New Stage

So over the last couple days, I have sort of started looking pregnant! Not chubby, but actually pregnant! Like there's a BabyCartz in there!

Yesterday C was so adorable... He walked in from work, told me I looked like a beautiful pregnant woman. For the love of hormones, boy - you know I lost it and started crying.

So that is my new stage. Sort of looking pregnant :)

Mmmm Donuts..

After taking puppy for a walk this morning, it was too late to have breakfast so I stopped at Dunks to get a bagel on the way to work. Which I did. And while ordering, I noticed the 'manager's special' donut was chocolate butternut, which they never have... If there is someone out there who hasn't had the amazing experience of a chocolate butternut donut from DD, let me describe it for you: Heaven. Chocolate donut covered in toasted coconut. Mmmmm. Serioiusly - how do they expect me to resist that?

So not only did I eat the cinnamon raisin bagel with plain cream cheese (I didn't even get light cc today... so bad), but I had fruit for Sally's birthday at the office and the donut. And it's only 10:20 AM.

My Favorite River

...is apparently The Nile. As in...DEnial. Why doesn't it feel real yet? Sure, I couldn't have a drink at the bar on Saturday or a beer at our Memorial Day picnic yesterday. But so what?

We haven't done a single thing to get ready. What is wrong with us?

Not one thing has been moved/cleaned from the war zone we call an office...which is supposed to become the nursery. We haven't looked at (never mind budgeted for let alone discussed) daycare. Haven't thought about pediatricians. I bought a cute "I (heart) Daddy" onesie for C for Father's Day, but I opened it, said "oh how cute, look how tiny it is" and put it back in the box. We told C's grandfather, Bub, yesterday...our last living grandparent. I have had more than 4 ultrasounds already and heard the heartbeat twice. I finally bought some maternity clothes this weekend, but wore my regular clothes for the last 3 days instead.

I'm nearly 15 weeks and, though I feel twinges now and then, it just doesn't seem real yet. I know my belly will get bigger, I'll feel little kicks in just a few short weeks, and we'll find out if it's a girl or a boy in less than a month. But I wonder if it'll truly feel real until I'm holding our little walmut in my arms.

I don't know if it's the Sjogren's that has me worried about the health, hearing about a high school friend who just lost her baby at 25 weeks and had to deliver, or the fear that we simply aren't ready....but I just have this "don't get your hopes up" nagging, paranoid, ANNOYING feeling. I want to get my hopes up. I want to get even more excited and nervous and elated and giddy about our baby.

I hear/read birth stories, see pictures of newborns or just hear a song that makes me think of our baby and I cry. The hormones are kicking my ass. And I want to experience everything I read and see and hear about how amazing having a baby is, meeting your little one for the first time, and I know I will...in November.

In the mean time, I wait. To look pregnant, feel kicks, find out the sex, wear maternity clothes, buy our first baby item (and in order to do that we actually need to research something about baby stuff...), take apart the office, assemble it as a nursery and maybe actually just FEEL pregnant and like we're going to have a new family member in a few months.

And a little disclaimer: I don't mean this as a whiny pity party, I know how blessed we are to even be pregnant. It is just a weird time right now.

Lazy..

So it's been a while. After my 12 week appointment, I started feeling weird - like m/s returned, stomach was messed up, headaches started. Weird. Then I got all crampy. I went back at 13 weeks to make sure everything was ok and it was. I'm truly trying not to be the crazy pregnant lady who thinks something is always wrong - and I don't - but cramping is not fun. Apparently my placenta is over to the right and the baby is on the left side of my ute, so who knows if there was pulling or stretching or whatever. But all is well.

In other news:

Jethro has been better... but it's taking a toll. Every night walking him for an hour+, taking him to the dog park, etc. means not getting home and eating until almost 8PM. C & I swap, but we decided to start him in doggy daycare too to have him get more activity and give us two nights off a week. Yesterday was his first day and he did really well! We got his report card - so cute! - and he even has a girlfriend, a boxer :) AND - bonus - he was exhausted last night! Apryl came over for dinner and he barely even interacted with us! Let's hope his better behavior keeps up, and that we can keep up with his exercise schedule, too.

