Kick counts

For many years (way before we ever considered having a baby), I've been reading all sorts of articles related to pregnancy and babies. Now, I have several books on the subject that I've been reading to learn more about what's going on and what I should expect.

One of the books that I've been reading recently had a section on kick counts. I'd heard of these before, but it wasn't until I read this book that I learned how they were actually done. Essentially, kick counts are a way to try to understand if your baby is in distress. In the 3rd trimester (usually around 28 weeks or something like that), you start performing these kick counts. What you do is time how long it takes for your baby to make 10 separate movements.

In the example in the book I read, there were several examples of a hypothetical woman's kick counts. The examples ranged something like 30-60 minutes for a complete kick count (that is, it took that amount of time for the woman to notice 10 movements from her baby).

A couple of nights ago, I decided to try to do a kick count. I don't need to do it yet (many people aren't feeling movement at this point at all, and, if they are, it's often inconsistent). While lying in bed before I went to sleep, I counted 10 separate movements.

I didn't actually use a stopwatch or anything, but it took less than 5 minutes for me to feel 10 movements. At most. It was probably more like 2 minutes. It was unbelievable. Given how early I am, that's pretty crazy.

We're in trouble - this is going to be an active kid. I'm looking forward to it. :-)

Expectant mother parking

Earlier this week, I traveled to Minneapolis on business, and I traveled with a colleague. Before our return flight, we had quite a bit of time to kill, so we went to the Mall of America. It's right near the airport, and it gave us something fun to do rather than hanging out at the airport all evening.

As you'd imagine, the parking lot was quite full, but then my colleague pointed out that we should look for expectant mother's parking. In case you aren't familiar with these spots, it's become a recent trend for stores to designate a few spots near the front for expectant mothers and mothers with young children.

My colleague was right. There were several open spots available right at the front of the lot. My colleague was absolutely thrilled - I think I made her week.

That may have been one of the cooler side benefits of being pregnant. Close parking.

Nursery pictures (in progress)

Last weekend, we put together the nursery furniture that we bought. So far, we already have a glider, a crib, and a changing table. Here's a picture of the work in progress:



We need to get a dresser, as I've mentioned before. I think I like this one:



It's from Target and got pretty good reviews. And, since it's from Target, we'll be able to use our credit card points to buy it.

I also think I want to get a wall decal for the room. Since we can't paint, we need to figure out another way to decorate. They make these wall decals that you can put on your walls temporarily, and I really like them. Here's an example of one that I really like:



My mom has generously offered to make a bedskirt and a window valence, but there's still all kinds of stuff to get. Curtains, a new frame for a poster that we already have (the old frame was really junky), little bins, at least one lamp... It's crazy! I'm not exactly stressed about it, but I'm glad we're starting early. It'll give plenty of time to find the things that are exactly what we cant, and, hopefully, we'll be able to get them for cheap.

Christmas cards and baby names

Before we ever got pregnant, we used to talk a bit about baby names. It was through these discussions that we decided on a name for a son. It just feels right, and we decided on it ages ago.

Some people like to keep their baby names a secret until the baby is born, but we're not for several reason: 1) We're settled on it, so we aren't asking for opinions. We're just informing. 2) If something went wrong at this point (and I'm not naive enough to think that's impossible), this kid would have a name. At some point, the loss of a baby represents the loss of a viable or semi-viable being. We've reached that point, I think. 3) We don't really care what anyone else thinks about the name. Neither of us is the type to really care if people have a negative opinion.

I actually just sent out our Christmas cards few days ago, and my husband and I spent quite a bit of time discussing how we would sign the cards. We decided against using the baby's actual name, mostly because we felt it would make other people uncomfortable. Instead, we signed the cards "Merry Christmas from our growing family! Love, (Our names), and Baby Boy X (estimated arrival 4-30-2011)." We decided that was a good way to acknowledge the situation without weirding everyone else out.

Or, maybe we're the weird ones for even acknowledging the baby on the card. Who knows...

19 weeks

I'm almost halfway! Yesterday, I hit 19 weeks of pregnancy. I can't believe how fast it's going! Here's the picture:



You hear a lot about how pregnant women "pop" all of a sudden. That is, they go to bed one night looking un-pregnant, and then wake up the next day with a belly. I'm not sure that's happened for me, although I'm starting to really show, I think. I just think my change has been pretty gradual.

I actually had a milestone related to that at work last week: A semi-stranger asked me when I'm due. Granted, he sits across the hall from me, so he was clearly noticing that I was getting bigger and had switched to maternity clothes. It was still pretty cool, though. I was getting big enough that he felt comfortable asking. Or, maybe he was just obtuse.

Our new Friday night routine

I think we're having a baby at the right time. This below video is about the extent of the excitement in our house on a Friday night. It's our cats playing with my husband's toy helicopter.



We got our new video camera a few days ago, and the video above was a way for us to test it out. It was a Black Friday deal on a Flip video camera. I really like it so far, although it doesn't zoom in and out that much. That's totally fine, though. It's tiny, and we'll be able to use it quite a bit.

Now, at 9:30pm on a Friday night, I'm off to bed.

Clothing issues

Ever seen this video from American Idol?



That's what I feel like most days.

None of my clothes really fit right now. In some ways, I know I shouldn't complain. Being too small for clothes is kind of a high class problem. On the other hand, it's really frustrating to keep having to pull my pants up all the time. All day. I think I drove my family absolutely nuts over Thanksgiving complaining about how my jeans kept falling down.

At this point, my belly isn't really big enough to hold up my pants, but I'm too big to fit into most regular pants (other than pajamas and sweatpants). I know that will all be changing soon enough, though, and, by the end of the pregnancy, there's a good chance nothing is going to fit at all.

Blah.