Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Baby's First Pictures

My dear husband has been pestering me for a few days to post. Just because the blog was my idea he seems to think that I have to do some of the work. Seriously?

I thought I'd start by posting a few of baby's first pictures - from inside & out. The top ultrasound image was made just over 12 weeks. This was the first time that the baby looked like a "baby" and not just a blinking blob on the screen. The second ultrasound image was made at just over 21 weeks when we found out that she's a she.


Below are pictures of the baby from the outside. Wow, has my body (and hairstyle) changed. Top to bottom ... 18 weeks, 21 weeks, 26 weeks, & this morning at 29 weeks. Just 11 weeks to go.

For now, I'm resting when I can, finishing up the nursery, & fully utilizing my license to eat!

(Forgive my picture posting skills. Still trying to figure this thing out. Frankly, it's not as user-friendly as it should be.)




Monday, June 22, 2009

I like big bladders & I cannot lie ...

I have the tiniest bladder in the world. While the Guinness folks haven't confirmed it, I know it's true. I know where the bathroom is at the grocery store. I can't even fly the 50 minutes from Chicago to Nashville without going. I even know that you can duck through the side door at most Starbucks locations & find a quiet, clean one-seater. I'm tellin' ya - I have a small Asian woman's bladder. No one goes more frequently than I do. No one ....





UNTIL NOW . . .





Finally. My pregnant wife pees more often than I do.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

She's yours now. You can do with her what you want.

Wednesday night Traci & I did the most grown-up thing that we've likely ever done. We attended a breastfeeding class. Breastfeeding classes are not for the immature. They include a fair amount of frontal nudity, at least in the presentation materials shown, and a lot of talking about breasts & nipples. It's more than just the "mature content" though that makes breastfeeding class for full-fledged adults only. Children don't have children. (Well, in some cases they do, but they shouldn't.) Adults have children. Parents have children.


I'm finding that my transition to parenthood is a big step towards what I perceive to be "full-fledged adulthood." I haven't lived with my parents in 13 years. It's been nearly 15 years that I've had serious levels of independence. I've bought and sold houses. I've taken jobs & moved. I've married the best girl ever. All of these were decisions that I made. My parents have offered their 2¢ when warranted, but these are all major, adult, life decisions that I've essentially made for myself or with T. Through all of these though, I still felt like my parents' child. If I failed, "Mom" would rub my hand or "Dad" would help me fix it. I suppose they'll still do those things for as long as they can, but now things begin to feel different. Soon I'll be the parent.


It will be our responsibility to make decisions for another person, a person who won't be capable of making her own decisions for a long time. It will be our responsibilities to soothe the hurt, fix the failures, and praise the triumphs. As we turn this corner, begin this new chapter (have your pick of the metaphors), I begin to feel a hint of the weight of parenthood. No doubt that for all it's trials & tribs it'll be among the most rewarding adventures ever, but for now it's unknown & a skosh scary.


During the breastfeeding class, the lactation consultant talked at great lengths about the pro's of breastfeeding, the con's of formula feeding, the ups & downs of using a bottle from time to time, the good & bad of pacifiers, feeding at will, and a host of other controversial, new parent topics. In the end, though, she said, "She's yours now. You can do with her what you want." The lactation consultant is right. We're the parents. We make the rules now. But, but ... I'm used to following the rules, not making them ....

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

How?How?How?

As our lives hurtle forward to the much anticipated arrival of our little one, we've decided to try to blog. We know that we're far from many of our family & friends and we hope that this might be one way of keeping in touch & sharing our changing lives with them. Hopefully you'll hear from both of us, individually & together, and hopefully we'll hear from you.

This evening we sat in a room full of soon-to-be, first time parents. We attended a short lecture given by a pediatrician at one of the local hospitals. He talked for more than an hour about breast feeding & bottle feeding, physiological jaundice, gestational diabetes, how to trim baby finger nails, how not to take advice from other people, and what felt like a gazillion other topics that we've not even begun to think about. At times it seemed like so much to think about. At other times, we looked around the room & thought, we must be more prepared than lots of these people. I'm guessing though, we'll never really be ready.

A flurry of note taking went on through the session. Though, I sat with my arms folded and listened intently. Traci sat, pen poised for note taking, and wrote very little. Are we more retentive than all the other parents there? Or, are we just more laid back? Somehow I doubt either is true. I also doubt that writing anything down would've done much good. In 4 months when our baby is whaling at the top of her little lungs, it's unlikely that we'd run to our notes. But, what will we do? How will we know? This is the worry. Everyone says, "you will know." But, how? How?How?How?

We were struck by the pediatrician's discussion of cutting baby finger nails. He suggested that using so-called baby finger nail clippers will inevitably lead to bloody fingers & toes. He suggested using manicure scissors, but that's not the point. The point is that, in a very casual out-of-the way manner, he said don't put a band-aid on those bloody, baby fingers. Baby'll chew her fingers & can choke on the band-aid. "Wow," we both seemed to have thought. How would we have ever thought of that? And, of course, it's not just band-aids but a hundred other things that we've not yet discovered. How will our poor baby not choke on our sheer ignorance? How?How?How?