UGH.

So, whatever genius I talked to at the potential day care center gave me the wrong information. They charge full price for track-out. Still, it's the best deal we've found so far so I guess we'll just poke around a bit more and then go with it if we don't find anything better...haven't completely ruled out taking her to an in-home baby-sitter but we'll see. I just HATE the thought of spending $2,000+ a year on day care when I'm not even using it!!! We'll see.

In other news, this morning the bean sprout found my bladder and proceeded to use it as a trampoline for the remainder of the day. She's still too small for it to be a real nuisance but still...thanks a LOT, kid! ;o)

20 weeks!

Halfway there! Can't even imagine how I'm going to look at 40 weeks...scary. Only a week and a half until the next doctor appointment (Sept. 5), it's gone by really quickly since the last one. I guess the time between the previous two dragged because we were waiting to find out the gender, and this time we don't even get an ultrasound. We're requesting one for 26 weeks so that they can have a look at the cysts on her brain...I know the doctor said that she wasn't even going to recommend anything since it was no big deal but we'll feel better having it checked again. Hopefully they'll do another 4-D, and she'll cooperate and show us her face. :o)


I'm wearing my Bears jersey AND I interrupted Craig, who was watching an Eagles pre-season game, to take this picture. Ha ha!

Oh yeah....I've decided to stick with the nursery bedding we registered for. I found some other cute things but, big shock, they're only available online and I don't feel like going through that mess. Plus--and I didn't realize this before--the bedding set comes with the coordinating window valance and diaper stacker, pieces that are usually separate from most sets. I also read the product reviews on the Babies R' Us website and everyone was very happy with the quality and style of the set...it's feminine without being little-girl cartoony. I'll probably take the wallpaper border off of my registry and just buy it myself so we can get the nursery walls done. We'll worry about the furniture and bedding later, right? ;o)

Not much to report....

I'm inexplicably exhausted today. Bean sprout did kick me awake, but it was only about five minutes before the alarm and I was glad to wake up for that anyhow. Today has been one of her active days, which is always fun. I did have a dream the other night that she'd been born (with dark hair, too...how did that happen?) , and I was having trouble feeding her. Surprisingly, it wasn't as frustrating as I thought a dream like that would be, so that's good.

Seriously, that is all....other people's spawn (my students) are driving me batty this week so I can't wait for the weekend! 20 week belly photo coming soon.

A big day

Well, it finally happened yesterday: the inevitable. I grabbed a pair of pliers and for the first time since it was installed 6 1/2 years ago (roughly one month before I got together with Craig), I removed the belly button ring. Wow, that was hard....goodbye, cute stomach of my early- to mid-twenties! I've decided if I can get back into really good shape after the baby (and it would have to be REALLY good, because I was getting a squishy stomach even before getting pregnant) I will reward myself with a new belly ring. So there. (I'll post a picture of the ring-free belly in the next few days, I was planning on doing a 20-week photo anyhow this weekend.)

Anyhow, the Gap clothes arrived today, and they are so cute! Add those to the wardrobe along with the Calvin Klein denim skirt and cute peasant-blouse looking top that MJ bought us, and Ava is already set to be one stylin' baby. (Craig did make fun of the striped leggings I bought her, but liked the "Daddy's little girl" shirt.)

That's really it...I'm feeling better from the other night, still trying to come to terms with the not-feeling-so-attractive thing but it comes and goes. Having a love-hate relationship with one's body is probably pretty normal anyhow...if I wasn't pregnant, I'd be annoyed by something else.

Last but not least, I got one of those Babycenter.com updates today, with this picture:



Um.....that's just weird. This little blurb was included in the email:

"Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces, and he measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the length of a small zucchini. The hair on his scalp is sprouting. If your baby is a girl, she already has 6 million eggs in her ovaries. This is a crucial time for sensory development: Your baby's brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. He may be able to hear you as you talk. Research shows that he's learning to distinguish your voice from others, and he'll soon show a preference for it. Let Dad get in on the act, too— encourage him to talk to your baby."

Now, we don't exactly talk to the baby, but sometimes I make her talk in an evil voice...does that count? And if she can really hear outside sounds now, I'm definitely going to make sure to play a lot of Tom Petty. It's never too early to give her an appreciation of good music. ;o)


A picture, just because.

Thanks....

...for listening to me vent. (As if you had a choice ;o)

I feel better now.

Caution: Long, whiny post ahead.

