more vanity

I was bored, so....

Hairs.

Oh hey, blog. I did this yesterday:

No big deal.

New!

This is what I did today:

37 Weeks, 6 Days

Posted without comment.

Picture Perfect

After many months of begging and pleading and demanding and threatening Kyle finally bought me a new camera. I suppose I could have just bought myself a new camera, but somehow I got it in my head that he should buy me one, so... Clearly, we have a camera, or else you wouldn't have all these lovely terrible pictures of me. But it is really bad at taking pictures. At least ones that are any good. Because we bought it to take high speed video. And it does that very well. But that's about all.

Anyway, with the birth of my child imminently approaching, I was starting to get desperate. It's one thing to have blurry bathroom mirror belly photos, but it's another thing entirely to have unclear and unfocused snapshots of MY BABY OH MY GOD. You know.

I demanded a Canon. Kyle bought one. It showed up the other day. I am in love.

Thusly, BFF and I went to the Tulip Festival. When we were there last year we discussed what a perfect place it would be to take maternity photos. And here we are, both pregnant, so...

On the way home we stopped by the outlet mall to visit the Carter's and the Gymboree. Sigh. Today was a lovely day.

Body Talk

Lately I can't get over just how freaking cool the human body is. Specifically the female human body. Specifically specifically MINE. As strange and new as all of the changes of pregnancy are to me, my body makes them so easily and naturally. It is so crazy that this body of mine is all of the sudden bigger and rounder and I can't believe it, but at the same time, I am so comfortable it in.

I have spent a lot of time lately staring at myself in the mirror. Well, I always spend a lot of time staring at myself in the mirror; put a shiny surface near me, I will gaze into it. Always have, always will. But lately this has not been the sort of overly vain navel-gazing that I often partake in. This is pure scientific fascination; it just happens to be with my own form. But really. HOW COOL.  How cool that my body just does this without me having to know what to do.

I'm especially interested in my breasts lately. Besides being small, they've always been, well, immature looking to me.  I had tiny, flat nipples. But lately, holy cow! I'm still not enormous or anything (I upgraded to a B-cup), but they are so much more womanly. My nipples have become larger and more prominent. They look like they mean business. It makes me feel so much more confident about breastfeeding. HOW COOL.

Anyway, me me me, I I I, that is all.

Where the hell did my butt go?

So, I think I'm feeling the second trimester awesomeness now. I don't feel like barfing, but I'm not huge and unwieldy yet. My appetite is back, thank goodness, and most things taste pretty good. I'm finally starting to look sorta kinda maybe pregnant, although I'd be happier if I didn't also sorta kinda maybe look like I have a beer belly. However, I still have to pee all the damn time, or possibly even more often, even though the internet said my bladder should calm down, and I'm still so freaking tired and need like fourteen hours of sleep a night to feel well rested, and that happens pretty much never, so yeah. But still, pretty good.

I also hear (well, read) that I should be able to feel baby move soon, but I haven't quite been able to will that to happen yet. I spend a lot of time concentrating on my abdomen and trying to feel it, but I don't think it works that way. I am trying to be patient, and I think I'm doing as good a job as can be expected, you know, for perhaps the most momentous thing so far, but it's haaaaaaard.

Tuesday brought another prenatal appointment, so now I have met all three of the midwives at my practice. I do have a favorite, but I am happy with them all, which is good, since you don't really get to pick who will be on call when you go into labor. I brought my mother with me to see the birth center, and she was happy. I gained back four of the five and a half pounds I lost, and my uterus is in the right place, blah blah blah normal perfect wonderful. I feel like we should be doing more at these visits, but when you're pretty much complication free there's not much to do. I probably shouldn't complain about that.

 

As of Wednesday we're at seventeen weeks. No pictures of my cute outfit, because I forgot to take pictures until I got home from yoga. However, as cute as outfit was, it was made up entirely of pre-pregnancy clothing, and as such, was only cute when I was standing perfectly still. Once I moved at all everything rode up or fell down or just generally looked awkward and askew and I spent all day readjusting everything and it sucked. I have now acquired a few maternity pieces, but nothing even close to a functional wardrobe, and I really need to get on it. Beyond being impractical and annoying, things are getting downright uncomfortable, and perhaps worse, unflattering, and ugh. Shopping shopping shopping. 

As much as I love shopping, I don't really spend all that much money on clothing. I mean, I do, but not all at once. In general, I buy stuff that has longevity, and I wear my clothes for years, until long past when I should probably get rid of them, so having to buy a lot of stuff all at once, that I can't even wear for very long is super difficult for me. I guess I just have to get over it, though.

