Update - Week 38

Any time now....so they say. I'm not feeling like labor is eminent. But that's okay. I'm not in too much of a hurry and I'm not that uncomfortable. Two comments from women at work this week that I'll share. Incidentally, both were told to me secondhand - "she doesn't look like she's in enough pain yet to be ready to have the baby" and "I thought she was just gaining weight." The last one is probably THE worst thing you can say to a pregnant woman. That means this person thinks I've gained weight in the areas unrelated to pregnant (like my face and arms). But I won't let it phase me. I'm going to take the blessing of an easy pregnancy and praise God for it. Who cares if people think I've "earned" it. And I've had others say I don't look fat in the face so those outweigh the other comment.

Funny fact though - at this point in my sister's pregnancy, she had already given birth! And she was anxious for him to come about 3 weeks before that mostly because she had a lot of signs that labor was coming. I haven't really had an signs.

Doctor appointment yesterday went well. She didn't check to see if I was dilated which seemed a little weird to me but apparently I didn't have any other signs so it wasn't necessary. Baby's heartbeat was 128 and I was measuring (belly) right on target. She couldn't tell if he had dropped yet but she did say he was head down. And I don't have the group b strep. Yea! I actually lost about a pound since my last appointment so that evens out the 5 I gained before the last appointment. So 23 lbs so far. My bp was 104 over 60 so that was good too. I go back next Wednesday. Baby is still moving a lot. Especially when i eat halloween candy that my co-workers bring to work....

Speaking of my co-workers, they had a little celebration for me at our staff lunch on Tuesday. We had cookies and they bought me a Vermont Teddy Bear. He's dressed in a suit and is carrying a briefcase. He's very cute. I guess the idea was the baby can aspire to be a businessperson...(like his mom???? - also a message to me to encourage me to come back to work? I think at least one guy is worried I won't come back.) The one woman in the office got me some onesies and a bib and burp cloth set. (BTW, - this is mostly for my mom - we have tons of bibs, so please don't buy anymore, no matter how cute the baby's first veterans day bib is, please take a pass...:)

Still trying to go on one long walk on the weekends and then I've been walking during my commute. Went for a walk around a near-by neighborhood on Sunday. Next week I start teleworking so I'm going to have to do a walk around the lake each day to keep up the exercise.

Saturday Martin and I went to the movies probably for the last time in a while. We saw Man of the Year. We liked it. It was very funny. Something we were definitely in the mood for. Tuesday we went out to dinner (just at Tara Thai) since it was the 4 year anniversary of us starting to date officially. We figured we'd go out an celebrate that anniversary in case we don't get to celebrate our wedding anniversary this year. Although, we've been celebrating all month really with the baby moon and all. I told Martin what I got "us" for our anniversary. It was probably something more that I wanted so I told him he was off the hook for an anniversary present for me. Plus, I spent more than I was expecting to. I got this painting we got in Aruba on our Honeymoon framed. Something we've been meaning to do for a while. The framing of course was more than the painting itself. And that was with 50% off at Michaels. But I'm glad we're getting it and since we rearranged the room we really need something to go above the bed so that will go well there.

As far as getting things done, we actually did a lot this week. I guess the biggest was rearranging the bedroom and putting the pack-n-play in our room to use as a bassinet. Martin and our friend Mike did a great job moving the furniture. We really like the new arrangement and it seems like we have more room. I'm also very glad since my side of the bed is now near the bathroom so I won't be bumping into things at night when I get up.

The guy hasn't finished our bathroom yet though. He has to come back one more time and we thought he was coming yesterday but didn't show. Hopefully he'll come today and we can finally put our bathroom back together. Martin has been the one making sure he's home for when the guy comes and he also got the car seats inspected at the police station.

I also got all the baby clothes and diapers washed and ready to go. And we made some decisions on insurance and flexible spending accounts. I also finally got around to reading some of the books I've been wanting to read. I'm reading up on inductions since I guess it's getting more likely I'll go past my due date.

Maybe the baby is getting ready to come since I haven't pack the bag yet for the hospital. Once I do that he can come...:) And after I have my prenatal massage on Saturday.

Shopping Frustrations Part II

I posted Part I below. Since I started it yesterday it's out of order so scroll down to read Part I.

So I go to KMart yesterday to get the baskets. I'm already frustrated with the baskets because I need this one size that is part of a nesting set. So I have to by 3 baskets to get the one I need. The sets are $25 so I had to pay $75 to get the three baskets I want. I'm sure I'll either find a use for the other ones or give them to someone but it's still annoying. Well, the KMart I went to only had two sets. So I still didn't get all what I wanted. I did get the CD player so that was good. I also remembered something else that I wanted to look at which I forgot about until I got there - wash cloths to use as baby wipes. Kmart had them but they were $2.99 and i'm thinking I can find cheaper ones at TJMax. Too bad there are no Gabs here!

Oh, so one more frustration. We decided to buy one package of newborn disposable diapers because we want to wait until the baby's poop isn't black anymore before starting the cloth diapers. We had a coupon for huggies. Well, Giant didn't have the newborn size in Huggies. So we got the pampers which were $12 for 40 diapers (that seems like sooo much - motivation for the cloth diapers!). Well, Kmart had the huggies newborns for $10 and then we would have gotten them for $8.50 with the coupon. Grr.

Okay, I'm going to stop complaining now....

Update - Week 37: Full Term!

Sorry for the late post - no I haven't gone into labor in case you were wondering. And since I haven't been to the doctor in 10 days and don't go until Wednesday I don't even know if I'm any closer. If you can't tell I'm very anxious for my doctors appointment on Wednesday. Has the baby dropped or turned into breech position, am I dilated at all? I'm not really hoping the baby comes any earlier than Nov. 1st (that would so ruin the title of my blog..:) but the uncertainty of when he is coming is bugging me. My gut feeling is that he'll either be on time or "late" but maybe that's just hopeful since I have so much to do yet. Both at home and work. Work has been abnormally busy this week. Actually it's not abnormal in some sense. Anytime my boss is getting ready to go on an exotic (meaning no blackberry service) two week vacation, which he does 3 times a year, suddenly things pick up. So that's another reason for the late post.

Oh, so explanation of the pictures. I posted both shots of the picture Martin took of me this week to show what a difference the position I stand in has on how big I look. And Martin and I were joking around about how he hasn't gotten his update picture taken so there's also a "before" picture of the dad to be. :)

I'm still feeling great. I'm able to stand on the metro for the whole 25 minute ride if need be, like it was this week a few times. I started taking the elevator sometimes to go up the one floor I need to at work but sometimes I just take the stairs slowly. Beside commuting, my other exercise was a walk around a nearby cemetery last Saturday while we were waiting for the tires to be installed. I'm still sleeping good too. And I'm assuming since I haven't heard from the doctor that my group B strep test was negative. So all continues to go well.

This week's to do list was mostly shopping (see post below). After we got the car seat, we had our friends Dan, Laura, and Charlie over for dinner and to help us install the car seats. It was good to hang out with them. Laura is due with their second in January. We got the car seats in and had fun watching Charlie eat - he loved the meat in the chili and kept asking for more "meat"!

