Week 27

Hello again. I am now in my 27th week. Everything is still going well. The baby is moving like crazy and is constantly busy. I am excited about meeting this little one that is so active. Eric and I are doing a little remodeling of our downstairs in preparation for the baby. We had no real seating in our living room, so we just bought a sectional. And our TV console is a glorified wooden coffee table with wires all over the place. Obviously that is not good for a baby, so we bought a real TV console where were can hide all of the wires. Everything was delivered today and Eric set it all up and loves it. I can’t wait to see it when I get home this evening. Tomorrow my boss is kindly giving AND delivering to us the dresser that his daughter used when she was a baby, so that is one less thing that we will have to pick up. So, thank you Steve! J

All in all it was an uneventful pregnancy week. I still struggle with the idea of working after the baby is born. My mother was home with us while we were growing up and I believe that was one of the strongest influences in my life. There really is no substitute for having one on one daily contact with your child and the idea of sending my child to day care does not appeal to me in the least bit. However, losing my home appeals to me even less, so it’s off to work I go. I know there are great day cares out there, I am just very nervous about the entire thing. Thankfully we won’t have to put the baby in day care for the 1st 5 months or so. I am very happy about that.

Eric and I leave for Hawaii on Wednesday! We are so excited. We both need a break from the daily grind that is our lives at the moment. I am really looking forward to relaxing and getting some beach time. I am also lucky enough to have a cousin that lives on Oahu, so we will be able to see her as well! I have 2 ½ work days left but it feels like it’s going to last a month. So next Friday I will not be sending out an update as I hope to be enjoying the Hawaiian scenery.

This week the baby begins to open its eyes for the first time. The body may look fully formed on the outside but inside there is a lot of fine tuning happening. The lungs and brain apparently are the main focus. The baby’s weight is around 2 pounds and its length is about 9 inches from crown to rump. Below you will see this weeks rendering of mother and baby.

Week 26

Everything is going well and the belly is growing quickly. I have to say I am beginning to really like looking pregnant. I have been enjoying the pregnancy in other ways up until now. I love my hair (thank you pregnancy hormones for 1 nice thing), I love feeling the baby move, I love the guessing game that growing belly has started and I love that everyone is so excited about the new baby. But I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the belly on me. I know I have so much further to go and grow, but at this moment, right now, I love my belly. It’s round and firm; my chest balances it out (which is something I could never say before) and I feel very womanly.

I don’t know how else to explain it. I think if having a baby is something you want and choose to do then the experience is the absolute epitome of being a woman. Life is coming full circle. And the whole 6 ½ month experience I have had so far has been amazing. And I am not writing all of this to say that pregnancy is the end all be all of experiences, but it is unlike anything else I have ever done. It’s rather incredible to think that this baby was once 2 cells and is now nearly complete. My body knew instinctively what to do. My body is nurturing and protecting this baby before I can knowingly do any of the work. It’s not as if I can look into my uterus and say, “Ok nervous system, it’s time to start building your circuits.” I have to trust in my body to do all of the work. And I have to trust that this baby already knows what to do too. I don’t want to be too cavalier, but How Cool is That!

However, some things are not so cool. Swelling feet, the fatigue that is starting to crawl its way back into my into my daily routine, my breathing that has become more shallow, my ego that takes a beating every time I realize I can’t or shouldn’t do something, the constant heartburn, and a million other small things that have changed. My personal outlook on life has changed too. Not too dramatically. I’m not becoming a Republican or anything. But the realization that I will never come home after work and be by myself. I love the little quiet moments in my life. I’ve learned to cherish them and enjoy just sitting on my own. I’ve built my life so that I am very comfortable. I’ve worked very hard at it. Eric and I are very happy as we are right now. A baby is going to change that. I am looking forward to the change. I can not wait until this little baby arrives, but I think there is a bit of a mourning process that I am going to experience.

And I could be wrong about what I am about to state, but I believe it is true for me. If I had had a baby between 20-25 years old I don’t think I’d be as nervous about the change. I wouldn’t know what I would be missing or temporarily giving up. I think I wouldn’t know the difference. I think I would have accepted this major life change a little easier, with maybe the longing for what might have been. But I believe I know what might have been at this point in my life. I feel as if I have really come into my own in the last 5 years. I enjoy the woman I’ve become, and although I will still be me I will have to change with this baby too. I have to figure out what it means to me to be a mother, wife and woman and still feel fulfilled within each challenge. And right now, that means a lot of baby steps for me too. J

So what is to come in the next week? Well, the baby weighs about 1 ½ pounds and is about 9 inches from crown to rump. The lungs are developing rapidly, the nostrils are open and although s/he may need a little help, everything is there and ready to go in order to breathe. And apparently the baby can wiggle fingers and toes. How cute it that?! I have 106 days to go and counting. Below is the weekly picture rendering.

Week 25

I am in my 25th week and my belly is in full bloom. Everything is still going well which of course means there really isn’t much to report. Eric and I went for our monthly checkup on Monday and everything is right on schedule. The heartbeat moved from the 155 bpm to 140 something bpm in the month which I thought was a big move but the midwife said that because the baby has grown so much in the last month it is normal for the heartbeat to slow down. I think Eric was secretly very pleased because of the old wives tale that states the slower the heartbeat the more likely it is to be a boy. We mentioned that to the midwife and she said that it really is 50/50 right now whether it’s a boy or a girl, but if it were the last month the odds would probably be 60/40 a boy. However, she did mention that she has delivered plenty of girls with lower heartbeats and plenty of boys with fast ones. So, everything is still up in the air.

My belly has definitely popped (at least to me) in the last week. I’m still not big and it still doesn’t look like a nice round pregnant belly, but it is there and it is not going away. I’ve tried to suck my stomach in just to see what would happen. Nothing moves. It is solid and it just sits there. I think that’s kind of cool. I have no control on what my belly does. It is its own entity now, which this far along in the pregnancy makes complete sense. Eric and I were watching my belly move the other day. I love it when it jerks when the baby kicks. It’s pretty cool to watch.

I have to say that I am very excited to have my sister Janice back in town for a long weekend. I haven’t seen her in almost a year and I really wanted her to see me while I’m pregnant. She felt the baby kick yesterday so that was a lot of fun for us. It’s nice that she gets to enjoy some Aunt time with her niece/nephew, even if it’s still belly bound.

Also, Eric and I just booked a trip to Hawaii for the end of the month! I am so excited. We are heading to Oahu and Maui for 7 days. It will be nice to have a little getaway before the baby is born. As much as I would like to believe that we will still be able to travel when the baby is born, the truth is we will probably be house bound for a little while. So it should be very nice to have this last hurrah. I’ll be 7 months pregnant in Hawaii. I’m going to look killer in a bikini!