So, registering for baby stuff pretty much sucked for many reasons. First of all, you just cannot turn someone loose in a giant warehouse full of giant amounts of scary baby crap and not expect them to be totally overwhelmed. The first stop was breast pumps...wonderful! If I didn't feel like livestock before, I certainly do now! Second, both of those Wendy Bellissimo nurseries I had picked out? CRAP. Complete, utter, cheap, ugly, crap. How that woman has designed nurseries for celebrities is totally beyond me because the colors are garish in person, and the fabric looks cheap. So I had to come up with a totally different room...ended up registering for an actual girl room called "Olivia" by some random brand...the main colors are soft pink, ivory, and pale green; and the best way I can describe it is shabby chic-style. Here's a picture, but the colors look all wrong online...the photo really doesn't do it justice:



Anyhow, I'm not totally in love with it but it is pretty, and the good thing is that I can probably just keep the paint color I currently have in the room (called "crafted white," it's a buttery ivory), and maybe even use some of the sage that we used in our master bedroom to do an accent wall. I have a picture in my head, but it's kind of hard to describe. Of course, I did venture on to Pottery Barn Baby a little while ago and found a room I like even better but it has hardly any coordinating pieces and is only available online...as I found out with that other bedding, online is no indication of how something looks in person. (*By the way, I decided to go girly instead of neutral because all of the other neutral stuff looked pretty stupid.)

So, anyhow, to make an already long and tedious story somewhat shorter, about halfway through the excursion, I think I was just randomly pointing that stupid scanner at things and putting them on the registry just to get it done. Heck, I may not like half of the stuff! I pretty much figured I wouldn't register for furniture and that Craig and I would find something on our own, so when I got home I started looking up furniture. My mom sat next to me with some book that rates baby products, and of course nearly everything that we could actually afford got low quality ratings....one even got a low rating because a baby had died in the crib because of poor design and construction. WONDERFUL. I used to have all kinds of ideas about what I wanted in baby furniture, now I've narrowed it down: I want a crib that won't kill my child.

Anyways...it was good of my mom and Shayne to help me, but I think at that point there's not much that could be done to make it any easier. There were some fussy babies in the store with their parents and you know what? I DO NOT BLAME THEM. I wanted to scream and cry, too. The highlight of the trip was ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the adorable baby clothes (of course, now that I see all of the necessities we're going to have to buy for this baby; the cute clothes just aren't as appealing as they were 24 hours ago...).


Before the trip...I have no idea what I'm about to get myself into! (And is it just my hair, or is my head really big? What the heck?!)

Aside from the registry woes, I'm having a little trouble dealing with the extreme un-sexiness of this whole thing. (At this point, I should probably warn everyone, it would NOT be a good idea to get all condescending and remind me that it's all a part of having a baby, and that it's a miracle, blah blah blah...because I'd be mighty tempted to stick a fork in your eye.) Looking at those breast pumps...ugh. There is nothing attractive about milking yourself, dang it! I'm used to shopping at Victoria's secret for lacy bras, not for padded inserts so that I don't leak milk through those bras! What else, let me see....oh yes, apparently I snore like a lumberjack now. That's hot. I have hair around my belly button. And my right shoulder is breaking out, so I can't wear any of my sleeveless tops, unless I wear lots of makeup. ON MY SHOULDER. I'm sorry, I know there are plenty of people who think I'm stupid for complaining about this stuff because I should be happy I'm having a baby, but it's always been important to me to look my best and to present myself in a specific way in front of Craig...I don't go use the bathroom while he's in there shaving, for example...and it's really hitting me hard that this is all going down the drain no matter how hard I try. I'm half tempted to ban him from the delivery room, because having him witness that insanely disgusting event (yes, miracle, blah blah whatever) is like the final nail in the coffin. I feel like at the end of all of this, I'm going to have a husband who will never be attracted to me again. Maybe I'm being irrational...I mean, he *did* see me catheterized when I was in the hospital last December and that's about one of the most un-sexy things EVER, and all evidence points to him still being attracted to me after that incident...but still, it bothers me.

Ugh.

Visit from the family

My mom and brother (that's Ava's grandma and Uncle Billy) arrive early this evening for a brief visit...they'll leave Monday morning and continue on to Florida, where Billy will be starting his sophomore year of college. Mom and I, along with my friend Shayne and her daughter, will be heading over to Babies R' Us tomorrow so that they can help me with the baby registry. I'm looking forward to getting that done but not actually doing it, because it can be tedious and overwhelming. Hopefully going with other people will help!

So anyhow, having visitors means I'm about to embark on a mini cleaning spree...if I get all of my work done in a timely manner, I will be rewarding myself with a trip to Old Navy to look at the baby clothes that are on sale. I recently told Craig that I should be putting all of these adorable clothes on the credit card because it should be a joint expense, but I'm not quite sure he bought it. ;o) We'll see....

