5 Months!

Yesterday was officially the 20 week mark in this pregnancy which means....drumroll please... we're already halfway done!

Now for those of you who do math like me, 

4 weeks = 1 month

therefore 

20 weeks = 5 months.

And if 5 months = halfway, then pregnancy is definitely 10 months long.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise...and never mind all those silly 30 and 31 day calendar months. 

9 months? Ha! 9 month pregnancies are for sissies... like cows...

Where are we now?


Things that are still kind of crummy: 

Not much at all! This is definitely the sweet spot of the pregnancy.

If I had to complain, I'd say...

Feeling tired again- baby is stealing my energy so she can grow, grow, grow (please keep your head tiny baby).

I have the odd braxton hicks contraction. They aren't too intense yet, but they are uncomfortable. 

Things that are awesome:

The kicking! She is one heck of a kicker! 

We have been able to see her kicks from the outside - no touching required-  for about 3 weeks already. My stomach looks like it has some sort of nervous tick. This means Luke gets his fill of feeling baby, particularly late at night when she goes crazy... I hope her schedule changes before January.... Judah, my mom and my sister Jessie have also gotten in on the kick show :)

The fact that we know she's a she! I'm sooo happy we found out her sex. Just knowing makes everything so much more real. Everything being more real makes me eat fewer popsicles and more fruit...well, a little fewer.

Our midwifery appointments continue to be a highlight. We love both our midwives! 

Planning the nursery! I have one project underway and a bunch of others planned. A progress post will follow soon :)

Cravings?


Ice cream.

Chocolate.

Cheese.

Starches, like rice, quinoa, couscous, mashed potatoes.

Anything that isn't meat.

Apparently she's not a trucker from the midwest, she's a heartbroken teenage girl....

Judah's thoughts on baby now?

He now knows that only I am having the baby. He likes to point to his stomach and say "Baby? Noooooo!"

When we found out the sex, he was at my mom's. She called me so I could tell him about it. This is how the conversation went down.

Judah: "News?"

Me: "You're having a baby sister!"

Judah: "No, newwwwws?"

Me: "Were you hoping for some other kind of news?"

Judah: "I eat egg."

That pretty much sums up how much the baby is impacting Judah's day to day so far. The arrival of baby sister may come as a bit of a shocker...

Summer wind-down

It's already August 21st! In the words of Buster Bluth, "When did that happen!?" 


Luke will be back in school September 8th, which means in 2.5 short weeks I'll be an engineering widow again, Judah will be back at my mom's four days a week, and I'll be headfirst into a crazy three and a half months of work before my maternity leave starts. I fully expect this fall to be a complete blur. 


And so, we are making a concerted effort to squeeze the final drops of carefree togetherness  from the next few weeks. My idea to do this was to rip out all the flooring on our main floor and lay new hardwood. Luke's idea was to book a second camping trip. Judah seemed much more keen on sleeping in a tent again as opposed to being cordoned off to the upstairs of the house for 4 days. Luke's idea won... for now.


Now we have 2 weeks to anticipate our camping trip, not to mention a trip to Stratford to see Jesus Christ Superstar, the return of our sister Elle from almost a year away, visits with my bestie's new baby girl, and lots of nursery crafting to keep us busy in between. 


I've been pretty negligent at dumping the contents of our camera of late, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to offer a recap of Judah's summer so far. 


Here it is, in his own words... 

My grandparents came home from Africa. I liked visiting them in Africa, but even better is this park near their new place that - get this, is just for dogs!

I taught my dad how to grow tomatoes. 

And how to throw your ball into tomatoes.

And how to walk on tomatoes.
And how to ride your bike on tomatoes.  

We went to the zoo. My favourite part was the fat, flightless, swimming birds. 

The water chickens as I named them. 

We went to the International Food Festival. My favourite cuisines were mini-golf... 

And ice cream!

We visited Centreville and my Oma and Pake took me on the train.
The moving scenery gave me a bad case of the slow blinks. 

My favourite part of the summer was camping. A. because I got to suck on all sorts of salty rocks...

And B. because I turned two, and suddenly everyone started giving me sweet presents! 

Sadly, the present stream dried up the next day. 

My Morai and Grandad took me to St. Thomas to meet Thomas the Train.
Sadly, a bunch of other kids wanted to meet him too. 

Next year I'm hoping for a private audience. 

Then we went to Quebec for Vandenfest.
It was fun, except for the part where every guy looked like my dad and I kept grabbing the wrong legs...

This is some of my family. Not a bad gene pool eh?

With a social calendar like that, is it any wonder I need regular naps!?

We have news!

The ultrasound

Monday was the big day!


