19th week. I've popped.

Some time in the last week or so, the beefsteak tomato (current fruit reference to size) outgrew it's lodgings and added an addition to the House o' Britt. I'm still at the point where people who don't know I'm pregnant may be wondering why I'm packing on the pounds, but it shouldn't be much longer until they're no longer afraid to offend me by asking about it. I woke up this morning and swore that my belly had suddenly become inflatable. Usually I'm bigger at night than the rest of the day, but I guess the baby had a growth spurt while I was sleeping. One of the many scary things I'm thinking about (there are a lot of them currently on my list) is that the beefsteak will put on 15 times more weight than this by the time we're done.

The little one is about 6" long now, head to rump. That's the size of a dollar bill. If you still have one of those, take it out, hold it up to your belly, and imagine a baby that long from head to butt, not including legs, tucked up inside of you. Also in development news: The baby is now covered in that white waxy stuff they always leave out of births that happen on sitcoms. It helps protect against chafing and bumps as well as those wrinkled fingers you get from staying in the pool too long. I'm told that gratitude is in order because that "vernix caseosa" helps keep things slick during delivery. Also in development is the meconium - the first poo, which is because he/she is now swallowing and processing amniotic fluid. Yummers!

Yesterday I walked about 6 city blocks, half of them uphill, with all of my bags, to catch the bus. By the time I got there, my abdominal muscles were tight and pulling and definitely reminding me that I'm pregnant. Not painful, but not entirely comfortable either. I'm still a pound less than before I got pregnant. I think I've been burning up some fat since my eating isn't back to normal, and maybe even losing some muscle since I've cut down to 1-2 workouts a week due to sheer exhaustion.

I may, MAY, have felt a little movement on Friday afternoon. Usually I know for certain that what I'm feeling is digestion-related, but this was a slight butterfly feeling in the lower abdomen that I wasn't so sure about - kind of like when you see a car about to get in an accident and your stomach goes all tingly. Nothing has happened since then, but there's still plenty of time. If the placenta is attached toward the front of my belly it acts as a cushion and movement isn't felt as early.

On Monday afternoon we have our first ultrasound!! We'll not only get to finally see our little beefsteak, if it cooperates we'll finally know gender and I can stop using "it" and "they" in place of a real pronoun. Hooray! We have a list of names started, but it will probably be awhile until we finalize. They're all pretty standard, easy to pronounce, easy to spell kind of names. They aren't too popular yet still familiar to most folks, and they go with "Sparks". We can't wait!!!

Top ten of all weekends

If it wasn't my favorite weekend of all time (which would have to rival our fantastic wedding whirlwind, so I don't think that's possible), it was definitely in the top ten. For starters, there were three days of wonderfulness. For another, Sean was home for ALL of them! Bonus for Britt!
On Saturday, after the crack-of-dawn feeding of Roscoe, we both fell back asleep until 8. Then, we watched t.v., brought some breakfast to bed, watched some t.v., fell asleep for a few more hours, watched some t.v., then got up around 3 to get ready for our dinner at Stella Mia. Afterwards we saw "He's Just Not that Into You", which had some pretty funny moments, and quite a few I could relate to directly. Then it was back to bed again!

Sunday was spent more than making up for the lack of productivity the day before. I cleaned out junk drawers, the desk, our closets, threw away a ton of things we never should have kept, washed and folded about 8 loads of laundry and just generally cleaned and organized the day away. Sean built a great set of shelves on the car side of the garage that perfectly match the ones he built on Friday on the other side. He's been working hard to help the Man Cave reach it's full potential.

On Monday we fully intended to be just as productive, but then Sean asked me to come with him on some errands that included test driving the two cars we were considering purchasing later in the Spring: a Honda Pilot and a Toyota Highlander. (See posting from last year) We started at Toyota and saw a Highlander we really liked until we were looking at what our financing might be and found out the sticker had incorrectly stated it was 4-wheel drive when it was actually 2-wheel. But by then we were still interested and pushed forward with other options. So, here is our newest addition!