Oh, and I think that in the next day or two I'm going to have to retire the belly button ring. There's a place online where you can buy specially made ones for pregnancy, so maybe I'll order one. Or maybe it's time to admit I'm pushing 30 years old now and the belly ring had a good 6 1/2 year run, and it's time to just let it go. It's a sad day...

uh-oh....

Three words: Baby Gap Online. I bought four things: three for when Ava is newborn and it's cold, and one for when it starts getting a little warmer out. Luckily, I managed to stop myself before I bought the little leopard print dress with a matching beret (!!!!) but if it goes on sale, I refuse to be held responsible for my actions. ;o)


(I'm usually not big on baby clothes that say things, but I couldn't resist this one!)

A few odds and ends

1.) I just noticed something when looking at the ultrasound pictures...you can already see that our baby has really long, skinny fingers. I've seen those fingers before: they're typing out this post right now. :o) I thought that was pretty cool.

2.) I am feeling her kick frequently now, and I love it! Enjoying it while I can because I'm sure when she gets bigger and aims a good kick right at the ribs or bladder, I'm not going to be so happy.

3.) When people talk about crazy pregnancy hormones, they are NOT kidding. I thought it was a myth, until I spent the last 18 weeks bouncing between delirious happiness and hating everything on the planet. (No offense to anyone in particular, it's just a general hate. I even hate plants and inanimate objects sometimes.) I have no tolerance for crap from students, so it kind of stinks to be them right now. And I'm attempting to read the last Harry Potter book but have to put it down every time something sad happens (that would be about every seven pages) because I start to cry. Hormones suck.

That's about it...there won't be much else to say I guess, for awhile...I'm looking forward to registering for the baby stuff (okay, maybe not really looking forward to doing it, but to getting it done) and for the day when Craig can actually feel the baby kicking too. She's too little right now for anyone on the outside to feel it.

Ava Catherine Haynor

As you can see...we have finally settled on bean sprout's official name! We chose the first name because it sounds very pretty and classic...the middle name was Craig's doing. We had a few other choices on the table and when we found out we were having a girl, I let Craig make the decision about a middle name since he didn't get his boy this time. He decided on Catherine because it uses my mom's name, Cathy, and he wanted the baby to have a name with meaning, not just "some random middle name." So that's that! Of course, I'm going to fret constantly from now until her birth about whether or not that's the right name for her, etc....but that's just my nature. I do love the name.

So, now that you know her name....here she is! The first two sets of pictures are the 4-D ones: we couldn't get any clear shots because she kept rubbing her eyes with her hands (and yawning!) but they're pretty cool. She looks like a bony little alien right now, but that's the stage of development, she will fill out more in the next 22 weeks! The last set of pictures are the regular ultrasound pictures, showing a clear shot of the proof that she's a girl (yeah, I don't get it either, but the ultrasound technician said that the picture proves that she's definitely female. Whatever!) and then a side view of her. Anyhow...enjoy! God bless modern technology!

Drumroll please.......

Well, folks....the results are in. The pictures have been taken (they're the really cool 4-D ones!) and will be up when Craig takes a study break and scans them for me...so I guess now you're wondering about Haynor Spawn's gender...well, wonder no more...


IT'S A GIRL!!!!!! :o)

I am completely, utterly THRILLED. I would have been happy with a boy too, mind you...but this is pretty awesome.

Anyhow, I'm going to ask you all for another round of prayers, as we did encounter one small thing on the fetal scan: our baby has some cysts on her brain. This is probably nothing--the doctor said it isn't a concern unless there are other problems, like with the heart or spine, and the rest of the baby was just fine. In fact, these cysts are common and usually go away anyhow. (Plus, our little bean sprout was VERY active, which is good....she was turning and flipping and bouncing all over the place! The technician was like, "WOW. Good luck keeping up with this one!") Anyhow, like I said it's probably not a problem, but prayers and positive thoughts would be appreciated nonetheless. I think we've settled on the name for sure (first and middle) so that will be in a later post, along with the pictures.

WOOHOO!

25 HOURS

I'm going absolutely crazy. I may not make it that long.

In other news, there's good and bad:

BAD--the middle name we wanted for a girl is already being used by someone else

GOOD--The first name we like is officially ours! Nobody else is using it! Plus, that particular middle name that we liked, paired with the first name we're definitely using, was coincidentally the name of an adult film star. (I only know this because I Googled the name...I'm not a porn aficionado or anything. Gross.) We had a few other middle names in reserve so now we just have to decide between them and we're set! Who knows? In 25 hours, the girls name may not even be an issue... ;o)

Change of heart?

So I've been obsessed with Wendy Bellissimo's Honey Bee collection ever since we decided to have kids...up until recently. I think I might actually be in love with a different nursery....same designer, still gender-neutral, but with a jungle/safari theme. Check it out: Petite Safari

(Feel free to comment and let me know your opinion on Honey Bee vs. Safari! Not that it's going to change my mind either way, but whatever! ;o)

I like it because it's earth tones (like our whole house), and it's not cartoonish like so much baby stuff...the bees were adorable and everything, but I started thinking that maybe they were a little more on the cutesy/feminine side of neutral...the safari theme might suit us and bean sprout a little better. :o) I don' t know though...I really do like the designer and that her gender-neutral rooms aren't boring, and that a lot of the collection pieces are interchangeable, so we'll see. But I'm leaning towards safari. Guess when it's time to register I'll see which one looks better in person. Sometimes January seems so far away, and sometimes I can't believe I only have 23 weeks to get all of this done!

On the con side of changing my mind about the room theme....it's probably going to require a new paint color. Grrrrrr. I am so sick of painting! (But we can either paint it the same color as our bedroom which is a soft, pale sage; or paint it a warm honey color. It's currently a pale yellow that's almost off-white, so it will be easy to cover.)

That's it here. I'm going to bed, because when I wake up again the wait will be down to two days! (Plus, I like to lay in bed and hold really still to see if I can feel it kicking.)

By popular demand...

Here's the 17-week photo! I should have had Craig just take a normal picture because I'm quite fond of that outfit, it's really cute and I was dressed up to go out to a movie. (The Bourne Ultimatum, which I could distinguish from neither of the other two Bourne movies, and I spent the majority of it trying to feel the baby kick before I finally just fell asleep.) Speaking of the kicking, I think it's pretty unmistakable now....it feels like gentle pokes about an inch or two under my belly button, usually in the evening. Hard to believe there's actually a live human being in there, kicking and elbowing at my guts. Feels something like muscle twitches...probably after I see it in the ultrasound later this week, my brain will make the connection a little better.

In other news, Craig has said he really has no intention of posting here and in fact, hardly even reads this (so much for the family blog....oh well), which is disappointing but also pretty amusing, because now I can use this site as yet another part of my ultimate plot to ensure that this baby is a future Bears fan. So I present to you, exhibit one: the bean sprout's first Bears jersey!


Thanks, Christie! :o)

And this is a chart I have devised to calculate the likelihood of producing a Bears fan. (Okay, I didn't devise it personally, I found it online and have interpreted it to suit my purposes.) Please note: the father is listed as "unaffected," which clearly refers to his sad state of being a non-Bears fan. The mother is the carrier of the Bears gene in this case. It appears as though the probability of producing a Bears fan is as high as 3 in 4, or as low as 1 in 4. Only one of the offspring in the chart is entirely unaffected like the father, out of the other three one is definitely a fan, one will carry the gene but not necessarily be a fan, and the last one will be a fan but not necessarily carry the gene to pass it on to his or her offspring. It makes perfect sense.






In all seriousness though--we DO have an important doctor appointment coming up and as excited as I am about Bears jerseys and finding out the gender, the main purpose of the ultrasound is going to be to check the baby for abnormalities. So if you would, please pray that whatever gender child we've been given is a healthy one. :o)

Closer every day....

Well, since I can't do anything else at the moment, here's a we-almost-know-the-gender ticker. Yes, I tend to get obsessed and I have to know EVERYTHING all the time. It's like nature is keeping a big secret from me, and I don't like it much. Last night I had a very vivid dream about having an ultrasound and finding out that it was a girl (I high-fived Craig, which was funny, because he wants a boy) so of course that means it will be a boy. But everyone else on the planet seems to think it's a boy, so maybe it's actually a girl. (And if I hear one more old wives tale about how this or that means it's one or the other, I'm going to hurt someone....ARGH! "If your left eye twitches before midnight on a Tuesday, it's a girl...") At least it's almost the weekend, and weekends go by way too quickly, so it will be here before we know it.

I'm still waiting for bean sprout to kick me...it's early yet but every night before I fall asleep I lay very still and concentrate so that I don't miss anything if it IS moving around. The other night I could've sworn I felt something--it felt like a finger jabbed me twice from the inside--but I've not felt anything since, so it was probably just a twitchy muscle. That happens.

Anyhow that is all for now, I promise I'll put a few pictures up, including that of the ridiculous 17-week baby gut, this weekend.