Holiday Happenings Part 2 - Weeks 25 & 26

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a novel about my holiday.

First up, my 28th birthday dinner and Christmas with the Honeycutts:

28!  Not nearly as dreaded as 27; I think Lil Fil helped with that
(which seems counterintuitive; you'd think a baby would make
you feel older, right?  But I'm not complaining).

At the McNinch House for my birthday dinner.

At my mom and dad's house 

Every baby gift from my mom includes at least a couple of stuffed animals.
Lil Fil doesn't have a single diaper yet, but he has a whole playroom full of animal friends.

Then, to Delaware and Raleigh for Christmas with the Fillibens:

The Fillibens in Delaware on Christmas Eve.

I win! 

I win again!

Finally, on Boxing Day, my friend Cameron and her mom threw me and my two preggo friends a joint baby shower.  So fun for all of my high school friends to get together at one time!

Jennifer (37 weeks), Logan (24 weeks), and Me (26 weeks)

Us pregnant chicks

You'd be surprised how fun it is to open up the same gifts at the same time.

Matching monogrammed onesies from Lo for our boys!

My high school BQs

Soon-to-be mamas with our mamas

Recap of Weeks 25 & 26:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  like I said, no more fruits.  He's around 2.5 pounds and 15 to 16 inches long, head to toe.
• I have gained:  About 17 pounds.
• I physically feel:  pretty darn good, considering.  My friends have back pain, and there are a lot of other horror-story symptoms out there (hemorrhoids! gestational diabetes! toxemia!), none of which I've experienced, so I feel pretty lucky to have missed out on a lot of the bad stuff as of now, even if I go downhill the next three months.
• I emotionally feel: excited for 2011(!) 
• Comment(s) of the week:   "What's the baby's name?  Is it Nick?  I think it should be Nick."  - Our 10-year-old cousin Zach.  Sorry, Z-man, it's not Nick.
• Milestone: Third (and last) trimester!

25 weeks

Holiday Happenings Part 1 - Weeks 22, 23, 24

This is the post of a lot goes on but nothing happens.  I've had a fantastic month of getting to see a lot of old friends, but I don't necessarily have a lot of pregnancy news or funny anecdotes to tell.  

I went to my friend Jennifer's baby shower in Charlotte mid-November.  I'm so lucky that two of my good high school friends have pregnancies that sandwich mine; Jennifer's little boy is due January 16th and Logan's little girl is due April 21st.  It's helpful to have pregnant friends, because I feel like that's really all I have to talk about these days, which I'm sure is boring to most of my friends, most of whom aren't close to having kids yet.  I also get to ask Jennifer a lot of questions since she's a couple of months ahead (like when/if my belly button is going to pop out...gross!).  

High school friends!  Logan (18 weeks),
Jennifer (31 weeks), and Me (21 weeks)

Next up was Thanksgiving weekend.  We headed to Charlotte and Raleigh to see both of our families.  I hadn't seen my sisters-in-law at all since I've been pregnant, so it was good to see them.  I had Taylor, who's 17, put her hand on my stomach and feel the baby kick, and she literally jumped back in horror.  Between my mother-in-law's stories and mine, she seemed pretty grossed out by pregnancy.  Which is understandable, considering I felt the same way up until about six months ago.

Thanksgiving Day

Finally, last weekend I headed to the mountains of NC with nine of my best law school friends.  We picked a really pretty small town called Candler, which is just west of Asheville, which seemed like a pretty town, though hard to tell since we didn't step outside all weekend.  I'm the only one even close to pregnant of our group, but they were all so excited for me, and it didn't even feel like I was the only sober one there - and that's how you know you have good friends :)  They surprised me with a baby swing that I'd registered for, so naturally we set it up, strapped a baby outfit in there and drew and cut out a head out of paper, and Mr. F swung alongside us the whole weekend.  He was such a good baby.