Are there seriously 230975 shades of terracotta paint? Because it is beyond frustrating to pick colors for the walls in our house. We are getting the kitchen, living room and our bedroom painted the first week of June when Chris is on furlough (well, as soon as we decide between a couple painters, whoever's cheapest). I have no idea what colors I want and I have like 2 days to decide. Awesome. Let's hope it doesn't come out puke green and school bus yellow!

If I only had a brain...

I had another u/s this morning, with my regular OB since I'm 12 weeks tomorrow (!!)... My mom came with me (C couldn't come) so she could see the baby - her mother's day present from me :)

In one shot you can see the baby's head, from straight on. IT IS SO COOL. You can see the brain developing, how it is split into two hemispheres. It looks like a little alien brain/head, but it is seriously awesome. Who knew you could actually see the brain grow! Crazy!

Heard the hb, saw little fingers, and the little legs were crossed. It was so cute!

I'm sad C couldn't be there, but really happy my Mom got to see the baby for the first time - maybe it'll sink in and be real to her now? :)

Disgusting

I just read an article on CNN that a man threw a baby out of a car window and the baby - not surprisingly - died. He supposedly fought with his ex girlfriend, the baby's mother, threw the baby in a car seat across a room and then threatened the mother, took the baby without the carseat and left...then proceded to throw the poor little baby boy out the window of his car onto the highway. It isnt' even his child.

I couldn't read the short article without crying and nearly puking. I would have cried even if I weren't pregnant, but it is even worse for me now. What an evil, evil person. I am beyond disgusted. I really don't have any wise words or anything to say. It is just disgusting.

Jethro...again

Poor puppy.

Kim, the lady we got Jethro from, emailed me this morning to check in. So I told her what has been going on, with his health issues (the current pee problem, especially) but more importantly his behavioral issues. She said he probably isn't getting enough exercise.

The kicker? She offered to take him back and give him to a family who can exercise him harder and more frequently. We know he needs more activity, but just because he hasn't been worked out, doesn't mean he can jump and bite and lunge and bark at us all aggressively! She offered to come over to see what's going on, and to have a trainer come over as a start. The longer we go, the less likely we can "fix" it..and if he starts biting she can't take him back at all.

We don't want to give him up! That's not really an option in my mind, but he can't jump on me and then when the baby comes, forget it! Aggression will NOT be tolerated once the baby is here! It makes me so sad to even consider that option, but Chris said he'll do whatever we have to to make it work with Jethro at home...trainer, classes, whatever!

Just makes me sad..I worry that we aren't good puppy parents, and I want him to be a happy healthy boy!

And also..

I can't stop eating today. French toast, watermelon, raisin toast, chocolate pretzels, cheese and more watermelon...and it's only 11AM! Insatiable! I weighed myself this morning and was the same as when I first got pg (on my scale anyways)...we'll see what happens when I get to the doc today after all this food! I just wish I could stop eating!

NT Scan & other things

I have my Nuchal Translucency scan (NT) today.... they measure the pocket of fluid at the back of the baby's neck and give you odds that the baby has Down's or Trisomy. C and I are both nervous...we know we don't have much reason to be, but still. I will feel MUCH better after we get the results and they are like 1:50,000 or something absurd like that!

In other news, Jethro is sick again. Poor baby... but when he feels bad, he acts crazy - jumping, barking, lunging, biting - behavior htat needs to end very, very soon. He's peeing in his house, and has this rancid smell in his groin. Doc said its an infection, and LUCKY US, we get to flush out his boy parts by inserting a syringe and ointment. And by we, I mean me. Because C is too chickensh!t to touch the dog, so he holds him down. Thanks for the help, bud. This is exactly what I want to be doing right now! Playing with my dog's junk! But he HAS to get better... we can't have a crazy puppy around the baby...

Also. I have no idea what to get my mom or C's mom for mother's day. I feel like it's gonna end up being a lame card-only year. We suck.