Nursery Part 2

The closet is done, and it was hard work! Buying paint and supplies, spackling about a million holes (seriously), taking everything out, taping and painting yellow, white on the sides, and gloss white for the trim. I did all the prep work, touched up the trim in the rest of the room, and painted the shelf and hanger rod, and Chuck did all the in-closet painting and heavy lifting. I have pictures of us painting, and we even took video... but for today, you get the finished product:

Cravings

No, I haven't actually had any weird cravings yet. I think I'm still eating pretty normally... this morning I had leftover spinach quiche for breakfast (yum), then rice, black beans, peppers, salsa and cheese with chips & guacamole for lunch, and for dinner... an Elviswich.

Which Wich just opened down the street from us, and my newest addiction is the Elviswich. It's peanut butter, banana and honey on a toasted wheat baguette. I had one yesterday, and talked Chuck into trying one with me tonight. He liked it!

What Chuck's been craving is a juice recipe that came with our new juicer, consisting of one grapefruit, 1-2 oranges, a carrot, an apple, and either a pear or half a small cantaloup (makes enough for 2 large glasses). It's delicious, and if it was up to him we'd make it every day! Tonight we just had some carrot/ginger juice - pretty good, but it would've made my mom cringe.

No news on the crib or painting situation, but I'm still hoping to have it all worked out by the end of my vacation time. I'll keep you posted!

Progress

We put up the curtains and assembled the glider chair, so one corner of the nursery is done! We also child-proofed a bit; made it so the cords on the shades are all wound up off the floor and the plugs are covered.

Here's a picture. Notice the new diaper bag (thanks mom & dad!) and the beautiful little dress Daniela brought us back from Peru. We also just bought the crib bedding set, which will add more colors to the decor (it's really cute). More pictures to come as we make more progress!

Physical Activity

I woke up this morning, not to an alarm, but to the worst charlie horse of my life. I tried massaging it, but my arm was asleep so I screamed and made Chuck massage it out. My calf is still sore over 12 hours later.

Today was my first day of vacation. Of course Chuck had to work, so I spent way too much of the day sitting on the couch, and I felt my tummy wonking around the whole time! At one point, I lifted up my shirt and realized I could actually see it too!! I went from not being sure I could feel her at all, to feeling and SEEING the kicking all day long. I bet my normal daily life just keeps me so busy and active that she sleeps through it or I just don't notice the movement.

At one point Tater jumped on my lap, put her head on my tummy, and started purring. Blueberry was so responsive to that - it was as though they were snuggling with eachother!

After dinner we went out to take a walk at the new Hill Country Galleria, which ended with a pretty good set of stairs. I was feeling good about those stairs - especially after the brisk walk. But with my increased blood flow and all the other crazy things going on in my body, I swear when we got to the top I thought I might pass out. Of course, walking and prenatal yoga are about the extent of my physical activity these days. Maybe that's enough for now!

22 Weeks

This last week or so, I've felt more movements in my tummy, but I'm still thinking... gas? digestion? hunger? I guess there's at least a 25% chance it's baby wriggling! The only time I thought it was different was earlier this week when I woke up at 3:30am and felt some little boinging/flicking to the left of my belly button. I've heard it should feel like fluttering, and I don't think I've had any of that. But most of the time, the gas bubbles and digestion feelings are lower down and feel closer to the surface.

It's been 6 weeks since my OB first asked me if I'd felt the baby move yet, so I've been wanting to feel it ever since then. Maybe I just don't know what to feel for, or maybe she's just a mellow little girl (or both?).

In other news, we bought yellow paint for the closet, curtain rods, and have the red curtains and yellow & white glider chair on order (to arrive this week). I only work 4 days next week, and then will have 11 days off to fix up the nursery. We're also going to sell the foosball table to make room for a little play area, and stuff like that... maybe do some baby-proofing, take naps, do some juicing, and try out the new camcorder :)

Prenatal Yoga

Today I took my first prenatal class at Yoga Yoga. It was pretty neat getting back into yoga with a whole class full of pregnant women. Three of the ladies in the class were right at 40 weeks or just past, but I'd say the average woman was somewhere between 18-23 weeks (I'm 21 weeks).

