Two weeks ago, when Noah had had a stuffy nose and a cough and an occasional fever for 14 days straight, I took him to the doctor.
His pediatrician, whom I absolutely adore, looked him over, listened to his chest, checked in his ears -- the usual.
The verdict: "Well, his ears look fine, and his chest sounds OK, so I'm hopeful that he won't need an antibiotic to go over this."
Finish reading 'Day 28' »About a week ago, Noah and I had our first discipline-esque run-in.
The day before the run-in, I had found him on the floor in our living room, home phone in hand, gurgling gleefully as all the buttons lit up and a woman's voice said in a loud monotone: "If you'd like to make a call ..."
So when I plunked him down on the floor the following day, I was prepared: I propped a pillow up in front of the phone, thinking he'd never remember it was there.
Sometimes my naivete annoys even me.
So Noah's finally getting the waving bye-bye thing. Today, as I dropped him off at the sitter's, he actually smiled and waved bye-bye to me.
The part I find funny is that he's not yet sure which things are appropriate to wave bye-bye to.
Finish reading 'Hello to bye-bye' »Here are those enormous, shiny new teeth Mr. Noah just got:
And I thought I'd miss the gummy grin. *smile*
Noah has started giving kisses.
I was regaled with my first one Sunday afternoon as he and I were lying on the floor, playing. He was on his tummy, and I was on my back with my face under his.
And suddenly, he grabbed a fistful of my hair in one hand, my chin in the other, and planted one on me.
It was slobbery. Open-mouthed. Accented with little scrapes of new baby teeth. Accompanied by a funny baby humming noise.
It was fabulous. I couldn't have loved it more.
Though he still sleeps more hours a day than any parent has a right to hope for, our baby Noah is entering the stage where he wants to practice his new tricks day and night.
One recent middle of the night (no, I don't know for sure when it was; all I know is that it was dark and I had been all snuggled into my bed, actually getting some REM sleep), the little chunk started fussing and couldn't seem to get himself calmed down.
So I got up, stumbled down the stairs and expertly made a bottle with my eyes closed.
Finish reading 'Armed and dangerous' »And, by the way, Noah cut both his bottom front teeth yesterday!
And I loved his gummy grin so much ...
I've finally got a ton of new pictures of Noah to share! Many thanks to my niece Gina (who you'll see in one of the pics) for sending these to me.
Finish reading 'Cutie pie #1' »One day last week, I plopped Noah down onto a blanket that I had spread out on the living room floor. I plunked some toys down in front of his face, then darted upstairs with Sam to get her dressed.
When we came down less than 5 minutes later, we could hear him babbling and cooing, but we couldn't see him from the stairwell.
He had managed to roll himself about 10 feet in that time. Almost the whole way into the kitchen. Which would not have been comfortable.
Finish reading 'And, he's off!' »Noah had his 6-month-old checkup yesterday, and he passed with flying colors.
I, however, failed.
OK, I didn't fail. I just embarrassed myself a little.
OK, a lot.
Finish reading 'No! Not in front of the doctor!' »I discovered about a week and a half ago how to make Noah belly-laugh.
While I was changing his diaper, I tickled him along his ribs, and he smiled and giggled a little. So I tried again, and he smiled and giggled some more.
And then, about two days later, I was changing his diaper (clearly it's something I do a lot of lately) and singing "You Are My Sunshine" to him, and he was smiling and giggling a little at that. So I tickled him while I sang.
And he went crazy.
He cracked up. He laughed so hard I had to stop tickling and singing every few seconds so he could breathe. His whole little belly jiggled, and his little face turned bright red from the laughing.
I've tried it a bunch of times since then (no way I could let that go, uh-uh), and I get the same results. He can barely contain himself.
I can't explain it. But I'm enjoying it.
Anything unusual that your kids find funny?
Need a smile today? Click here to see a picture of Noah that Sam recently took with my cell phone.
Finish reading 'This cracks me up' »When Sam was a baby, I knew how old she was down to the week and the day. As in, "She's 13 weeks and 4 days old."