We called the police station near Martin's work to find out when they were having their car seat "inspections." (Not that we didn't trust Dan and Laura's advice - it's definitely better to learn from parents how to do these things and then have the police check it out which Dan and Laura also recommended.) I don't know if we just got lucky or what but they said the next two sessions were on Thursday and the following Tuesday. So Martin took the one car on Thrusday and will take the other one on Tuesday. He said it was pretty quick too and they had evening hours. After all the shopping frustrations I was glad something was relatively easy.

We made a packing list for the hospital but I still need to pack my bags. Got some laundry to do first though. And we also have to think about a birth plan before the appointment on Wednesday. I'm not sure we'll have much to put in writing since we agree with most of the doctor's and hospital's policies. The basic thing is if and when I want medication. I've told one of my doctor's I'm doing the wait and see thing so not really sure if I need to write out a birth plan just for that. I'm reading some this weekend on other things like induction in case I need to be prepared for that.

I got the old boxes out of the bedroom and today Martin and Mikey are going to rearrange the bedroom. The boxes just moved to the baby's room though so I still need to go through those. I started to but got really mad at myself for not touching this stuff in two years. There was one bag that must have been the bag you throw all the misc stuff in when you move. You know, the last bag. I had mail in there from June of 2004 that I hadn't opened (nothing important like a bill though), a CD that Martin had bought me (shows how much I loved the CD, right? to my credit though I had downloaded it to my computer at work and listen to it there), and stuff I had been looking for 2 years. Shameful! I'm a procrasinating, desiring-to-be-organized packrat! And I'm married to a "chucker"!

We did decide on the pediatrian though - we're going to go with Vienna Pediatrics. We'll just have to make sure to get morning or mid day appointments to avoid traffic.

We sent in applications for absentee voting just in case I go into labor "early." Got the ballots back quickly. Oh, and we finally got the bathroom ceiling fixed! It still needs to be painted which we want to do ourselves because we want to do the whole bathroom but that can wait. At least we don't have pipes and insulation showing. Martin and I also talked about health insurance, life insurance, a will, and flexible spending accounts (both health and dependent care) this week. The cost of our health insurance (with the company we like) is going up $60 a month. There's a comparable plan with another company where the price is about the same as we're paying now but we're afraid of the unknown and haven't heard the best things about this company (Aetna). We have Optimum Choice now which is a Mamsi/United Health Care plan. If it was only a couple hundred a year, I wouldn't think twice about not switching but $720 a year it a big price to pay just for a little piece of mind. (Maybe I should have put this in the shopping frustrations post.) Then we found out with the life insurance that Martin can purchase through his employer the same about of term life for me that i'm getting at work for $240 cheaper a year. Again, i'm reluctant to give up my basic coverage there (they threaten you with all kinds of meaningless warnings about screwing up your retirement benefits if you opt out of the coverage) but it's probably worth the money. We haven't found a lawyer yet to do a will but I still need to ask around. I think we're going to do the FSAs but we just have to figure out how much. Well-kid doctor visits and my vitamins will be at least $200 so we'll do at least that much for the health one. But since we haven't figured out childcare yet we don't know how much that is going to be. All this stuff led Martin to say to be last night, "I don't get to do anything fun with you anymore." (We do fun things at least once a week but he was lamenting how it's not like when we were dating.) So we played Yahtzee last night at 10:30pm probably much to our neighbor's disliking. Never realized that game was so loud.

Oh, and then we got a letter from our credit card company saying that MasterCard had compromised our number or something so they were issuing us a new number. Well, you know how much of a pain that is today with all the automatic payments. I fixed a few but still have one more to switch over to the new number. Since we don't check our snail mail that often we didn't get much of a window between when they issued the new number and when the old one stopped working as we found out yesterday when we try to go shopping. There's always something. Some errand or chore or paperwork to do. I guess now it's just especially annoying.

To end on a much happier note, we found out this week that two more of our friends are pregnant and due in June! Catherine and Patricia! Congrats to them! This is Catherine's second and Patricia's first.

Well, that's it for now. I will update again after my appointment on Wednesday! Thanks for reading!

Shopping Frustrations

So this was the week we've been planning to cross off a lot of the shopping on our to do list. The main thing being the car seat. I called 3 Babies R Uss to find out if they carried the car seat that I had registered for online. None of them had it since it was discontinued and so it was only available online. But then you had to have it shipped and that was an extra $20. So I was looking to see if they had the car seat in other stores. Target had one that I liked but it was only available online but it had free shipping if you ordered another big item. So we could get the car seat and the stroller from Target.com and not pay shipping. But then we couldn't get the $10 off that Babies R Us was offering on the stroller so it was only going to be $10 cheaper. So the plan was to go to Babies R Us and see if they had another car seat that we liked and if not go with the Target one. In the meantime I talked to Laura B. who saw the same car seats at Baby Depot that Target had. She told me the one I liked was skimpy on padding but another one that wasn't bad had good padding. She offered to pick up the one with good padding for us since she was going to buy the same one there that weekend. After looking at Babies R Us I figured out that the Snug Ride2s were the ones with the skimpy padding but the Snug Rides were good. (BTW, the one I had registered for was a Snug Ride2.) So we decided go with the one with good padding although I wasn't too crazy about the pattern. And we got the stroller and a few other things at BRUS. The problem was we got to the check out and I asked about the $10 off. The lady told me I needed a coupon. I asked if the coupon was in the flyer. She said yes you have to be on the mailing list. I told her I was and even gave another coupon that I had from the same flyer. (I was mad at myself too because I had looked at that coupon before leaving but didn't think it applied and thought the $10 was a promotion.) So we didn't get the $10 off anyway. After all this effort to save $10 and then not getting it I was pretty frustrated. Yes, it's $10. I just felt like all my planning and research had gone to waste. So I was upset when we got home. I should have been thankful though about finding out that the car seat we originally picked out wouldn't be good. And when we did get the car seat, I ended up liking the pattern even though it doesn't match the pack and play.

A day earlier we went to verizon to get new phones. We were ready for the "new every two" deal that verizon has. Plus, we had just found out that Martin's employer has a company discount with verizon. I wasn't sure if we could get two new phones for free but I thought between the two discounts we'd work something out. Well, turns out Martin still had to pay $30 for a new phone even though I could get one for free. He could get a certain one for free if I got a new phone but he can't take a camera phone with him to work so he had to get a non-camera phone that cost $30. And of course the $10 for the transfer of numbers. (I ended up deciding against a new phone since we thought it better to wait until there was something wrong with my phone to get the free one.) So my shopping frustration started even before Babies R Us. Again, I should have been excited about getting the employee discount on our monthly bill ($10 off PER MONTH!) but then I'm like man, how long have they had this in place - we could have been saving $10 a month for the past two years! And then we didn't get any discounts on the phone, even though I though we should but then I think we would have had to order the phone online.