Law school friends piled on the cabin bed
(which broke a couple minutes after this picture...shhh)

Lil Fil in his new swing at cabin weekend

Recap of Weeks 22 - 24:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  a papaya.  I'm just about done with the fruit comparisons because I don't think they make as much sense the second half.  Basically, he's about 1.5 pounds and 8.5 inches long from crown to rump (but I'm almost far along enough where they start measuring "head to toe" instead of "crown to rump;" I look forward to not having to type or say "rump" anymore).
• I have gained:  About 13 pounds.
• I physically feel:  good, but I'm big enough now where I can tell that the last month or two isn't going to be very comfortable.  I get uncomfortable leaning forward or sitting the same way for too long.
• I emotionally feel: festive (still). 
• Comment(s) of the week:   Has a baby ever punched through his mom's stomach?  - My sister-in-law Taylor, on feeling the baby kick.
• Milestone:  I feel kicking daily, and can see it from the outside now, too.  What used to be a kick here and there is now a kick-jab-hiccup!, and my stomach moves right along with the punches.

22 weeks

24 weeks

Lil Fil Heads North - 20 & 21 Weeks

I took my first (and probably only, considering I'm nearing my third trimester) flight during my pregnancy last weekend to NYC to spend the weekend with my mom and family friends.  We did a lot of walking around, a lot of shopping, saw Wicked on Broadway, and ate a lot of good food.  We did a bit of baby shopping, when I realized I'd save a lot of money by having a boy.  It was still hard to pass the tiny pink Juicy bathing suits with a detachable ruffle waist band.

While walking around, I scoped out a lot of strollers trying to get some tips.  I probably looked pretty creepy to the parents because it appeared that I was staring directly at their child rather than their stroller, but whatever, there are a whole lot of bigger and creepier fish to fry in New York.  Other than the creep factor, the problem with my stroller scoping is that I couldn't really tell by briefly passing by whether the parents really liked the stroller, or whether it seemed to be handling well, or whether the babies were enjoying their ride.  So all in all not that helpful.  But, one important thing I did pick up on:  New York is just full of little girl babies.  And less than a handful of boys.  Which, actually, makes perfect sense.  Nearly everyone I know that is pregnant or has had a baby in the past couple of years, with very few exceptions, is expecting or has had a boy.  So I've wondered more than once where the little girls are.  Question answered:  New York.  

On Sunday morning my mom and I walked to Rockefeller Center so I could ogle at the Lego store, mourn the death of the massive old tree they cut down every year to celebrate America's commercialization of the holidays and commemoration of our motto that bigger is better (end of soapbox), and get breakfast at the Starbucks under 30 Rock.  While we ate we watched the ice skating rink they put up for the holiday season, where there were about 57 little girls ice skating.  There were literally two boys in the entire rink.  I was convinced that NYC truly was the little girl capital of the world, until we realized that almost all of them had an American Girl doll in their arms.  So I think it was some sort of convention or field trip.  That morning, the excitement that I was having a boy really hit me.  Their clothes might not have as many cute ruffles, but I'd take playing with Legos over dolls any day, always have and always will.  

New York trip in pictures:

Grammy-to-be and me, post Wicked.

Rockefeller Center

Central Park

FAO Schwartz soldier listening for Baby Fil.

Ack!  FAO Schwartz soldier kicked by Baby Fil!

Recap of Weeks 20 & 21:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  a large banana.  Not sure how he morphed from a mango shape to a banana shape, but I'm trying to use my imagination.
• I have gained:  Almost 10 pounds.
• I physically feel:  like crap the past few days.  Caught a virus as soon as I came home from NY and my throat has been on fire all week.  My doctor said it's worse because I'm pregnant.  But prior to that, great.
• I emotionally feel: festive.
• Comment(s) of the week:   Well, I heard somewhar that nature'll favor one sex over the other to prepare us fer things, like when a war's a'comin.'  I hope that ain't true, but with what yer saying, who knows, maybe it is...  - Woman in the doctor's office waiting room, in response to me telling her that almost everyone I know lately is having or has had a boy.  Lady, you cray-zee. And who actually says "a'comin'"?
• Milestone:  Past the halfway mark!  Woop!

