Are you a Lactivist?

Check out this CNN article on the debate about breastfeeding in public. Personally I don't see what the big deal is since practically every woman who breastfeeds in public does it discreetly and you see a lot more boob walking down the street in the summer time or on the beach or on other magazine covers than when you see a mother breastfeeding or what was on that mommy magazine cover. I don't understand thinking that it's gross either - that's what they are there for...hello? As long as the woman is discreet, I can't see how someone can be bothered by the fact of just knowing that it's going on. You probably won't see me at nurse-in however, so I'm not sure if I qualify as a lactivist.

Update - Week 25

Today I'm wearing maternity clothes for the first time. I'm wearing the dress that my sister wore to her shower when she was about as far along as I am now. It's a loose spandex dress and I still don't look pregnant, certainly not what Carrie looked like at her shower...enough of my weekly whining about not looking pregnant....

I'm feeling great! Still sleeping more (and exercising less though). But I was in the pool last weekend a bunch and I will hopefully make it to the gym this weekend so I'm at least working out once a week.

Last weekend's visit to FL to see Carrie and family was great. Steven is sooo cute. I didn't want to leave him. Learned a lot about parenting and newborn care and breastfeeding. The running joke over the weekend was how many breastfeeding conversations Martin had to listen to. He was a really good sport though and appreciates being included in all the decisions/discussions/etc. for which I am grateful.

One thing I came to a conclusion about regarding newborn care is that pacifiers aren't bad. I thought I was against them (and Carrie was at first too) but after seeing how they are useful and don't substitute for my sister, I'm for them, at least at first. For two year olds, that's a different story.

I also learned that even after you go through the checklist of baby's needs - hunger, needs diaper changed, wants to be held - he/she can still cry! I guess at some level I knew this but it becomes more a reality when you experience it. It's somewhat frustrating to know you can't do anything to comfort the child because you either you don't know what it is or you can't help it - like stop their hiccups. And Steven is a really "good" baby too - he sleeps a lot and is usually content - yet I still realized this.

This weekend I'm going to go to Babies R Us with Laura B. who is due the same month I am. Hopefully we'll narrow down the decisions on a lot of the stuff. We are both reading Baby Bargains.

Looks like my friends from Bible Study are throwing me a shower here on Sept. 23rd. That should be really fun. My mom and sister will actually be able to make it too.

Got a lot going on this next week before camp - I'm meeting with some new financial education clients tomorrow, then Monday I have a meeting with the STEP tutoring evaluation group, then doctors appointment and Bible Study (which we're leading) on Wednesday. Plus we have to finish planning and packing for camp and go grocery shopping one more time. AAHHH. Guess I'll need the vacation. Been feeling like I need to spend more time in prayer and more time in the Word and in prayer with Martin lately. Being submerged in the Christian community at camp for a week will be good. 9 more days...

Pictures from trip to Panama City

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Me and Martin at Mexico Beach.



Steven in his swing.



Carrie and Steven at the beach.



Me with Steven at the airport.



Grandparents looking on.



Our neices and nephews: Erik, Rachel, Butterball, and Pixie.



Baby and mama.



All dressed up for church.

Update - Week 24

Here's an updated picture. Not much different from two weeks ago. I think my belly is more barrel-like than rounded. Still not getting seats on metro or wearing maternity clothes and people still say I don't look pregnant. And now I can say I'm 6 months pregnant!

Still feeling good although I did have an episode this week. On my way to the bus on Tuesday morning, I felt tired and faint-ish. Had to come back inside and wait a few minutes and drink something and eat something before going to work. It might have been the extreme heat but honestly I wasn't out there long and I was feeling faint and my heart was racing even before I got to the bus stop. So I don't know what it was and I was fine shortly after it.

Sometimes I can feel my heart beating really strongly. Apparently this is normal. It's just weird. Like I'll be lying on my side and my whole body will move with each heartbeat. I feel it in my belly a lot. I know it's not the baby by my heartbeat. I guess it's from the increased blood flow that's being pumped through my body and to the baby.