The dealer actually gave me $1000 trade in value for the Jetta! As sad as I was to see my trusty little car drive away for the last time, sitting in the new one quickly erased those feelings. This sucker, in addition to being the color of a clown car (but Sean loves it, and I don't care enough for it to matter) also has: automatic windows and doors and keyless entry (none of which I have ever had before), hill assist, snow package, towing prep, 7 airbags, defrostable mirrors and lights, rear back-up camera, in-dash navigation system, 3rd row seating and leather seats (against my better judgement as a vegetarian - I can hear the cows crying). It's a dream to drive...so smooth and effortless. Of course, it has to be in comparison to the Jetta.

I've actually caught Sean quietly going out to the garage just to look at it. I'm just sayin'.

Neither of us has ever owned a car this nice, let alone one that isn't used. We feel oddly guilty about buying it. We know we've been talking about it for over a year, and that the Jetta wasn't going to be reliable or safe enough for when our new little responsibility arrives, and that everyone we know has had a much nicer car for years, but it still feels like so much more than we deserve. It's not buyers remorse - we're just too frugal to buy Sean boxers when they aren't on sale, so this is big.

To top it all off, though, I talked to our insurance agent on Tuesday about switching our coverage from Jetta to Ol' Blue and the quote she gave us was $64 a month. No, that's not $64 more than the Jetta, it's a total of $64 a month to insure the Highlander. *gasp* That's amazing. Apparently it's so safe that insurance is only $9 more than the Jetta. I'm still in shock over that one.

Somewhat graphic images *be advised*

I found a great diagram online that shows what everything looks like "in there" right now. It was titled 20 weeks, but since the baby goes up to the belly button, this person must not be short-waisted like me, so I figure it's close enough for now.
And here is the difference at 40 weeks (check out the squished bladder!):

Week 16

I'm a little confused about how this pregnancy timeline stuff is counted. Some things say I'm 16 weeks, some say I'm "in the 17th week". For those who are new to counting by weeks, I say I'm 4 months. Either way, things are moving right along.

Sean and I went to our second prenatal visit on Friday, heard the heartbeat again and this time remembered to record it. I e-mailed it out to a few folks so if you want to listen, just let me know. Everything is totally normal and our ultrasound is now scheduled for Monday, March 2nd! Which means we'll probably know the avocado's gender in three weeks!!!

Because I have a strong family history of Diabetes, I needed to take the glucose test a few weeks earlier than normal, so we did it while we were there at the clinic. I drink an 8 oz bottle of 50 mg of glucose, which tasted like flat-extra-sweet-orange soda, then waited calmly for an hour without moving around and had my blood sugar taken to see how my body adapted to the high levels. This stuff is so sweet it made me nauseous, The results came back over MyGroupHealth on Sunday and I had "elevated levels": 143 when the ideal range was 65-135. Not terrible, but a smidge high, which meant I had to do the THREE HOUR TEST. No less than 3 midwives sent me secure messaging to make sure I did it right away, so first thing Monday morning, after not having eaten since dinner the night before, I was there. I had an initial vial drawn and then drank the glucose, this time a lovely flat-extra-sweet-lime-soda flavor, and waited. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. An hour passed and I had another vial drawn. All while trying hard not to vomit the syrupy liquid back onto my own lap.

Turns out all of my levels were in the normal range this time, so NO GESTATIONAL DIABETES FOR BRITT!! *sigh of relief*

This weekend was also major milestone in another way - Sean and I went to a maternity store. I realized at Kristina's baby shower that my jeans were definitely not as comfortable sitting down as they were the weekend before and finally bit the big-belly-bullet. I got a pair of jeans and two tops for now because it's really all I had the patience (or budget) for. I'll need to get some work pants soon, though. Sean was actually very enthusiastic about shopping for me. With us, we tend to prefer to buy the other person clothes since we know they would rarely do so for themselves. Plus he got to take a picture of me wearing the sample belly they provide for size purposes. So, here is a preview of what's to come:


I'm currently not showing much belly, if at all, but I can definitely feel a firm lump when I lay down or bend over and I suspect it won't be long now. I can feel it up to my belly button already because I apparently am short-waisted. I think I'm just short-everything and that happens to be proportionate, but whatever. I've also lost 7 pounds thanks to morning (all-day) sickness, but I'm told I can count on all of that coming back and then some.

The baby is now an avocado about 4 1/2" long head-to-rump. That's bigger than my ipod. Oh jeez. That's big. *deep breath*

15 weeks... and counting

By the end of this week "the apple" is about 4.5 inches long and weighs as much as a slice of cheese. (I didn't make that reference up, I borrowed it from a web site.) I'm not quite sure if that is still head-to-rump or an actual length at this point.

The baby's taste buds already look like a mature adult's and doctors have learned that the amniotic fluid that surrounds it can smell strongly of curry, cumin, garlic, onion and other essences from a mother's diet.

The baby spends most days practicing breathing amniotic fluid and swimming about. Apparently they're quite mobile at this point, waving their arms, smiling and frowning, sucking their thumb, but I probably won't start feeling that for another few weeks. Unless I mistake it for gas.

On Friday we have our next prenatal visit. Still no ultrasound. We'll probably hear the heartbeat again, though. Nothing much has changed since our last visit, so I have no idea what we do this time. Oh, but I'll probably go to the lab and ingest a gallon of un-carbonated Mountain Dew-like juice so they can test my sugars. Diabetes runs in my family, so they do this test early for us lucky gals.

The buttons on my shirts scream in torture these days, although my pants ride low enough that they're still doing ok. I need to go maternity shopping. The clothes my wonderful friends loaned me are summer weight and I can't quite get away with them yet. I know it seems silly, but I always feel "hefty" when I go try on clothes and I'm fairly certain that trend is going to continue for awhile, so I'm not all that enthusiastic about hitting the racks.

Week 13

This week the baby is the size of a peach; 2.5-3" from head-to-rump. (Apparently they've never had a massive and heavenly Chelan peach). It still doesn't feel real at all that there's a baby in there.

Fingerprints have now formed, and the body growth has started to catch up with the head, which is nw only 1/3 of the entire length. If it's a girl, she now has over 2 million eggs in her ovaries - holy grandkids, batman!

Sean and I went to the "Bodies" exhibit when it came to town almost 2 years ago and we were mezmerized by the fetus section, which showed a fetus in every week of gestation. Absolutely amazing. I wish I could find pictures online somewhere. It would help me visualize all of this better - the 'artist depictions' I keep seeing are almost worthless.

The big news

It's the moment that many of you have looked forward to ("So...any news?"), and some have dreaded ("They'll never shut up now"). Yup. We're breeding.

We found out the day before Thanksgiving and it's been VERY difficult to keep it to ourselves for so long. My M.D. called me on my way home to congratulate me and my Blue tooth, which apparently was made by Bose, announced it to my dad, who happened to be sitting next to me. Luckily dad was very gracious and never even acknowledged that he heard a thing.

I immediately went to Barnes & Noble and bought a few books: Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy, Your Pregnancy Week by Week, and 40,000 Baby Names. When I got home, Sean was on the phone so I just stood there waiting, bursting at the seams. I eventually nonchalantly handed him the books and said, "I picked these up, just in case". Inside the cover was the printout of our positive results, but did he open the book and check it out? No. He immediately said, "Are WE?!?!" I rolled my eyes and responded, "Open the book." In my head it was going to go differently than this.

We told my family on Christmas Eve because it was the only time we would all be together, but I had to wait until we were almost ready to go because no one was ever in the same room. Apparently my brother's women were speculating about my lack of wine already at that point.

We told Sean's dad and Gayle at their house on Christmas. It wasn't a big moment. Sean waited for a moment of quiet in the conversation and said, "So, we're expecting."

I was really looking forward to telling his mom's side of the family because I knew that there would be a lot more excited personalities in the room, so we came up with a game plan. We'd propose a Christmas photo of everyone in front of the tree. Sean would get the shot ready and set the automatic timer and tell everyone, "OK, everyone smile and say, 'Britt's pregnant!'" and then we'd be able to capture the expression on their faces. Semi-brilliant right? Except that I should have had someone other than Sean say it. He's known as a bit of a jokester in his family and no one seemed to take him seriously. Everyone in the picture smiled, said, "Britt's pregnant!" and stood there waiting for him to take the shot. And stood there. And stood there. Finally, Jill turned and asked, "Wait, is she really?" and then everyone finally got it.




Tanya knew from the start, which is why she's pointing at everyone else. In all, I think Kristin, my youngest brother, Nick's, girlfriend, and our neighbor, Vivian, have been the absolute most excited out of anyone. Within moments, Kristin was already talking about things she wanted to get, and Vivian was clanging her glass to announce to the rest of the room. You guys get the gold.

So, where do we go from here? Well, we're just starting the 12th week, so next week we'll officially be in the second trimester. We had our first visit on Friday and heard the heartbeat, so that helped make it seem a little more real. After all, other than constant nausea and outgrowing my bras in a week, there was very little supporting evidence that I actually had a little parasite in there. This week we're calling it "the lime" because that's how big it is. (A key lime, not the giant ones.) Our next appointment is in 4 weeks and then we get an ultrasound 4 weeks after that. I'm disappointed that we have to wait until our 5th month to get a glamour shot, but I guess that's how it goes down in Group Health-world.

I'm feeling a lot better, queasiness-wise, this week, although I'm now at the tail end of a nasty cold. Sean has been wonderful, as usual, and very patient with my laziness, and has made sure to be a part of every moment. He bought a book, Dad's Pregnant, Too! and went to the library for a few more, and he may now know more than the Duggars about pregnancy and birth.


Stay tuned....

Holiday Musings

Christmas is my favorite holiday and as soon as November rolls around I'm thinking about all the good times to be had. Trouble is, Christmas in coupledom is wa-ay more hectic than those of my childhood.

In the old version, we'd go to my grandparents house a few miles away for Christmas Eve and have a holiday buffet and egg nog - I'd bring a dish or two. On Christmas morning we'd all go to my parents house for brunch and present opening and then I'd work on the Christmas puzzle in front of an endless loop of "The Christmas Story" on TBS until it was time to start the next round of dishes for Christmas dinner, again at my parents house. It took place over the span of 24 hours.

In the coupledom Christmas, we have three families to celebrate with, half of whom live on the Peninsula, which involves several hours of traveling back and forth, including a ferry ride. (Note: I'm told that by those who reside West of Puget Sound that "the Peninsula" to them means the Kitsap Peninsula, a small growth on the thumb of Washington's mitten. In my East-sider vernacular, the Peninsula refers to EVERYTHING West of the Sound.) Luckily, Sean's side of the family is notoriously gracious when it comes to celebrating on alternative days and leaving the actual day of Christmas to others. But, the drawback of this is that means two additional weekends are thus taken up traveling to Seabeck (his mom's side) or Sequim (his dad's side), which leaves oh-so-little time to shop, go to parties, and all the other holiday moments. So if we don't have all of our Christmas shopping done before the first trip of the season, we don't really get any more chances.

It's even more stressful for me because I didn't grow up sharing holidays and Sean and his family are old pros at it. Although, Sean's old version of events was doing all of his shopping in the two hours before he had to catch a ferry and then wrapping them on arrival using whatever gift bags his mom had set aside in her sewing room. I'd say we've progressed significantly since then, but maybe that's bragging? Of course, my version of progress involves lists. Shocking, I know.

Holiday Musings

Our tree is up! Well, it was up two weekends ago, but I haven't been very blog-ivated. (Aside: My new G1 phone takes lousy pictures, too. The light quality has to be super high and then dark colors aren't very clear.)

Sean is a fan of getting trees early and I'm a fan of putting out the decorations early, so we make a good team. After all, why go to the effort only to use them for 2 weeks, right? The lights on the house were super easy because we didn't take them down last year. Yeah, we're kind of "one of those" except that the way I mounted them under the eaves means that no one can even tell the lights are there unless they're turned on. So that's my reasoning.

Cooter and Roscoe have pretty much left the tree alone, and I learned last year to put decorations at least 2 feet off the ground to avoid temptations and tails. Hey - that's a good name for an ornament shop. Or a burlesque show. "Temptations and tails". Thus far there have been no casualties. *knock on wood*

Sean makes an entry.....

[Seans Entry]

Just wanted say that I love my wife the most! Have I ever mentioned that her ability to write is what first attracted me to her? MMMMmmmmm.....Deep fried turkey!

Holiday Musings

For those of you who haven't noticed, I've stopped putting "Britt's entry" at the top of my posts. This is because my otherwise wonderful husband, who gets up early to make the coffee and water the dog, who squeezes from the middle of the toothpaste tube less often now, who holds my hand even when he's snoring, hasn't made a single entry to this entire blog. Not a peep. I tell him in my excited voice when I make a new post, but I'm pretty sure he never thinks to look at it on his own, let alone write an entry. So, since all entries are mine, the "Britt's entry" notation is a bigger waste of time than looking for quality at WalMart.

That being said, I'm starting a new series of posts just in time for the holidays. I'm about to grant you all a peek into the mind of Britt. Now, I realize that I'm about as predictable as Martha Stewart making something super cool that you could never hope to duplicate in your lifetime, but I'm gonna attempt to slide in some surprise twists. We'll see, right?

So, here goes....

Did you ever stop to think that Thanksgiving is the one day of the entire year when you're guaranteed that nearly everyone in America is having dinner a) with their friends, family and loved ones, b) at a table, and, c) eating food that didn't get handed through a drive-through window? It's really pretty amazing when you think about it.

This year we're having T-day at my parent's house because my grandma's dining room table doesn't sit enough people and the room isn't configured to add another. And, wouldn't you know it, the vegetarian's family is having three turkeys. Three. Is it necessary? No. Is it still gonna happen? Yuppers. So the dealio is that my mom is obviously making a turkey 'cause its her house. My grandma is making a turkey because my mom's stuffing won't be going in a turkey (thank you, mom!) and she believes that we might get smited (smote?) for tweaking a tradition. (ok, that was joke, but you get it.) And my aunt is deep frying a turkey and bringing it over. I've tried asking myself why, but its as mysterious as Britney's love of god-awful weaves.

To top that off, I really, really wanted to make pies this year. My grandma always does it and I never get a chance, and I LOVE to make cool pies so this time I told her I'd make two. She's still making hers. *head shaking* So the official count for those keeping track at home, is: Turkeys - 3, Stuffing - 3, Pies - 4, People - 14, Vegetarians - 1.

In addition to pies, I'm making cranberry sauce and roasted butternut squash, so I expect the next 36 hours to be pretty busy. Which is actually really bad timing because Sean used his birthday gift card to buy a Wii game that I'm addicted to: Animal Crossing. It's the one you see commericals for right now where two girls talk to each other through the Wii about what they did in the town that day and then their characters go watch fireworks on a hillside. I. Can't. Stop. I need help. The first step is admitting I have a problem, right?

I'm normally not the type to spend my already minimal time on a video game but I played from 8-10 last night, until the store closed. You have to earn money to pay for things like your cute little house and equipment that helps you make more money. So you catch fish and collect objects and run errands for people. But you can't sell the things that would help you make money if the store is closed. And once you fill your pockets, you have to empty them somewhere or else you can't collect anything else. So the game kind of comes to a standstill. Which is probably better since its a great and easy game for elementary age kids who should be going to bed at a reasonable hour anyhow, right? And its a one player game, but you can see what other players in your household have done and the city folk talk about both Sean and I to each other. Sean leaves me notes on the Community Bulletin Board and plants flowers in front of my house and stuff. It's fun. Ok, I have to stop talking about it! It's like fiending for a fix!

I've got to focus. Decorating. Gift Shopping. Working off the calories from the Pecan Pie. Keeping Cooter out of the tree. There are more important things right now.

Wedding pictures

It took me a while, but I finally realized I forgot to post any of our wedding pictures! Here are some of our favorite moments....

Our wedding!

A special somebody has a special day....

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY

SEAN!!!

*singing* It's the most...wonderful time....of the YEAR!

Sean's favorite time of the year has arrived....walls of Jubelale.

Britt's entry -

I did an interview for Wight's and won a gift certificate! I had already gone to the annual holiday gala with my mom, so it will have to be used for Spring gardening : )

http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=20184876&BRD=1024&PAG=461&dept_id=231484&rfi=8