Well, the last pregnancy-centric post i can find is from 28 weeks. We’ve done so much in that time, and while I’ll be cranking out some posts that are event specific, I also feel the need to play catch up for those of you that come here for the sweet, sweet baby news.
We were incredibly fortunate to have family and friends throw three showers for us. I was kinda surprised that we knew that many people, much less that so many actually liked us. And by us I mean me. I attended two, missing one in Indiana that wasn’t really co-ed anyway. I think two showers is more than enough for any dude to attend, so I’m not crying about missing one. DARE YOU CHALLENGE ME?!? Our dear friends threw one hell of a party here in Columbus, complete with real-deal barbeque and an Elvis impersonator in honor of Tiny E. Friends came from out of town, and so many wonderful people we’ve met in our few years in C-bus turned out as well. Tori went solo to southern Indiana for her family’s shindig, and most recently we traveled with the k9′s to Buffalo where my family got their chance to let us know how much they love us.
We started childbirth class two weeks ago. We debated between having class at St. Anne’s, where we would get a good overview of how things are done at that hospital specifically, or at CHOICE where we would get a wider range of opinions and thoughts about birth. Our classes started six weeks before the EDD, so we ended up begining with class 6 of 6, and participating in class 1 next. So far the classes have been informative and fun. It turns out that I had been following the midwife who teaches the class on Twitter for a while without knowing it! She gave her email address to the class; “you can contact me at amazonmidwife at…” and I kind of babbled out “I follow you on Twitter!” recognizing her @amazonmidwife handle. Ahh, to be a socially networking expectant daddy…
The nursery is all but complete. Artwork hung, furniture assembled, bedding laundered and bed made.
I posted a couple of weeks ago that our friends had their baby, Esther. We visited at the hospital, of course, but it’s been rewarding to see how they have transitioned back to their house. It has been inspiring, as well as making me incredibly anxious about the logistical problems we may face having a newborn in a small Clintonville house with one bathroom. But then again, I’m getting anxious about everything at this point.
Tori is looking as good as ever, and I have nothing to share from her recent visits to the OB. All is well and progressing nicely. The last few weeks, the fatigue has set in. She’s usually in bed by 10 at the latest, although she’ll fight it till midnight now and then. Tiny E just goes CRAZY in there now…rolling and kicking and punching, all visible to the naked eye if you watch her belly for a few minutes. This has led to more peeing, more uncomfortable nights and every once in a while, pain in her abdomen from the movement. Sleep is challenging these days.
We’re in a really good place with names (no, dude…we’re not sharing) for either sex. We’ve had a few in mind for most of the pregnancy, and it’s looking like it’ll be an easy choice when the time comes. We’re both still in love with them after having 7 months to mull them over, and we think that’s a good sign.
We met with our doula again at 32 weeks, and had a good open conversation about how we see things going at the hospital. The birth plan was the focus of the conversation, and we decided it would be best to wait for our first few classes before we put anything on paper. Right now all we really have is the idea that we want to be kept informed and have the right to consent to any procedural diversions.
Just this week, we had our initall consultation with the doctor who will be our new family doc. We know her through some mutual friends, and she showed an ability to be our kind of doc…not an alarmist, able to deal with my incestant questions, and a good sense of humor. She’ll be Tiny E’s pediatrician as well.
That’s really all I can think of for now. We have just over a month to go until our estimated due date (I found out this week that Tori’s mom was a week late with Tori and her sister, so we’re expecting Tiny E a little late as well). We’ve been slacking on pictures of Tori’s belly, but I’ll leave you with a photo I took today at the water park:
July 10th, 2009
Earlier this week, what I think was a starling flew in through the chimney, leading to this:
Weird, but not too unusual. Now I’m starting to think something is up.
Not long after returning from the market today, I noticed a smallish (adolescent?) Blue Jay in the yard. He obviously couldn’t fly, and seemed really calm considering he was probably a goner soon. I couldn’t conceive a way to help it other than keeping an eye out for kittykittykittys, so I photographed and observed before leaving it alone for a few minutes. When I came back…it was gone. I sure do hope it’s OK…with parenthood looming I’m becoming ever more sensitive to these matters. You should really click on the photos to get the experience, I got some nice macro shots in.