And I knew every milestone or skill she was supposed to have hit by that week, which ones she was lagging on and which ones made her "advanced" for her age.
With Noah? Yeah, not so much.
Finish reading 'Sure, I'm paying attention' »
Here's a new pic of my baby. It has only recently occurred to me that he won't be a helpless baby for much longer -- he's going to be sitting up and crawling and getting into everything in just a couple of months.
Not sure how I forgot that part. Think I was having too much fun just kissing him and cuddling him.
Even though my yesterday ended at 2 a.m. and my today started at 5:45 a.m., it's still been a good day.
That's because this morning, little Mr. Noah, in an unprecedented string of babbling, blurted out "mama" AND "dada."
I know, he doesn't know yet that those sounds together have special meaning for us. But it was still darn exciting.
Noah figured out today how to maneuver those strange things on the ends of his arms to touch stuff.
He's been staring intently at things for a couple of weeks now, and he's occasionally batted at stuff with the backs of his hands.
But today, I held a stuffed lion up in front of him (his name is Bobby Lion, by the way -- my husband's little twist on Sam's ever-present Baby Lion), and he put his hands straight out and grabbed onto the fuzzy face.
First try. No hesitation. Those hands hit exactly where he wanted them to go.
It made me look at him in a new light. He's not my teeny, tiny infant anymore. He's in the "baby" stage now.
This means I need to do a few things:
1. Get my long hair cut to keep it from being yanked out of my head
2. Make sure all possible choking hazards are well out of his reach
3. Prepare myself for the oh-so-fun game of "Pick Up Everything I Drop At Least 50 Times"
I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my baby Noah is so darn easy, it's almost creepy.
I mean, he's so easy-going that I'm starting to feel mega-guilty here.
Finish reading 'It's so easy' »To give you the full experience with this post, I should really snap a picture of myself and put it up here. But I think I still have an iota of vanity left, so I voted that idea down.
Since Tuesday morning (this is Thursday, right? I keep thinking it's Friday, but I guess it's not yet, even though it feels like it), I've had a grand total of eight and a half hours of sleep.
For those of you who are also sleep-deprived, I'll do the division for you: That's about four hours each day.
Finish reading 'Uh, hi, I think' »Noah had his surgery last Monday, March 24. They had to do what they held out as the worst-case scenario: two small incisions to insert a camera to look around, then one long incision to actually get at what they were there for.
And they had to take out more than they were expecting: His cyst was bigger than they had thought, and it was attached right where his small intestine meets his large intestine (which they said was the least likely and worst possible spot). Then, they discovered an outpouching on his small intestine called a diverticulum -- which they said only 2 percent of the population develops genetically -- and that happened to be attached to his appendix, so they took that out, too.
So basically, they were just ripping stuff left and right out of my baby's belly.
Finish reading 'Thank goodness it's over' »Sorry I haven't had a chance before now to update you on how Noah's surgery went!
Everything went great, and he's home and doing fabulously well. They found some other things while they were poking around in there, so he had more things taken from his little belly than we expected, but it all turned out OK.
I'll give you the full story in the next day or so.
In the meantime, make an extra effort to hug and kiss your kids today. I just spent four days on a hospital ward with kids between the ages of 3 and 6 who have cancer, and it made me appreciate how lucky I am to have healthy kids.
Here's a new round of pictures from my niece-in-law Gina, who -- bless her -- stayed with us during her spring break from college.
Thanks again, Gina, for staying, and for the pictures!
Awwww, look at that face!
There's that smile!
Here's Sam, being a good big sister. I can't believe she still likes him.
Check out Daddy and Noah -- they have the exact same expression, don't they? (And please ignore the toilet paper sitting on my kitchen table behind them ...)
And this, folks, is my Crazy Samantha in her natural state ...
USA Today had a great article about the reality of "Momnesia." Click here to read the story.
YAY! It's so nice to know that my memory lapses are not because I'm getting older, which is totally what I attributed it to.