We now have our appointment for our next ultrasound, where we'll find out if baby is a he or a she. I've thought about it long and hard,  and I really, truly have no preference, but still I'm really excited to KNOW anything more that we can know about baby. I'm excited for it to stop be an IT. We've been working on names, and I think knowing more about who we're naming is going to make it so much easier to talk about. And I just can't wait to see baby again, because OMG! BABY!

Sixteen

Little Belly!

As of yesterday, we've made it to sixteen weeks. I'm not really counting the days so much anymore; the weeks are all starting to run together. July 13th feels like it's right around the corner, and there's so much to do! One thing I'm not loving about pregnancy is that there is always some decision to panic about. And boy do I panic. Because every decision is also the most important one I've ever had to make. This is MY BABY we're talking about. It's not like buying a new pair of shoes or getting a hair cut, or really anything I've ever had to do before, and the (mostly self-imposed) pressure of the decisions mixed with pregnancy hormones and my already overly neurotic nature is running me ragged. I cry a lot. Kyle plays the good husband and tells me everything will be fine, but honestly, I don't want to hear that everything will be fine unless that statement is accompanied with information proving it to be true.

The other day I was chatting with BFF (she is pregnant too, a couple weeks behind me, but shh, don't tell), and she mentioned that she had registered for her child birth class recently. Wait, what? Already? Oh yes, she says. Her midwife asked her what class she was taking at her 12 week appointment and that apparently got her going on it. What? At  MY 12 week appointment, with that very same midwife, I expressed concern (i.e. freaked out), about not getting things (birth classes, pediatrician picking, etc.) done on time, and she assured me that they would let me know at each appointment what I should be working on. Or not, I guess. So I start looking. The teacher most highly recommended by my birth center... well her class is already full. Shit. In the end we found a class that we are happy with, and we registered this afternoon, but OMG stress! However, I should tell you, that we are taking our birth class from none other than Penny Simkin herself. How awesome is that? I have now moved on to stressing about daycare. Oh, daycare. But my stress surrounding day care is probably more than enough for it's own post.

I'm also starting to feel quite a bit better about the whole maternity fashion thing. (Is it vain to talk about this so often?) I still don't quite look pregnant, unless you're looking from the exact right angle, and my posture is just so, and you knew what I looked like before, etc. etc. And feeling like you look fat instead of pregnant isn't any good. But I've been able to find a few more good pieces here and there and I don't feel like I am wearing the same tee shirt every day, so that is good. I still need to do a lot more work to build a functional wardrobe, but it probably be and ongoing process, especially since I'm sure some of the stuff that fits me now won't anymore later. BFF and I have a date this weekend to visit every maternity store in the Seattle metropolitan area, so that should be good, I think.

In other news, Kyle and I did venture to the local (well, it's really in another city) Babies 'R Us to start our registry. There are only maybe ten things on it as of right now, since we actually have to research car seats and strollers and bottles and what kind of baby grooming kit we want, but I feel better knowing that we've at least started it and that I've exposed Kyle to the sheer masses of stuff that we don't necessarily need, but that is available to make our lives easier (or perhaps more difficult) with a baby. And I'm slowly acquiring information and knowledge about car seats and strollers, so the volume of choices is starting to feel not entirely overwhelming, and I'm beginning to feel relatively confident that we'll actually be able to make a decision we feel confident before the baby turns two.

15/40

Hello, blog! I'm still here. Fifteen weeks and one day pregnant. This experience just gets weirder and weirder I think. I'm pretty sure my body is changing by the day at this point, and it always looks different in the evening than I remember it looking in the morning. Bizarre. My belly is still not cute and round and obviously pregnant looking, but it's changed enough the even Kyle clearly notices the difference, and that's saying a lot, since as far as he is concerned, I've been the same size for the last six years. Definitely not so accurate. But yeah. This is getting real now. No needing to arch the back to emphasize it.

I'm really happy that baby is doing good growing in there, and that I'm finally seeing some obvious changes, but like, fashion-wise, belly is not making me very happy. Yesterday I wore the one stylish maternity shirt that I have out to trivia night with some friends, and instead of looking cute-pregnant, I'm pretty sure I just looked like I was awkward, chubby, and trying to hide it. Blah. And since it's less uterus, and more internal organs pushed out of the way by uterus, it's still kind of squishy and not hard and round and bleh. And the fact that I have approximately four things that I can fit into, most of which are boring as all hell, doesn't really make me feel any better about this.

But otherwise, I'm doing pretty good. I seem to have gotten over the barfing thing (finally!), although I do still sometimes feel queasy, but not in a yakking-is-imminent kind of way. I am still, though, tired all the time. I think maybe more than I had been previously. And my appetite still hasn't 100% returned. I'm trying to make myself eat so that I can gain back the 5.5 pounds I've lost, but eating when you're not hungry or find everything completely unappetizing is not fun, nor does it really promote a healthy attitude towards food. At least now I'm eating a wider variety of things than just bread, but hopefully soon I will like eating again.

