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It’s a quiet New Year’s Eve in our home this year, and that’s just what I wanted. Each day I tire easier and easier and by afternoon my energy is almost depleted, so going out, in any fashion tonight is out of the question. We’d considered going to the local fireworks, but after returning home this afternoon, and walking through the cold and wind from the car to the house, we decided to put on our pjs and settle in for the night. There’s a pot of chili cooking on the stove and soon corn bread will be baking in the oven. It’s so very quiet here and we are enjoying being. I can’t imagine a better New Year’s Eve for this particular time in our lives.
A posted her year in review. I am far too scattered of a writer to synthesize a whole year in any coherent manner, so I’ve decided not to try. I will say that 2007 will forever be the year we FINALLY achieved our baby dreams. As long as I live, I will always remember the utter shock I experienced on May 15th, 2007 at 4:30am after receiving our first +hpt. It feels like just yesterday that we were standing speechless in the bathroom, staring at the +hpt. We hugged and kissed, and I think we were mostly in disbelief that it was really happening. My pregnancy defined much of the remainder of 2007.
It’s been an amazing journey. 2008 holds much change for us. The biggest, of course, the birth of Moon, but also a career change for A, a move “back home” to plant roots and to raise our kid(s) near family, and me stepping off my career path in search of something new, or maybe just to indulge in a long break from higher education. Eight hours of this year remain and tomorrow we’ll enter Moon’s “due month”, the kicks, turns, and somersaults, I feel as I type will soon be felt on the outside. Our time together will change, and A will, as she said recently, know how Moon is with out having to ask me. I’m ready. I’m ready to meet Moon, to hold him/her on the outside and I am ready for A to hold Moon and continue her bonding process.
2007 was super, but 2008 will be great! (Sorry…I couldn’t resist!)
I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday!
Ummm there are car seats in our cars! I’ve installed car seats in my car for our nephews many times before – both the infant and the convertible types. And always with no problem. I never understood why everyone makes such a big fuss about how hard it is and then has their worked checked at the fire station. It’s always been so easy. But somehow when you’re installing your baby’s car seat, and you’re nine months pregnant, it becomes the biggest, hardest thing you’ve ever done. Or, you at least spend a good amount of time second guessing if you’ve got it right.
The infant seat our nephew just outgrew is in the car I primarily drive. That one was easy to put in because it’s a new car and has the LATCH system, so with two snaps and a little tugging it was set (though there is a part of me that wonders if it’s totally secure). Our other seat, a Britax convertible, is in the car A primarily drives, and set up for infant use. We figured it would be good to have a back up and that car has All Wheel Drive, which we often need this time of year. However, fitting the huge Britax into the tiny Subaru was, well challenging to say the least. The Subaru was not made to host such a gigantic car seat … oh well, it will be moved to the bigger car as soon as the baby outgrows the infant seat.
Having just installed the seats, the reality that we’ll have some form of car seat / booster in our car for at least the next five years is just, um, a little more than I can comprehend.
It’s only been four days since Christmas and I have yet to post all about our holiday and by now I am not sure it’s worth posting about. But here goes…
We had a wonderful last holiday with out a baby. We spent four nights at my parents house (despite the uncomfortable bed situation…) and gleaned lots and lots of quality time with our nephews, which is what we were most excited about. Nephew #1 was so much fun this year. He is almost three and it was the first year he “got it.” This, of course put the magic back in the holiday for all of us. I enjoyed visiting with family members one last time before having the baby, and it was special to receive gifts for “baby” and “cousin.” We also hauled home a bunch of hand me down baby gear that our nephews have outgrown (infant car seat, bassinet to keep on our first floor, tons of clothing!). Oh, and while most people we saw think I am having a boy, based on how I am carrying (which I am not sure I buy into), Nephew #1 is certain it’s a girl. I’m still getting the boy vibe.
Christmas was a mellow day for us. We did the traditional present exchange in the morning, with Nephew #1 opening everyone’s presents for them, followed by a big breakfast, and then lots of napping, followed by a big dinner. We don’t do any running around and my parents keep the number of people coming for dinner to a minimum, since our immediate family has grown to six adults and two kids, plus a few more. I have really come to like the smaller gatherings. Everyone is far more relaxed. When I was younger we often had both my father and mother’s siblings and their kids, plus other friends. And I loved it as a kid. Now the more people, the more my parents stress, the less fun it is for everyone…so small has become my preference. This has been balanced by hosting a more casual gathering on Christmas Eve, which A and I took over this year. For me, the night before Christmas is more fun, and filled with anticipation, so I prefer visiting with extended family on Christmas Eve. All in all, I felt blessed to spend time with so many family and friends over the holiday, and to hold on to moments of my life as I know it, before the baby turns our world upside down.
A and I traveled home the day after Christmas and spent the whole next day running errands before our friend came to visit for two nights (There were lots of errands, but the highlight was getting A a new cell phone, which is way fancy and cool. As she drove us home I was playing with the gadgets on it and found it has a stop watch function. It took me more than a minute before realizing this would be helpful to time contractions as we’ve recently begun to wonder how we’d do that since neither of us own a watch. Cool, eh.) That was the same day I started to come down a cold that is starting to kick my but. It was great to see our friend, so much fun really. And he was super understanding of me feeling under the weather, and also of my pregnant state, but man, was it still exhausting to host. At times I was too tired to talk. As soon as he left this afternoon, I just felt a bit more relaxed. I’ve never felt so exhausted while hosting and it was a good preview for after the baby, and also reinforced the need for boundaries around guests.
A had her last class EVER today! She’s home now, putting all her school stuff away. We don’t go back to work till Wednesday of next week, and then Friday is her last day at her job! She starts student teaching the following Monday! I can’t believe we’re at this transition! I can’t believe we’re about to live on one income! I can’t believe we’re about to have a baby! It’s all happening so fast. Like we’ve been climbing a hill for months on end, and now the avalanche of change is tumbling down.
Almost there. We are both so relieved to have made it home form Christmas – we have no plans to leave the area before the baby is born and we’re ensuring I can get in touch with A at all times. Here I am today at 36 weeks (there are some non-headless pictures on Flickr, for those of you that are my contacts there.
28 days till my estimated due date. That’s the same amount of time as a normal menstrual cycle. Woe.
Christmas was great as was spending time with family. More on all of that later. I am getting sick now, which is totally pissing me off because our very good friend is heading into town today to stay with us for a few days. We were supposed to tour the hospital today, but I feel too crappy so we’re putting it off for now. Blah!
In the good new department…Cali may be expecting! As we all say a line is a line. And I can’t wait for tomorrow’s beta!
Nephew #2 will have a stocking after all! Given that it does not usually take too long for me knit a Christmas stocking, I sure took a long time to finish this one. Life, it’s just been too busy. But here it is all ready to hang with the rest. I can’t imagine what it will be like to knit our baby’s stocking next year! I better start as soon as we have a name!
For eleven blissful days. I don’t have to go into work tomorrow as I previously thought! I am so excited! And sooooooooooo freaking in need of this break. That’s all I have to say!
call in sick today. I hadn’t felt any Braxton Hicks contractions until this week. Earlier in the week I started experiencing what felt like mild period cramps low in my pelvic area. Turns out they were BHs. Last night, about an hour before going to bed, they came on pretty strong, along with backache. It feels like I am going to get my period. I continued to feel crampy through the night. Between the crampiness, backache and baby gymnastics in my uterus, I feel like a truck ran me over. I really really really wish I didn’t have to go to work today, and I wish more that maternity leave philosophically and practically encompassed more than the postnatal period. I am overwhelmed at the thought of working another month. Sure I could eat up some of my maternity leave before the baby arrives, but I know I will need it all after the baby comes. So I push forward. And I am getting to the miserable state, and I am not as pleasant to be around.