21 Weeks

20 Weeks

Lil MISTER Fil - 18 & 19 Weeks

A general note on ultrasounds:  they are insane.  I knew that in my 19 week ultrasound I'd be able to see my baby, and that the pictures would be much clearer than my last one at nine weeks.  But you can see little legs kicking with little feet on the end, and little toes on the end of that.  Little legs and feet and toes that look like a real human's legs and feet and toes.  You can see the heart pumping and each chamber, the lobes of the brain, and individual ribs.  Amazing what they can do here in the '10s, right?

Now, a note on my particular ultrasound:  I went in last Thursday, November 4th, thinking I was having a girl...both of us did.  Neither of us had a preference either way (although if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd definitely have said I wanted a boy), but nearly every baby I knew born in the past year, or due in the near future, was a boy.  So, when the sonographer took her little cursor and said, "You know what that is?" I did know what it was, but my first thought was, "But girls don't have penises!"  I didn't realize how much I'd actually been convinced it was a girl until then.  I was so, so happy, even if I may have been partly in shock.  And the sonographer seemed genuinely impressed with the size of his little boy parts.  Way to go, champ!  We also did find out, and this is most important, that he is a very healthy, very active little guy who is right where he should be in terms of size and development.

Hello there, Mister!

H, J, and Lil Mr. Fil.

That night, I baked a cake that night and dyed the cake mix, and we brought it into our office the next morning so everyone could cut into it and see if it was pink or blue.  It made me feel all cute and domestic, and made me realize it was probably the first time I'd baked anything since we moved in our house over a year and a half ago.  Jamie saw me get out two round cake pans and though that meant we were making two cakes ("How did you think the icing got in the middle?"  "I thought it was infused in there somehow.").  We eat a lot of take out.  But making that cake made me feel better about spending money on redoing our kitchen this spring, even if it was just from a box.  It turned out blue and tasted good...and a lot of that probably has to do with our stainless steel appliances and pretty tilework.

What could it be?!

It's a boy!

I guess the strangest thing about knowing what it is, is knowing what it isn't. More than half of the stuff I was thinking of registering for, gone.  The two names I loved most, gone (we had two fantastic, agreed-upon girl sets of names, but had and are still having a hard time with boy names).  The baby isn't an "it" any longer, but a "he" (which makes blogging significantly easier when I can say "he" instead of rewriting sentences to include "Baby" or "Lil Fil" so I didn't call it an "it" and seem insensitive).  Regardless of whether I was wrong or right about the sex, it's a weird thing to wrap your head around.  But going out and buying a bunch of boy stuff is a great way to remedy that  :)

Recap of Weeks 18 & 19:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  a large mango.  What to Expect When Your Expecting (which is the pregnancy bible for those of you who aren't familiar) describes it as "a mango dipped in greasy cheese," but I like to think of him as a freshly-washed mango.
• I have gained:  About 8 pounds.
• I love:  water!  (see below)
• I hate:  sleeping on my side.  I'm not able to sleep on my stomach for obvious reasons, and not allowed to sleep on my back (there's some science behind that but I don't remember all of what it is, just that it's annoying).
• I physically feel:  good, now.  I went into the doctor a week ago because I'd been sick for a couple of days, and tried to go back into work but I got really dizzy and hot, and my vision started going spotty as if I was about to black out, which scared the hell out of me.  I went to the doctor that day, and sure enough my blood pressure was super low (it's been really low my whole pregnancy, but it was down to 84/52, which is waaay lower than it had been).  Apparently staying hydrated is a cure-all.  I've been toting around my Nalgene and getting hassled by everyone at work about drinking it, and it's made me feel amazingly better.
• I emotionally feel:  happy!
• Comment(s) of the week:   I have a big red circle on the calendar and it says sex...hope no one sees that and takes it the wrong way...  - My friend Angela, on my ultrasound appointment.  
• Milestone:  It's a boy!  Duh.  Other than that, I'm finally starting to feel the little guy move inside of me(!)  I've had Jamie get up close to my stomach and talk to him because supposedly the low sound waves of males' voices transmit better, so babies are more likely to respond to them...or so I'm told.  I still haven't felt the baby respond directly to Jamie's voice (although my stomach gets jealous and quite audibly gurgles back to him every time, without fail; I had to explain to Jamie the first time it happened that I was sure it was my stomach and not the baby).  But there have been several times just in the past few days, and mostly when I'm still, that I have felt what I can tell is the baby and not just general stomach happenings.

