12 Random Thoughts

EDD = 5.5 weeks

Last day of work = 4.5 weeks

Work = Manager said he's noticed I've fallen stupid & asked if I'd like to start my leave early

Starting Leave Early = Not unless my water breaks!

Belly = Bigger by the day and FULL of baby (measuring 35 weeks)

Baby = Trying to escape through my belly button

Belly Button = Hasn't popped yet... I'm so sad because I want it to

Heartburn = EVIL EVIL EVIL

Craving = White Cream Soda Slurpee from 7 Eleven (Buying a Big Gulp on the way home)

D = Going to dinner with Mom tonight while I happily drink my Big Gulp at home

Friend Baby Shower = This weekend... so little drama

Baby Shower Host = What should we buy as a gift?

Two Mother Family

This may not be as easy as we had thought. Small things have started to creep up through our baby showers and this wasn’t covered in our Dykes Planning Tykes course or our Queer Positive Prenatal class!! Everything so far has focused on getting pregnant and then being pregnant. What’s next? What can we expect? Maybe I’m just naïve and thought that everyone would just know how to treat us!!
We’ve already encountered the following:

• D has so far been left out of her work’s quarterly baby celebration (for parents to be) even though a co-worker who is as pregnant as I am has already been recognised. Talk about awkward. We’re hoping that her name will be mentioned at the next celebration otherwise we may be dealing with an HR issue. Everyone at her work knows I’m pregnant so it isn’t a secret.
• When we designed our baby shower invites we included the wording “Come celebrate baby (our last name) and her Momma and Mommy”. Naturally people were curious as to who was Momma and who was who was Mommy. When one of my friends asked I told her I was “Momma”. She then asked why I would let D be “Mommy”. I was quite shocked by this question. Is there a hierarchy in naming rights for a mother?
• Our baby Shower invites for my family shower only included my name and when my step-mother gave her little speech at the beginning she said it was to celebrate ME. This leads me to ask who the baby shower is for. For a heterosexual couple the shower is traditionally for women only and her partner is not there. The mother to be is celebrated (regardless of how the baby comes into the family). Therefore, in a family with two mothers, who is celebrated? Shouldn’t it be both mothers?

The lesson learned is that we’re going to need to step up and defend our family as required. No, I didn’t make a fuss at the family shower. It didn’t seem appropriate because my family was only acting the way they knew how to which was to celebrate the mother to be (who is carrying) and they really have come such a long way already. We’ll have to take it one step at a time to make sure people recognize us both equally. I’ve already told D that I’m going to step back from the next shower and let her take the lead role. It’s definitely her turn.

Family Baby Shower

What an exhausting yet fun day! Who knew socializing and opening presents could be such hard work?

The Guests:

Since this was our "family" shower I had left the invites up to my step-mother and aunt. I had NO idea who was going to be there. It ended up being a pretty good turn out. There were some family friends that I've known since I was a kid, family I didn't recognize, my grandmothers neighbor (that was weird) and oddly enough, my second grade teacher! My mother's younger sister was also there with 2 of her 3 daughters (more on that later) as were all of my aunts and cousins from my dad's side. Only a couple of people couldn't make it due to illness.

The Cake:

The cake ended up being one of the highlights of my day. I don't think I've ever said anything to my stepmother about Cake Wrecks but I get a good kick out of that blog. So much so that I want to recreate one of their cakes for our "friend" shower. No, I did not get a creepy fondant baby cake like my cousin, what I got was the following:

My step-mother's inspiration would have been the following picture. You may recognize the uncensored version from on here however when I posted on Facebook I blocked out Sadie's name since we are not telling friends. One of my least creative moments captured as a memory forever!

The Presents:

The present opening took up most of the afternoon because I was very slow. I prefer to be the gift giver than the receiver. The spot light was on and I felt the pressure!

As you know I had been stalking my registry. I was surprised to find out that the first three items were purchased all by my Aunt (mom's sister). Her present was insane and over the top and included 32 pieces of clothing (undershirts, onesies, pants and night gowns). I feel prepared now!

We didn't get a lot of big ticket items although we did receive our stroller! I went back to my list of essentials and I'm far from worried. We've already purchased most of what we need and the only expensive item left is the car seat. We're likely going to go with Plan B and buy the convertible version rather than an infant carrier. We'll also see what happens after our friend's shower! Regardless, we were spoiled:

The Missing Guest:

As I had mentioned above, my Aunt came with 2 of her 3 daughters and that is because my cousin had her baby the day before on November 7th (EDD November 21st). She had a boy! I had originally told my entire family our name because I was worried that she was due first and didn't know what she was having. Needless to say we would have had no worries because we would never have come up with the name they chose!! His middle name, however, brought me to tears. My cousin gave him our maternal grandfathers name the same as we are doing for Sadie by using our grandmothers. That means that the first 2 great grandchildren, a boy and a girl, will honor our grandparents. The fact that we have both done this is a testament to how important they were in all of our lives. I miss them both so much!!!!!!

Rant.

First, we had our baby shower this weekend and it was wonderful. I’m going to write up a post about that (with pictures) tomorrow.
Today, I’ve decided to write a brief rant about my MIL and how she almost ruined it.
In summary, without getting too wound up, my MIL prioritized a televised football game ahead of our baby shower.
Apparently she had “promised” our 4 year old nephew she’d watch the football game with him and “forgot” about our baby shower being at the same time. Her plan was to stop by and leave before the game started which is exactly what she did. She stayed for 45 minutes and then called a cab. She didn’t eat or even see us open presents and as she left she apologised to me by saying “you know how it is when you promise someone something”. Hmmm… Like when you RSVP to your daughter’s baby shower when you receive an invitation 3 weeks in advance?
When we got home we had a sarcastic FACEBOOK message from her mom waiting for us. Something about it being ironic that we’re naming our child after a woman (D’s grandmother) who put her grandchildren above everyone else and yet we’re begrudging her for doing exactly the same.
Clearly she has very poor judgement. D was left without any family at the shower. We expect this kind of shit from my mother, not hers.
How disappointing.

TGIF

I called in sick today and I worked from home yesterday. Guilt. I'm just so tired and my stomach has not been my friend, I napped all day today. I'll need ALL of the energy I can get because we have 2 big tasks to accomplish this weekend. We have our first prenatal meeting with our Doula and we have our family baby shower. That means I'll be very busy since I'm normally very lazy!

As far a the shower goes....I've continued to stalk our registry. Not much has happened over the last 2 weeks. In fact it has only been the last two days that new items have been purchased. Ironically one of the two new items purchased was the garish pink bouncer chair that hadn't existed until I added it based on everyones feedback on this post. I know now that we should have stayed a bit more "gender neutral" for use in the future however it's only a small garishly pink purchase that can be sold on Craigslist if #2 is a boy. Go PINK!!!

Have a good weekend!!

And Congrats goes out to S. & R. at An Offering of Love who welcomed their baby girl yesterday!!!

8 months!!

I can't believe we're 8 months! We've come a long way... Here is my 8 month Belly shot - I'm getting BIG:

I still haven't grown my pregnancy boobies. When is that going to happen? I thought that was one of the "perks"! Also, no face shot this time because I'm a bit of a train wreck. They say that a girl "steals your beauty" and if that's true Sadie will be GORGEOUS.

In other news, D and I worked on a little project this weekend. We were lucky to find receiving blankets in the same pattern as our Changing Pad and decided to use one to upholster the top of Sadie's toy box.

Here is a before shot of the box. We used to have this in our closet as storage. It was in pretty rough shape with scratches and also had sharp corners.
Here is what it looks like now:

We bought a staple gun for the job and I am now in love with it. There's nothing like a pregnant woman armed with a staple gun. It's a good stress reliever.

Sadie's room continues to slowly come together. We STILL haven't picked up the crib. Our plan is to have my father drive in with his truck to get it so we can save the $100 shipping fee. We've also ordered our Glider and he'll pick that up as well. We have our shelves and need to put them up. Maybe I can get my dad to do that too! I am hoping that by the first weekend in December we'll be done and completely ready. We'll have had both of our baby showers (the first is this weekend) and everything should be here by then based on our plan. I hope I'm not leaving things too late!!

Biophysical Profile

Our BPP went well. It turned out to be a very simple scan that lasted about 20 minutes. The Sonographer said that Sadie performed well and made her job very easy.

Our little girl, who we very clearly saw is still ALL girl, was measuring 33 weeks 2 days and weighed 4lbs 13 oz. Holy cow, 3oz away from 5lbs at 32 weeks? I certainly felt good about that since there was some concern with my weight gain (lack of) plus the added risk of my high blood pressure that can cause poor growth. Apparently that's not the case! We also saw her LONG leg bones. Looks like she's going to be taking after her 6'1 donor and not her 5'2 Momma.

The most surprising thing? She has HAIR. Yes, we saw HAIR!! I had imagined she'd have very little to no hair at all considering that's how I was born. I'm so fair. It took a REALLY long time to grow anything significant on my head!

My following OB appointment was quick yet still over 45 minutes delayed. I've gained .5 kg since my last appointment 2 weeks ago and my BP is excellent. I was able to get my H1N1 vaccine from them and it took all of 3 minutes. I was also given a prescription for Tamiflu "just in case". I'm so happy to have it done but at the same time I'm nervous too. I wasn't able to get the adjuvant-free version of the vaccine however pregnant women are now being told that both versions are equally safe. This was one of those times when I've had to let go and trust others. Along with the paperwork for my shot I agreed to be enrolled in a study of the effects on pregnancy. That's a bit nerve wracking in itself but if it helps someone else in the future make the same decision we've been faced with now, it's worth it.

After our appointment we stopped by the mall so we could be conned by Baby Gap. I say this because D wanted to go for the new Stella McCartney line but when we got there it was not out yet, they indicated it started on the 3rd. According to their website it was to launch on the 2nd. Instead we ended up spending $50 on clothing from their sale rack and D will go back today ALONE and will likely spend much more because I will not be there!

Anyway, I LOVE their current Himalaya collection and we found a lot of it on sale. We found things that we bought last week, that we have already removed the tags and washed, that were on sale for 30% less this week. So annoying!!! Stella McCartney or not, I still would have spent that $50. Gotta love rainbow elephants!

Our last stop of the day was to get D her H1N1 vaccine. She has asthma so she is in the "high risk" category as well. We were able to book appointments with our family doctor in the morning. I had booked one too but cancelled it when I found out I could have mine at my OB appointment. Everything worked out perfectly. Our plan was always to get the vaccine today but we thought that D would have to be held up in a line and miss our ultrasound. That wasn't the case!!

It is now 3:45 am. I guess I should be going back to bed!! YAWN.