So with these two experience under my belt, now comes Saturday when we went to buy tires. I'm reading these coupons and talking to my dad, again more research to make sure we only pay as much as we have to and that we don't get screwed. We go to the tire place and find out that on a Maxima you have to buy these extra wide expensive tires that only have a life of about 30,000 and even that isn't guaranteed. Okay, fine but at least we can get the best deal. There were really only two options and we went with the cheaper one. The lady told us with "everything" it would be $880. Well, turns out later that was just the tires. The road side assistance and warantee and balancing were extra. We had already agreed to the allignment and oil change which were discounted (one promotion and we had a coupon for the oil change for $15.99). Then we are told if we sign up for a Goodyear credit card we'll get $80 cash back. So we're paying for all this and looking at the bill and the lady is screwing up the ticket and taking forever and there are a ton of people in line. I really hate making decisions and checking bills under these circumstances. Especially when the people are like, oh, it's just like this, you don't undertand. Well, we did say something about the $40 they charged us for the oil change. But the guy's like oh, yeah that's wrong, we owe you $10. And he gives us $10 cash back. At this point I should have said something but I was confused about the bill that was broken down by labor and parts and then you had to multiply some stuff by 4 for all four tires so I'm like on line 2 of the bill and they want us to pay. So we pay, partly just wanting to get out of there. We come home and I examine the bill and get upset about paying extra for the oil change and then realize there was an ad for 50% off the balancing that we didn't get. I started crying at this point. It was a lot of money that we just spent and again I was mad because I try so hard to save money. But later I realized we would have decided to get the extras anyway even with the cost. And so really we only got screwed on the oil change (and I guess the balancing). As a percent of the cost of the tires it was small. Plus, as Martin keeps telling, I can't be perfect at saving money. I will lose some. I guess I just felt like I was losing more lately.

On Sunday, I also found out something where I felt like a misinformed consumer. Laura B. told me she and her husband went to their childbirth class. Theirs was totally different from ours although it was the same class description. They went over all the breathing stuff that I was hoping to learn. They practiced going through a contraction and everything. Grr. We should have gone with them. Then I would have been able to go to her shower and would have gotten the better class (which we paid $150 for!). I was afraid it was too close my due date which seems silly at this point.

Then there are health insurance problems with trying to save money (see update).

One bright spot in this was last night though (Friday). I went back to Babies R Us with the coupon asking to get $10 store credit and they easily gave it to me! I also picked up a diaper bag and some more pack and play sheet since i think we're going to use that as a bassinette. I forgot to look at the baby books there but we can go back on Sunday when we'll be in the neighborhood.

I think I just haven't done much shopping lately and this is why this frustrating me so much. Plus, when you live in NVA, it's not that easy to go to multiple places to get what you're looking for so you have to do the research online beforehand. Maybe once I'm on maternity leave I'll be able to shop during the day and that may help the frustration.

Today I'm off to KMart to get the baskets for the changing table and a CD player to take with us to the hospital. We'll see how it goes.

Update - Week 36

Okay, so now I'm officially 9 months pregnant, there are only 28 more days until the due date, in one week I'll be full-term, and today on one of the pregnancy emails that I get it said "if you've already given birth, click here." !!!!!! (Apparently this is important because I know a friend of a friend who was almost 2 weeks late and she kept getting these emails that said, "now you're taking your baby home from the hospital," etc. and it made her sad because she was still pregnant.)

Wow. This last month has gone really fast. I'm still feeling really good. It's really hard to move anytime I need to use my stomach or back muscles (like getting out of bed) but other than that, I've been feeling really good. Not even noticably more tired.

So update, let's see - pediatrician. Met with another practice on Friday - Vienna Pediatrics. We liked them. They have a lab in house and they would be closer if we move further out (mostly likely scenario in the future) and 2 other friends we know go there. The doctor answered all our questions in a way we liked. For some reason I liked the other place a little better though. But the lab thing and the location thing may over ride that. We haven't decided for sure but we should soon.

This weekend we went on our baby moon. It was a great time despite some set backs (took us 5 hours to get there - normally a 2 hour drive, the weather was pretty cool on Saturday, and the breakfast was not that great). But it didn't rain and didn't stop us from doing anything. Sunday was beautiful and we stayed around until the mid afternoon. The view from the B&B was awesome. We were right on the Bay. On Saturday we went to Tilghman's Island and St. Michaels and walked around. St. Michaels is a quaint little town with lots of shoppes and restaurants. (During lunch, I had (caffinated!) iced tea!!! I was a real rebel. That was the first time I'd had iced tea in 8 months!) There is also a Maritime Museum which we went to and learned about oystering and shipjack boats. And we saw lots of small craft boats as there was a festival going on for them. We had dinner at this place right on the harbor of the bay. We actually had to wait for the tide to go down before going in because they were having a really high tide that day and the door was blocked with water. I ate steamed crabs there and had a virgin strawberry daquiri. Sunday we went sailing on a 16 passenger sailboat. It was neat. I didn't realize how much the boat tips when you go sailing. I was able to keep my balance though. Sailing was beautiful. So peaceful. We did a lot of walking so I got my exercise. Overall it was a relaxing weekend and it really felt like we were on vacation (which we hadn't gone on since last August, camp not included!).

Sunday I worked on shower thank you cards some (only about half way done so if you haven't gotten one yet, its coming! :) Monday I had a doctors appointment. I gained 5 pounds since my last appointment two weeks prior. Doctor said it must have been water retention from extra salt in my diet - I told him we ate a lot of seafood at the shore last weekend and he said that will do it. Still I was only +24 lbs and my goal was +25 so I'm still in that range. Much to my surprise, when the doctor measured my belly, he said I was measuring right on target. So I might not be as small as everyone keeps saying I am. BUT, both Martin and I have noticed that in the last 2 days, it seems I've gotten noticably bigger. Doctor did the group b strep test and I guess we'll get the results at the next appointment which isn't until the 25th! I'll be 38 weeks then. Appparently the doctors aren't worried about me or think I'm close to going into labor. Baby's heartbeat was good - 140bpm.

On Monday I worked out (Kathy Smith tape which I decided I didn't like.) I also got to do a little shopping but it wasn't a terribly successful endeavour. I did get the "lilly pads" which are nursing pads that I was told were the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I got some other sterilizing stuff for the pump. I didn't find the baskets I was looking for for the changing table drawers. I have one from the shower that is the right size but it came in a set of three (y'know, the nesting baskets) and so I"m not sure how I'm going to get three more of the right size. They have to be exactly the right dimensions and so I'm afraid ebay won't be very helpful. Another frustrating shopping experiences is that I found out the car seat that we want is only available online since it has been discontinued. And the shipping cost is $23. grrr.

Well, hopefully we'll get that figured out this weekend. We still need a few other things from babies r us so we'll probably still go on Friday. Tonight we're going to verizon to get new cell phones and to jared's to get my ring inspected. And Saturday we have to buy new tires for the Maxima. So we'll be going through lots of money this week. Martin got a bonus at work so that should help some.

Next week I'm hoping to work on getting our bedroon ready by rearranging the furniture so the baby won't be by the window and taking care of the boxes I have stacked in there.

Laura H. and I are planning on going and getting pre-natal massages on the 28th (if I haven't gone into labor by then). That should be fun.

Well, I guess that's all for this week. I'll try to get a picture up this weekend.

Update - Week 35

Well, I'm still feeling good. Having a harder and harder time leaning over though. For instance, if I'm trying to eat soup or pasta or anything that I need to lean over my plate so as not to spill something, I get out of breath and really uncomfortable and the baby starts kicking me like I'm not giving him enough room...:) So I try to find some counter to eat at.