Of course, I don't think I can blame it all on Momnesia. Yesterday, I lost two pieces of paper for almost 20 minutes -- and of course I found them on my desk, in a spot where I had looked at least five times. *sigh*
Got a great momnesia story to share?
So I woke up with the flu Wednesday morning.
Fever. Aches all over. Sweating, followed by chills. Stomach cramps. It was oh so pleasant.
And I had to take Mr. Noah to an appointment with a pediatric surgeon. I found out about the appointment sort of by accident -- I got a letter in the mail reminding me of an appointment I never made and didn't know my doctor had made -- but after talking it through with Noah's pediatrician, I understood why we needed to go.
Noah has a cyst attached to his intestines. They first saw it during my 20-week ultrasound, and at that point the conjectures about what it was ran wild. Follow-up ultrasounds determined that it wasn't growing and that it wasn't an extra bladder (which was the first guess), so we settled into the let's-wait-and-check-this-thing-out-better-once-he's-born philosophy.
Finish reading 'Just a little stress' »For almost seven straight weeks, I took care of a really cute sack of potatoes.
The sack slept a lot. It ate pretty regularly. It burped. It got sweet little hiccups at least two or three times a day. It dirtied its diapers. It looked adorable in the little blue and green outfits we put on it. It fussed and cried some when it needed assistance.
But really, I got nothing back. My sole reward for doing good work was silence -- the sound of a contented sack sleeping or looking at fascinating objects.
And then, it smiled.
Finish reading 'Finally, feedback!' »Today my baby screamed so hard that his whole face was bright red, tears rolled down his chubby cheeks into his ears and he could be consoled for only about a minute at a time before he started crying again.
And I walked out the door and went to work.
Finish reading 'Score 3 for the guilt' »I was just sitting at my desk proofreading pages for the Monday paper, and out of nowhere I suddenly smelled Noah's sweet baby scent.
It was that no-sweat-but-a-touch-of-formula-dried-in-his-neck-all-topped-off-with-baby-lotion smell, and my eyes teared up.
I'm four days into my first week back. I've seen him less each day this week; today, it was a total of about an hour and 10 minutes. And that includes the few minutes I spent each of the three times I snuck into his room and kissed his baby head while he slept.
It's at times like this I wonder if I'm doing the right thing.
At the age of 4, Sam has mastered the art of the guilt trip.
As I tried to leave for work Tuesday, my first day back, Sam clutched my leg and begged, "Please, Mommy, don't go to work! Please, PLEASE don't go to work!"
The only way I could get her to stop? By threatening to put her in the time-out chair. How's that for horrendous?
Finish reading 'Is guilt hereditary?' »It's 11:45 p.m. right now. It's been 9.5 hours since I last saw my baby.
That's more than twice as long as I've ever been away from him in his whole life.
What's he doing? Is he sleeping? Is he keeping Daddy awake for some reason? Is he hungry? Cold? Warm? In need of a diaper change? Smiling?
I miss his little baby smell and the feel of the soft hair on his little head.
I swear I'm happy to be back at work, but I'm just having a rough time here toward the end of my first long night.
*Sigh*
Here are two shots my friend Bil just took this past Friday. More are on the way, I promise!
Peek a boo!
I know, I know, you've all been dying to see pictures of the baby beyond his hospital shot.
Well, don't say I never gave you anything.
Here are a bunch of shots that my niece Gina took during the week she stayed with us (thank you, Gina, for staying and for sharing these pics!):
Obviously, this is Sam and Noah. You'll soon get to read about how Sam's taking to being a big sister.
Awwwwww ... he's so gonna hate me for this when he's 14 ...
This little blue outfit is one of my favorites on him!
And that's just funny. I love it!
Note: If you haven't read "Labor, Part I" and "Labor, Part II," see below.
I didn't get to hold Sam for a few hours after she was born because she had some trouble breathing and keeping her heart rate up, so she was taken to an ominous-sounding place called the transitional nursery. By the time I finally got to hold her, she had had a bath and was all warm and fuzzy and beautiful.
