29 weeks and counting... :-)

We leave for Tahoe (and Joe's family) on the 19th. I had a "nightmare" the other night that I went into labor whilst there... !

Busy with Christmas goodies, etc., Chloe kicks when I turn the beaters on! It's quite cute! ;-)

27 weeks :-)

And the THIRD TRIMESTER!!!!!!!


This is from our trip home for a baby shower, at 25 weeks or so :-)

Around 24 weeks :)

It is still not apparent to the outside world that I am, in fact, pregnant.

I was even offered beer at a restaurant the other night. ;-)

Looking at this pic, I suppose I *could* see why. :-/

I definitely FEEL pregnant!

Hallowe'en Pic

No, yes, this is how I normally dress... it just happened to be taken on Hallowe'en... :)

22? weeks...? Thereabouts! :)

The Sonogram

...was yesterday! Joe was able to go - we spent an HOUR watching our baby! Our baby... GIRL! :-)

She is textbook healthy (as, apparently, am I, as I had a doc's appointment this AM, totally on par for the course)... we are SO HAPPY! Her name will be Chloe (we aren't sure on the middle names yet). Our official due date is now March 13. That means TODAY I'm half-way. So a little setback but hey, no worries. :-)

Here are some pics to share. Spreading the joy!

Cheers to everyone!

HALF WAY

I will be HALF WAY this Tuesday - boy, am I excited! :)

We have The Sonogram scheduled for October 22. We've decided that if it's meant to be, we'll find out the gender. We're not going to go searching for it or outright ask them to find out, but if it's obvious, it's obvious, and if it's not, it's not. That was our best compromise, as I want to find out and Joe doesn't (and I can't keep a secret from him to save my life)... ha! So stay tuned!

Today is my first official day wearing maternity clothes. Babydoll has gone through a major growth spurt, during which she (we call her she, as "it" sounds so impersonal and she keeps slipping from our lips) - (poor thing if it's a boy, LOL!) Anyway, she discovered she has MUSCLES! Let's KICK Mom! She'll be really active for a couple hours then plop, nothing. It's like she wears herself out and then is off to snooze. :)

Here's some of my 19 week shots. Definitely looking chubby! Whoa! :)

Okay, SIXTEEN WEEKS! :)

Oh, blah, I still look bumpless. Believe me people, it's there!! :)

From a week ago...

Let's see, I'm almost sixteen weeks (on Tues) - this was 15 weeks... :)

14 weeks and counting... :)

Week 13

Fall weather has hit. It's gorgeous outside, so Button and I have been walking (strolling for me and cavorting for her, LOL) quite a bit.

So I *thought* the fatigue was past. I'll admit, the worst of it is over; the morning sickness surely has gone on to greener pastures (glory be!)... but darn, I'm still working on getting this apartment in order. It seems a never-ending battle. Le Sigh. Anyway, here's a picture of my "nook" in our spare room. The morning sun in there is absolutely lovely. :) Stay tuned for a baby-bump shot! ;-)

Twelve weeks, still not really showing...

The SECOND TRIMESTER hit this past Tuesday... now I neither feel NOR look pregnant. *sheesh* ... LOL!

A Slow Year - and, ahem, a dog

So after much thought, albeit in a rather short amount of time, I have decided to take the plunge. Er, pledge. Find me a patch, people, I'm going in for a no-shopping spree. That's it: no malls, no restaurants, no boutique splurges, no ready made food, etc. We'll be focusing on local vendors and the purchase of things which are of the most necessity.

It is thanks to a new-found friend (though I have read and lurked 'round her blog for awhile now) at These Days in French Life. Please do check out her phenomenal ideas and boundless energy. :)

Meanwhile, we purchased our last splurge-y deal. 'Course, I'm not really sure which category this really falls under, as I've been needing companionship during the day while Joe's at work, but I don't want to simply excuse it as "necessity", thereby allowing other boundary-pushing items into our life...

Here's our nine week old Australian Blue Heeler mix that we found at the Humane Society. Welcome, Button! :)

It rains today...

And oh, how I love it when it rains. Really, I do.

It's so nice to have been "relieved" of the "duty" of morning sickness, perhaps only a temporary respite, but GRAND nonetheless! Joe & I have plowed through now more than a dozen boxes, cleaned up, straightened up, gussied up and generally perked up the place. Lookin' good in the hood, dudes! :)

I bought our first house plant today at the auspicious Lunds & Byerly's, also splurging on my all-time favorite tea, soooo hard to find (if you're not online, eh) - that is, Yorkshire Gold. So, WHEE! :)

DH is due off work now, ahem, and I'm to pick him up. He works a blissfully short 12-5 shift tomorrow. Yay!

Here's our official 9-week bump: ... somebody wants to be seen! :)


('scuse please, the awful-ness of this photo... it's the only one I have, for now!)

Boxes abound

Pregnancy fatigue. I keep thinking I've maxed out on the tiredness scale, but each day I feel... more tired. Ugh. We just moved in to our new apartment in Minneapolis last week, so needless to say I've got scads to do, to unpack and create that lovely homey feeling.

But do I do anything? Hardy-har-har-har. I don't feel guilty, but I do feel lazy and jet-lagged and generally dismayed that I cannot lift a finger, it seems. I DID unpack two boxes (cups and mugs, kitchen things) this morning but I'll be darned if that and a load of laundry have done me in.

Off to do the menu plan for the week, mental note to incorporate normalcy with cravings. LOL!

It's temporarily official... :)

I'm due MARCH 17.

~~~

Myself being Irish and Joe being Italian, we can warrant the following to be more official than either gender or due date... :)

If I had a pen to chew, I'd chew it

That is, since all my nails are already gone.

Everyone has been though this, right? Somebody tell me so! ... you know? When it feels like the entire solar system is crashing down around you, the ground heaving beneath you, your stomach flops all topsy-turvy and you just can't get enough sleep.

Did I mention sleep?

And sleep.

Note - we're not going to even GO near the food topic. Nuh-uh, baby, not today. That just hits too close to home. But stay tuned, eh, 'cuz THAT'S liable to change - by the end of this post, even.

~~~

It was the third week of June. My boobs were killing me. I mean, killing me. Driving me insane, no, clinically mad - I wanted to rip them out! they itched and burned and hurt so badly. DH (Joe) and I were driving somewhere - I can't remember quite where - when I turned to him and said, out of the blue, "I think I'm pregnant."

Now, for reference, I'd thought I was pregnant in February, turned out to be a false alarm, but you can see this memory flashing across my husband's face as the words tripped out of my mouth.

"Oh?" quoth the wise man. The look was quizzical, but he said nothing that would further arm Germany for war.

"My boobs itch. I mean, ITCH." (his sister later told me, Girl, you need some GIRLFRIENDS if you're telling your husband things like that! 'Course, she's his sister. Can you imagine telling your brother something like that?!)

It'd only been three weeks since my last you-know-what, but the next day after I dropped Joe off at work I dug up some pregnancy tests from under the sink, peed in a cup and stuck the stick in it.

And - for once! - forgot about it.

Tooling around in the kitchen, I suddenly realized, oh my gosh, the pregnancy test! Rushing into the bathroom, my heart thumps as I stare at the genie.

Oh. my. gosh.

AND I have to wait six hours until Joe gets off work. SIX HOURS!!! Suddenly I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself for six hours. It seems an eternity. I have never wanted Joe home so badly in all my life. I've never NOT been able to come up with something to do. Like a mad woman, I went from dish rag to art pencil to CD player to bicycle to movie and around again, in about a twenty minute interval. Off to the library next; too afraid to look at pregnancy books (What if it's not true? Can it really be? What will people think of me, looking at pregnancy books? How dare I?), then wandering through the clouds to shop aimlessly at Target (usually a bad thing, though safe this time, I don't think I could have been dexterous, let alone coherent enough, to successfully purchase anything), calling Joe intermittently, champagne in my voice a sure give-away - if you'd been looking for it. But he's at work, and all he thinks is... just another routine day. Just another routine call.

Finally, and I say, FINALLY, the time rolls around to go pick him up. He hops in, commences his ramblings about work that day, what the issue was here, what the solution could have been there, but all I here pounding through my head is - how are you going to tell him? Huh, how? huh?... somehow we get back to the house, and pulling into the garage, Joe comes to some kind of conclusion in his verbal essay about the day, ending it with, "So, HI! I'm Joe!" and a big grin in my direction.

I blurted, "Uh, HI! I'm pregnant!"

You should have seen the look on his face.

~~~

The following days found me running through pregnancy tests like water. Five positive tests later, I began to really believe it.

Headaches, big itchy boobs, overwhelming fatigue and a starving-but-food-sounds-gross mentality.... these all have helped immensely to prove to my feeble mind that I am indeed, truly and assuredly....

pregnant. :)

For starters...

I - ahem- just found out that I am expecting! Ah, happiness! :)