It' a ... PARTY!

So I think the biggest looming question when you become pregnant is,

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

When I would respond, "no," it was quickly followed by,

"Are you going to find out?"

The answer to the second question was always, "yes."  I just can't imagine not finding out if another person (the doctor and the ultrasound tech) knew.  I mean, if I am going to be inches from the screen that shows me, how can I not!?

So first, here's what the old wives tales say:

Carrying high or low: BOY
(I'm carrying low)
Cravings: BOY
(I wouldn't call them cravings, but steak (for a week in May), grapefruit, and sour pickle spears)
Breakouts?: BOY
Nope
Hands Chapped?: BOY
My skin has been sooo dry.
Husband's weight: BOY
If anything, he's lost weight.  Could be the 100+ weather.
Chinese Gender Calendar: BOY

Morning Sickness: GIRL
How about all day sickness
Even/ Odd age/years: GIRL
27, 2011 both odd = girl
Heart rate: GIRL
Always above 140 (so far)

Wedding Ring test: Since I've read that circle means girl on one site and boy on another, I'm not sure.  It was a pendulum over my hand and a big circle over my belly.

And this test said I was 60% girl, 40% boy.

Some people say that the mom knows.  I did not know.
People would ask me what I wanted.  I seriously was happy with either!  I could see myself as baseball mom; I could see myself with a dancer.  I could see myself with a bookworm boy or girl, or a rambunctious boy or girl.

I started off wanting a girl.  Then I convinced myself that I was having a boy.  The week before the ultrasound I started thinking of baby in the feminine.  I had a dream where she was born early, but healthy, and I started calling her by a female name.  A couple of times when thinking about baby I would think "her."  But once I started doing that I started to think, "if we eventually have a boy and a girl, I'd prefer that the boy were older."

So we had the ultrasound on Wednesday August 17th, and baby totally cooperated with revealing the sex.  Since hub's b-day is on the 22nd and he randomly had a Saturday night off, I decided to plan a party!  I love having people over!  Hubs started calling it the "sex party." Everyone we told that to thought it was hilarious.  I could not however, bring myself to actually write "sex" on an invitation, so it remained in the file name only.

Here's what the invite looked like (names and details of location changed):

So we didn't tell anyone if it was a boy or girl till Saturday.  Well that's not totally true, I told my sister, who is a huge pain, and threw a pout-fest the week prior. The truth is I really did want to tell someone, and who better? Sorry mom, I love you too!

We told our families at lunch on Saturday, which also served as a bit of a b-day lunch since my dad & hub's dad's b-days are the same week.  But on to the party ...

I wanted to think of a fun way to "reveal" the sex to everyone, and I'm a really big fan of games.  I was planning on doing a big word jumble and handing out letters, and making people figure out a phrase, but I couldn't think of anything creative or funny.  Hubs was being no help at all so I finally said, "I know you're going to think of something hilarious on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and then I'm going to be pissed.  So instead, think of something now!"  He had a 45 min drive, and 15 mins later he called back, "I've got it.  It's a mix between Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.  I've already got some categories and questions."   He's awesome!

We had 5 categories:

Movies with Babies
Babies in Music
Famous Babies
Babies in Television
The Pen is Mightier (thank you SNL)

We had 2 teams (girls vs boys).  One person would come up and spin a wheel, and have to answer the question corresponding to the number.  If they got it wrong the question would go to the other team who could work together to guess the answer (like Family Feud).  If neither team knew the answer, nothing happened.  When a right answer was given the team could guess a letter.  The phrase we had created could only be guessed after a winning answer was given by the team.  The girls totally dominated this one.  Here's what it revealed:

Yes, this is a Harry Potter reference.

IT'S A BOY!!

We had such a fun time at the party, and are so glad so many people could come (although we missed those who couldn't).  Here's some cute pics.

Yummy Dairy-free cake (and most of the food), made by C-Store!

And here is a picture from the ultrasound!

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CRIBS!!

So we decided to be way ahead of the game and buy our nursery furniture while JCP was having a huge home sale and free shipping back in July.

Things started off badly when I found out "baby" didn't qualify as "home" and that furniture never receives free shipping.  I did manage to work a 15% discount out of the deal, but it was still more than I was expecting.  Then the furniture came, and "espresso" finish was actually medium brown, the dresser was cracked along a seam, the drawers did not slide (they "jumped"), and the smell of the furniture was very strong.  Fortunately JCP was awesome to work with and it has since been picked up for a full refund, including the $200+ shipping fee.