Incidentally, I think this may be his dad. I snapped it last week when I was obsessing over the bird feeder.
June 6th, 2009
Today is our first baby shower! This is the fun one, thrown by friends, without any weird goo-goo gah-gah talk. Super excited to see some old friends, drink some drinks and listen to some God Damn Grateful Dead. Pictures later……
May 30th, 2009
- Schedule our first “real” prenatal visit with our doula.
- Schedule a tour of the labor and delivery facilities we will be using.
- Figure out what the hell we’re going to do with the k9s while we’re out for Phish and the shower thrown by my family.
May 28th, 2009
We got the call yesterday that Tori failed her one hour glucose test. In essence this means that her body failed to metabolize the “glucola” that she drank in one hour. She returns for a more accurate test next week. The cut off for pass/fail is 140, and she posted 144. 85% of women who fail the one hour test pass the three hour test, so we’re not too worried about gestational diabetes. The only bad thing is that there are some diabetic tendenencies in her family, but I think we’ll be in the clear.
May 23rd, 2009
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s here. Tori has officially cruised into the third trimester. Not that I had any worries, it’s almost like she’s done this before. Tori has a calm, cool way about her pregnant self, and if you know her it’s hard not to notice it. I had a lot of deep seated worries when we found out she was with child. I was concerned that the uncomfortable side effects of the pregnancy might be too much. I hate, hate, hate seeing my wife unhappy, especially if it’s due to physical pain or emotional duress. I know we have a few months to go; but I feel very assured that she feels secure, comfortable (in love with, actually) with her pregnant body, and truly blessed to be creating this child. She doesn’t even really have bad days…just bad hour-or-twos now and then.
Here’s a list of interesting things I’ve seen or noticed:
- She does the “hand lovingly on top of the belly” thing that every pregnant woman I have even know does. I think it’s one of the most cutest damn things I’ve ever seen.
- The belly sticks out further than the boobs. Cool milestone.
- The thing about “pregnancy brain” is true. For the most part, Tori is sharper than ever before. But every once in a while, she just blanks on stuff. Like her address.
- Tiny E is moving around like crazy in there. Rather than feeling wavy movents, I can feel limbs now.
- I rather expected to have some gut feeling on the sex of our baby, but nope. Nothing. Nada. Tori, on the other hand, has had some intuition…
Tomorrow morning we’re headed to the doc for Tori’s gestational diabetes screen. She’ll have to go easy on food tomorrow, so tonight we grilled and hung out in the backyard for a while. She looked so beautiful in the setting sunlight, and I took some photos by our blooming bizarro lilac tree.
May 20th, 2009
As I fiddle around trying to get my Gallery2 install up and running here at IF@B, I am overwhelmed at the music that my wife is making on the couch next to me. She moved into the third trimester today (depending who you ask) and the symphony of noise erupting from her gastroesophageal tract is simply amazing. It’s a sort of new-age post-industrial composition; consisting of mellow groans and ambient belching neatly blended with a folksy sigh now and then.
May 12th, 2009
I’m home sick with a stomach bug today, and since I’m already on the couch I figured a bit of blogging would make me feel productive.
We “did” our registry a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t have an idea what we were planing on doing for diapers. We’ve leaned towards cloth, but really needed some help to figure everything out. When we went to Sprout Soup in Clintonville to shop for a friends shower, it didn’t make a lick of sense, even with a list in our hands! We bought a sprayer and a gift certificate, figuring that mommy and daddy could make the calls on all-in-one, prefold, PUL covers and whatever else they need. One of the owners pointed out that there was a class coming up next week, so we signed up. Tori and I returned to Sprout Soup for the Cloth Diaper 101 class last week, and it may be the best decision we’ve made yet. Our options are a lot clearer now, and we feel like we have a handle on it. I still think it’s overwhelming for the average, non-diapering people, so I don’t think we’ll actually set up a registry there.