Noah's breathing and heart rate were just fine. He got the once-over, Daddy got to cut his cord, and then they handed him to me all swaddled up, with goop still stuck in his neck and in his ears and in the folds of his eyelids. He was gorgeous.
My mom, Damon and I got about 45 minutes with him before they came to take him for his first bath and stuff. At this point, it was 3:15 a.m., and Damon and I decided he should go home and get some sleep so that he would be there for Sam on Christmas morning.
Thank God my mom stayed.
Finish reading 'Labor, Part III' »Note: If you haven't read "Labor, Part I," see below.
So we got to the hospital between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m., and Damon tossed me into a wheelchair in the entryway. The hospital doors are locked overnight, so he had to use the security phone to have them let us in -- while I'm sitting in the wheelchair having just about the worst contraction yet.
We got in, got to the right floor and Damon darted downstairs to go park the car. The very sweet nurse at the desk, who clearly couldn't see that I was about the drop this baby on the floor, sent me to the bathroom to pee in a cup. I almost said, "Are you kidding me?" when she told me this, but -- surprise, surprise, considering I was in labor -- I was having a contraction when she sprang this brilliant idea on me and I couldn't speak.
When I finally got out of the bathroom and back to the nurses' station, I managed to wheeze out, "I'm having so much pressure with each contraction. I really feel like I need to push."
This woke up my sweet little oblivious nurse, who swept me into the exam room and got a doctor in within two minutes. For those of you to whom this tally will mean something, here's where I measured:
8 cm, 90 percent effaced, zero station
Finish reading 'Labor, Part II' »All right, cuz you're all dying to know how it went -- and cuz I'm still enjoying telling this story -- here's the lowdown on how Mr. Noah came into the world.
On Christmas Eve, I had a checkup at 11:30 a.m. The doctor, who was not my usual OB, said everything looked fine, although he thought the baby was pretty big, and he suggested we schedule me to be induced. He asked me what I thought about that.
You can imagine my response.
He called over the hospital to see if they could take me that afternoon, but they were all full, he said. So he scheduled me for Wednesday, Dec. 26, at 7 a.m. (which would have given Noah the same birthday as his Nana, who was turning 75, and one of his cousins, who was turning 21).
So I waddled out of there, drove home, rested for a bit and then went to the grocery store with my mother-in-law, who had come out to stay with us. While we were there, I started getting some pretty strong contractions. They weren't regular at all and, let's face it, I'd already had so many Braxton Hicks fake-out contractions that I didn't think twice about these.
Finish reading 'Labor, Part I' »After all my moaning and groaning about how I couldn't take it anymore, it turns out my mom is right -- no woman has ever been pregnant forever!
So here are the details about our little Mr. Noah Damon Gulli!
I'll give you all the painful and hilarious details as soon as I can. In the meantime, I've got a hungry, grumpy baby to go feed ...
Hi all, it's Joan from Only in York County, guest-posting with some big news:
Amy had her baby! Noah Damon was born at 2:15 a.m. Christmas Day, weighing 7 pounds, 12 ounces.
Got any good wishes for Amy, Noah, Damon and Sam? Leave them as comments and I'll pass them along!! I'm also going to visit next week, along with Kara, our business editor, so we'll try to get some photos posted, too.
Let me answer some of the questions I get asked about 10 times a day right now:
Haven't you had that baby yet? Nope. See this giant round thing in front of me? That's the baby, still inside me.
Are you still hanging around? Yup, still hanging around. I'm like a homeless puppy with an obvious broken leg who just won't go away and stop trying to elicit your sympathy.
Finish reading 'In case you're wondering ...' »The hospital suitcase is packed.
The baby's room is ready.
The baby clothes are washed, dried and folded in the armoire.
The diaper supplies are in place, both upstairs in his room and downstairs beneath the bassinet in the living room.
All feeding supplies are in place, though they still need a run through the dishwasher to sterlize them.
I'm at 37 weeks and 6 days. My left hip is so sore (and my abdominal muscles so out of commission) that I actually couldn't get myself off the couch last night; my husband had to pull me up.
It's time now, right? I've got all my major stuff done. The baby's been full-term for almost two weeks. I've been getting plenty of Braxton-Hicks.
So what's he waiting for?
I tried talking to Noah last night and explaining to him that if he really wants to stretch out his legs and turn himself around -- which he tries to do at least three times a day night, much to my pained dismay -- then he needs to come out now. I don't care how much he asks and just tries to keep doing it anyway inside me -- the answer is no. You want more space to wiggle around, buddy, you gotta come out. I'm not growing anymore.
My stern speech didn't work. It just gave him the hiccups.
I can't concentrate on anything right now. I just want to sit in the nursery and rearrange stuff and play with baby toys and rub soft baby clothes against my face and sniff the teeny travel bottles of baby lotion.
Work? Oh, wait, I'm still supposed to show up for that? Crap.
Grocery shopping? Yeah, right -- do you know how big that store is? And do you know I can make it to about aisle 4 before I've gotta sit down?
Pay bills? That would require me to stop looking at the Babycenter Web site and getting last-minute labor tips.
Mostly, I just want to hold him. I want to see him. I want to meet our little boy. I want to see Sam's face when she gets to meet him.
How did you survive the last few weeks of your pregnancies?
My body has been completely overtaken.
Let's start at the top and do an inventory, shall we?
Head
Remember the post that was a letter to my brain? I neglected to mention the part where it took me a week just to remember to post that note. Really. A whole freakin' week. To remember. To post an entry about not being able to remember stuff. And I'm looking back on those few weeks as still in the "good time" of my brain function.
So we went to our childbirth refresher class a couple of days ago. The best part for me: The white guy on the one video from the 1970s who had an afro that stood out from his head at least 8 inches and either a bushy mustache or a medium-sized brown squirrel parked on his upper lip.
Other than that, I'm trying to block it out.
Basically, it was the job of this very nice woman who's been a nurse since 1974 to remind me of all the painful and embarassing stuff I actively tried to forget in the first few weeks after I had Sam.
Finish reading 'Oh, I feel refreshed' »1. What the inside of my belly button looks like. I can see now why I blocked that memory out.
2. Which parts of me I haven't seen in quite some time because of my belly. Trust me, it ain't just my feet.
3. The hip pain that wakes you up after you've slept on one side for, oh, a whole hour. Of course, by then I've gotta pee again, so that makes getting out of bed and walking exponentially more difficult.
4. The unquenchable thirst that starts around 28-29 weeks. I can drink a 16.9-fluid-ounce bottle of water in under 15 seconds flat -- and by then I'm halfway between my desk and the water fountain where I just filled up, which creates the "do I really want to walk the whole way back to the water fountain again if I'm this close to my desk" dilemma.
5. The frustration of trying to get the baby to kick when someone else lays a hand on my belly. I think my husband has felt little Mr. Noah move exactly twice so far, while I have felt him move roughly 8,675,432 times -- mostly when I'm either a) trying to sleep, or b) in a business meeting where people will think it's odd to see an elbow or knee shape suddenly poke out of my midsection.
Dear brain,
How are you? I apologize for contacting you in this form, but I feel like we really aren't connected the way we used to be. And besides, unless I write this down, I don't think you'll remember it.
Which brings me to my point. What the heck's going on up there? Yes, you and I are very busy right now, but we've always been so great at multitasking together. Now, it seems like you can't concentrate on one task, much less help me get through two or three simultaneously.
And your ability to store information for me to retrieve later? I've gotta say, the service in this area has been quite poor. I'm screwing up words, I'm forgetting appointments, I've misplaced my cell phone three times in the last 10 days.
Finish reading 'Dear brain,' »So yeah, we've got tons of video of Sam during her first two years of life.
We've got shots on a digital camera that just won't connect to our computer anymore, we've got most of her second and third years of life documented with pictures on my husband's cell phone, and I've got at least three rolls of film that I've never gotten developed.
(Can I just mention here, by the way, how sad it is that, when we filmed me during my "pregnancy diary" phase, every one involves me holding up our two cats and cooing over them and smooching them; and then, once Sam's born, we're actually tossing them out of the shot or saying flatly, "Yup, and there's Jack. OK, back to Sam ...")
But we've got one thing for Mr. Noah here that we didn't get with Sam: video of him before he's even born.
Finish reading 'Speaking of filming our kids' »I spent a few hours Friday watching home videos of me when I was pregnant with Sam and then the first two years of Sam's life.
My husband had watched it the night before and called me at work to say, "You've gotta watch this. It'll make you cry, seeing how little and sweet she is."
Yup, made me cry. For an entirely different reason.
Finish reading 'Changed my mind, thanks' »After some, but not much, debate, I think Damon and I have settled on a name for our little guy.
Ready?
Noah Damon Gulli
Noah means "rest" or "comfort," according to Babycenter.com. I think it means "revered" according to the baby name book we've got at home.
It's what we would have probably named Miss Sammy if she had been a boy.
And speaking of Miss Sammy, we let her pick the middle name. My husband asked her if she liked Noah Damon or Noah Sebastian better (Sebastian is my husband's middle name), and she picked Noah Damon.
What do you all think? Thumbs up or thumbs down? 'Cuz if everybody we talk to hates it, well, we'd definitely have to reconsider.
Please, please, please do not all tell me you were rooting for Owowo or Africa. =)
I forgot how all-consuming this being pregnant thing is.
My back aches. My belly aches. I'm normally a stomach sleeper, and I've had to add three pillows -- including a body pillow -- to the bed just to get even close to comfortable. Once I'm comfortable, I have to get up and go pee again.
Except I'm not supposed to be on my feet too much or too often because I've had trouble with too many contractions, so I have to keep doing math in my head (which is the equivalent of rocket science to me) to see when the last time is I got up and whether I may try again.
And being professional at work? Forget it. I was in a meeting the other day with the editor, the managing editor and the metro editor, and, just for fun, my little Hercules decided to punch me in the bladder. Go ahead: Try not to yell when that happens. And try not to run out of the room and head straight for the bathroom.
Finish reading 'Oh, Owowo' »So I've got some GREAT news: our second ultrasound, done this week with the high-risk docs at Hershey Med Center, found that there's nothing wrong with our little guy's brain or heart.
WOO-HOO!!!
Sorry, I'm better now. =)
He does have two cysts in his abdomen, but for now they're going to monitor them with frequent ultrasounds. We likely won't know for sure what they are until he's born, when they can do an ultrasound on his abdomen through just his skin, not through mine and his.
One of the coolest things we got from the second ultrasound was a video of our little dude yawning. It looks a little like his mouth is almost the size of his head, but it's still amazing and sweet to watch. Check it out here:
Finish reading 'Already the protector' »
BOY!!!!!!!!!!
My husband actually jumped up out of his chair and threw his arms up when she told us (and make a sort of "yeeee-heh-heh-es!" noise simultaneously). Sam's also very excited because she'd been saying she wanted a little brother.
So I'm officially taking boy name suggestions now. My vote is for Noah, which is what I wanted to name Sammy if she had been a boy. Seems my hubby's not sold on that anymore, however, so let the name game begin!
In the I-knew-the-other-shoe-would-drop-during-this-ultrasound category, we also found out that this handsome little guy has at least one problem and could have a collection of them that might indicate something serious could be wrong.
I'll spare you the details -- and the large medical words I had to learn on the fly yesterday when I was running on two hours of sleep and frazzled nerves anyway -- and tell you that I now count in the high-risk category for this pregnancy. I'm being transferred to the three high-risk docs in the maternal/fetal medicine department at Hershey Medical Center (I was going there anyway; I was just seeing an OB/GYN at a branch clinic).
Anybody had a high-risk pregnancy? How did you deal with the stress and the worry? Did you think at times that it would have been better not knowing all the scary possibilities?
Today's my mid-pregnancy ultrasound, so wish me luck!
And keep your fingers crossed that this little one doesn't have his (or her) legs crossed -- because we're going to find out if it's a boy or girl this time!
Here's one of my favorite mommy-/pregnancy-related jokes:
A pregnant woman was getting out of the shower one day when her 4-year-old looked up at her and saw her naked.
"Mommy, you look fat," he said.
"That's not nice," the woman replied. "And remember, we talked about how there's a baby growing in Mommy's tummy, and that's what's making my belly so big."
The boy waited a second, then asked, "Yeah, but what's growing in your butt?"
It's time for a confession that's perhaps just a little too much information.
I feel fat.
No, you haven't clicked the wrong link and gotten to the Weighing In blog (www.yorkblog.com/weigh), done by my friend Michele Canty. (If you haven't stopped in to check that one out, do. It's totally worth your time).
But I do feel fat. I'm in that awkward early-fourth-month stage, where I have a belly but it's not enough for people to be able to definitely tell it's a pregnant belly and not just an I-ate-too-much-for-lunch-again belly. And thanks to my overwhelming nerves during the first several weeks of the first trimester, I gained 10 pounds in, like, three weeks.
So this means there's just more of me to love, right? Screw that.
I haven't truly been happy with my weight since probably my freshman or sophomore year of college. I was OK with what I weighed around the time I got married, which was in 2001. When I got pregnant with Sam in 2002, I was a little less OK with my weight, but it wasn't as though I was pushing the too-big-for-my-height mark.
Now? Forget it.
I've basically been yo-yoing around with 10 or 15 pounds since I had Sam. Add in the tough spells I went through in dealing with the two babies we lost, and I'd have to say it's been waaaaaay less than pleasant trying to lose weight and keep it off.
I think I'll be all right once I really start getting a clear-cut pregnant belly, but for now, this sweet "thickening of my middle" phase is really making me cranky.
How did you deal with weight gain/loss during and after your pregnancies? Did you ever get back to your prepregnancy weight?
So Sam is, to say the least, a little excited about the baby in my tummy.
I wasn't going to tell her at first, but I took her along to my first OB checkup, figuring all the talk would be over her head -- which it was, until a nurse stopped us on our way out and asked Sam, "So are you happy about the baby growing in Mommy's tummy?"
Well, surprise spoiled there.
Actually, Sam's been great. She asks me almost every day, "How's your baby feeling, Mommy?" And she's being extra careful not to bump my belly when we're playing.
My favorite thing she does, though, is "snuggle the baby." She lays down and puts her ear against my abdomen, facing me. After a minute, she'll say, "I hear the baby kicking you, Mommy!"
Yesterday, she was waving a stuffed animal over my belly, and when I finally asked her what she was doing, she said, "The baby's playing with the bunny. She likes it a lot." (We don't know yet whether it's a he or a she, by the way).
Just cute.
By the way, Sam's suggestions for names so far? Africa (I'm still trying to figure out where she got that one) and Natalie.
What does Natalie mean? "Born on Christmas," according to www.babycenter.com. And what's my due date again? Dec. 27.
What suggestions do you have on how I can get Sam ready for the new baby?
Miss Sammy is going to be a big sister!
I am VERY excited to tell you all that I'm about 12 weeks' pregnant. My due date is Dec. 27, so we are looking at having a Christmas baby!
Here's a picture of what our little peanut looked like early last week:
The head's on the left, with the body across the bottom and teeny legs and feet on the right.
Here's why I'm so excited to share this news: Between the time I had Sam and this pregnancy, I had two miscarriages. One was in December 2004, and I was about 15 weeks along before I found out the baby had died about two weeks before that. The other was in December 2005, when I was only about 8 or 9 weeks.
So this first trimester has been scary. I've had a few near-complications, too, so it's been that much more stressful. I'm really not going to feel comfortable until I pass that 15-week mark, but I've just been so ecstastic about this baby that I stop myself from talking about him/her.
(And, by the way, this is why I haven't posted much lately. Man, have I been exhausted!)
So what advice do you have for me? How did you handle being pregnant after a miscarriage, or how did you handle being pregnant with a rambunctious little one running around?
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