Now I'm on a hunt to find the perfect crib, for not too much money.  I'm usually such an "all natural" girl, that it's pretty hilarious that I jumped on the jcp set so quickly.

My ideal crib:

made of sustainably harvested wood

made in the USA

formaldehyde-free (meaning no MDF or "green MDF")

non-toxic and no VOC finish

3 mattress height options

Here are some cribs at which I'm looking:

Oeuf - Robin

$631 with shipping

$150 for conversion kit

Imported, "manufactured in Europe"

Argington - Bam

$622 with shipping

$99 for toddler conversion kit

Imported, "made in China"

Goodnight Room - European

$610 - free shipping

$160 for toddler conversion

made in USA

giggle - Harper

$539 with shipping

$110 for toddler conversion

Imported

And I'm pretty sure I really want one of these baby hammocks by Hushamok.

Although I've pretty much narrowed it down to the 4 cribs above, I'm still looking at DaVinci / Million Dollar Baby brand cribs, as long as they are solid wood with no MDF.  These cribs range from $200 - $300 before shipping.  That would leave more money for a mattress, bedding and furniture.  They don't list where they are manufactured (so I assume China), but their standards for the actual crib are high, and they are made of sustainable wood.

"For all of our paints and finishes we use a non toxic sealer with lacquer. Our paint is ultra-safe. We exceed JPMA regulations and go through annual paint tests. Paint is called safe when it has toxic materials under 300 parts per million [ppm].For a company to claim low toxicity means they have paint with toxicity below 90 ppm. Here at Million Dollar Baby, our paint levels come in at less than 2 ppm.

Our cribs are manufactured under the highest standards in Taiwan and China. All of our cribs are made of 100% solid New Zealand Pine. The only exception being those cribs that include a trundle drawer or our mini cribs. On the mini cribs the mattress support is MDF and on the drawers the bottom piece is MDF.

The mattress support on all of our full size cribs is made of metal."

Hmmmm ... what to do, what to do!?

Anyone know if there are any advantages of having a slat mattress support over metal?

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Back

So what's great about the fact that no one knows about this blog is that I don't have to apologize for my absence!

To sum up the pregnancy to date:
MAY - so queasy, so tired.  I literally was thinking, "what have I done?" "have I made a huge mistake?" "what is this parasite sucking all of the life out of me!?"  If I wasn't working or actively engaged in an activity outside my home, I was asleep.  I only ate bland comfort foods, some fruit (grapefruit sounded so good, but I don't think I ever had any), and some veggies (I definitely loved super tender/slightly overdone steamed broccoli).  I could not handle the thought of fresh cilantro or spicy foods.

JUNE - somewhere during a rehearsal just before recital I made it over some sort of hump.  My body decided that although it was tired, it would persevere if needed.  I felt like I was quite a rockstar after making it through 2 very long days of dress rehearsal and recital, but it did take me 4 days to fully recover!  The stomach was still unsettled most of the day, but I was able to enjoy a greater variety of foods, and nap time was down to a more reasonable number and was not everyday.  I did take one road trip to Austin with my parents, and questioned my sanity in deciding to drive to MN in 2 weeks time.  We had an appointment on the 28th, which marked the last full week of my first trimester!  The heartbeat was strong, somewhere in the 150s.  Some say this is a sign that it's a girl.  ?

JULY - we started the month with a long venture up to MN for my cousin's wedding.
Day 1: we traveled to St. Louis on the 4th. Once we were checked in and had a small nap we walked from the hotel toward the arch down market st and through the parks to eat, and catch some fireworks.

Day 2: St. Louis brewery, visited Hubs' great-grandfather's old house, White Castle (I stayed with just fries, loaded as they may have been), Forest Park, the Basilica, naps, the arch (really just walked through the park, we'd both already been up), and a Cardinals game!

Day 3: Drive to MN, Dinner with family
Day 4: gave the bride a massage, hung out with family, rehearsal
Day 5: Wedding Day! I spent the morning at my grandparents sitting outside on the deck sipping tea. The wedding was a blast.
Day 6 & 7: Saw hub's great-aunt and first cousin once removed. Celebrated Kylie's birthday. Hung out with family!
Day 8: Drive to Salina, KS.  We visited with a friend of mine from high school and his awesome wife (who is due with her 2nd 5 days after me!)
Day 9: the LONG drive home
July has flown by.  I've been teaching 1 night a week, but that has wrapped up.  I've been massaging, but summers are always slow.  My energy is back up: not to normal, but probably normal for a hot summer day!

We purchased a crib set.  Or rather hub's parents purchased a crib set for us!

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Letting the Cat out of the Bag

So we had our follow-up appointment today, and everything looked wonderful.  We got to see little arm buds and leg buds kicking and dancing about.  We saw a beating heart with a 160 rate. We saw blood flowing through the umbilical cord.  It was crazy!

We are slowly beginning to let family know.  I let both sets of grandparents know yesterday, and they were both so excited for us!  It's fun having more people know; it makes it more exciting.  The thought of miscarriage is still in there, though.  And now that more people know it feels more real, which certainly means any loss will hurt all the more, but I suppose you can't fully prepare yourself for how you'll feel, you just have to know that it sometimes happens, and God's in control of it all.

So the due date is officially set: January 8th. As my grandpa said, "not very good tax planning!"  Wow.  This is crazy.

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On the Mend

So the past few weeks have gone a little something like this.

Wake-up, eat crackers, fall back asleep
Wake-up, eat breakfast, will myself to work
Want to fall asleep on clients, or leave the room so I can go feel queasy in peace
Eat a little something
Come home and eat a little more something
Fall back asleep
Wake-up, go teach, tell the girls that when they are stressing me out I feel like I need to throw-up.  They think this is funny.  I really do feel like I need to throw-up.
Go home and fall asleep.
Wake-up 2 times to pee, eat crackers.

It's been crap.  I haven't been excited at all about being pregnant.  Most of my thoughts centered around: if I'm this tired now, how am I ever going to survive once I actually have a baby OR if I'm this miserable now how will I ever survive child-birth.  Most of the time it felt like I had a parasite sucking the life out of me.

On Thursday, however, things started to turn around.  There was an hour or so that I actually felt good (okay or not bad was the best I had been in 2 weeks).  The past few days have been a lot more manageable.  I know I should just feel good about feeling better, but there is part of me that feels like maybe I should be worried.  Maybe things are not progressing if I'm not feeling like total crap.  But I realize that those thought are silly because they serve no constructive purpose.  Plus there is still enough queasiness, bloat, and tenderness to keep me in check.

The big re-confirm appointment is in two days.  We are hoping to see a 9 week 2 day old baby with a strong heartbeat.  If everything is good, we are going to start letting more people know we're expecting!

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155

Well we are confirmed!  There was a super strong 155 heartbeat, and yes there is a baby in there!  But not so fast there.  Don't go running around telling people yet.  Kiddo is only measuring 7 weeks instead of 8 at which the 40 week gestational calendar would place me.  The doctor and I are not concerned since I am sometimes a 34 day cycle person instead of the ever so common 28 day people.  TMI?  Anyway, this discovery made me celebrate my decision to push the appointment to the 8th week instead of the standard 7.  The doctor also thanked me, since no one wants to see that there isn't a heartbeat only to find out it was only because the calendar is slightly different for some.

Now due to the fact that I'm measuring more than a week off we will be going back in two weeks to confirm growth.  At that time I should be measuring about 9 weeks, which makes me feel more confident about sharing the news with our friends and family.  The dance studio will just have to wait to hear the news, since I don't want every parent to know, especially if I happen to miscarry over the summer.  That would be an awkward August full of telling people the bad news.  The big bummer is that I really wanted to be the one to tell my students, but now the news will probably gradually filter out mid-summer.  There are not many secrets around a dance studio.

We're very excited, although it's not bubbling over, since I'm still super tired and queasy, and not many people know.  In fact, I'm kinda freaking out a bit! :)

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Confirmation

I got a call from the doctors office today to confirm my confirmation appointment.  Also to confirm that I have no other insurance that I maybe forgot to list, because we don't have maternity coverage.


Tomorrow, tomorrow ... you're only a day away.


I'm nervous about tomorrow.  What we'll see.  If we'll hear anything.  But talking and writing about it only makes it worse.  I can't premeditate my reaction one way or the other, so for now I'll just settle for the update on what should be going on (via "thebump"):


Baby is now the size of a raspberry!
Baby is growing like mad, putting on about a millimeter every day and continuing to straighten out in the trunk.  Though you can't feel it yet, baby is moving those little arms, legs, and (now only slightly) webbed fingers and toes like crazy.


Playing host to an ever-growing embryo does take a toll.  Heavy fatigue may be setting in.  Treat yourself gently.  Though it's not showing yet, you're growing a little person in there!

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