When you get down to it, we think cloth is a better option for baby’s well being, and our pocketbook. There’s a link here for anyone who cares to look into this more, but it seems like cloth provides a substantial savings over the first few years. To get going, we’ll just need about 40 unbleached prefolds, some water”proof” wool or fleece pants, some snappis, a diaper pail and some good clean soap. Hell, if that jerkass Dave Matthews can do it, so can we…
Here are some links if you’re interested…
May 11th, 2009
Wow…what a busy weekend. I’m typing this while attached via IV to a gigantic cup of coffee Sunday morning. Friday was a daytrip to IKEA to gather furniture and decor. We met up with friends afterwards, and got home by 9. Tori and I were exhausted from the human retail maze that is IKEA USA. Those Swedes are ingenious bastards. Tori started to feel a little shakey by the end of the night, and the next morning she was all out pooped. She says it’s like returning to the first trimester all over again. We’re technically only a few weeks away from the third, so it appears that the “honeymoon” of the second is starting to wane.
Saturday found her feeling a little sluggish, so after some errends and a nice breakfast, we set out to Lowe’s to get some paint to try for the nursery. T-bone and Tiny E took it easy while I prepped and painted our nest. After a long day I assembled one of the two matching dressers, and now we have this:
It’s almost there…some shelving and wall decor and we’ll be sitting pretty! I felt it was important to get this stuff out of the way now so Tori could lend a hand. I also wanted to avoid painting and sanding in 90 degree weather. I had hoped for a rainy day yesterday, and got a beautiful one instead…oh well. We used Olympic low-VOC paint (the color is Guacamole), and the dresser(s) are from the Malm series at IKEA. I never would have guessed that the finishes between our crib, dressers and rocking chair would match so closely, we really lucked out. We have similar ones in our bedroom (shorter, different finish). This room has a gigantic widow which dwarfs the furniture in the top photo, but rest assured it all fits nicely. We’ll use the dressers as a changing table but mounting them securly to the wall and placing a changing pad on top.
The space ::feels:: awesome. Welcoming, warm and earthy. A smudging ceremony will take place before the baby comes to help purify the space. But I feel really good about how it’s turned out so far.
May 3rd, 2009
Wow, it’s been a great weekend. I’m happiest when feeling both accomplished and entertained, and my needs were satisfied over the past two days. Friday was 78 degrees out by the time i walked out of the house. We made the call to get our baby shower registry done, thinking that it’d be easier to maneuver the stores on a weekday. While driving up to Dublin, we were overcome with the desire to eat something on a patio somewhere. For me, it was all about the experience, but Tori has been getting more and more preggy and I knew she needed food. We stopped at the Winking Lizard and had a great bite to get the afternoon started. Then off to Target and Babies R Us. We were smart and had done a bit of homework, so the process was relatively pain free. I’ll admit that I enjoy shopping, but hours in the same damn store can really get to a dude! Calmer heads prevailed, though, and we were done at both stores in a few hours. We combined the stuff we’ve read about in the past few months with Alpha Mom’s tips (Starting at week 23 of her week-by-week guide, she stats throwing on registry/shopping advice) and we’re pretty happy with how it turned out. By 5, we were both exhausted from the heat and the fluorescent sting of the stores and headed home. The night wound down over late night conversation about our friends shower that we’re planning. I can’t remember the last time we were both up until after midnight!
Yesterday was all about house prep. Next week is a planned visit to Ikea for furniture (baby and otherwise). I had planned to work soley on the nursery; patching, priming, painting…but was relegated to the office to de-clutter instead. I didn’t get into the nursery until it was 2PM and 85 degrees out. My main issue is the seam on the north wall where it juts up to the ceiling. Some jackass tried to caulk it years ago and did a horrendous job. I scraped all the old caulk out, re-seamed and re-caulked it. At some point this week I need to put a 90 degree angle in the joint, install a dimmer switch and start sanding and priming. I’m glad we agree on the colors and such, this should be a real straightforward project. We ended the night with our first dinner outside, just the two of us and capped it all off with a Clintonville canine walk in the (much) cooler evening.
I really can’t believe how fortunate we’ve been. Tori has had little discomfort so far outside of some gnarly heartburn (thanks for the Zantac, Dr. Murnane!) and our spirits have been easy going so far. I can spend a lot of time just staring at her face, imagining life in a few years with Tiny E running around. We have just about 15 weeks to go before we meet our baby!
April 26th, 2009
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