I'm also finding that my center of gravity is already shifting, and I'm a bit more tippy than normal. This wouldn't be such a big deal, I don't think, except for that I spend a lot of my time wearing really tall heels or climbing ladders, or both. This morning we were putting up new displays and I almost lost my balance a couple times in the window. I think I'm going to have to start delegating that part of my job. And just being more careful in general, probably. A lot of my work seems to put me in precarious positions, and I really ought to be more mindful of myself.

Stuff!

I went shopping today. For maternity clothes. Wahoo? Found an Old Navy store with a Maternity section, but boy was the selection there dismal. (There are a couple other stores in the area that have Maternity, so I will try my luck there next.) And wow I hate shopping. Which is strange, because I normally love shopping. My mother likes to call me a fashionista, which drives me nuts, but it's kind of true, so this was a weird experience. I still don't really NEED maternity, and I'm not buying pants for as long as I can help it (or at all, if I can manage), but my pre-pregnancy wardrobe is, shall we say body-conscious (aka TIGHT) and therefore 95% of my tops are now too short and awkward and terrible. So I need some interim, sorta-pregnant clothes. The trip wasn't totally a bust. I got two super long camisoles and a couple of plain v-neck tees and a couple of black dresses, which look like they will be able to fit a substantial belly. But the whole lot is black, gray, and white, completely unembellished, and utterly boring. Fine for basics and layering pieces, which is what they are, but I need fun things, too, and I have no idea where to find that. It seems that maternity clothing seems to all be basics. And the whole, everything is too big for my boobs thing seems to be doubly true with maternity clothes. Anything I tried on that seemed like it would be able to fit me when I'm big was gaping ridiculously in the bust and at the arms. So hopefully I fill out at some point. Blah. But I did pretty good, since all of that, plus a t-shirt for hubby cost me under $60 with employee discounts and sales and all that, so I guess I can't be bummed. I think my next stop will be target, and also buying buttloads of stuff online and returning most of it, because it seems like all the interesting pieces and colors are online-only. Boo.

Anyway, it turns out the Old Navy the I went to was across the street from a Babies 'R Us, and I had some extra time so... why not? Actually, Kyle agreed to go with me to one next weekend to freak ourselves out and whatever, but I figured it couldn't hurt for me to get a head start so we're not both completely overwhelmed on that trip. And goodness, overwhelmed I was. I have no clue what I need or want or why I should even care about this or that feature, and holy crap all this shit costs a lot of money. I mean, I guess that is why God invented the internet and everything, but how does everyone else even deal? Or maybe while I was reading every thing I could get my hands on about pregnancy and natural childbirth, all the other girls were researching travel systems and pack 'n plays and diaper genies. I don't know. I guess we'll figure it out.

So we're going to go and freak out and hopefully bring Kyle one step closer to actually realizing that we'll be the proud owners of a real live infant six months from now. And probably start a registry because first great grandchild! On three of four sides! People are already buying me shit! And because I am a materialistic American, and registering is fun and I will not apologize for that.

Sorry for the really lame post.

Two more days...

...of work before vacation. Hallelujah. I also need to get the hell away from work because they are all going to guess my secret because I think I'm for real starting to look pregnant. I can still suck it in and look like a normal human being, but if I relax or slouch at all... there's a tummy. And it's kind of weird how it's clearly a bump and not like, fat. Well, I guess that isn't weird at all, since I am in fact pregnant, and not fat, but you know. I thought I would go through a fat-looking phase before I got to the part where I started to look pregnant, but apparently. not.  I still don't have pictures because camera cable is still MIA, although it supposedly is in transit to us right now. So soon I will have a barrage of photos, since I have been dutifully taking them every week, even if I have no where to put them

I do, however, have this fabulous (and by fabulous I mean crappy and blurry) camera-phone picture of the new haircut I got today!  (I deliberately took this picture extra up-close so there wouldn't be any belly in it for the facebook viewers--sorry!) I love haircuts. I haven't had one since February because my regular stylist went and had a baby and I've been hair-homeless for a while now. My last cut was a cheapie at a hair school and I wasn't completely happy with it, so even though I've been wanting a change since at least this summer, I wasn't really sure where to go. But there was no way I was going to go hang out in Paris with split ends that are visible from a mile away, so I made an appointment at VAIN, and voile! I get so bored with my hair. I've been growing it out since I got married in 2008 (me and BFF decided to do it together--we made it to our goal in September), and it's been driving me crazy, because I like to change it up, well, far more often than that. So hurray. I feel awesome.

So, eleven weeks and everything is awesome. I can't wait to see my family.