Hosptial Tour

          Last night we went on the hospital tour to check out the maternity section.  It seems a little early to be doing stuff like that, but the tour at our hospital is only Wednesday nights and with our Bradley Birthing class starting in just two or three weeks which will also be on Wednesday nights, it was either do it now or wait until the first week of January.  And with S due January 23^rd ish, that seemed a bit late, so we decided to get it done.  I’m glad we went, we learned a lot of good information about where we are supposed to go, and how the whole big event is going to work. 

            We were on the tour with three other couples, all of whom where much further along than S, all of the women were between 28-36 weeks, and all of them were expecting girls.  In many ways, we were the odd couple.  For two of the moms, this will be their second child, so they both each had a little girl with them, both little girls were probably about 3 years old.  And before we started walking around and seeing the rooms and such we sat and talked and asked questions and the whole time the two little girls were running around like crazy giggling and chasing each other.  It was pretty cute, but it did make me nervous for my future as a parent because they whole time that they were running circles around us shrieking, I was thinking, “Dear God, someone shut these little monsters up or have them play some where else.”  They were loud and distracting and the nurse giving the tour wasn’t a super loud talker. 

            We learned during this talk a few surprising things.  I think that the thing that surprised me the most was that in the state of Texas your baby has to be given a Vitamin K shot to aid in blood clotting, and an antibiotic eye ointment to prevent eye infection.  If you refuse to let them do this, then they have to call CPS and CPS will at the very least start a file on you.  I think that it goes without saying that as a lesbian couple in a state like Texas, we just cannot risk having CPS get involved with our child in any way.  They also said that their C-section rate was about 30%, which I guess is ok, I don't have much to compare that to.

            Next we got to see the rooms.  The rooms weren’t that exciting, especially after our previous tour of the Birthing Center, where each room was nicer than even any hotel I’ve ever stayed at and nicer in some ways than my own house.  Each room did have it’s own bathroom and a cot for “Dad” to sleep in along with a glider, a TV (and I have my fingers crossed for room 12, which randomly gets HBO even though it isn’t supposed to) and all of the other stuff you would expect in a maternity hospital room.  They did say that S would have to been in the bed when it came time to start actually pushing, but that they can lower the bed almost all of the way to the floor and have a bar she can use for support if she wants to be squatting or on her knees or anything like that.  They also told us that we can video tape the birth if we want, but all of our video has to be waist up sort of stuff, no actual videos of the baby coming out.  Not that we want a video of that, yuck, but I thought it was weird that it is a state law that you couldn’t take video of it.  The nice thing about the room is that it is set up so that once the baby is born it doesn’t leave the room hardly at all.  I think she said that they have to do two basic tests on the baby before it leaves but other than that, it is in the room with you the whole time, which is nice.  They seem to really encourage skin to skin contact with the baby and breastfeeding and establishing a bond with your baby right away, all things I support.

            The other thing that the nurse really seemed to stress was that they will do whatever they can to let you have the experience you want for your birth.  So if you wanted to bring in fans, aroma therapy, music, or whatever, you can do it.  The pregnant ladies discussed playing music for a minute and one was wondering aloud what song she’d want to give birth to.  I suggested Salt-N-Pepa’s Push It, which no one thought was very funny, to my surprise.  I think that would be a hilarious song to give birth to.  But I guess they were all thinking that they wanted something soothing and soulful like Enya or something like that.  Well, that is just so not us.

            And lastly, the most exciting part was when S asked the nurse if I could be on the birth certificate, and she said yes!  She said that we would have to fill out some sort of form/paper work to make that happen, but that I could be on the birth certificate too!  I’m so excited, I didn’t think that it was even possible for that to happen, because again, we are in Texas, but I guess it isn’t a big issue.  Yay!  So excited to be one of baby Jude’s official parents!

**After some basic googling on this issue, I just don’t see how what the nurse told us about being able to put my name on the birth certificate is true.  It doesn’t appear to be legal in Texas to do this from what I can find, so I don’t know what she is talking about.  Erg.  We should have asked more questions.  In the end we need a lawyer anyway, so hopefully we can get the ball rolling on this and find out for sure one way or the other.

-Liz

In Progress (and Belly Shots!)

