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