19 weeks

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

I'm glad this is a baby blog, because I would not want to be talking about football right now - 11 & 12 Weeks

Well, this past week and a half or so has been a little rougher on me.  I have been given the impression by numerous people, books, and blogs that I would start feeling better at the tail end of the first trimester...but my nausea has actually gotten worse.  On top of that, I have a small case of adult acne, which no one told me about.  What the HECK?  (Baby-friendly language!  I need a *%@!-load of practice so I'm trying to start now :)

In other news, I've started to show...a little.  I haven't gained much weight technically (you're "supposed" to only gain 2 to 5 lbs your entire first trimester), but as of last week my stomach has popped out a bit.  I don't look "pregnant" yet, but I do look like I just drank a twelve-pack of beer...it's very flattering. It's been a little difficult for me to grasp how it's "healthy pregnancy weight gain" and not "unhealthy fat gain" when the baby is still down by my pelvic bone but my new gut is up...well, up by my gut.  Body-image-wise, it's a weeeird feeling being almost a third of the way through, because you want something to show for your three months of work, but still want to hold on to your pre-pregnancy body, too; I don't want to look pregnant, but I don't want to not look pregnant.  

Anyway, now that I'm starting to look a little different, I'm going to start posting photos of my progress (it's amazingly unsettling to me that my stomach is now on the world wide web, so please please enjoy these pics so it's worth the creepiness factor); here are a couple at 11 weeks:

I went back to the doctor at the end of week 11, and everything is still lookin' good.  No ultrasound, which I knew beforehand, but it was still a bummer (and on top of that, I had to get a pap smear...so, double bummer).  So I guess I should say sounding good, rather than looking good, since I didn't see anything this time.  I got to hear the heartbeat again - this time with a Doppler, a little microphone thingy, rather than through the ultrasound machine.  The heartbeat is now down from 173 to 167; I'm told that it's normal for it to slow - I guess Lil Fil is becoming physically fit from the marathon-ing.  I did get more than a little nervous when it took the doctor longer than I'd like (it felt like forever, but she probably searched no longer than 10 seconds) to find the heartbeat, but she said that's normal, too; babies, apparently, actually do run (er, swim..?) laps in there, so it takes awhile to track them down when they're still little.

Recap of Weeks 11 - 12:

• Lil Fil is the size of:  a large plum
• I have gained:  2 lbs, give or take
• I love:  chicken wings and ice cream, naps
• I hate:  the smells of garlic and Listerine
• I physically feel:  not great.  I'm having a fair amount of nausea, dizziness, and I tire pretty easily, but most of the time none of those things are overwhelming.  It is worse than it has been thus far, but I suppose it could be much worse than it is, too.
• I emotionally feel:  better than I do physically.  The fact that I'm taking better care of my body but still feel worse is frustrating as hell.  (And acne, are you serious?  I'm not 14.)  Other than those issues, I'm nervously optimistic.
• Comment(s) of the week: 
• Well, the cover says there's an article called 'how to lose 10 lbs without even trying'!   - Jamie, on why he chose Redbook magazine in the doctor's office waiting room.
•  [Tearing up]   - My mom, on seeing me holding my friend Angela's baby.  Hold the tears, mom, that one isn't mine!  We still have a long way to go  :)

Finally, here's Jamie and me at a little over 12 weeks: