Happy Halloween.

October Fest (or, Oktoberfest sans beer) - 16 & 17 Weeks

Fall should be hitting it's stride, so how come it's still in the mid-70s?  I shouldn't complain because I'll complain enough when it's cold outside, but I hate that we seem to be missing the middle temps this year.   

Sidenote about weather:  When I first started telling people I was pregnant, I got a ridiculous number of comments (seriously - well over ten) of how lucky I should feel that I wouldn't be pregnant during the summer.  I realized a theme pretty quickly - nearly every person that had made this comment was not someone who'd been through it herself, but a husband of someone who's been through it...and most of these husbands have awesome wives who are generally happy noncomplainers, but I guess when you're pregnant and miserable, it's only fair that the person who knocked you up and is sitting there all normal-sized should at least hear about your suffering, right?  But what got me was that look in their eye as they told me how lucky I truly was - it was like a permanent scar that reopens when their brain processes "heat" + "pregnant."  But c'mon, are we preggo women really that bad?  I'll leave that as a rhetorical question.

Anyway, in honor of fall, since I can't just sit around and drink a boatload of my favorite pumpkin beer (Punkin' Ale by Dogfishhead, in case you're wondering...have one for me), I have been relying solely on outdoor activities to complete my seasonal experience this year.  Last weekend we went to Asheville and got to see all the prettiness of the mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway, then this past weekend we went to a farm in High Point with a corn maze and pumpkin patch.  Here come a bunch of pictures:

Blue Ridge Parkway

The peak of Mount Mitchell, Lil Fil's highest point!

Rob and Steph (with Milly), me and Jamie
(with Winston, inappropriate as always, and Lilly)

Lost in the maize maze

It's a pumpkin house!

I was supposed to go to Raleigh for Lil Fil's third concert this upcoming Tuesday, but I'll be in trial with my boss in a county the opposite direction of Raleigh, so I'll be missing out.  In honor of the concert, our friend Andrew made a poster for us.  Unfortunately it's doubly inaccurate now - not only will I not be there, but Jamie shaved his "October beard" off a couple of days ago.  Doubly disappointing; so I'd rather remember it per his rendition:

Recap of Weeks 16 & 17:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  My palm; a hockey puck; an onion.  5 inches, crown to rump if you want to be all science-y about it.
• I have gained:  5ish pounds...but lordy lordy it looks like more than that.  Unpregnant, I would fluctuate about three pounds a day from water weight, etc, but when it's all concentrated in one place it's incredibly more noticeable.  
• I love:  McDonalds french fries - delicious and it's Monopoly season...free stuff!  I'm hoping for a million dollars, but all I've gotten so far is more fries (which I'm not complaining about).
• I hate:  scary things - e.g. horror movies, haunted houses, the dark, whales (this isn't a new "pregnant" hate, just in honor of Halloween next week)
• I physically feel:  hungry.  I fill up faster but want food more often, which makes for difficult meal scheduling.
• I emotionally feel:  great!  Seriously.
• Comment(s) of the week:   I'm really leaning toward the name [X] for a girl, because that onesie really looks like a onesie that a girl named [X] would wear.   - Jamie to me, after we bought our first newborn onesie at a little craft fair in Asheville.  I don't think he understands that babies change clothes. 
• Milestone:  I've finally stopped trying to hide the fact that I'm pregnant with my clothing choices.  I'm almost fully in maternity gear (bottoms, ate least), and I don't know if I'm actually past the fine "fat v. pregnant" line, but I've given up on caring what people think if they land on the "fat" side of the line.  I'm still not quite used to the "wow, you look huge today!" comments.  I'm hoping that will come, because unfortunately I've heard it more than once in the past couple of weeks.  