Some of you have been asking for pictures of my belly, and the truth is, most clothes I wear (especially now that it's scarf weather) cover it up. So, here I am in yoga wear:

As far as how I'm feeling, I have a lot of energy these days and am feeling great! Well, except for the fact that I've been getting heartburn or indigestion sometimes twice a day. Oh well, I can take it.

Baby Registries

It might seem a little early for baby registries (what with almost 5 months of pregnancy to go!), but the holidays are coming up and we're getting ready to set up the nursery, so now's the time. Plus, as I mentioned, I wanted to preempt your attempt to buy us all pink things ;)

First, here's the nursery decor we registered for:

We're registered at Babies 'R' Us and Target, and both registries can be accessed in-store or online at www.babiesrus.com and www.target.com, under either Amber Wadey or Chuck Wadey.

Of course, anybody is welcome to go outside these lists - they're guidelines for colors and basics we'll be needing. I fully anticipate purchasing half of these items ourselves.

A HUGE thanks to Amy & Brooke, who came with me to give advice on what we really do and don't need. It's a big confusing world of baby things for a first-time mommy.

It's a girl!

My co-workers were wrong, my parents were right. I asked the sonogram tech how sure she was, and she said 120%.

Here's a picture of me getting the sonogram, a crazy cutaway of the girl parts, and a profile pic of baby Wadey. Notice how Blueberry's tummy is big and round just like mine!

Below that is a clip from the DVD of the sonogram - pretty cool, huh?

Now, don't go out and buy a bunch of pink stuff for us - we'll be registering and choosing our nursery colors and patterns tomorrow, and they may or may not include pink! Definitely no purple, maybe red, we'll see! I'll post again soon :)

Thanksgiving

We're home from 5 days in Arizona - the last Wadey Thanksgiving without babies. And when I say babies, I mean babies! Chuck's brother's girlfriend is pregnant too - due about a month after us.

We spent time looking at Chuck & Andrew's baby pictures (Chuck was seriously the cutest baby ever), visited their childhood neighborhood and schools in Mesa, made pierogies (a Kruk family tradition), and got about as large a family photo as we could've gotten.

Stay tuned. More blogs to come - it's going to be an exciting week!

Feeling Normal

Not much to report this week. I actually feel really normal! I seem to have my energy back, so we've been taking more walks and I've been cooking and helping around the house like before. I'm wearing comfy maternity pants, which makes getting dressed feel normal again. I'm eating normally, and I'm even less sore and bloated.

Maybe I'm into the part of the 2nd trimester where everything just feels normal again, or maybe I'm just totally used to feeling different! It's also been over 6 weeks since I had a sonogram, and I can't feel the baby move yet. But it still feels real, and I definitely wake up every morning noticing the belly bump.

We're really enjoying holiday shopping (getting ready for an early-Christmas at Thanksgiving with Chuck's family) and we're looking forward to our trip to AZ. It'll be nice to get away.

The weather's been nice here. We go back and forth between too warm (in the 70's and 80's) to perfect (50's and 60's). The other day when it was nice and chilly, we bought hot cocoa and a box of Duraflame logs! Here's our first fire of the winter :)

Who are you?

Every day on my drive home, I end up stopping for the longest time at the light turning onto Bee Caves Road. A couple weeks ago I was stopped next to a woman with her son in the back of the car, and she was turned around yelling at him with complete anger.

Today, I was behind a car with a big dog sticking its head out the window, and next to them was car with a mom and her toddler. Their windows were down and the little boy was pointing at the dog excitedly – probably just saying “Mommy, look at the doggy!” But she was laughing and responding in a sweet way.

I got all happy after seeing that. That’s what I think it should be like having a child – with everyday silly and cute moments. Of course, realistically it’ll be a mixture of both scenarios.

I also got really curious about who this person inside me is. We don’t even know yet if it’s a boy or a girl, let alone if this little human is going to be hyper or mellow, artistic or athletic, silly or serious, blond or strawberry blond… we think they’ll be an Aries, and Kim says Aries aren’t good with money – but how could any child of mine not be good with money!? Ha! Guess we’ll just have to wait and see...

A good week

It has been quite a week - a week where I've definitely been focusing more on work than on Blueberry.

As you probably already know, Tuesday was voting day, and our Texas Prop 15 passed! I got to help coordinate the volunteers on stage for the celebration party, and Chuck was up there too. Hearing Lance speak and being at special events is usually pretty cool, but this time it was my friends and husband being on stage that was awesome. You can watch it at: www.livestrong.org/prop15speech.

Then Thursday and Friday was the Young Adult Alliance annual meeting. I got to hang out with people I've at least known about for the entire time I've been with the LAF - they've shared their stories, they're on our website, they've been to all of our events, and some I know through MySpace or I've followed their careers - like Kris Carr of Crazy Sexy Cancer. We got a special screening of the film, and I had an amazing time.

So, this week my only baby-related issue was that I ran out of pants that fit!! We had to take a trip to Motherhood Maternity, where I got some nice black pants, a pair of brown corduroys with quite the elastic belly (they sit pretty high on my tummy), and a nice skirt. I have a pregnancy wardrobe!

What else? We're getting closer and closer to Thanksgiving week. I'm taking the whole week off so that we can take a road trip to Arizona and visit family, but Chuck's work is increasingly busy and he's got some deadlines that make him think we may have to push it back, shorten it, or... not go?? He really wants the break and I think it'll happen (just maybe a little later than planned?), but as Art Director with a pretty big deadline coming up, he's going to be working some serious hours to get everything done - and we'll just have to see what happens.

Appointment

Today we had our OB appointment, and sorry to say, no new sonogram. Dr. Belt asked if I could feel the baby move yet, and I said no. She said it might just feel like gas, to which I excitedly replied "Oh, I've felt gassy!!... but it was really gas." She appologized to Chuck (haha!), and then said I should feel it within the next week or two. Of course, I'll keep you posted.

We did hear the heartbeat, which was just over 150 bpm. I asked if she thought that a high heart rate means it'll be a girl, and she said "where did you read that!?" She didn't seem to buy it. Earlier today my co-worker Teresa said she thinks Blueberry's a boy (and apparently, she's usually right about these things?)... so, we've got bets on both sides!

Our next appointment is scheduled for November 29th, which will include a very detailed sonogram and should answer the question of girl or boy.

As for today, we heard the heartbeat, learned that our first trimester screen came back normal, and got our flu shots. Oh, and I got weighed... 127 lbs, up from 122 last time (120 before pregnancy).

This week

On Friday I'll have my 16 week appointment. That's right folks, 4 months. I just got my weekly email (the one that tells me how big the baby is) and for the first time it's not something edible! You know, we went from blueberry to strawberry, on up to and apple and peach. This week, I get this:

Week 16
Trimester 2
Baby's Length 4.5-5 in.
Baby's Weight 2.5- 3 oz.
Baby's Size
Rubber Ducky

Extra Small

With all this talk about the parts of me that keep getting larger, you might not believe it's true - but I went to Old Navy today to buy my first real pair of maternity pants, and I'm totally size XS.

I was waiting to buy maternity pants, knowing that I'll keep growing and changing sizes, but I'm really just to the point where even the button extenders aren't doing the job anymore. So, here I am, wearing the smallest size Old Navy carries, and they're actually pretty loose - I definitely have room to grow, and the elastic waist is super comfy. Sitting down after eating is a joy in these pants.

Chuck says they should make this style of elastic waist for men, and Daniela thinks that button extenders and maternity pants are a great idea for Thanksgiving. True statement.

Pumpkin Carving Party

We were invited to a co-worker's Halloween party today. Pumpkin carving was the main event, which was really fun! While we were carving, Eileen whispered to me, "Amber, your boobs are HUGE!" to which I replied, "you're just now noticing this?"

There were tons of people at this party, and many young children and babies. A friend walked by once and said "are you taking notes?" YIKES! But this was a great neighborhood for families - so many of the neighbors just walked over to Sue's house, and I'm sure they'll get LOTS of trick-or-treaters.

