Holy Cow! That's a foot!

The hitch hiker is very active. Sometimes there's a big bulge on the left and sometimes there's a bulge on the right. Other times there's a foot shaped bulge poking out. If I poke, the hitch hiker pokes back...I think he/ she might be ticklish.

Glucose test

I think I am getting the pregnancy flakiness in force. I showed up too early for my appointment on Wednesday to get my glucose test done. I could have sworn the lady told me to drink the orange sticky fluid at 7 and be there at 8 for a blood draw....turns out she said drink at 8 and get blood drawn at 9. I drank at 7:20 and then had to beg them to take my blood at 8:20....luckily there were office staff there early to set up and read files who took pity on my confused and dazed state. The glucose fluid wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...tasted a little like flat orange soda. I did feel kinda sluggish all day afterwards though. I took the day off from school to rest after marathon parent teacher conferences. We did 5 hours with quick running pee breaks on Monday night and 4 hours on Tuesday afternoon and still didn't get to see all the 8th grade parents who wanted to talk to us. Only one parent said something kinda strange....she wanted to know how pregnant I was and when I told her she was surprised because I was so big...all she kept asking was, "Is that normal?" Hmmm...do people think that I would still be walking up 4 flights of stairs to teach their kids or meet with them for hours on end if that wasn't normal? All the other parents wished me luck and said nice things about having kids...very encouraging :)....well except the one who said on her way out....TAKE THE DRUGS....I did and my daughter is fine....TAKE THE DRUGS!

After the glucose test I had a regular appointment and everything sounds and looks great. I guess I've gained 18 pounds so far as measured by my doctor appointments. That's supposed to be good. We still don't want to know whether we are having a boy or girl. People like to tell me they are sure it's a boy because of how round and ball-like I am shaped...I like to tell them that when I am getting jabbed and kicked I am sure they are right. Little girls don't kick their mommies, do they?

Another flaky thing I did on Wednesday is double park the car out front to take a few groceries out and then go inside and hang out and eat lunch....only to wonder 3 hours later where I parked the car. I looked outside and there it was...still double parked :). I went out to move it and the lovely officers in my neighborhood had ignored my lapse in memory...no ticket! yay!

Watermelon dance

The hitch hiker is totally excited by watermelon. There is dancing in my belly whenever I eat it. The dancing thing is totally weird. It kinda tickles.

Birthing Class, Oct 19, 2008

The beautiful mommy at birthing class. So much to learn and the classroom had pretty views. Some key learnings, if I got them correct in my notes. So, how do we know when to go to the hospital?

-• 511- 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long, and it’s been going on for over 1 hour for gbs + moms; probably 2 cm dialated.
or
• 311-3 minutes apart, 1 minute long, and it’s been going on for 1 hour for gbs- moms; probably about 5 cm dialeted.

I'll explain gbs later:)

Babymama in Inwood

Cherith at 20 weeks next to the cool graffiti in our neighborhood. The doggies where liking it. Click the photo to see the rest of the pics.

20 week sonogram

They say twenty weeks is halfway through a 40 week pregnancy. The hitch hiker swims around a lot. I can feel the swimming and kicking now....it's a little disconcerting to be tickled from the inside. The ultrasound woman, Yvette, says that by size (15 ounces) the hitch hiker is closer to 21 weeks than our current 20 weeks.

Birthing

I don't really like hospitals...they give me the creeps so thinking about giving birth in a hospital bed is not my favorite image. We are hoping that this pregnancy goes well and we can plan for a birth in a birthing center so that we can have a more homey feeling with the extra security of a hospital close by just in case.

Ray and I watched a documentary produced by Ricki Lake called the Business of Being Born that made us think about a home birth. We think if we had actually been through a birth before we might be tempted to do it at home. Since we really have no idea what to expect, we're even more excited about the Roosevelt birthing center. So we switched from our very nice doctor with an even nicer ultrasound lady to a doctor across from the birthing center who has two midwives in her office. We went for an initial meet and greet appointment where we waited for 45 minutes and I got sad. Both doctor and midwife were nice but waiting that long was very annoying. Our next appointment is this week and I hope it is smoother.

The midwife recommended we read Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth. So we went to Barnes & Noble to get it and ended up leaving with around 10 books. Ray got a book he really likes, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fatherhood, after finding lots of books with titles that made being around a pregnant wife sound very scary. Maybe he'll blog about it :). I have been completely distracted and laugh out loud entertained by Anne Lamott's book Operating Instructions. She makes being miserable and tired during her son's first year sound like an amazing experience that everyone should have :).

13 weeks 3 days sonograms

The hitchhiker was supposed to be 12 weeks 8 days in these photos. The ultrasound lady says by size the age is more like 13 weeks 3 days....already tall :). There was a lot of swimming around going on. The hitchhiker was cheesing it up in the upper left...see the jaws open for a smile? Lower left shows thumb sucking we think :). The first trimester is officially behind us so we have started telling people that we are expecting our newest Velez family member on February 14, 2009...yay!

9 and half week sonogram

This is our first picture of our little hitchhiker. I wasn't showing any belly bumps but felt a little bloated and sometimes a bit nauseated. Guacamole is one of my favorite foods....guacamole appears to trigger my nausea.....grrr.