Aaand, last but not least, a couple more side-belly pics:

16 weeks

17 weeks

I can't rock as hard as I used to - 13, 14, & 15 Weeks

It's been a good few weeks.  On September 27th, Jamie and I traveled to Asheville to a small venue called the Orange Peel with a couple of friends to see The Hold Steady, a band that we both love love love.  I thought I was ballin' to go out to a concert, a couple of hours' drive away, on a weeknight, while pregnant.  Well, I'm not as tough as I think I am.  The concert was fun and I am definitely glad I went, but I yawned through the entire thing (which is pretty much unheard of for me at a concert I like), and a couple of times had to sit down because my blood pressure was getting really low from standing on my feet for so long.  Up until writing this I had been touting it as Lil Fil's first concert; however, I realized that on July 28th, the day before I took my positive (three) pregnancy test(s), we went to see Paul McCartney in Charlotte.  So, technically it's the second.  Either way, so far I feel really good about the music to which my baby has thus far been exposed.

At The Hold Steady concert.  Thumbs up, Lil Fil!

Last weekend, we headed to Chapel Hill for the East Carolina game with my parents (both of whom went to ECU).  It was a little sad getting Jamie his first blue cup at He's Not Here (which is a big plastic cup of about two-and-a-half beers in it...it's a lot more exciting than I'm making it sound...) and not being able to order one myself.  My hormones are absolutely out of control, because I literally began fighting back tears when we got into the stadium and the alma mater came on.  Embarrassing!  I'm turning into my mother already.  Lucky for me, at that point two trashy ECU girls a couple rows up began to piss me off with their drunken redneck stupidity (I mean each of those adjectives with increasing emphasis), and the sentimentality passed.  But I do still miss it, and can't wait to go back for my five year homecoming at the end of the month.

Lil Fil's first trip to the Hill!  And a big win over ECU.

We've also recently taken on the project of completely clearing out our third bedroom, which held a bunch of mismatched furniture, thousands of dollars of useless old law school books, and Jamie's huge old-school desktop computer, among other things. Most importantly, though, a separate room off of this third bedroom had been the house for all of my off-season clothes.  I'm truly learning the meaning of sacrifice as we've decided that my big walk-in closet will become a play room.  We've primed the room white, so what we've unhappily referred to as "the green room" (I've always hated the color, we just never had a reason to paint it) is officially no longer the "green" room, but the baby's room.  Now it's just sitting and waiting for paint; we're just waiting to find out which color scheme to go with!

Today was a big day.  This morning, went and toured our first choice of daycare and put our names on the waiting list (which apparently you need to do this early; I'm glad I have friends that told me that or we'd be screwed).  It was perfect - it is three blocks from work, has a great staff that I felt comfortable with, was clean and cute, and came highly recommended from several people - but it was just a little unsettling, because I can already feel the massive amount of separation anxiety I'm going to experience at eightish weeks after (s)he's born. 

This afternoon, I went back to the doctor.  I'm into my 16th week now, and Lil Fil's heartbeat is down to around 143 (from 167 about a month ago).  I also got to make my appointment for my second (and likely last) ultrasound; sooo, November 4th is G-day!  In less than a month we'll know if it's Lil Mister or Lil Miss Fil!  

Recap of Weeks 13 - 15:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  a navel orange; the size of a closed (female's) fist
• I have gained:  about 4 pounds
• I love:  soup, Capri Sun
• I hate:  anything that requires a lot of patience (mostly traffic lights)
• I physically feel:  much better.  After a couple of bouts of pretty bad dizziness, I feel good.   Nausea has almost disappeared, but even better, I physically feel more like myself than I have in weeks.  Just a little clumsier and more forgetful.  The worst part is the in-between sizing of not being able to wear maternity clothes but my tummy having outgrown most of my pants (I'm using a rubber band for some of them, which Jamie thinks is hilarious).
• I emotionally feel:  much better.  It's amazing how much starting to show does for your confidence of the baby being healthy.
• Comment(s) of the week: 
• Congratulations, you two!   - A man coming out of the port-a-potty at a Panthers tailgate to Jamie and my brother's girlfriend, after overhearing (while using the port-a-potty?!) them talk about a baby.  Awk.
• No man, that's my sister-in-law.  - Jamie's response to the man.  My bro and Steph are not married, so she is not a sister-in-law.  Double awk.

Finally, a couple of the weekly(ish) side-shot pics.  I just realized when I loaded them onto my computer that they're not that great since I'm in work clothes and trying to hide the bump, but I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to hide it very much longer  :)

13 weeks

14 weeks