Our house is really neat, but our neighborhood just won't be as good for a child... we don't have sidewalks, street lights, or safe biking trails, and we're really close to a main road. We don't get any trick-or-treaters, but there are really nice newer neighborhoods nearby that we could always drive to. Anyway, here's my pumpkin... Happy Halloween!

Baby Presents!

Today we had our friends Andrea & Amelia over for brunch, and received our first baby presents. Our reactions were possibly a little silly, so I thought I'd share... first off, I saw the cool "baby's first hand print" plaster kit, put it near my tummy (as reenacted in the photo below) and said (kind of in baby talk) "Blueberry, you're going to have a hand print!" I'm pretty sure the girls looked at eachother a little strangely right then (but I have no idea why!?!).

Then I came in and showed Chuck the hand print kit and the little Winnie the Pooh baby gown and cap, which he opened, held up and said "Oh no, now this is real."

We went into the nursery to take these pictures, and Tater joined us - which was when Chuck got the brilliant idea of trying out the hat on her. And y'all think I'M the one with the stuff on cats obsession!!!

Anyway, you can see that we've started with the nursery furniture a little bit. That dresser, along with a slidey-shelf and storage cube thing are all going to go inside the closet. We still have to finish building them, and then fix up and paint the inside of the closet, but we've got lots of time for that. The nursery as a whole might end up being a Christmas break project.

Actual Conversation

Amber: Sigh... you know, I was looking at my MySpace pictures, and thinking how perfect and small my chest was just 3 short months ago. I think I took that for granted.

Chuck: So, you're mourning the loss of your smaller chest.

Amber: Yeah, and soon I'll be mourning the loss of my smaller tummy.

Chuck: And soon we'll be mourning the loss of our smaller family.

Amber: Hey!! ... I might have to blog that.

Chuck: You should also give a shout out to Tater on your blog.

Amber: Why? Because she snuggles my head and helps me get to sleep?

Chuck: No, because she made it onto Stuff on my Cat!

Amber: But it's my pregnancy blog!!

Haha, well, I guess I should give a shout out to Tater, while she's still a part of our "smaller family" worthy of blogging about. I'm afraid soon she'll be powerfully overshadowed.

Tater made it onto our favorite website, Stuff on my Cat :)
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=5427

I'm sooo-o-o tired

I started feeling fatigued before I even knew I was pregnant, and for awhile there I was getting serious brain fog everyday at around 2 or 3pm (must... nap...) and could fall asleep any night at 9pm, easy. Well, now that I'm officially starting my 2nd trimester this week (yikes!) I've been expecting the fatigue to go away. And I have had some good energy spurts - like this past weekend, walking a 5K for the LIVESTRONG Challenge - I felt like running!

So, here I am thinking the fatigue is over, and now this (ominous music here). Okay, let me preface this by telling you that for the past 2 months I have been waking up at least once in the middle of the night to pee, so I'm used to that. But I usually get right back to sleep with no issues. I mean, I'm exhausted! This week, I started waking up at 3 or 4am - needing to drink a little water, use the bathroom, whatever - but for some reason I just can't get back to sleep!!!

Last night I actually read my book for an hour, in the middle of the night, trying to get myself to crash again. And this morning I'm just SO tired I can hardly stand it. Coffee would help, but no, not an option.

In other news - and this is BIG news - we went bra shopping again earlier this week. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I'm not even really showing yet, and I am now wearing a 36DD. Stop the madness!!!

I actually bought a maternity bra this time, which is not quite as lovely or attractive as I'd like, but boy if it's not the most comfortable thing I've worn in weeks. Thanks again to Nancy for the $50 JCPenney gift certificate... it was just put to good use ;)

What... more!?

That's right, it's been less than a week and I have more pictures! Yesterday I had my first trimester screen, which is a non-invasive test that allows them to look for downs syndrome, neural tube defects, and who knows what else at a very early stage with only a sonogram and a blood test. I won't see the blood test results for a couple weeks, but the sonogram tech said everything looked pretty good here...





