New Zealand

It was a mistake not to apply for the NZ job we were looking at.
The progress on the house we're meant to be moving into isn't going very well.
I fear it was a mistake to stay in America.

I am currently job hunting on NZ websites.

It's never too late to raise my kiddy by the beach!

The Day I Was Waiting For!

I was going to write a post on the crime of pregnancy.
Which was, the female can feel the baby kick before the male can.
It was making me so sad not to have B feel every little kick with me.
I'd say 'baby is kicking' and he'd throw his hand over but couldn't feel anything and get sad.

WELL!
LAST NIGHT BRENNEN FELT THE BABY KICK HIM! THRICE!

I was sitting on the couch, we'd just eaten, and I said 'baby's kicking!'.
He put his hand on my belly (and I corrected him as per norm and slid it a little further down my pants ;) and then on the next kick B jumped! I grinned and said 'did you feel that??!' his response was 'f@#K yeah!' with wide eyes.

SO SO BEAUTIFUL!
And the day I was waiting for.

Hoorah!
I am very happy now.
I want him to feel baby allllllllllllll the time!!

Baby Kick Kick Kicks

Good morning to you too, my darling!

Week 18

Gee Whiz.
I don't think I like this update much.
Ew and ick and ow.

Fetal development in pregnancy week 18: fetus in fifth month

We have two more ounces! Your "getting bigger-n-better by the minute baby" is already up to 7 ounces and 6 inches! This is a big week for their baby skin. There are now two distinct layers—the epidermis (or the surface skin) and dermis. Currently, their skin is covered with a greasy, waxy, cheese-like substance, known as vernix caseosa. Sure, it sounds pretty nasty, but this mixture of fatty secretions covering your little swimmer from head to toe is the best way to protect their oh-so-thin skin from bruising and abrasions as well as chapping caused by amniotic fluid exposure (and your little one is swimming in that stuff!). Still don’t like the fact your little darling is currently slathered in fatty cream like a greased pig? Well, you know the birthing process? Where you have to push something the size of a watermelon out a hole the size of a grape? That adorable little greased piglet would have a lot harder time getting through the birth canal without the vernix caseosa. Fun fact for momma’s with baby girls: it’s a uterus within a uterus! Your little girl will have developed a uterus and vagina canal by the end of this week.

And how's mom doing? POP! If you haven’t yet, you will soon be seeing the last of your inn-y belly button—until after you’ve pushed your little monkey out. If it’s getting difficult to breathe, you can thank your not-so-small belly for squishing your lungs—which will be more and more cramped for space as the pregnancy progresses. Not that this is surprising as everything else in your mid-section is getting properly squooshed as well. (What else is new?!!). Keep in mind that as you grow (and grow and grow) in size you produce more blood (for both of you), which lowers your blood pressure. So standing up quickly and/or occasional fast movements may cause slight dizziness or lightheadedness. This is totally normal, but means you shouldn’t be too quick to jump to your feet when your team scores a goal. It's better to just punch the air in excitement or clap gleefully. One more fun pregnancy symptom to add to the list: you are producing more melanin, which can cause dark patches of skin to occur on random parts of your body. Don’t worry—these dark spots (unlike your parent’s age spots) will retreat soon after birth.

Boy Says...

I have to quit beating myself up about things.
He says "you do more pregnant than most people do NOT pregnant"
He says "just paint when you can, other than that, just work on you and the baby"

I love him.
I do.
He makes me feel a little less crap about being so tired all the time.

And I do.
I do feel crap for all the little things I'm not doing.
And I *am* stressed out about my upcoming show and commissions.
But...

you know.
If he doesn't feel the same about it, it's really *super duper* nice.

<3

LOOK AT THE FREAKING TICKER!!!!!

Above! ^

Halfway through! What, WHAT?!
Will this all be OVER soon?!
Will I stop puking?
Get my body back?!
Oh, FIRST THING I'm taking sprog out jogging.
That little beast.
It'll be lucky if I don't drag it on a leash.
They can bounce, right?
On concrete?

HALFWAY THROUGH?!??!?
Get OUT!
We were only just *planning* to have a kid!

*gets excited*
(completely ignores the fact labour must also be closer)

Singing & Music

Seeing as spog's hearing is fine-tuned this month I am listening to a lot of music and singing a BUNCH.
Not only do I think music will be AMAZING for sproglet but it always puts me in a good mood.

Of course this is where my dad would say 'stop swinging that cat around by the tail!'
But...
my darling husband likes my song voice.

So I say 'neena neena' to my pa and crank up the volume. ;)

Hee Hee

I love to yell out random facts.

Like:

"HEY! You have to be nice to me! My uterus is about to touch my belly-button."

Heh heh.

Bad Baby

Baby has been awfully neato and kicked a fair bit today.
But baby has also been awfully BAD and made me puke all over the show.

Gnarf!

Double The Trouble

I discovered yesterday that I love saying things like:

"I have four ankles"
"I have four NIPPLES too!"
"I HAVE TWENTY TOES RIGHT NOW"
"Um...I may have a penis."
"TWO VAGINAS! TWO VAGINAS!"

It amuses me greatly.
Last night as we lay spooning, the night air quiet, drifting off into a beautiful sleep I mummur....

"You know I have two arseholes, right?"

After ten minutes of snickering, we fall asleep grinning.

A Simple Equation

It's a simple equation that you learn before puberty.
Sperm + egg + fertilisation = baby.

Still.
As I lay wrapped in his arms, in our house, surrounded by our stuff, watching a movie we both dig, and I feel the baby kick...softly, three times...

it's not a simple equation at all.
It's a full blown miracle.

One I can't even begin to put into words or explain.

Bigger and Tighter

That's my belly today!
*boing eyes*

Heartbeat

Brennen's best composition yet.

Good News/Bad News

Good news is I've finished my second round of antibiotics.
Bad news is if the infection comes back, I can't save this tooth.
If it is fine until the baby is born, I can save to pay for a root canal.
If it acts up in the next couple of months, I'll have to pull it out due to lack of dollars.

Please cross fingers it will be fine until after the baby is born!

JOGGING STROLLER!

Iyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
The one thing I REALLY wanted!
And my friend Heather has one for me!
My goodness, she has almost everything for me.
This baby is SET.
Thank-goodness for amazing friends, I really don't think we'll have to buy *anything*.

From assorted friends we've been promised a crib, a changing table, a swing, three strollers, a play pen, a sit-and-roll-around thingy, clothes (depending on the sex), a high-chair, a rocking chair (for me) and probably other stuff I've forgotten.

INSANE!
Now to set a date to pick some of it up (from Heather!) and to let her see my belly!

Food

Boy had been very worried about my food intake for baby.
And for me.

So I just made a *delicious* spinach, mushroom and cheese quesidilla, topped with sour cream.
NOM NOM NOM.

Of course boy isn't at home to see it.

But he can read about it later. ;)

I *am* AMAZING *and* GRAND!

I could have had a sonogram this Friday.
THIS Friday.
I was scheduled for November 5th but B couldn't have gone and there's no way I'm not having him SEE OUR BABY with me!!! So I called to reschedule and they said 'what about this week, Friday?'
It took EVERYTHING in me to say 'do you have something closer to week 20?'
And...alas...they did!
So we rescheduled for November 7th (darn it) and we will....*trumpet blows*....FIND OUT WHAT WE ARE HAVING THEN!!!

Iyeeee!

I really wanted this week once they said it was open but I've known a couple of people who had their scans too early and were told the wrong sex. They celebrated, settled on names, got all the good gear for the boy/girl, only to find out a month later they had been misinformed!

There will be none of that with us.

So, for the next two and half weeks, I shall tap my feet and thumbs impatiently.
And scream inside with excitement.

WE WILL KNOW HOW TO DECORATE THE NURSERY SOON!!!!
I shall be painting a mural on zee wall....

Week 17

Fetal development in pregnancy week 17: fetus in fourth month

Don't be too shocked but... your baby is EVEN bigger than it was last week, not to mention getting cuter, and smarter every day! As you’ve come to expect, there’s no shortage of growth and development this week: your fantastic little bean stalk has added yet another half inch to their overall height-- making them nearly half a foot long! Their little limbs have reached (or are within one week of) their relative proportions, and will continue to grow evenly with the rest of the body after this week. Reactive listening has begun for your baby, even though their ears are not yet structurally complete or fully functional. Meanwhile, different parts of their astonishingly complex brain are developing to process your little one’s hearing and other senses, (you know, sight, smell, taste and touch). Mind boggling factoid of the week: if you’re having going to have a little girl, her ovaries have already produced millions of primordial egg cells, which, within a few weeks, will develop into actual eggs! Phew… just wait till she’s a teenager eh?

And how's mom doing? Even though the second trimester is often characterized as the most enjoyable of the three, you can count on a few ailments (see week 14 for additional tri-2 symptoms). This week, or in the coming weeks, you may be privy to the uncommon joys of “round ligament pain.” These not-so-lovely symptoms can include bellyaches, pain in the lower abdomen and sharp shooting and/or stabbing pains, most often expressed at the end of the day. Your suffering is due to stretched ligaments and muscles that support your ever-growing uterus. This is to be expected and is perfectly normal (especially since your uterus is only getting bigger!). Some doctors advise sleeping on your left side as lying on your back can compress your pelvic veins, decreasing blood return to the lower half of your body. Lying on your left side relieves this pressure thereby allowing normal blood flow. If this doesn’t do the trick, go ahead and consult your health care practitioner, but try not to punch them when they serenely tell you it’s normal to feel stabbing pain during this time. As we all know, violence never solves anything.

Onesies For The Cool Kids

Heh.
Onesies for the cool kids.

Click!

Welcome To Week 16

Fetal development in pregnancy week 16: fetus in fourth month

Over the past three weeks your astounding growing baby has managed to stretch yet another 2 full inches (totaling about 4.5 inches) and weighs around 3.5 ounces. Yessireee, that’s some pretty serious growth... and with it comes several physical developments! For starters, their head to body ratio is finally starting to even out a bit as the rest of the body is actually growing faster than the head at this point. Yes, your little light bulb is not so top-heavy. Their adorable little limbs have lengthened, almost reaching their normal proportions which they will have at birth. Their eyes are still closed but moving and if you had an ultrasound, which many doctors recommend you have at about this time, you may even see your little one sucking on a thumb, not to mention the necessary signifiers to let you know whether you’ve got a wee lad or lassie.

And how's mom doing? Along with an ultrasound, many practitioners recommend administering the “Multiple Marker Test (MMT)”, which is also known as the “Triple Screen Test”. This very common procedure checks your blood (not your baby’s) for specific protein and hormone levels as well as informing you about any potential of genetic or birth defects. Before you start breathing in that strained fearful way or furrowing your brow in concern, you should know that even if you do get a positive test this hardly means your little trooper is in trouble. Only about 3 to 5 percent of women yield positive results and of those women, only 10 percent actually have any sort of complication to report. Obviously, a positive test from the MMT will mean further testing for you, including amniocentesis and more ultrasounds. Although this test sounds like a bit of a dud with the high percentage of false positives coming back, it's popular because it has and can effectively identify a majority of all neural tube defects as well as babies with Down Syndrome. So despite its obvious drawbacks, you’ll still want to arrange to take the test to better prepare you and your family for the fact that anything is possible. (see BabyCenter's page for additional information.)

Hard Day

One of the hardest pregnancy days thus far.
Went to a museum this morning and had to keep sitting down to stop from shaking really badly and passing out.

Very, very drained still.

Weak.

Going to have quiet night in and watch movies.

Supposed to be moving furniture tomorrow.
If I feel like this, though, I may be laying in a coffin.

I Love Him

We were picknicking at the park for lunch and I said "I can't believe I lost four hours drying time today" in a pretty upset manner.

Brennen looked at me and said "your main job right now is being pregnant".

And my heart went 'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww'.
And I think baby's heart did, too.

Siamese

I like to tease boy that we're having twins.
I would LOVE twins but seeing as it doesn't run in the family and we didn't use invitro, it's really not a possibility at all.
Still, I daydream and say continually that two for the price of one would be *fantastic* and tease Brennen about having them.

So when my fortune cookie said "You will get good news of a personal nature" I jumped up from the restaurant table and hollared 'TWIIIIIIINS!!!!!'

When I sat down boy showed me his fortune ('don't dwell on differences, compromise with your loved one') and said "one and half then...we'll have a siamese."

*squints at womb suspiciously*

Four Dollar Hooker

The other day when we were going into town I couldn't fit my boobies into anything.
I settled on a blue top but when fastening my seatbelt I wailed "I look like a $2 hooker!"

Boy looked at me, incredulous, and said 'Naw, baby...with those knockers you're *at least* a $4 hooker....at least!'

Pizza

We're ordering pizza when boy gets home.
That makes me WAY TOO HAPPY.
It must be the hormones.

*busts out laughing*

Talked To My Dad

About taking penicillin.
Somehow hearing from him was 10,000 times better than all the 'reassurring' articles I read, and the words from the doctor.

Seriously, as soon as he said it was okay, every frazzled nerve in my body calmed down.

I love my dad, I do.

Felt

I felt the baby move.
There's nothing else it could have been.

Jogging cancelled, it's raining....baby and I are going back upstairs to snuggle with boy!

Rosy?

Not me, not yet.
I look like a drained ghost/vampire.

Fetal development in pregnancy week 15: fetus in fourth month

Your nearly four-inch long gymnast is happily mobile inside your womb and if you're really lucky, you’ll notice a point when your sneezing, coughing or laughing results in a little kick here or a poke there. Still, many women don't feel anything until the 17th week or later. Although the poking and kicking isn't very charming during sleeping hours, it’s a good sign as it means your baby is actually reacting to outside events. Yay! You’ve got yourself one active healthy baby! Their little elbows and knees are bending more freely this week and their little legs are finally growing longer than their arms and getting pumped up for prenatal Richard Simmons. Many of their major organ systems are increasing in capacity—particularly that amazing tiny heart and complex circulation system, which is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood per day, and will increase to a very impressive 200 quarts per day by the end of the pregnancy. As far as hair goes, we’ve got some new scalp patterns beginning to develop on the head, although actual head hair is not yet present.

And how's mom doing? Have your cheeks been rosier lately? (No, no, no-- we’re asking about your face.) Are you feeling especially radiant? This famed “glow” is brought to you courtesy of the pregnancy fairy who has waved her magical “rosy tinge wand” over you. Seriously though, your body is experiencing an increase in blood flow and you probably do have flushed skin and cheeks. Just be aware that increased blood flow might cause your blood vessels to expand, resulting in a series of not-so-magical nosebleeds for some women, which although perfectly normal, are a bit gory if you’ve got a day job. If you find the nosebleeds especially irritable, consider purchasing a humidifier to ward off future nose bleeds. Also, do your best to avoid irritants, such as aerosols, smoke, and dust.. Even though the placenta is regulating your babe’s hormones, you are still producing additional estrogen, which often causes swelling of the mucosa membranes, leaving you with a stuffy nose—potentially throughout the duration of the pregnancy. These are just a few of the charming physical experiences you can chalk up to the pregnancy fairy!

I weighed up my options.
I took my prescription and then I burst into tears.
The End.

A Super Good Friend

Sent baby some Pineapple Lumps!



Now I'm afraid we want to hurl!
*giggles*

I'm Sorry

I'm sorry baby.
I'm sorry that today you only had a cup of skittles and a cup of rice.
I'm sorry you got run around like a chicken with it's head cut off.
I'm sorry you need a good sleep and some good food.
And probably some vitamins.

Tonight I get you the sleep, okay?
Tomorrow I get you the food.

I will take better care of you, I promise.

Week 14

Fetal development in pregnancy week 14: fetus in fourth month

Isn’t it glorious? You and your little buckaroo have roped your way right into trimester numero dos! Are you ready to rock!? Okay, okay… maybe just a little rolling and poking. Needless to say, your baby will definitely be making themselves known in the upcoming weeks. At about 3.5 inches long, their little body and limber limbs are coordinated enough for loads of complicated motions. In fact, their whole body is moving right now! You're not feeling it because their current size is still a bit too small to make an impact you'd recognize. Still, their movements are recognizable on an ultrasound. Speaking of which, you should be scheduling one with your health care provider! Week 16 is the classic date as you can usually determine whether your little one is going to pee standing up or sitting down. Your baby is also starting to develop the ability to move their eyes this week, although the eyelids still remain fused shut. What's more, they can make all sorts of fun facial expressions as they practice squinting, frowning, and grimacing. Cute development of the week: their little hands can grasp at things and they may already be sucking their thumb!

And how's mom doing? What’s in the forecast for your second trimester? We’ve got a heavy concentration of developing fetal movement, which will increase in magnitude in frequency through the duration of the second trimester before subsiding in the third trimester as womb-space becomes limited. If you think you’ve got gas or some kind of odd bowel obstruction right now, it might actually just be your little one poking you hello! You’ll become more familiar with the sensation as the frequency and intensity increase (and you’ll never quite forget this special feeling!).

On to the less exciting news. In your second trimester, you will most likely experience some if not all of the following symptoms to varying degrees: dizziness, headache and back pain. Just like morning sickness during the first trimester, your chances of experiencing a given set of symptoms increases if you’ve already had them in a previous pregnancy. Unfortunately, if you’re starting to experience back pain, it will most likely increase as you gain more weight towards the end of the trimester. Although unavoidable during your waking hours, you don’t have to suffer so much during the night—there are some wonderful products out there such as the full body pregnancy pillow, which will help you make it through the night without too much undue suffering. Water retention is another fairly classic albeit annoying pregnancy symptom which typically leads to swollen fingers, toes, ankles and/or legs. These are all perfectly normal (and fairly bearable) symptoms that should not be a source of unnecessary stress. Despite these annoyances, the second trimester is typically experienced as the most exciting and enjoyable of the three— the morning sickness is gone, you definitely feel and look pregnant, but you’re not yet an overstuffed-lumbering-mammoth. Go team go!

Dentist

Went to the dentist.
Need oral surgery.
A wooo wooo.
All parties involved want to hold off until after the scrapper is born.
So after birth pain I get to look forward to tooth pain.
Good thing I thrive off of ouch. ;)

Happy...er...Wednesday!...everyone.

OH! And ROCKSTAR. Six paintings done this week. May make zee show pieces, afterall. Two more to go.
*squints*

I caaaaaaaaaaan dooooooooo it!