Maui and New Stats

Maui was great. Drew and I both felt very relaxed the entire trip and it was wonderful to see my parents. They both got a kick out of my growing waste line. Also, I really started to feel obvious baby movements while we were there. I felt my first little flutters on Nov. 8th during the football game, but then not much else until we were in Hawaii. During the Colts versus Patriots game that we watched Sunday night in Maui, however, I really noticed that the baby was kicking me. I still cannot feel it from the outside, which has Drew frustrated. Hopefully, we will both be able to feel baby kicks in a few weeks or so. The funny thing about the baby moving is that is feels exactly how I had imagined is would, but I still love the daily reassurance that a human is growing in there.

Anyway, here are a few pics from our Maui trip.


This was the view from our condo balcony. A lot of green sea turtles live in the bay shown on the left side. We swam with them almost every day. In fact, it was impossible not to spot turtles when snorkeling in that bay. I almost accidentally swam into one when I was looking at some eagle spotted rays and not paying attention.


This is a fresh water pool on a trail in a state park near Hana. The dog drinking out of the pool was this very charming stray that followed us around the park for over an hour. He was quite the tour guide even though none of us wanted to pet him because he had fleas.


Here is the gang in front of an impressive banyan tree on the trail to a bamboo forest outside of Hana. You can kind of see my expanding baby bump here.


This is the start of the bamboo forest, which is one of my favorite places on earth.


...More bamboo. I wish I could live in here.


This is big beach, which is a perfect white sand beach that we spent an afternoon lounging on.


Drew and I on our last night in Maui. My parents were gone by this point, which was a shame because it was the first night that one could actually see the sunset.

After we got back from Hawaii I had another doctor's appointment. My weight is now up 9 pounds and my stomach has increased by 6 inches. Additionally, my alpha fetal protein test came back normal, meaning that the spinal cord has developed appropriately. My next appointment is on Dec 18th and this is when we will find out the sex of the baby definitively. It seems like an eternity away. The most frustrating thing about being pregnant (other than the booze ban) is that time paradoxically crawls along at a snail's pace while also flying by.

Stats

I had my four month doctor's appointment today. My belly perimeter has grown by 4 inches and my weight is up 6.5 pounds. The baby's heart rate was between 140 and 150 bpm, which is right in the normal range. I can now wear maternity pants and I think I am starting to feel the baby move, but that could also just be gas or my imagination. So far I love the second trimester. Jenne baked me a celebratory pie and our friends Kim and Jeremy Bohne gave us a bunch of baby gear. This is all starting to feel very real.

Drew and I are off to Maui tomorrow so more when we get back. Aloha!

Halloween

This was the first time in many years that Drew and I actually acknowledged Halloween. Because of all the kids in our new neighborhood we even carved pumpkins.


My pumpkin is on the left. I used a tiki design to get in the spirit of leaving for Hawaii next week. Drew carved the pumpkin on the right.

On the morning of Halloween Drew woke up and decided that it would be hilarious if he dressed as a kitty. So we went to target and got some eye-liner and I made him ears.

Despite the fact that Drew dislikes cats and is allergic, he makes a cute one.

I was less inspired and just wore Drew's clothes and my Grandpa's Fedora.


We had at least 30 different groups of kids stop by for candy. Some of them were really cute and some were just plain creepy. I get weirded out by trick or treaters that are taller than me and tweener girls in sexy costumes. One girl about age 11 was wearing nothing but a bikini and a short little sarong. After about 8pm the cute little kids stopped coming by and it was mainly older kids. We were also running out of candy so we turned out the lights and went to a party a friends.

On Monday, we found out the hard way what happens to pumpkins left outside with unattended dogs.


Notice the teeth marks. Each dog took a pumpkin but I am pretty confident that it was Scout's idea.

In other news, my belly has grown by 3 inches. Although I am still in that awkward stage where I could either have a beer belly or be pregnant, I broke down yesterday and got a belly band and some maternity clothes. My jeans had become really uncomfortable so it feels very luxurious to not have to button them.

Its always the young one

Our youngest dog Riley has volunteered to get Drew and I ready for parenthood. At 6am this morning she peed on our bed. Let me just say that she is perfectly house trained and went outside to pee just before going to bed last night. The only reason I can imagine as to why she would do such thing is that she saw the luggage and is upset that we are leaving tomorrow for Chicago. So either she was preemptively seeking revenge for the 1 week of abandonment or she is a martyr and did not want us to miss her. Sadly, I think we will still miss both dogs even though one of them woke me up before 7am to do laundry.

Third Time's a Charm

I remember studying development in intro biology and Human Neuroscience, and being completely freaked out by how many things could go wrong. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of women are like myself and go through one or more miscarriages before having a successful pregnancy. What is incredibly astonishing, however, is that is ever works at all. After two false starts, it looks like it is finally going to work out for Drew and me!

I found out on August 19th that I was pregnant. Prior to the 19th, I had assumed I was not because I thought I was having cramps and my basal body temperature was low. When I woke up on that Wednesday morning, however, I was very dizzy and generally felt lousy. I took a pregnancy test later that day and sure enough it was positive. Drew and I were both very cautious this time and tried not to get our hopes up too much. One week later, I thought I was having another miscarriage and canceled my vacation to Portland. Luckily, that was a false alarm. When I went to see my doctor at 6 weeks pregnant, she did an ultrasound and we saw a heartbeat. At this point the baby just looked like a peanut. My doctor is incredible and offered to see me every week until I felt confident in the pregnancy. So the next week we went back for another ultrasound. This time the baby had more than doubled in size and it looked like a honeybee. I went back to see the doctor again a little over 2 weeks later (at 9 weeks and 5 days). This time we were able to hear the heartbeat with a Doppler. After this appointment, Drew and I were getting more optimistic but we still did not want to tell everyone until week 12.

Today I had my 12 week ultrasound and everything looks great! The baby has grown a lot and actually resembles a human now. I am relieved that I will indeed be giving birth to a vertebrate. Anatomical markers indicated a really low probability of Down's syndrome. The little guy was also moving around quite a bit. I know that when I am able to feel those kicks, he is going to be keeping me up at night. And yes, I am calling it a "he". Although we cannot be sure for another few weeks, the picture of its legs and bum show a protrusion that looks like 'boy parts'. Moreover, the women doing our ultrasound said that she would put her money on a boy. So now it is difficult to think of it as anything else. Anyway, Drew and I are both thrilled and walking on air today. The due date is April 28th. I think that this means our little one will be sharing a birth date with someone. My Uncle Tom's birthday is the 23rd, mine is the 24th, and Drew's dad was born on the 27th. So it will be fun to see if the baby chooses to share or if he manages to sneak in his own birthday.


On the picture on the left I think that it is trying to suck its thumb. Because Drew and I were both thumb-suckers this poor kid doesn't stand a chance. The picture on the right is of the top of its head. It has a left and a right hemisphere!


Here the baby is waving.


I really feel like he is trying to show off his boy parts here. But I could be wrong and we won't be sure for a few more weeks.


This is the profile of its head.

Tonight's exciting events

Drew killed another black widow in the garage and Scout and I saw a rattle snack on our run. Actually 'saw' does not really capture it so much as almost stepped on. Luckily the snake was either dead or sleeping and did not move.

Good bye SubaRU, you will be missed

I have only owned two cars because I hate car payments and I do not mind driving an automobile until it literally falls apart. My last car was a 1984 Toyota Tercel that was growing moss and I owned it for almost 4 years. Moreover, I have owned my Subaru Legacy for over 10 years, and I loved that car. Even though it did not have air conditioning, the passenger side seatbelt was broken, the brakes were going out, the entire suspension system was done, the tires were bad and who knows what else, I probably would have continued to drive that car until the engine dropped out or I wrecked it due to the lack of brakes. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it had over 159,000 miles on it. Anyway, Drew's dad is very generously giving us his 2005 Buick Rendevous, which we are picking up next week. This means that it was time to unload the Subaru. I contemplated giving it to my brother for driving to the mountain, but realized that it was in no shape to pass off to someone. Therefore, last night I sold it to someone for parts for their 1994 Legacy. The new owner is a great guy. A single dad with a 4 and 6 year old. He knows how to do all of his own car work. This is the exact scenario I was hoping for. His daughter also told me that she loved the car (my kind of kid). It also makes me happy that my Subaru can be a donor for someone else's and it won't all be sent to a scrap pile. So there it is. My beloved car of ten years is gone.