            Right now, everything seems to be in progress.  S is now more than half way through this pregnancy, so our baby is defiantly “in progress”.  Everyday our little boy gets bigger and stronger, I’ve felt him kick and move around probably 3-4 times now, but only one really big kick so far.  And everyday my beautiful wife’s belly gets rounder and rounder.  Here is her 22 weeks belly shot.  And guess what?  S is going to be showing her cute little face around here now!  Yay!

            The nursery is constantly in progress, though a lot of good progress has been made.  I’m working on a really cute “Hey Jude” painting to hang over his crib.  It’s getting close to done and hopefully I will finish it up this week.  Here it is so far, with the lovely S posing with it. 

            I’m also mostly done redoing the dresser that will go in the room.  I cannot wait to finish it, move it into the nursery, and mostly, show it off to you guys!  The dresser was an old one that I’ve always disliked that S had as a little girl.  It was cream/off white colored with green and blue accents and little blue and green 3D flowers on it.  All I have left to do on it is attach the new knobs and put at one last coat of polyurethane and it will be all done!  Again, I hope to have it done today or tomorrow, so you can expect a post later this week about the whole process, including before and after pictures!

-Liz

Ninja baby!

We had our regular Drs. appointment a few days ago.  My favorite part is hearing the heartbeat.  Turns out, this is not Jude’s favorite part.  The nurse took the little machine around my stomach, searching for him.  When she found him, he had a good solid heartbeat.  We were listening to it when he hi-ya kicked the machine.  He kicked it so hard, it interrupted the reading we were getting.  Much like his moms, Jude does not like his sleep interrupted!:)  The tech seemed shocked and Liz and I thought it was hilarious.

On another note, I got my first stranger smile.  You know, the “hey, you’re pregnant” smile.  I officially look preggie to the general public.  I have not had unsolicited tummy touches, but I am sure they will happen soon enough.

I also finally broke down and bought some new bras.  The ones I have are no longer fitting.  I hate bra shopping, so Liz had to coax me thru it.  I do officially have 2 new bras!  Neither of them are nursing bras, so I will still have to buy those, but I am have some time.

I also had a major preggie moment at work.  I feel at all times like my brain is in a cloud.  It is not very fun for this type A, but people at work think it is hilarious.  I was at the front desk(the only one up there) and some of the staff wanted their paychecks.  I popped in back to get them for them and then totally forgot about the desk!  About 10 minutes later, I am eating and jump up and run up front.  Fortunately, one of my employees was up there and I asked her if she was there when I went back and she said yes.  The good news: I did not actually leave the front desk unattended.  The bad news:  I totally thought I had and then could not remember if my employee was up there or not!  Aw jeez!!  I keep forgetting what I am supposed to do and getting distracted easily.  My concentration is not what it used to be!  It is frustrating for me, but my whole staff just thinks it is such a riot since it is so different from things I would normally do.  Oh well, not much I can do about it.

I also made one of my employees stop and get me a scone on the way to work yesterday.  I just needed it bad!

I feel Jude moving around all the time.  He is an active little guy.  It’s really neat!  He loves it when I eat.  He always wakes up for meal time.   I am starving all the time too!  I went from being sick all the time to wanting to eat the house down!  It seems like it is going fine though as I have gained a little under 9 pounds at this point.  I just have to be sure to swim and do my yoga or walk the dogs as I am so very hungry all the time!

We also signed up for a Bradley class!  I am very excited!!  It is 12 weeks, which is quite long, but I am one of those people who takes as much training as possible for anything, so I am happy to take it.  It is right around the corner from the house, which is nice and starts October 5th.

Well, off to work I go to forget things!;)
-S

Back from the Coast

We got back yesterday from our mini vacation to the coast.  It was really nice and we had a lot of fun.  We went with my BFF Brandon for his 30th birthday.  We went to Corpus Christi which is right on the gulf in Texas.  Corpus doesn’t have the prettiest beaches, but hey, a beach is still a good thing in my book.  Brandon has only been to the beach once when he was a kid, so I think it was a fun experience for him, despite the less than sparkling water.

