celebrate

Notice that the type is all little letters in the title. That's because yesterday was a day for a small celebration at our house. Yesterday the baby turned 24 weeks. That means she's viable! Clearly we are hoping she keeps cooking for quite a while longer, but the fact that she COULD have a good chance of surviving is a wonderful feeling.

I'm feeling movement every day, but I wish A could feel it. So far whenever he's tried, she's stopped squirming the second his hand touches my belly. I guess we need to try right after I drink juice or eat candy or something. :)

There's no other big news right now except the fact that I've totally changed my game plan for the nursery. Rather than blue, grey, and orange, I've changed to yellow with orange, pink, green, and blue accents. It will allow me to play with more fun fabrics and I think will make the room sunnier. The cheerful aspect is important to me since so much of the year here is dreary and gray.

So, that's the news here. I had a flat tire today, but luckily I leave for work at the crack of dawn so AAA was at my house in about 20 minutes to fix it and get me moving. Good thing I woke up A too because for a moment I considered changing it myself. Luckily he reminded me that I was 6 months pregnant and the would be a stupid thing to do. What can I say, I forget some times that I'm not supposed to do EVERYTHING I used to.

Surprising Decision

We visited our second hospital last night. The first visit went really well. In fact, I was surprised how much I liked it. I've had several friends deliver at Hospital 1, but visiting them, I didn't like the rooms as much and it didn't feel as cozy. I'd also heard some things about them being less supportive of skin-to-skin contact after birth, not having as good lactation consultants, and babies being "taken away to the nursery" regardless of mom's wishes. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised to see that the rooms were much nicer than I remembered, the tour guide, a nurse with 30+ years of experience at that hospital in the maternity unit, consistently emphasized the importance of bonding time, and the discussion that the baby can be with you as much or as little as you like. It's true that you have to change rooms a couple times, but the thought of that doesn't bother me too much. The hospital also had lots of nice amenities including kitchenettes in each ward to get food 24 hours a day. They also have meals on demand. It seemed like DH could also be comfortable there. I've since heard that the lactation consultants at this hospital are very good which makes me feel better. I'm nervous about breast feeding and think I will probably need strong support. Finally, the NICU at this hospital is the highest rated in the region.

Hospital 2, where we visited last night, is where I was SURE I wanted to deliver. I went in with a super positive attitude ready to fight DH for my right to deliver here. The tour started with a little presentation by a doula. I swear this didn't color my impression of the facility, but this woman was SO annoying. She just didn't come across as confident, knowledgeable, or as a very good salesperson for the hospital. Luckily though I had already done some research before going. Now this hospital is more known for encouraging/supporting med free childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. It was interesting listening to her say they would support it being "however I wanted" meaning they would give meds and such if I wanted them. Clearly they are not opposed to the reputation they've acquired. We toured the maternity areas next. This hospital is much smaller and all areas (L&D, Recovery, Nursery, Postpartum, NICU) are all on the same floor and connected by a single hallway. The rooms themselves are lovely with hardwood floors and cozy paint. The norm here is for the baby to room in with mom MOST of the time, but they do have a nursery and there was a baby in it last night. So precious. It was a girl with one of those little hospital hats with a bow on it. Anyway, they have some nice amenities, but not as many as Hospital 1. I also think DH could be comfortable here, but I don't think there are AS many options for him. Finally, the NICU is SLIGHTLY lower accredited than Hospital 1, but the facility has a partnership with the local children's hospital for any extreme cases.

So, after the visit, the decision was clear to me. Despite my pre-conceived notions, I just feel that Hospital 1 is the place for us. DH was great and said I really should choose whatever makes me happiest, but I think this is the right decision. I'm sure there will be more surprises as we go through this whole process, but for now, I'm just pleased we have a hospital.

I'm sure some of the things I'm looking at are not actually important, but at this point in my life, I don't know what I really NEED to have a baby, but I do know what I would look for to make MYSELF comfortable so I've decided to make this decision based on what I do know.

Oh Yeah

So yeah, I just found all those images for myself. Not that I don't think you are also awesome dear readers. However, today, I am awesome.

It's exam time here and all of my exams were given on Wednesday morning. As of 2:45 on Thursday afternoon, they are ALL GRADED! That includes statistical analysis, etc.

That's 80 exams in 27 hours people! So yes, I am awesome and I think I should be entitled to live here.



Time for a four day weekend!

It's all in a name

Let me preface this post by saying two things. First, we don't have a name picked out yet. A doesn't want to even get into the discussion really until he is more sure of the sex. Second, even when we do pick a name, we won't be sharing it until the baby is born. Not even with family. We just don't trust people not to share ALL their opinions with us before she is born.

Now on to what I was thinking about. I've still been thinking about names and such and I have a definite front runner for our little girl. I then started thinking about middle names. My cousin sent us The Baby Name Wizard book to help with our name search. It is a cool book that not only has a big section where it lists a bunch of names, but it also groups names by type. So it's kind of like Amazon. "If you like the name X, you might like...."

Using the name I think we should use for our first name, I looked in the categories where it falls for middle name ideas. While several sounded nice together in terms of rhythm and such, I noticed that the character of the name changed drastically based on the middle name. One middle name would make everything feel timeless while another would make it feel like I was a wannabe celebrity naming my kid Apple or something.

Attaching a name to a person, an identity that they will probably have the rest of their life, it such a big responsibility! It's a good thing we have several more months to get it hammered out.

22 weeks

I finally caved and decided to start taking belly pics. BUT! Since I hate to have my picture taken I saw someone online start taking them this way and I decided I like it.



I can still TOTALLY see my feet.

Here is the science picture at 22w. However, I like this 21w picture better.


We had our anatomy scan. Everything looks really good! The baby was being stubborn though so the pictures aren't very good. I'll get a re-scan in a few weeks to get a profile shot, double check the diaphragm and to confirm that it's a GIRL!

DH is still a little nervous about actually making girl plans, but I keep telling him he better jump on the bandwagon or I'm naming this kid without him. :)