After much discussion and debate over the weekend I decided that I HAD to know the baby's sex. And Luke decided that he couldn't not know if I knew- it would be too weird. So there it was - we were finding out... 


Ha! Not so much.


Turns out the odd little ultrasound clinic we visited is a bit gun-shy on sharing the big news. In fact they have a sign on the wall saying "umm..no." Needless to say, I was pretty bummed. All was not lost however, our tech said she would include the big reveal in her full report to be sent to the midwife and our midwife could then tell us the big news. How is this different? I'm not really sure, but I'm guessing there was probably something to do with pink paint bought, a boy born and a lawsuit...


So we wait... up to 4 business days...if we're lucky. In the meantime, we can ooh and aaah at the cuteness that is baby twosie. From what we saw in the ultrasound- a lot of swallowing and baby forking amniotic fluid into its mouth with its fist- it looks and acts a lot like its big brother. We can't wait!


Without further adieu - baby number two...

The Sex Debate

Today is August 7th. Which means I have exactly 8 days to make a fairly major life decision. Do I want to know the sex of this baby now, or do I want to wait until mid-January when it lands in my arms... from the stork... I've decided that's the easier way of giving birth.


When we were expecting Judah, Luke was super adamant that he didn't want to know the sex. I, experiencing pregnancy and everything else for the first time, thought "What the heck. Let's make it a surprise." I had a pretty strong inkling Judah would be Judah, as did everyone I met while pregnant....


Pizza Hut man: Would you like a drink with that?
Me: Yes please. I'll have a...
Pizza Hut man: So you're having a boy eh?
Me: umm...we actually don't know.
Pizza Hut man: It's a boy.




This time feels sort of different. Luke is still adamant he does not want to know. So, if I do find out, I can tell no one! Well, at least not anyone who ever sees or talks to Luke- that wouldn't be fair. Can I keep such a HUGE secret for 5.5 months? I like to think I can... I also like to think I could train our cat to use the toilet... so maybe I'm overestimating my abilities. Nonetheless, I really want to know. The difficulty comes in deciphering my motivation for wanting to know. I've come up with a few possible motivating forces:


1. I have absolutely no patience and I like instant gratification. This is a terrible reason, but it's kind of true. If this is my primary motivator, I feel like I should just use this as a character building exercise- not find out and gain some self-control.


2. I've done it one way (waiting) now I'd like to try it the other way (knowing) and this way if and when we do this a third time, I'll know which method I preferred. You know, like trying different wine pairings with lamb...they will all be good, but will one be better?


3. (Luke's theory) I want to know so I can decorate the nursery. This theory is incorrect (sorry darling) as I've already purchased all the fabric for the nursery textiles (post to follow!) and the colour scheme - yellow and white, is cemented. I'm not a fan of pink for girls or blue for boys anyway. So that motivation can be scratched :)


4. I need to mentally prepare. I know I can handle a baby boy. I can picture myself as a mother of a son. Somehow, however, having a girl seems like a bit of a mental leap. This makes me feel really shallow for the most part. I don't want to gender my child from birth. I don't want to presume heterosexuality on them and I will do my utmost to treat them the same. That being said, the thought of having a girl (as much as I'd love one) somewhat terrifies me. To be a young girl in this day and age means being inundated with the idea that you need to look and act like a princess, images of sexualized children's clothing, and a perception that her worth is only as good as her looks and her ability to attract boys. What I'm saying is, I'd like to know if I'm having a girl so I can build a tall tower in the woods somewhere...without wireless internet signals...to lock her until she is 25. Practical no?


And still, a small nagging voice says, "just wait". Knowing the baby's sex will mean nothing about knowing my baby. Their sex is only a tiny part of the amazing, complex, little personality that we will meet on that wintry day. And so I continue the mental debate. I honestly don't know what I will do next week - I'm open for advice. Maybe baby will make things easy and will cover its incriminating parts with the knitting I'm sure it's busy doing...those are definitely needles I'm feeling in the side of my bladder.


Happy Sunday world!

The public tantrum

In the days before I had a child, I would look pityingly and somewhat disdainfully on parents whose spawn lost it in the cereal aisle, screaming uncontrollably about Count Chocola and how if they had their way, said Count would be their parent and they would eat pure icing sugar for dinner. I would give the parent a sympathetic smile, and mentally tut-tut the obvious lack of boundaries and discipline that must have been the slow catalyst for such events. I was, as in so many areas of parenting wisdom, so naive!!!


