Josh: Tomorrow we’re supposed to find out the gender of the baby! I look forward to being able to cut the naming possibilities down by half. It feels pretty unreal right now. I'm sure that will change tomorrow! - Josh

What a wonderful week!

This week just doesn’t get any better. So many awesome things to look forward to! Well, first of all: the sex of baby bot! Note: I refuse to get more excited about this just because I have not a single nerve left. So I have a few fantastic distractions ahead.

I am super psyched out of my mind because me and Josh are watching the final season of Battlestar Galactica, scheduled to arrive in the mail via Netflix on Thursday. So not only will the sex of baby bot be revealed that day, but also the FINAL CYLON WILL BE UNCOVERED!!! Who will it be? They say it is a well known character. For those of you not hip to the show, basically a cyclon is a robot who looks human. But they have feeeeeeelings! However, they are our sworn enemy! Yet… they are hidden among us, and even THEY don’t know that they are cylons. Why, it could be your best friend or your baby’s daddy. Instant drama! Anyhoo, I bet it is one of these people in this photo! (no spoilers…please)

Thirdly, on Friday the movie 2012 is coming out. It will probably will be poorly acted and directed, but if the special effects promise to be AT LEAST as entertaining as The Day After Tomorrow, then I will munch my popcorn in glee. I shall ooooh and ahhh the giant tidal waves and sinkholes. The colors children, the colors! I can’t wait to see what imaginative ways we will see this craphole planet be destroyed.

Confession: I am a little concerned that my ability to survive a zombie outbreak on an apocalyptic scale will be hampered just a wee bit by a crybaby bot who will totally narc on our hidden location just because he/she needs a diaper change!!! Too young to realize that silence is our best defense (sigh). Aye aye aye, being a mom is hard already.

Life moves pretty fast

So it’s not like I am trying to hurry this pregnancy along (Although I would step into a time machine to Nov 12th, for sure!). I’ve longed for this baby, and in all honestly, all my adult life I wondered what it would be like to be pregnant. Like how will it be to work and do everyday things while pregnant? How will it be to incubate a child from start to finish? It’s really weird when you think about it.

The first couple of weeks after we found out, I thought that everything would change. It seemed it was always on my mind. It also seemed like ordinary things such as going to meetings or cleaning the kitchen had an extra something to it. Of course when the morning sickness hit, THAT was all I could think about.

But now I’m at a weird time in the pregnancy. I’m not really showing -- strangers would think I had too many beers before thinking me pregnant. I can’t feel the baby move-- I thought I did over a week ago, but nada since. I also don’t have many symptoms -- I kinda feel like myself except I can’t stay up past midnight.

At the same time, I know I will only be pregnant for such a short amount of time compared to my lifespan, so I want to really really revel in it. I feel like I am taking it for granted a bit when I go about my day not reflecting or gushing on the inside about it. Well you know, be more like Ferris Bueller.

So I thought I’d share my thoughts and activities of the pregnancy the past couple of weeks:
I do a lot of sitting still trying to feel the baby move.
I’m obsessed about the day of the gender ultrasound.
I worry that I am wearing the same boring maternity clothes over and over. I thought I’d be more stylish!
The only thing interesting coming up besides the gender is the birth, so I read and read on the topic (and blog about that topic) a LOT!
I spend a lot of time stopping at the mirror to see if I’ve gotten bigger.
I still see my own baby bump as just a big gut. Like it just seems like extra fat to me.
I also check on other non belly areas to see if they’ve gotten bigger!
I check my face for this “mask of pregnancy” thing I’m going to get.
I bitch and moan about my sciatic nerve pain. Right in the left side of my butt! It makes my job difficult at times.
I worry about getting good nutrition in everyday, and I get mad at the occasional day where my only vegetable was a french fry.
Did I take all three doses of my iron supplements today?
I miss sleeping on my back. It is the only way I can fall asleep quickly it seems.
I get paranoid I’m not drinking enough water because I wake up in the middle of the night really thirsty.

That’s all I've got so far!