Went to the gym on Saturday and did the weights class. Still enjoying that. There was another pregnant lady there and she did all the lying down exercise on an inclined step so maybe I could try that. She didn't do any abs at all. I think I'm fine doing abs on the ball. I don't lie on my back at all which makes them less effective but I'm still getting some ab work.

Been sleeping in a lot this week. Still eating alot. Although now it's hard to tell when I should stop eating. Before getting pregnant I knew how much I needed to eat so even when I felt I could eat more and wanting to I knew I should stop or I would gain weight. Earlier in the pregnancy I would eat until I was full and that wasn't too much. Now I feel I could eat a ton and still not be full. I guess I should just keep eating healthy stuff and then I don't need to worry too much about quantity.

Going to FL on Friday. Getting on a plane again. This time for a longer period. Should be fun.

Starting to think about where we're going to move the desk in the spare bedroom to make room for the baby stuff. Other than that haven't done too much preparations this week. Oh, I did get some maternity clothes from a lady at church. Got some good stuff there. Also got some tents mascarading as clothes. Will I really get that big?!

Well, I guess that's all for this week. More soon!

Update - Week 23

Sorry I meant to put a new pic up but I didn't get around to it. But I don't look much different than I did last week. I'm starting to get jealous of my friend who is 3 weeks behind me and looks really cute and pregnant. I want the attention of people noticing that I'm pregnant...wah. I know it should be a blessing that I'm not showing right? But I not one of those women who feel like bad about getting big when pregnant. I mean it's not like the "oh, you've put on weight" type of feeling, there's good reason and it's a different kind of weight/size gain. But it's also a good thing because I haven't bought any maturnity clothes for work. Only have to make it 5 more work days until we leave for FL to see my sis and Steven and the rest of the fam and get her maturnity clothes.

Really looking forward to meeting Steven and spending time with a newborn. Hoping also to help my sister and bro-in-law out with their other kids. Chuck E. Cheese here we come!

Still feeling really good this week. Haven't exercised as much but I did do the weights class on Saturday and swimming on Sunday. Hoping to do the weights class again on Saturday.

Been pretty hunger lately. Maybe that means the baby is getting ready for a growth spurt. Last night I inhaled a plateful of speghetti. When Martin saw what I had done, he gave me the rest of his. Now, for those who haven't dined with us before, this is HUGE. First, Martin eats really really quickly. So for me to finish before him is a feat. Then for him to give up his food. That's something you mark on the calendar. (We always have an abundance so it's not like he wouldn't sacrifice if he needed to, like he did last night.) And then for me to eat more than Martin. Even being pregnant hasn't enabled me to do that until last night. So I ate 1.5 plates of speghetti and then I had 2 pieces of pie at Bible Study last night. You should have seen the look on Martin's face when I finished the first plate of speghetti, it was like who are you and what have you done with my wife! And he was so sweet and insistent that I take his food. And so quick about it too, he didn't even think twice, it was like, you definitely need this.

Reading about strollers this week. I think we are going to get a travel system (I like the convenience of snapping the car seat in) although I want to make sure to find one that's lightweight at least when it's just the stroller. There are frames that you can buy that just carry the car seat and don't convert to strollers but by the time you buy that an then a stroller later, even a smaller cheaper one, you've already spent the cost of the travel system.

Oh, we got a preregistration form for the hospital last week at the doctors. They want to know on the form the insurance number for the baby. But uh, the baby's not born yet. Anyone know how this works?

Looking into family care child care (where you take your child to someone's home and they have like 5 kids that they watch). Seems like there's a network in our county but I"m not sure if the caregivers near us have openings. The woman I emailed about the program was not very helpful. Seems like you needed to sign up for this info session but most of the sessions were during the day and those that weren't were one days I'll be out of town. I guess I don't need to think about it until the baby's born but I'm just thinking those three months of maturnity leave are going to go by so quickly, especially with the holidays. Plus, a lot of pregnant ladies around here do day care and you have to set that up months and months ahead of time so I feel like I'm behind on that.

I just started the month-by-month-what-we-need-to-do-before-baby checklist. Theknot.com has a wedding one, but I haven't found a baby one so I made my own.

Having a pretty fun week with having book club on monday and with my former roommate in town. Going to the movies - girls night out - tonight. Fun! Going to a wedding on Saturday. I thought I'd be needing a maturnity dress but guess not.

See Below for this Week's Update

Sorry, my posts got out of order....

Our nephew Steven

Update - Week 22

Okay, so by popular demand my first profile picture...I think I'm finally starting to look pregnant, depending the clothes that I wear. Still have only gained 5 lbs.

It's been a really good week. I've been feeling great. My legs don't hurt much at all. I think that may be because I exercised a lot more this week. Went to the pool on Sunday and Tuesday, went bike riding on Monday, did a class at the gym on Saturday, and did videos at home on Monday and Tuesday. Got a good report from the dentist on Wednesday.

Doctor's appointment went well this morning. The heartbeat was much more distinct this time. They measured my belly for the first time. Doctor said that based on the size of the baby as determined by the sonogram, he is a week ahead of schedule. So either that means he'll come early or I'll have a 9lb baby. (The doctor actually said "9 lb baby" and asked us how big we were at birth - we were both in the 7 lb range.) Doctor said that means that if the trend continues (and by the end he's 2 weeks ahead size-wise), then they won't let me go passed my due date. I really don't want to be induced, nor do I want to give birth to a 9lb baby. So hopefully he'll just come early.

Got an email from Babies R Us this week saying that they are now independent from Amazon. I think this will be good news in the long run; however, their website is having lots of problems now. But the small registry that I started seems to have been transferred smoothly. Seems like a lot of stuff is still unavailable online but hopefully that will be fixed soon. Still reading about car seats. I looked on this website and found that the infant seat and the convertible seat that Baby Bargains recommends seem to fit in both our cars although the infant one may only fit well in the center of the Civic and the convertible one may only fit well on the side (outboard, so they call it) of the Maxima. Not sure if that matters though.

Martin and I got a book from our church library on parenting. It's called Successful Christian Parenting by John MacArther. I have a devotional of his that I liked but other than that, didn't really know too much about the author. And I was a little hesitant about the title - like was this going to be twelve steps to make sure your child turns out to be a well-behaved Christian. Well, the author defines success, not on how the kid turns out but by how well the parents stick to Biblical principles. And the principles aren't extra-biblical rules like a lot of Christian books try to push on parents - like thou must homeschool or something. He looks at specific passages of Scripture that speak to parenting and fleshes those out. Okay, well, actually I've only read the first chapter since Martin and I are taking turns reading the book and discussing after each chapter, but sounds good from the first chapter. (Catherine, I think we will still get the Sproul Jr. book but MPC library didn't have it so we're starting with this....as soon as I get enough mypoints to get a gift certificate to B&N, I'll get the Sproul book and then donate it to the library when we're done. ;)

I'm an aunt!

This morning at 4:32 CDT my sister gave birth to her first child - Steven Remnar, weighing 7lbs, 4oz and measuring 20.5 inches long. Mother and baby are doing very well.

Carrie's water broke last night around 9:30 but she was not having contractions. They went to the hospital and contractions started around 1:30am. She said it was only bad for the last half hour. I can't believe how quickly she gave birth. She was telling them call the doctor, call the doctor, the baby's coming. She went from 2 to 10 cm in no time. She said the doctor was only there for a few minutes and the baby was out. She went natural. I'm hoping this is in our genes.

Steven (or little Peshda (sp?) as my sister is calling him - only my HS friends will understand that one) did very well at latching on to my sister (for feeding) but apparently he takes two sucks and falls asleep. I'm sure he'll be sleeping a lot.

Praise God for the answer to our prayers for a quick and safe delivery and a healthy baby. (I was also glad that the baby is a boy - because our boy will have a boy cousin his age and because the middle name that Carrie and her husband had picked out for girl takes a lot of explaining...:) (I was also very glad the baby was born on July 1st - 2 days away from my birthday and in a different month...:) He was still about 2 weeks early from his original due date.