Judah will be two on Thursday. He has so (so, so, so, so) quickly gone from a tiny, helpless, infant in my arms and more often than not, attached to my chest, to a very independent entity more than half my height, who frequently takes delight in running as far away from me as possible. Somewhere in the transition from tiny to two, Judah discovered his will and the power to apply it over his parents'. We in turn instituted the tiny time-out. Judah is pretty much the poster child for the time- out method. From day one, when we placed him on the quiet step and explained to him why he was there, and when he would be welcome to rejoin the remaining group of people who weren't kicking, throwing their beverages, or shouting "go away!" at their grandparents, he would sit and stay and sometimes cry a little remorseful tear, but more often than not just roll around on the floor for a bit before smiling and returning to the group as a reformed offender. 


This worked, and for the most part continues to work well at home. In public, however, it's a bit of a different animal. 


The public tantrum is a fairly recent phenomenon for us. At first most of Judah's public crying was triggered by horrifying social interactions with strangers, for example, an old man telling him he liked his hat, a cashier offering him a sticker- the stuff of psychotherapy sessions. 


Now his crying stems primarily from two things:


1. Judah's overwhelming desire to stay wherever he is as opposed to going anywhere else. It doesn't matter if he's currently in the public bathroom of Tim Horton's and we're telling him we're going to see unicorns riding in hot air balloons. He'd rather stay put.


2. His ideas of what he wants to be eating and where. 


He has taken a recent fancy to the large part of the grocery cart - not the semi-safe child seat - the big part. Preferably in the carts with really low walls...and with a pint of unwashed blueberries to eat beside him. 


Tonight we were at the Superstore (aka the "walk 3 km through patio furniture and clothing to find food" store) picking up a few last minute supplies for our camping trip. Luke had scoped out some beautiful Ontario raspberries to stick in the child seat area of the cart with Judah to keep him occupied while we shopped. Judah, however, had different ideas. He wanted to sit on all the groceries in the danger zone area of the cart. You know, the area with all the yellow caution pictures of children falling out. 


Raspberries taste sweeter when at any moment you may get a concussion. 


Luke, being the amazing, authoritative, follow-through parent, explained to Judah why this was not a good idea, and how if he just sat in the seat, he could enjoy his berries and everyone would be happy. Judah, in turn, threw himself on the floor, crying "go away" (his protest statement for any situation) and attached himself to the bottom of the cart like a good Greenpeace activist, making us both a public spectacle and immovable. 


What to do? I will admit, I was extremely tempted to just stick him on top of the pistachios and let him have his raspberry joy ride. Thankfully my right hand man- who is also my frequent voice of reason when it comes to Judah, offered him a choice. You can sit in the seat, or we can go back to the car. Judah wouldn't relent, and suddenly Luke and he were calmly marching back to the parking lot. And by calmly, I mean Luke was stoically carrying Judah over his shoulder like so many pounds of potatoes and Judah was shouting "MAMA! DADA! NO! GO AWAY!" It took almost the whole walk back to the car before Judah was "all done." My boys re-entered, smiling. Judah happily settled himself into the child seat and ate his raspberries as though nothing had happened. I, once again, thanked heavens I am not parenting alone. If I were, I'd definitely have a  bag of crushed pistachios and a much less peaceful family about now.  


So our navigation into the world of terrible twos has begun. 99% of the time, I really love this age. I love that Judah can, for the most part, communicate his needs and his wants. I love his unabashed affection for us. I love his wonderment for the world. I know we'll get through the tantrums- private and public, hopefully with enough love and consistency to have helped shape a really nice human in the end.

The first trimester- a retrospective

We made it!


The first trimester is over and we survived. I say we, because, although I had to survive the physical trials, Luke and Judah have survived an emotionally volatile and extremely sleepy spouse/mother for the past three months. Way to go team!


Where are we now?


Things that are still kind of crummy: 


If I don't eat frequently and with great gusto about 5 times a day I still get faint fast.


Sleeping is becoming uncomfortable.


Soft foods make me want to hurl.


The potential return of the constant- pregnancy UTI and as a result the return of pure cranberry juice binges.




Things that are awesome:


Our midwives.


Vivid dreams.


The return of the boobs (like a bad sequel, but good).


The ability to nap at the drop of a hat.


and, best of all, today I started to feel the definitive little bubblings of a kicker in there!!!




Cravings?


Coffee.


Tacos.


Hot sauce.


Bacon and eggs.


Beer (a craving I haven't fulfilled)


Suffice to say I'm giving birth to a trucker from the Midwest.


Judah's thoughts on baby now?


He points to the ultrasound and shrieks "BABY!"


He still thinks there's a strong possibility Luke is also having a baby.


He kisses the tummy when he's trying to avoid falling asleep at bedtime- the rest of the time he tries to sit on it.


I believe he's getting tired of all the hype around a baby who never shows up...




All in all, I'm glad that part is over! Now we wait 27 more weeks... anyone want to go to Taco Bell?