I am super busy at work this week, exhaustion has set in and I’ve not kept up on blogging. And I am frantically trying to finish knitting Nephew #2’s Christmas stocking, which I plan to do tonight…and hopefully the finishing decorative touches will happen tomorrow night, right after I go buy the things I need to do the decorative touches (and then we leave town Saturday). And while I am talking about work…we hired a temp to cover my maternity leave! This has been quite a process and I am so glad it’s working out!!!!
Thank you, everyone that has weighed in on names. It’s so fun to hear what you all think. Sorry to be so secretive about the names we are considering. We’re just not cool with putting them out to the internet at large. You’ve given us a lot to think about. Perhaps when the baby is born there will be a password protected post with the first name. Maybe.
I am 35 weeks today. And I feel it. I am just more tired, and move really sloooooooooooow, and get sore easily. Sleeping is getting harder. I am sleeping in longer chunks than I was a few weeks ago, but it’s not deep sleep and I wake to reposition often. My cat INSISTS that the bottom part of the Snoogle pillow, the part that curves tightly to come from your back to between your legs, is her bed. Every time I wake up, she has climbed back in there and I have to move her. I got our Boppy nursing pillow out for her, hoping that would satisfy her, but nooooooo (though the other cat loves it). I think she wants my body heat and the pillow since I currently sleep with the room at about 50 degrees (and I always wake with no covers on, and yes the air conditioner is still in the window – guess we’ll have to remove it before the baby comes, but for now I like it cold).
We met with our favorite midwife yesterday and she confirmed with out a doubt the baby is head down. We’ve thought so for a while, but now we know for sure. Everything else is going well. She seemed a little surprised that we’re traveling for Christmas, but I did ask her a long time ago if it would be okay and she said yes as long as everything is going well. And it is. I would be so very depressed to stay home this Christmas. So we’re going ahead with our plans to travel three hours by car.
Tomorrow begins mine and A’s 11 day vacation! (Sort of, I have to work a few hours Saturday morning…but I’m ignoring this fact). I am ready for the time off. I hope it gives me a chance to catch up and rest. I fear that all the running around I am doing at work these days is going to leave me exhausted when it comes time to actually have this baby. The break will be nice and maybe I will be able to hold onto the vacation feeling until I have the baby. We’ll be at my parent’s from Saturday through Wednesday and then once we return home a very good friend is coming to visit Thursday through the weekend. I don’t think we’ve seen him since we were in our last tww and we wanted one more visit pre-baby. Our New Years plans fell through, but that’s really okay with me. I’d rather not have a plan and just see what happens. When I told A this she said she thinks I am afraid of commitment and can’t believe I married her. Ha ha. I’m not afraid of commitment, it’s just that I don’t really like schedules. And honestly, I am not sure I will have any energy to do anything on New Years.
Okay…I am off to finish knitting the stocking.
Is it bad that we are roughly five weeks from D-day and we really have no idea what we’d name our kid? We managed to work out the last name dilemma by hyphenating. And we know for a girl the middle name will be Cecile, for A’s Memay, and Joseph for a boy, after my Uncle. But dammed if we can decide on first names.
For the last month or so I’ve been getting a serious boy vibe. We have two boy names. I like both of them, A really likes one better than the other. But we both wish we had more boy names in the running. We’ve read the name book over and over and just don’t like any more names.
Our once very long girl name list has been narrowed down to three. One of which has been a favorite for years but we’ve seen it grown in popularity while we took forever to get pregnant. We don’t want our kid to have six other kids in her class with the same name. But we love the name and it has symbolic meaning to us. Then we thought we ‘discovered’ a name and we both really like it. But after logging on to Fertility Friend this morning and looking at the “Due in December” board, there’s already been two babies born and named with our popular and our discovered name!
We are starting to feel crazy. Why is naming so freaking hard? I know we are making it harder on ourselves because we really want unique but not out there names. Hard to freaking come by. So please, leave a comment and suggest some names.
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