We did run into a bit of danger while we were there though.  The first night I went outside our hotel to a little grassy area to sit with Brandon while he smoked (don’t worry, S was in bed) and I accidentally sat in a fire ant hill!  Holy Jesus the pain.  I ended up having to strip down and shower to get them all off of me.  I have about 20 bites on my right foot, 7 ish on my left foot, and 6 on my right hand, including one really annoying one in the center of my palm.  I’m feeling better now, but my poor feet arn’t looking so good.  The next day we were trying to find a particular beach and we were using my iphone to navigate and I ended up taking us to a military base.  It was very incognito and we didn’t realize right away what it was.  S couldn’t see the guy at the guard booth at first and there wasn’t an actual gate or bar, so she almost just zipped right in!  I can just picture the military police going crazy coming after us.  Luckily she stopped and the guards were just as confused as we were.  There was a sign asking for id, so S asked, “Do I need to show you my id?”  And the guard just looked at her, clearly waiting for her to state our business.  After an awkward silence, he said, “Ma’am, this is a military base.”  Oooooh.  “We are just looking for the beach!”  He gave us complicated directions on how to get to a beach, which none of us could really follow, and we high tailed it out of there.  Close one!

Once we did get to the beach, we got in the water and were having a great time until something bumped S’s hand, making her shriek.  She thought it was a fish at first, but then we saw that it was the top of a jelly fish.  And it wasn’t alone.  We took that as a sign that it was time to get out of the water.  Luckily, S did not get stung.  That would have been horrible.

In other news, I felt baby Jude kick last night!  For the past two or three days I’ve been feeling little flutters that I thought were him and then last night he kicked really hard and I could feel it!  It made me laugh with joy, it was such a cool feeling.  I haven’t been able to feel it since, but I’m hoping that I will again soon.

Today S and I both had off work and we went and registered for baby stuff at Babies R Us.  It was really fun, but a bit overwhelming.  I think that we did a good job of not being silly and just registering for everything we saw.  We also started looking into birthing classes at our hospital and are also considering taking a Bradley method class for natural child birth.  It looks interesting, but it’s 12 weeks long so we need to pretty much start this month or at the beginning of October, so we need to decide pretty soon here.  Anyone taken a Bradley Method class?  Any feedback would be appreciated.  Wow, it makes the next 19 weeks seem so short when you think about not being able to finish a 12 week class with enough time to be sure you will get through it all before the baby.  S is now more than half way to the finish line and has more time under her belt than she has left!  Crazy town!
-Liz

Jude is a Republican! The Horror!

I can’t believe that in 1-2 more days (depending on what tracker I’m looking at), S will be 20 weeks pregnant, which means, she is half way to the finish line.  I can’t believe my sweet wife is 5 months pregnant.  It still seems like such a dream and such a shock.  S told me the other day that she still wakes up half of the time wondering if this whole pregnancy has just been a dream and that in reality she is just getting fat.  But she isn’t getting fat, she is getting more and more wonderfully pregnant with our baby boy.  And I couldn’t be happier.  It feels like every day I fall more and more in love with my beautiful, strong, amazing wife and more and more in love with the little boy growing inside of her.  Truly, what a miracle all of this is. 

Yesterday, I think I might have felt Jude kick.  S has been feeling him moving and shaking (and lots of kicking) for the past three weeks or so, but every time I put a hand on her tummy, nothing.  But last night we were laying in bed reading and I think I might have felt it.  It was just the tiniest little flutter, and if I just had my hand on her and wasn’t actively hoping to feel him, I don’t know that I would have noticed it at all, but because I was looking for it, I felt it.  I hope that in the next two weeks our little Jude packs on some weight so there is a bit more heft to his tiny kicks so that I can feel them.  I can’t wait.

So now that we know that we are having a boy, we have been speculating on what he will be like.  My BFF Brandon said that he pictures Jude as being a really smart, liberal, jock type, where I have been picturing him as a witty, sarcastic surfer type of guy.  S and I have also been joking over the last few weeks about what he will be like.  You see, for the last month I’ve been working this weird schedule where I don’t go in until 11:15, so I have been able to watch morning daytime TV, including The View (not a big fan though I must say).  And S has a few mornings off too, so we have been watching it, joking that Jude is really conservative and how much he really loves Elizabeth (the conservative, right winger cast member) on The View and how he thinks she has some really great ideas/points.  It has been just cracking us up, but we are pretty weird.  We also decided (again, jokingly) that he is going to be a really annoying baby and not like the stuff that we like.  For example, one of the things that I am looking forward to (among lots of other things like mostly being around my baby all day) about being a stay at home mom is getting to hopefully watch The Ellen show (which I almost never see now because I’m at work).  And so we joke that he will really hate the Ellen show and make lots of grumbly sighs while I try to watch because he hates it so much.  Again, this cracks me up. 

In nursery news, I put up the mini blinds this week.  Man, what a pain in the neck (literally!  My neck is so sore!) putting those stupid things up were.  But they do block some light.  Though, even with the blinds and the curtains, it still isn’t terribly dark in there during the day.   I’m wondering if that will be a big deal as far as daytime naps will go and if so, should I add a layer of room darkening material to my curtains.  Any thoughts? 

Happy Friday!

-Liz

Updates and Pictures!

            I feel like I am behind on blogging right now, with so much fun baby stuff going on right now!  Of course you all saw that we had our ultrasound last week where we found out we are having a boy!  We couldn’t be more excited.  I really thought up until the moment we found out that I wanted a girl but honestly the minute the tech told us boy, I had tears in my eyes and was so happy I thought I’d just explode from the joy.  It just feels so right.  And all along we’ve felt really strongly about the name Jude and kept changing our minds about our girl names.  Here are some of the ultrasound pictures for you. 

First one, the junk shot proving his boy-ness:

I think that in this one he looks like he is flashing gang signs and is getting ready to party:

 

Face shot.  We couldn’t get any profile shots because of how he was laying.  The tech poked S quite a bit trying to get him to move into another position, but he didn’t want to.

And look at that perfect spine and head!

All in all, the tech didn’t find any problems what so ever and he is progressing along nicely.  Of course, the bigger Jude gets, the bigger S’s belly gets!  Here is her 20th week bump shot. 

Now that we know it’s a boy, it feels like we really have the go ahead to start putting this nursery together.  S and I put together the crib the other day.  It was much harder than I thought it would be, and easier than S thought it would be.  Either way it was time consuming, it took us about 1 ½ hours to put together.  I think it was the attached changing table that really made it take forever.  We got a sheet for it and I’m going to be making a crib skirt soon.  We’ve decided against crib bumpers for the safety reasons, plus no point in registering for a big expensive crib bedding set when all we really need is the sheets.  I think it looks pretty cute so far.  Here is it:

I also made curtains for the room.  The pattern is different colored dinosaurs if you couldn’t tell from the picture.  I think I’m going to use the same material to make the crib skirt so it all matches some.  Here is a shot of the curtains:

It’s all coming together and it’s looking so cute that I can’t help but go in there at least once a day to look around and smile.  It’s a really happy, peaceful room so far I think. 

Next up on the agenda is getting registered.  We are going to be doing that next week once we get back from a little mini vacation to the coast.  I asked on Facebook and got a lot of great information, so I’ll ask you folks as well, any advise on what to register for?  Specifically, if you already have kiddos, anything you ended up really loving or anything you got and hated and never used?  

-Liz

It’s a...

BOY!!  Little baby Jude is moving around and being stubborn in there.   I wonder where he gets that from?  He would not help out the technician by turning over.  He is hanging out facing down with his head at the bottom.  He is laying on his belly in there.  How weird!

 What an exciting day!  Not only did we did we find out about Jude, but it also rained today (it has officially been 70 days over 100 degrees here, so it was awesome to get some rain!)  and, the Ellen show is the Mother’s Day show where the whole audience is preggie.

We put the crib together last night and so we bought one crib sheet and one little outfit today.  Liz will post pics for you guys in a few days.  We bought some dinosaur material to make curtains out of.  We are just overjoyed.  Little Jude is looking about 19 weeks and 2 days and is only halfway thru the 18th week, so he is growing big.  I still don’t look preggie to the general public, but to people that I know, I am starting to show on a regular basis.

We are just so happy to know it is a boy.  We would have been really happy with either, but it is just really nice to know.
-S