Martin and I went on a hike on Sunday. We are going to learn all the flat trails in the area now. We started near Teddy Roosevelt Island and walked up the Potomac on the Potomac Hertitage Trail. There was this really neat waterfall at the place we stopped to turn around. The whole hike (3.5 miles!) was beautiful. The funny thing was that before we started out, I went to the bathroom in these port-a-potties that were in the parking lot. Well, the whole way back I was feeling like I had to go so I was looking forward to the port-a-potties. We get back to the parking lot and they were gone!!! Apparently there was some event going on and so they were only there for part of the day. I had to hold it all the way home (15 min ride). It wasn't too bad but I just can't believe the timing. I had considered going in the woods too (which is actually sometimes easier because you have trees to hold onto) since we didn't see anyone on the trail until we were just about to turn around. But we started seeing a lot more people so I decided to wait for the port-a-potties...but they were gone...:(

Saturday we did some walking too. After our class, we went on a "date" to Georgetown for dinner and then walked up the hill, almost to the university.

So the childbirth class - it was mostly "this is what's going to happen to you." They showed some videos of actual births which was probably the most useful thing for me although if you get TLC then I think you would see this stuff on there. I'm glad I won't have the same view the cameras had. I almost started crying when the babies were born - good emotional tears that is. Now when the nurse described how one gets and epidural, that's when I started crying fearful tears. That just freaks me out - the whole needle in your back. My current thinking on epidurals is that I'm not going to go into the hospital and ask for one then. But if it looks like it's going to be a long birth - like if I'm still 4 centimeters after 8 hours or something like that, then I'll probably get one. I don't want to get one because I want to be able to move around and I don't want this thing in my back and because there is some evidence that they prelong birth (which may lead to a higher chance of c-section). But apparently with the latest research, the studies are mixed on the prelonging labor thing. So says the nurse we talked to on Saturday. Now normally I wouldn't trust someone on that who is so fully indoctrinated into doing medical precedures as you would think an L&D nurse is, but this lady seemed very balanced. She sought very much to avoid c-sections and she complained about doctors who induce for the wrong reasons (the most extreme being not wanting to have to work on the weekends!) and seemed convinced that inductions do lead to longer labors. Apparently, at my hospital 80-90 percent of women get epidurals. Plus, my doctor has told me that I don't have to "be a martyr." I'm not totally against it, but then my mom and sister never had to have one and so I'm hoping it won't be necessary. Martin thinks this will just lead me to be being indecisive - me? indecisive, he obviously doesn't know me at all...:) What, I've only been thinking about this for 8 months now. My decision is "be flexible." But that decision will have to be amplified at some point. Hopefully it won't be too difficult.

So, yeah, we talked about epidurals at the class. She did go over some positions for comfort and basic breathing (cleaning breathes and the beginning and end of contractions and paced breathing during.) I was hoping for a little more on the breathing end but everyone says you forget that stuff anyway. My friend Jan offered to teach me the breathing if I wanted to learn it.

I did learn some stuff in the class (like how the baby proceeds through the mother's pelvis) but it probably wasn't $150 worth of info. But I guess I feel better just having taken the class. Like I've done what I could type of thing. And this is what the hospital wants me to know. Not that one can ever been totally prepared for this type of thing.

We're meeting with another pediatrician tomorrow and then heading to MD for our baby moon! It's been a busy week so we haven't done much else on our before baby to do list. I'm off on Monday and have a doctors appointment so hopefully I'll at least get some shopping done. We have tried to start praying for our baby every day now until the birth. It ends up being more like every other day though. Hopefully we can be more frequent. It's fun to sort of dream up what you want your child to be like and pray specifically for those things. I think I've been lead to pray specifically for a heart of compassion and intelligence for our baby. I've also prayed for him and Steven to be friends. Last night at Bible Study, Laura B. suggested that we could start praying for a good wife for him too...:) You know so at his wedding we can say to his bride, "we've been praying for you since before he was born." :)

Until next week....I'll try to get some baby room pictures up soon.

More shower pictures

Shower pictures

Pictures from my family's visit

This week's update pic

Update - Week 34

Six more weeks! That's like no time at all! I'm still feeling great. In fact, Martin was sick this week and I did more housework than I usually do (I might have actually pulled my fair share this week!) and went to the grocery store by myself. Ooh, and I got to parked in the "expectant mother" spot. I assumed by now I wouldn't get bad looks if I did that.

I've had some lower back/pelvis pain but nothing bad. And my calves cramp up right before I go to get out of bed but I can usually stretch them before the cramp. No labor signs yet but I guess I'll be including those in the updates soon.

Today I'm wearing my one maternity sweater. I'm actually really liking the cooler weather (highs in the mid-upper 60s) since at this stage in the pregnancy that feels like room temp to me. I don't have much fall maternity wear though so I hope it doesn't get too cool. Especially next weekend for our baby moon to the eastern shore! Actually I have a lot of casual stuff I can wear for cooler weather. It's the work clothes that I will be stretched on. BUT, only four more week that I'll be in the office!

On Monday Doctor said everything is going great! He told me how great my glucose test results were (this was Dr. B - I had Dr. F tell me that last time). Heartbeat sounded good too. In fact, they are only scheduling my appointment every two weeks for the next month. I thought it would be every week. Next appointment is Oct 9th and that's when they'll do the Group B strep test. If I'm positive, which 30% of women are, then I'll have to antibiotics for the rest of the pregnancy to try to make sure the baby doesn't get this bacteria during birth. After that my next appointment is the 25th.

Haven't gotten up to exercise in the morning but I'm not feeling guilty about it at all. I've only gained 19 lbs and I'm still walking a bunch on the weekends and to and from work. Saturday my family and I went to Arlington Cemetery and walked around for about an hour - and that was a lot of uphill. I should do some stretching exercises though.

The time with my family was soooo good. I just felt like everyone was made more comfortable by us being together - something rare when families get together. We really enjoyed playing with Steven. I really missed him this week. (And my parents and sister too..:)

The shower at my friend Krista's house was wonderful too. I kept thinking about it over and over in my mind because I wanted to relive it and remember it. Seemed like everyone had fun. My bible study made the food and did the games and organized the shower. We had muffins and egg casserole (that Jen J. made and everyone raved over, click the link for the recipe) and fruit and scones and juice. We played three games which Lisa led - remember the baby items (that were on a tray before it was taken away), match the biblical mother/son combos, and guess the flavor of baby food (by looking not tasting). There were about 30 people there. Linda and Lea one the door prize for having birthdays closest to my due date. The door prize was a bird house my dad made. I got lots of nice gifts. Actually got a lot of stuff from the registry and lots of clothes. He'll probably have a new outfit for every day of his first month. Good thing because he'll probably go through more than one outfit in a day.

On Sunday Martin put up the wall hangings that we got and just last night I put up the matching valence. So we have a baby room now. I still need to wash and organize the clothes and get some more baskets for the changing table and put the rest of the stuff from the shower away. Oh, and we got some of the diapers thanks to Nancy.

Next priorities though are picking a pediatrician (interviewing one more next week) and doing the birth plan. Hope to have that done by the 9th. Then we'll need to do some shopping. We have to get the car seat and the stroller frame. Then order the co-sleeper and before that gets here, rearrange the bedroom and organize some boxes and figure out what to do with some old computer equipment. (Of course that's just the baby stuff, we also have to get new tires for one car before we get it inspected and get new cell phones and get our bathroom ceiling fixed.) We're hoping to have all this done by the 19th - 3 weeks before the due date. That week will be the last time we commit to anything or plan to get anything big done before the due date, just in case the baby comes early. I'll probably wait until that week to do the final packing for the hospital and getting everything in order at home though.

