Attack of the Giant Baby

The little one measured in at 5 lbs, 12 oz at Friday's ultrasound. That's definitely bigger than average... but still not considered "dangerously large." The radiologist also told me that the most recent scans showed that I have more amniotic fluid than average, which is what is making me look so huge. This was the first time that my fluid was at a higher level, so they'll just keep an eye on it. My belly is definitely at a point where people are saying "are you sure it's not twins" - I measured 44 cm on Friday, and I should have been around 35 cm. So yeah, big belly, big baby, extra fluid. FUN!

Aside from her enormous size (which is technically big enough to fit in some the newborn clothes we have... and she still has 5 1/2 more weeks of gestation), the baby is doing well. Her heartrate is good, she's moving a lot (especially when showtunes are playing - HOORAY!) and the doctor is overall happy with her progress. So we're just staying the course for now.

We are going to our first childbirth class on Tuesday. We will not likely make all 5 classes (my due date is before the last class) but the instructor told me that if we can make just 1 or 2 we should be fine. It will also be good because it's on the same floor as labor & delivery at Boston Medical Center, so we'll get used to going there.

On the homefront - Shaun finished painting the baby's room, and we put together the crib and have her clothes ready to go in her dresser. We got the glider/rocker from my parents for my birthday, so that is now set up in her room. Jenn is working on curtains & a blanket in the Mary Poppins theme, and my sister made the most awesome canvases with my selected Mary Poppins quotes & phrases. They are, as Ms. Poppins would say, practically perfect in every way. I still need to figure out where to hang them, but that should be easy. We just need to get some more stuff out of that room and we'll be good to go soon. Shaun also finished painting our living room, and has made good progress in our "middle room" (dining room/office/room-of-all-trades). So we're getting close!

The most recent ultrasound pics are below. She continues to be Shaun's doppelganger. I told our friend Rich last weekend that she looked like Shaun, and he asked what I meant by that. My response? "It's exactly his face." I showed him some of the older pictures, and he definitely agreed.

In 2 weeks I have my strep B test and the non stress test, where they'll make sure the baby is ready to undergo labor. I'm sure she'll do great. I wish they had a test to make sure her mother is ready, too!

Making progress!

We are accumulating more & more stuff... lots of clothes from this baby's first cousins, Eden and Peyton (who are also summer babies) and tons of clothes, blankets, etc.  from the baby's second cousins (once removed) Charlotte & Isabelle... plus all of the awesome gifts from the shower at my parents'. Now that Shaun's done with school (finally!) we are starting to get things moved out of the spare room and officially turn it into the baby's room. For paint, we picked a very pale blue. Here's a picture of Shaun hard at work with the paint job last night:



There of course is much work to be done, but with less than 8 weeks till the due date we no longer feel like we have all the time in the world to get ready.

This weekend, I had my first two random women stop me (one at Home Depot, one at Whole Foods) to ask me when I'm due. When I replied "late July" the response from both was "Wow, you look like you're ready to pop!" "I thought you'd say next week, not 2 months from now!" Way to make me feel good, huh?

Baby is squirming around as always. I am still subjected to the random Hillary Clinton cankle (always on my right side - as per Dr. Harrison, it's because my uterus is tilted to the right, plus the baby likes to hang out on the right side anyway, hence compressed vena cava). Last week at my appointment I got to tour the Labor & Delivery facilities at Boston Medical Center which was helpful because I just wanted to have an idea in my head of what it would all look like.

Otherwise, we're just trucking along- hoping to get some furniture moved around this week so we're better prepared for baby arrival. This all seemed so far off when I took that pregnancy test back in November. Suddenly, it's June and we're having a baby next month!

Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now

31 weeks today! I have to say that the time has really flown so far. I can't believe that I'm at the point in my Pregnancy Day By Day book where 3/4 of the pages have been read and I'm using the back flap to save my page.

All signs point to this being a big baby. My pregnancy book said that the average weight for a baby at 31 weeks is 2.5 lbs. Well.... at Friday's ultrasound (I was 30 weeks, 3 days) this baby measured 3 lbs 10 oz! The radiologist said that it's not at a point where they are worried... she's just a big baby. The fact that the baby is big helps to counteract the "are you sure you're not having twins?" questions... a little bit.

The best ultrasound pictures this week were the close up 3-D pictures of her face. She looks JUST LIKE SHAUN. And when you tell Shaun that, he just glows. It makes me happy. You decide:



We left our ultrasound appointment on Friday and headed straight to the Garden State, where my parents were hosting a baby shower for us at their house in Egg Harbor Township. It was so much fun - especially to see a lot of people that we hadn't seen since our wedding. I really have a great family, and I'm extra lucky that my parents have a wonderful set of close friends that I have known all (or most) of my life who are like extra family to me. I love that my godparents and my confirmation sponsor are still so close. Any event at my parents' is always a fun mix of the Chebras, the Mah Jongg ladies and the Wynnewood friends... and it's great to add my closest friends (the ones who could be there, at least) to the mix. I love knowing that all of these people are going to be part of this baby's life. She's a lucky kid. We got some great things, too: so many sweet little  clothes (that I hope she's tiny enough to get use of!), lots of books and lots of practical things that baby needs. Her arrival definitely seems more real, now.... and now we need to get to work on making room for all of her things in our apartment.

A mover & a shaker

So I'm really going to miss feeling this baby move all the time in my belly. It's such a cool feeling. It's reassuring, sometimes it tickles... but most of all it makes me wonder what she's doing in there. It must be pretty boring. Is she saying hello to me?  Is she trying to dance along to music? I definitely notice that she always does a spin when I eat something cold - a future ice cream lover for sure.

At my last appointment, Dr. Harrison told me that based on measurements, the baby is likely to be closer to 9 lbs than to 8. That's a big baby. But he said that she's growing well so just keep doing what I'm doing.

Next ultrasound is Friday, then we hit the road down to NJ for our baby shower at my parents' house. And we're just about at 30 weeks officially. How the time has flown!

I must say that I like being pregnant. I feel good. I get a little more tired than usual, and I don't enjoy how difficult it is to paint my toenails or get up off the floor or climb stairs... but overall, I think pregnancy agrees with me.

If only we could agree on a name..... 

Chinese Cabbage

And we continue with baby - vegetable equivalancies which mean nothing to me. What the heck is a chinese cabbage? My dear friend Jeff googled a picture for me - he figures that the baby now looks like this:

At my last ultrasound they estimated her weight at 2 lbs, and according to today's email she is about 14 1/2 inches long. And boy oh boy is she a mover.

My mom & dad came up to visit this weekend with tons of baby stuff- including the dresser I used when I was a baby (and was subsequently used by my brother & sister). My sister passed along a lot of great stuff for us, too. It's starting to feel more real, especially now that the baby is kind of on a schedule and I can tell when she's awake and moving. (Note to baby: 3 a.m. is not a good time to be awake and moving.)

I haven't gone crazy shopping for this baby - mostly because I know that we'll be getting lots of hand-me-downs. In general I tend not to like baby clothes that say things like "Little Cutie," etc.... but I do like things that say things that mean something to me. I am trying to track down the little onesie they sold at Walt Disney World that says "You can't spell Princess without ESPN." I also found a onesie online that says "Mommy's Little Understudy" - perfect since she spent most of her gestational time in rehearsals/performances of Ragtime. But honestly? I know she will probably spit up/poop all over anything we put on her, so I'm not going to get too picky.

So I'm getting bigger, she is getting bigger & kicking the day away..... things are looking good so far. We're officially at 28 weeks - 12 to go!

How to make a Mary Poppins nursery.

Part of my excitement when I found out this baby was a girl was that I can FINALLY make use of the Mary Poppins items I have been collecting through the years. I really have way more than any adult person should - including decorative plates, dolls, a lunchbox & thermos, the Mary Poppins game.... obviously all of it won't go in the baby's room, but it's there if she wants it. I still get excited when I envision the carpet bag and parrot umbrella sitting in the corner, as though the perfect nanny just stopped in as the wind changed.

The challenge of course is that any pre-designed baby nursery set obviously doesn't feature Mary Poppins. And I am certainly not the creative one among my friends - but I do have a little bit of a vision for what I want. Parcheesy is going to turn the Mary Poppins flat sheet that I won on eBay in 2000 into curtains, and I picked crib bedding that is blue striped & polka-dotted, as if to look like the Banks children's room. I was also SO excited to find (and win!) this on eBay:

Perfect for a Jolly Holiday!

I am also envisioning multiple wall plaques around the room, each featuring an important phrase from the movie: "Feed the Birds" "A Spoonful of Sugar helps the Medicine Go Down" "Have Cheery Disposition" "Play Games, all Sorts" and of course "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." This may challenge my creativity a bit... but I feel like I can do it.

I also have my Poppins movie posters and showcards... but I don't know if they will fit in. Any other suggestions to make the Mary Poppins room complete?

English Hothouse Cucumber

So at 26 weeks, the official baby length is "about the size of an English Hothouse Cucumber." How many people can actually ascertain what that means? My guess is not very many. I think that as the baby gets bigger, there are fewer and fewer vegetables to compare to so they are getting more and more obscure.

"Ragtime" closed on Saturday. It got great reviews and I got to meet so many awesome people.... but boy is it nice to have my evenings back. Shaun and I got to go out for dinner tonight, and on Monday we even started moving some furniture around to make room for baby. We're still nowhere near ready... but we'll get there.

At this morning's ultrasound, Baby M was asleep for the beginning. And I don't think she appreciated the ultrasound tech pushing around to get her to wake up, as you can see in the 4-D photos she is hiding behind the placenta, with her hand covering her face as if to say "LEAVE ME ALONE!" It seems that she has her hand over her face a lot.

Neither Shaun nor I are morning people, and neither of us appreciate being woken up. It seems that this is in fact an inherited trait.

Maybe because she felt bad for waking up the baby, the tech (Maria) gave me 12 pictures today instead of the usual 3 or 4. Some of them are hard to determine what exactly we're looking at... I particularly like the ones where you can really see her face. Or, the part of her face that isn't obscured by the placenta. She apparently is a cuddler, for she was cuddled up to the placenta the whole time.

Try to see what you can from today's pics: