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