Tomorrow is the birthing class. I'm pretty clueless about this class, like what they will be teaching. The class is all day and it starts at 10am. I'll post how that goes next week. Pictures soon....

My colleagues

Update coming soon but I just had to post about my co-workers first. So you may know that I work mostly with men. The one other female in my office (of 11 people) is my boss's secretary. And half of these men are not married. And half of those who are do not have kids. So this whole me having a baby thing is a whole new realm for some of these guys. One way they try to relate is asking me if I have any dietary restrictions (which has literally happened at the last 3 weekly staff lunch meetings). Another guy always asks me how "everyone" is doing. At this point in my pregnancy, this stuff really cracks me up. Today, though, I have a story that takes the cake. This also goes to my never-ending saga about not looking pregnant or at this point, pregnant enough. So I go out for a walk at lunch to go to the bank and to get a vanilla bean (no caffeine) frap and on the way I run into a former co-worker of mine. He's in the never-been-married-no-kids-almost-50 category like most of my current co-workers. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just colors the story in a little for you.) Okay, so I meet him on the sidewalk and we exchange our "hi, how are yous" and then he looks and me and is like "so what happened?" And I'm like "what happened with what?" In making the next statement he seemed to need a little bit of courage (or going out on a limb on his part): he says, "so when is your due date?" I tell him and then he's like "oh, so you didn't have the baby yet." Two months ago, I had lunch with the same guy and he thought I was 3 months along and I told him I was 6 months pregnant. So somehow he thought in that time I had the baby and was back to work. He then tells me "well, you're not that big." I say yes, I know, I've been told that's a good thing. I guess he was trying to say he had a good excuse for thinking that just by seeing me. Anyway, I got a real kick out of that one.

Pictures

Here's pictures of me and Steven and the changing table my dad made.

Update - Week 33

Gotta get my post up before blogger's "scheduled outage" at 4pm (oh, it's pacific time, I guess I have lots of time).

Anyway, what a week. So breastfeeding class went well. Not sure I learned that much new (most of what was covered I had already read in "So That's What They're For!") but it was good to hear it again and be able to ask questions. I think sometimes you don't think to ask questions until you hear something the second time. And it was good for Martin to learn. Okay, maybe I'm just trying to justify the $50 we spent on the class. Hopefully we'll get re-embursed by our insurance company. I've heard that we get $50 for classes.

Friday we finished organizing the spare bedroom/baby room. And Saturday morning Martin and Mike moved the desk out. That desk took up a lot of space. And it looks better in the living room so I'm happy with the change.

Went to a baby shower for another Heather on Saturday. Someone asked me if baby showers took on a new meaning now that I was pregnant. Not really. I haven't been to that many baby showers I guess. I can only think of 7 (Melissa, Jen L., Nancy, Catherine, Laura H., Carrie, and a gal from my church when I was in State College). Those were all in the last 6 years. Only 4 were after I got married. I also went to a few cousins' baby showers when I was little. I threw a temper tantrum at one because I wanted to play the games but I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with the moderator. Okay, sorry, tangent....but yeah, it wasn't that different except that I knew better what to buy. And was able to be more engaged in the conversation. I guess it made me look forward more towards mine too. But still doesn't feel real yet. This will be MY baby shower on Saturday. Like I'M having a kid. I still don't feel old enough to be a mom. Not sure I ever would have.

More about showers....so Krista (the gal hosting my shower) said there are 27 people coming to the shower. She said that like makes it the "mother of all showers." Now, for those of you from western PA, you're like "What?" and your amazed that people have showers at their houses. So let me paint the picture of a NVA shower (although I've seen this in State College and MD too). Typically, you have about 15 women at someone's house sipping tea and mimosas (except the mom-to-be) and eating fresh fruit and pastries. There may or may not be some kind of game and then of course the presents. But very intimate. Yet, somewhat dressy in that you'll often see women in skirts and heels. Oh, and they're often held in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. So contrast that with the western PA shower - at least 40 women (I've seen ones up to 80 women) sitting at rows of tables in a church fellowship hall eating a full lunch buffet (of the standard "shower" menu - cold cuts and buns, rigatoni, fried chicken, cake, and a ton of other food). Here each woman has been given a printed program with games and a pencil. There are some sort of mints or candy on the table in a baby bottle or bootie-shaped container. The shower last for about 3 hours at least because of all the time needed to open all the presents. I love both types....so I think I'll have one of each...:) Just kidding mom, we won't have a 40 people at the next one. Anyway, looking forward to Saturday.....

Went to Babies R Us on Saturday. Got the pack and play and car seat base. Sunday we moved the changing table in and moved the second desk to John and Laura's when my parents got here. The changing table is great! I'll post some pics soon. It really matches the room. Just need to get some baskets for it. But now we have a place for baby stuff. Didn't get to rearrange our bedroom but we have a little bit of time for that yet. We set up the pack and play in the living room for Steven while he is here. We're seeing how it all will look....

Went for a 2-mile walk on Sunday. And a little walk Monday night. That's about all in the way of exercise. :( But I'm still feeling well and haven't lost my energy yet. I do have some lower back/pelvic pain/pressure. All normal stuff but just annoying. Bending over is getting really hard too. That's especially annoying because I'm turning into more of a klutz than I normally am. So Martin graciously follows me around and picks stuff up for me. He's a great husband. He even does it joyfully.

I did have one hormonal moment on Sunday. I wanted to use the Internet and Martin was using it. I waited until he was done but when I went to log on the Internet was down. I all crabby about it and jealous that Martin got to use it but not me even though I waited patiently and had thing to take care of on the computer that were SO much more important than what he was doing. (This wasn't the first time that he'd log off and I would try to log on and it wouldn't work. But apparently it's Cox Cable and not me logging in.) But I got over it eventually. And Martin is very understanding....

Monday my mom cleaned our entire house and did quite a bit of ironing for me. She rocks. Oh, and she waited at our house for the dry wall guy to come and give us an estimate on fixing the bathroom ceiling. $500 and that includes painting. Not bad but our deductible on our insurance is $500 so we're paying for everything now.

Tuesday Carrie and Steven arrived and my dad came back down. Steven is so adorable and big now. (Yes, I know, pictures soon.) Steven didn't have a very good day yesterday though. He got a fever and my parents and sister actually took him to the ER here in Fairfax. They spent 7 hours there last night. Looks like he has an ear infection. Although it took a bunch of un-fun tests to figure that out. Please pray that he gets well soon. My parents and sister really were impressed with the doctors here. That's good to know.

Other than that, the only baby prep stuff we accomplished this week was (I think) deciding on a name. We have something to go with that I'm good with and Martin really likes. Still aren't going to tell in case we want to change it (and we've been advised not to hear opinions...:) but I think you all will like it. It actually only breaks one of my "rules." You know - must be two syllables, can't be shortened, can't start with a vowel, can't have a T, R, or N in the second syllable.

Only about another 7 weeks and you'll all find out...:)

Victory!