He had to check us out for a good long time, measuring the teeny spinal cord at the base of the neck, finding the nasal bone, stuff like that. Blueberry had to be in just the right position, so we waited patiently for him/her to shift around, and we were all so proud when he/she did... does him/her/he/she sound better than "it"?

Anyway, it was at lunchtime so it was harder for Chuck to get away, but Candace came with me and that was pretty neat. We pretended to be a lesbian couple (but not really). Then she bought me lunch (thanks Candace!!!).

12 Weeks

We just had our 12 week OB appointment today, and apparently we weren't supposed to have a sonogram. My doctor tried the doppler thingy to get a heartbeat, and she couldn't find it, so she sent me into the sonogram room anyway, just to make sure everything was okay.

I said "good job, Blueberry, I wanted a sonogram." The sonogram tech found baby and heartbeat right away. 166 bpm, 6.48 cm length from "crown-to-rump."

We saw better views than this picture gives us. There were long skinny legs (don't worry, they won't be all stubby like in this snapshot!), and Blueberry might've had the hick-ups judging by the twitching.

We came home and did a couples prenatal workout DVD that I ordered from netflix. Basically, Chuck was my resistance so I didn't need weights. The man in the video (James Denton from Desperate Housewives), seemed less enthused about the whole partner workout thing than Chuck. Sad but funny.

When do you start showing?

Yesterday my khaki pants were too tight to button, so I removed the button and sewed it about 3/4" further over. Perfect! And I'm just trying to figure out, am I starting to show a little, or am I just bloated!? Maybe it's because I haven't been exercising... eh, I kind of think it's bloating.

Anyway, I looked on eBay, and found these:



I should be getting them in about a week.

Thanks to everybody who sent birthday wishes and such great gifts! I got a gift certificate for JCPenney and some great tummy oils from Nancy, my first maternity shirt from Katie, a cute photo album and CD from Daniela, and a check from my mom & dad.

The JCPenney gift card and money will most likely go toward new undergarments and more stretchy clothes. Yup.

Feelin' hot hot hot

So, today I felt sick at work for the first time, but not just nauseous... like a flu was coming on, achy and even more tired than usual. I kept saying it must've been all the secondhand smoke and heat and walking at ACL, and not getting enough sleep last night, and who knows what else. Maybe something I ate. All I know is that I came home from work with chills and had to throw on all the warmest things I owned and sleep for a couple hours under all my blankets.

As soon as I woke up and my head cleared a bit, I called Chuck to get me some cold water. I was burning up, and not sweating at all. I asked him to search google for fevers during pregnancy, because I suddenly realized that Blueberry could be burning up too and that could be bad.

So, the thermometer read 100.5, and the articles we found said problems can occur if you have a 102 temp or higher, and especially in the first 3-6 weeks when the neural tubes are forming. Phew. So, I've been drinking cold water now and am just trying to force myself to feel better.

I don't think I can eat anything tonight, and I'm just hoping to feel better tomorrow... work's been too busy to take a sick day. But I will if I have to.

UPDATE - 9:22 pm, feeling hotter again, temp up to 101.2 - called doctor's after hours number just to make sure everything's okay. The nurse said she wants my temperature under 100 degrees. Instructed me not to bundle up in layers of clothes and to take extra strength tylenol. Sent Chuck out for extra strength tylenol.

UPDATE - 8:38 am, by the time I went to bed last night (around midnight) the temp was exactly 98.6... amazing. Extra strength tylenol is my new best friend. I didn't sleep very well, but I think today should be a better day.

FAQ's

Okay, today I'm going to answer the burning questions you've either asked or likely have been wondering about...

Q: Are you going to find out the gender?
A: Yes! It's one of the things we're most excited about.

Q: When will you start a baby registry?
A: We're going to wait until whenever it is in the 2nd trimester that we learn the gender before we start decorating the nursery or registering for gifts. I'm thinking Babies R Us, but am open to suggestions!

Q: Have you started thinking of names yet?
A: There are some family names and other names that I've been considering, but we'll probably start the conversation from scratch once we know the gender. Maybe we'll let you know ahead of time, but probably not.

Q: What are you going to do about Tater?
A: Tater has been pretty good lately, and this house is big so there are many rooms for her to hide in. We could also make her go outside more often. I think we'll be fine until we have a toddler, and then... we'll see what happens. If it comes down to Tater or Blueberry, Tater will lose, so she'd best behave.

Q: How does Blueberry like ACL?
A: Blueberry loves live music and long walks, but is not as fond of secondhand smoke, heat and humidity.

Other interesting facts:

These days, aside from our long walks, we haven't really been holding to any exercise routine (unless you count napping as exercise). I plan on starting prenatal yoga in the next couple months. Also, I haven't been craving meat or fish at all and I've been feeling really good - so I'm sticking to my vegetarian diet.

Chuck's already looking to buy a video camera. I think this will be our Christmas present to eachother -- so if you're already contemplating what to buy Blueberry, er, us for Christmas, how about a Best Buy gift card to put toward our HD video recorder!?

So, what questions do you have? Ask and I shall answer :)

8 weeks!

We had our first prenatal appointment today. Blueberry is actually the size of a peanut...

but Chuck still wants to call it Blueberry. I think it's starting to sound like trail mix!

They did all kinds of tests and exams, including a sonogram, which believe it or not allowed us to see and measure Blueberry and hear the heartbeat!


I guess we have living proof now - time to tell the parents and go public!

Blueberry

I read that during the first trimester, women often go up a full cup size. I should be just over 7 weeks, and I'm officially a full D cup (up from an average C). A couple of my friends have started telling me that if I didn't tell them I was pregnant, they would've asked. Of course, I'm not showing otherwise. Bloated, yes. But we're calling the baby Blueberry, which is just about how big it should be.

I've had almost no nausia, but I have had issues with digestion. It's a little unpleasant, but I'll take digestion issues over nausia and vomiting any day. I've been drinking lots of water and eating high fiber foods (fruits and veggies and cereal), which helps.

It was the very worst during my trip to Philly, which was actually a little scary - I could hardly eat, and I just wasn't able to take care of myself or get enough sleep. But I've been feeling much better since coming home.

Already!?!?!

I'm only one day late, but I've been thinking for a couple days now that it might've worked. I've been feeling... different I guess. Cramping but not like menstral cramps; swelling and tenderness but moreso than normal pre-period swelling and tenderness. So, this morning I took a home pregnancy test, and it came out positive!

Chuck's kind of in disbelief. How could it possibly have worked this fast?! I mean, you spend years using birth control of one form or another, certain that one time without it and OOPS! But when you start reading up on it, you realize that it's just not that easy. You have a very small window of time each month when you're actually fertile, and I read that after the age of 30 your chances go down to maybe 20-30% each month. And we've only been trying for what, 6 weeks!?!

We figured it would probably happen by the end of the year. Of course, I should go to the doctor and confirm... but according to the "due date calculators" online, we could be having a baby in mid-April. Yikes!!

It's official...

We are "trying." When we got married 10 years ago, people started asking right away when we'd have a family (or assumed I must already be pregnant), and I always answered, "give me 10 years," or "wait until I'm 30."

We had put off the idea for awhile after Chuck's cancer, knowing that chemo can affect fertility, and not knowing what our future might hold. Yes, we banked sperm... but he's 4 years out now, and usually after about 3 years things should be pretty much back to normal. We spent some time traveling, worked on our careers, and figured that eventually we'd be ready and Chuck would have to go to a eurologist to be analyzed. A while back my dad said "Why would you do that? The proof is in the pudding - you just have to try!" (to which Chuck replied [to me], "is he calling my stuff pudding?").

Now I'm 30, and today is our 10 year anniversary. We bought our house a year ago, I have great health benefits and a flexible job, and Chuck's freelance career is taking off. If anytime is the right time, I'd say this is it.

I'm not going to tell anybody at this point... but, I'm sure that (eventually) there will be many strange and interesting adventures to share. So, here goes!