I finally was given a seat on the metro last night! Okay, so the guy was getting off in one more stop and he was a pretty big guy sitting next to a pretty big lady so he was probably relieved to get up BUT he was clearly getting up for me. I was wearing the red dress that I had on in a previous posting's photo which is form fitting. If I have on what I have on today (skirt and loose button-down blouse) I don't think I would get one. Well see though. I'm only going to be riding the metro for 5 and a half more weeks!

Picture!

Update - Week 32

Wow, 8 months pregnant. Craziness. There's only 8 more weeks until the due date, and realizing the baby could be here in 6 weeks (like that's no time!) is pretty scary and exciting. These next two weeks will really make things seem more real too. This weekend we are rearranging furniture and getting the changing table that my dad made for us. After much deliberation as to where to put the extra desk, we're going to creatively store it at our friends'(John and Laura's) house. They just moved from a one bedroom condo to a three bedroom townhouse with a basement so they have some extra room for furniture. Our friend Mikey is coming over on Saturday to move the desk and rearrange our bedroom furniture with Martin.

I think we're coming down to a decision on the name. I think I'm acquiescing to the name Martin likes but I'm going to try to leverage my concession by choosing the middle name, names of potential future children, and getting some new purchases for the house that I want.....:)

Tonight is the breastfeeding class. Both Martin and I have been reading up on how to prepare for the birth and breastfeeding. Not that we think we'll be totally prepared but knowledge is helpful indeed.

I'm feeling really great still. No heartburn or cramping or anything. I feel a little creaky when I get up after sitting for a while but usually I can walk that off. Didn't get to exercise much this week. Well, I was on my feet most of the day on Saturday since I was helping out at a wedding and then in the evening we went out to eat with some friends in Old Town and walked around there before and afterwards. So that was my exercise. But it wouldn't be hard to get out of bed a half hour earlier (6 instead of 6:30) and exercise. I need to get back into that groove.

Not much more to update on. Most things are where they were last week. Although we do have someone coming in on Monday to give us an estimate of the repairs needed in our bathroom from the leak we had.

Looking forward to having my mom and Carrie and Steven here next week. Taking Mom to Babies R Us on Monday night. Carrie and Steven arrive on Tuesday and are staying at a hotel near us (on government's dime). Then we'll have everyone at our place Friday and Saturday night. Carrie said she's already bringing us baby clothes that Steven has grown out of.

I'll try to get a picture up soon.

Update - Week 31

This week went by quickly. I"m still feeling great. Little lower back pain but that's all. My friend Laura B. was right, even when you look pregnant you still don't get a seat on metro. Didn't get one this morning. It was ridiculous.

We did get out of work early on Friday so I was able to go shopping on Friday afternoon, in the hurricane. I got a white maternity blouse that I had been looking for for a while, some nursing bras (although I think I might return them - not sure the size is right), and some other things. Mostly successful shopping trip.

Saturday I got some more organizing done around the house and I went to the class at the gym (which I just realized I won't be able to go to until Oct. 14th. - so I think I'm back to the workout tapes). Also organized on Monday too. It's not getting me down like before, I guess because I'm making progress now. And on Sunday I started organizing pictures which was not really on the priority list but more fun than organizing old mail.

Martin and I went to the portrait gallery and out to eat on Saturday instead of the picnic. Although we probably could have still had the picnic since the rain stopped around that time. But we still had fun.

Wednesday I stayed home the whole day from work. I was just going to take 2 hours off for the pediatrician appointment but then we got a hold of the plumber to tell him that the ceiling was still leaking and he was able to come Wednesday morning. We weren't sure how long it would take and Martin was busy at work so I just stayed home. The plumber found the leak (after cutting 2 holes in our ceiling) and fixed it in about an hour, leaving a big mess to clean up. It was actually one of our pipes, which is good in the sense that we don't need to involve the neighbor who just lost her job and doesn't have homeowners insurance. All the dry wall in the ceiling and probably some of the wall is going to need to be replaced. Insurance won't cover the plumber (although he was only $80) but they will pay for the dry wall after our $500 deductable. We'll have to see how much it's going to be.

The meeting with the pediatrician was fun. He was about our age and we were asking about his philosophy of treatment (agressive vs. conservative, sort of like is he going to want to give our child medication all the time or be willing to wait and see or consider other remedies). So he starts out by saying "I don't know how much you know about economics, but...." and after I tell him I'm economist he continues with, "well you know, you want to find the place where marginal cost equals marginal benefit." We liked the guy although we are going to check out one more practice that someone else recommended. The waiting room at this place was a little small and if we ever move closer to Martin's work, this place will be farther for us. Oh, and the funny thing is there's this restaurant/diner in the same building that you have to go past to get to the office. They have these big advertisements for ice cream as you walk by. I can just see it now..."mommy, can we get ice cream?....after we see the doctor and only if you are brave and get your shots." Who am I kidding, I'm the one that will want the ice cream!

Had a little taste of working part-time this week with having Monday off and taking Wednesday off. It's nice not commuting. The neigbborhood is really quiet during the day.

Been reading "So That's What They're For" - a book on breastfeeding. I have one more on breastfeeding to read too and a class on the 14th.

I asked Martin to do some reading too, just so he knows what's going to be happening during the whole birth/labor process. It's going to be a lot easier for me if he knows what's going on and what's normal and what's not so he can comfort me during the time rather than me try to explain to him what's going on then.

Picked out the cloth diapers today. $130 and that should last for the first 4-6 months. Very excited about those numbers.

Martin and I decided to rearrange our bedroom so that the baby won't be by the window where it's colder (this was the more likable option rather than switching sides of the bed). Hopefully we can do that and move the desk out of the 2nd bedroom before my parents come with the changing table on the 17th. That gives me a little over a week to finish re-organizing. That would be so great to be done by then. Because that's when all the baby stuff is going to start coming in.

Update - Week 30

Wow week 30! I feel like I'm really pregnant now. Our little one is kicking up a storm. Sometimes it makes my whole body move. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes he kicks my ribs.

I'm still feeling really good. And when I saw the doctor yesterday he said I passed the glucose test with "flying colors" - they were looking for something 140 and below and mine was 69 and he said there was nothing for him to tell me to do since, after going through all my stats (weight gain, protein and iron levels, bp, etc.) he said "you can't improve upon this." When he felt my tummy for the baby he told me where his head, spine, bottom and limbs were and then said "this is where babies normally are at this point in the pregnancy." The baby's heart rate was about 130. So the baby and me are completely normal. I guess after hearing so many problems all the time it's hard to believe these things ever go perfectly well. But so far so good! Praise the Lord!

Martin and I went on a church retreat last weekend. I did some hiking there and hung out in the pool but didn't really swim too much. I was just trying to cool my body temp down since the place didn't have air conditioning.

Hoping to go to the gym and do some shopping this weekend. Martin and I are also hoping to have a romantic picnic dinner on the Potamac Saturday evening. We'll see if the rain holds off.

Got the software for my computer at home that I need to log into the system at work so I can telework. Now I have to do a bunch of paperwork for that.

We received more gifts this week. It becomes more real every day.

My OBGYN

So my doctors are on the front page of the Washington Post (WaPo) today! For good reason though - although it must be a slow news day. Anyway, if you get the chance to check it out in hard copy, you'll see 2 of my 3 doctors (i.e. one of whom will probably be delivering our child!) - the guy with the beard and the woman in red. And then on the inside page you'll see nurse Jean who I really like. But there are no pictures online.

Boy/Girl Count

Today I found out that my friend Laura H. is having a boy too. (Yeah!) Seems like everyone is having a boy these days. But then I thought of all my blogging friends who have kids. Most of you all have girls (Nancy 2, Melissa S. 2, Jen L. 1, Catherine 1). But most all my friends from church and my grad school friends that are having kids have / are having boys (Krista 3, Laura H. 2, Laura B. 1, The Mills' 4, us 1). Laura H. said it must be the water. Well, it must be the Northern Virginia water. All those having girls are not in NVA. All those having boys are in NVA. This holds true with the Winstons too who have one girl, born in PA, and one boy, born in NVA. But then the Mills' and Larissa screw up my perfectly fit data because the first two of the Mills' boys were born in PA and IN and Larissa's boy was born in PA. But I can still draw some conclusions here: The likelihood of having a girl in NVA is nil. But moving from NVA to PA or IN would not guarantee having a girl either. Maybe MD.... Granted I need a few more data points here (but 20 isn't bad!), but I have some friends who are pregnant and not finding out so I have some more data coming in. Might be able to get some more solid conclusions then.

Update - Week 29

Still feeling good and the baby is kicking away. Glucose test was good. The baby supposedly weighs 2.5 lbs and is 15 inches long. Sometimes it feels like he's really stretching out in there because I'll feel something at the top of my stomach and something down at the bottom at the same time. Going to the doctor's next week.

I organized my maternity clothes in my closet and got some of them hemmed and dry cleaned the ones that needed to be dry cleaned. So I'm feeling better about what to where everyday. I still have a bunch of stuff that needs to be ironed before I wear it. Oh, and for some reason I got a bunch of red clothes. I'm not much one for red (I think I can only take it once a week) so I got the red rotation down now too...:) I'm thinking about going shopping next weekend to get 2 undershirts for all the tops I have that show too much cleavage (what is it with all these low cut maternity clothes?), a white blouse to go with this skirt I bought, and some nursing bras. It's a good thing that I'm pregnant in the summer since I got so many clothes from my sis who lives in FL. I'm finding I'm wearing a lot more skirts since they are more comfortable.

Also (as you may have read in my last post) we started organizing the desk and closet in the spare bedroom in order to make room for baby. Got a few things for Salvation Army and threw out a bunch of stuff. My dad is working on building us a changing table and that will go where the desk is.

Saturday I did my weights class and then Martin and I went hiking in Great Falls, MD. Well, Martin said it really wasn't hiking since we didn't go up any hills but if it's walking in the woods on a non-paved servace, then it's hiking to me and that's what we did. Only walked about 3 miles but it was good. Drank lots of water and tried to stay cool. Oh, we also timed it well in that we got to see a lock demo on the C&O tow path. Sunday we went swimming for a little bit. I did laps for about 10 minutes. And last night we played up-close tennis (where you stand close to the net) so that's been my exercise for the week.

We booked our "baby moon" yesterday. Going to the eastern shore of Maryland the first weekend in October. The bed and breakfast we are staying in is right on the bay. Martin will be able to do some bike riding around the area and I'll get some time to read. It's only about 2 hours away but it will probably be the last time we go farther than an hour away from our hospital/doctor.

Got an appointment with a pediatrician for next month. There are two practices that we are looking at. I think we might check both of them out before deciding. They let you come in for a free meet and greet appointment before the baby's born.

My friend Kelly (whose wedding I was in in Louisiana) was in town last week. I met her for ice cream and she gave me our first baby gift. It's this adorable long sleeve yellow body suit with a bear on it and it has a hat that's got bear ears on it. Very cute! (Catherine, your mom told me she had the gift from you in the car on Sunday but then they brought the other car to church. So I might get it this weekend on the retreat if they remember or bring that car to the retreat...:) Otherwise, I'll get it next weekend.)

So yeah, we're going on our church retreat this weekend. Sounds like there's lots of places to walk around the retreat center. Looking forward to spending time with 2 couples from our home fellowship group.

That's about it for this week! Only about 11 more to go!

Five Years in DC

I have friend who sends out an email on the anniversary of her move to DC every year. I'm not that nostalgic, but somewhat so, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write about the five year anniversary of my move to DC on August 20, 2001.

This is actually a significant milestone in my career as well since as of this coming Monday, I will be vested in the government's defined benefit pension plan. For those of you know a little about pensions, DB plans are becoming more rare and so I am fortunate to have one.

But other than that, the milestone is just a chance to take a look back. Since Sunday I hadn't really done that much until last night. I was going through boxes of junk to make room for the baby and I've finding things I had put aside and meant to do since moving here. (Seems as though I have a box from each move though so all the stuff isn't 5 years old.) Some of them I no longer want to do and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I had such high aspirations. Now the priorities have changed and while I'm sure of the priorities now, it makes me sad that I never finished some of things I planned to do. Most of what I'm talking about is giving up on organizing things that I no longer wish to keep or organize. Then there are the books and journals I never finished or kept up with.

But probably what got to me most was the things that I meant to research. One, was that I wanted to keep up more with economics once I left academia. I found a list that said "ways to keep up my economic skills while working." One of the things on the list was "attend seminars at local universities." That sounds so absurd to me at this point. I have no desire to do that. Then I was going to research my mission as a Christian in the field of economics and look into if and how capitalism is Biblical and read all these Christian econ papers. No desire to do that at this point either. What does that say about my calling as an economist? I like my job and I try to do my best but I certainly don't do more than is required of me or think philosophically about my job. It's a job to me. Nancy had a post on her blog the other day about doing everything unto the Lord and not just looking forward to free time. I think that plays in here too. Am I doing my job unto the Lord if I'm not thinking about what my mission is for my job? Am I doing my job unto the Lord if I'm not fully integregating my beliefs into my profession? How easy it is after 5 years in the same job to forget why you are doing it! How easy it is to use my job to support me financially in order to pursue other endeavours.

Thinking about this is overwhelming to me at this point. I have a baby on the way, why am I thinking about this? Partly because decisions about continuing to work tend to keep creeping up. I am already counting down the days until baby #2 comes and I can quit for good. Will that excuse me from thinking about the field in which I was educated for 7 years and will probably go back to someday? Will I actually have time to catch up on these things that I have been wanting to do for years....probably not.

The research was not just economic stuff. I wanted to go back and listen to or read sermoms that I had missed or Bible studies that I didn't finish or material for training classes that I was supposed to read but never did.

I will probably never finish these things and I'm not sure I even have a desire to and that drives me nuts since I can't stand to have stuff go un-finished. I'd rather leave these projects lying around the house with un-realistic aspirations to finish them rather than call it quits.

Anyone else like me? Anyone have any advice for my neurotic behavior?

Well, this ended up being a pretty depressing post. So time to turn it around. Yes, I have less and less time for these projects but what have they been replaced with? Many new friends, many experiences that I wouldn't trade for finishing projects, and many things that I have done and completed, including things at work that made the Treasury better. Life has changed a lot in five years. Went from being single and thinking I wouldn't get married soon to being married with baby on the way in five years. Went from being a newcomer to being a oldschooler by DC standards and knowing my way around and the resources and social outlets that DC has to offer. All has been for the good.

I'm not saying that I shouldn't be thinking about my mission anymore but I shouldn't be creating these silly projects to fulfill that mission. Thinking is not something that I can cross off my to do list but it is something that will accomplish the goal of being intentional with whatever I'm doing at the time. (Blogging also helps accomplish this!) I'm probably all over the place thought-wise so if you're following this you deserve a metal. But this type of journaling is what I wanted to do with my blog.

So, here's to 5 years in DC - to meeting the man of my dreams and getting to marry him, to my awesome church and the friends I've made there, to my good job, to being close enough to friends from home to visit them, to free museums, great biking trails, ultimate frisbee leagues, and all DC has given to me!

Scroll down

I guess there isn't a way to reorder post. See below for a posting (Tagged!) that I started last week and just finished today.

Update - Week 28

In this picture and outfit I actually look pregnant! I don't look like this all the time though. But I'm making progress.

I had my glucose test done on Monday. Haven't gotten the results yet so I'm assuming all is well. One of the receptionists at the doctors office told me I didn't look 28 weeks pregnant.

So this is the third trimester. I've been feeling like I have a lot of energy this week. Not sure if it was the sugar from the glucose test, the fact that I exercised/walked a lot last week, or the fact that I was stressed out and on an adrenline rush this week from being overwhelmed with all the stuff I had to catch up on getting back from vacation. But it's nice to have the energy.

The stress hasn't come from work but from a bunch of things on the to do list that are almost but not quite done so the to do list is long and overwhelming. Plus, we have a leak in our bathroom and we don't know where it is coming from - possibly the neighbor's pipes in our ceiling. This is going to be a major pain to fix.

I'm starting to get that itch for a new house. I've lived in the current place for about as long as I lived in my last place. That's only about 2 years but that was the longest I lived in one place since I was 18. Just feeling like we don't have enough room especiallly with the baby (even though we have 2 bedrooms). But we'll hold off until next spring, when hopefully the market and interest rate situation is more stable and when we've saved some more money.

Visted my brother and grandparents and aunt and uncle and parents and a Jen L. and her family last weekend. It was a whirlwind tour. Good times though, good times. Won't be back in PA before the baby!

Signed up for a breastfeeding class in a few weeks. I'm finding I don't have much time to read up on that so I'm going to take the class instead. Plus I have my mom (the WIC queen), my sister, a lactation consultant, and a Le Leche League member to help me out too. The class is right down the street from us so that's cool.

This week I haven't done too much baby prep except talk to people at work about my leave plans. I found out it's definitely better to take Leave Without Pay (LWOP) rather than drop down to a part time employee. By doing LWOP, I still keep my same life insurance coverage that I have now and I'll still get full time "creditable hours" for promotions. I will only get half time for annual and sick leave and for my annual (non-COLA) raises though but I totally expected that. So I told my boss my plans and he liked them - particularly the part about me teleworking on MWF so I wasn't incommunicato 3 days a week. He was fine with me only working 20 hours to start. So now I have to start the paperwork for the teleworking. I'm going to try it 2 or 3 days in Sept and then once a week in October until 2 weeks before my due date when I'll only telework. The only disadvantage to LWOP is that I think they don't want me to do it for more than a year. So after a year, I'll either have to go back to full time or change my position to part time. However, I really don't want to have to change it to part time since at that point I'll be ready to try getting pregnant again. And I plan to quit my job after the second child. But lots can happen in a year and a half and I shouldn't be thinking too much about that now since there's not much I can do.

Not getting anywhere with names. We're not going to tell until the baby is born anyways, but I can tell you that we have not agreed on a name. Martin is pretty set on one that I'm not too crazy about so I have to come up with something better. But I might cave in the end. I made the mistake of telling Martin that I never really had a boys name picked out because I assumed my husband would come up with the boy name. The name isn't bad, I'm just not sold. So we'll see.

Tagged

My first tag! How exciting! I was tagged by Nancy.

1. One book that changed your life: Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: none (although do books that I started and then quit and then restarted count? if so then Little Women)

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Bible

4. One book that made you laugh: I remember chuckling while reading before but I don't remember which books I was reading at those time. I usually read non-fiction or depressing fiction. So I'm stumped on this one...

5. One book that made you cry: Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

6. One book that you wish had been written: Wedding Horror Stories by me and Melissa N.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics (aka Stokey/Lucas).

8. One book you’re currently reading: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. For book club.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: something on breastfeeding

10. Now tag five people: I tag Catherine G., Amy L., Martin E., Cara H., and Dave M.

Pictures of Steven and my sister and her family

Update - Week 27

I was at camp all this week. I definitely think the Lord gave me supernatural endurance (thanks for your prayers!). I walked sooo much and never really got tired. I was slow but I walked a lot. The weather was great at camp, although probably a little too cool for the pool. Well, the water was too cool. I'm still feeling really good. Although my belly is getting bigger and with that comes more discomfort in sitting and trying to sleep.

I had to tell the folks at camp that I was pregnant though. No one suspected until I told them.

I think I may be going to exclusive maternity clothes this week because if I put on regular clothes they may fit when I'm standing up but are uncomfortable when I sit down.

Filled out the registration form for the hospital this week and talked to the insurance company a little bit. I did need to get a pre-authorization from the insurance company but my doctor already took care of that. So that's good.

Martin's mom is going to make the invitations for the shower. That'll be cool and will allow her to be a part of the shower even though she won't be able to make it.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll have a picture in the next update.

Update - Week 26

Well, I'm surviving the heat. It hasn't been too bad since I haven't been outside much but I had some killer commutes this week. Tuesday and Wednesday were awful, awful, awful both ways on the metro. And I didn't get a seat (of course).

I wore two maternity outfits this week. The picture shows one of them. (I could have sworn I was smiling in that pic. I meant to.) Thanks to my sister for the cool clothes! I should have taken a picture each day since I look so different depending what clothes I wear. The day after the picture was taken I wore a black khaki skirt and regular shirt and I couldn't even tell I looked any different than normal. I've gained 11 pounds during the pregnancy.

Just doing the class at the gym but no other exercising. Martin hasn't been getting up to go for a bike ride since it's so hot and find it very difficult to be motivated to get up before he does.

Had a doctors appointment on Wednesday. All is good. Next time I go it's for the yucky glucose test. Fun. I'll be starting appointments every two weeks now.

The baby is moving a lot. He's very active.

I've been getting up every day at 3:30am to go the bathroom. Must be preparation for when the baby comes.

Went to Babies R Us last Saturday. Laura B. and I were there for 2 hours. I'm still undecided about the stroller. I'll probably make one more trip (and take Martin) to make the final decisions. Still getting input from other moms.

Martin and I have been having lots of name discussions. Still can agree on a name. I know we have three months but it feels like we aren't getting anywhere or haven't come up with anything new in a while.

I think all the breastfeeding and child care classes may be taken up so I don't think we are going to do those. But we will do the childbirth classes since I'm already signed up for that.

Going to camp on Saturday for a week. Hopefully the walking and heat won't be too much. I think I'm going to take the camelback and wear it all week so that i'll drink enough water. Looking forward to being outside and not thinking so much about what I have to wear everyday. Hopefully I get some reading done too for my book club and the parenting book Martin and I are reading. And of course it will be fun to be with friends and the kids at camp. My next update will be a little late because of camp.

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.