Starting to feel real

Last week we had our Level 2 Ultrasound which is basically a more detailed look at the baby to see if she's in one piece and everything is in order.  When you're maternally "old" as I have been classified (medically defined as any woman over 35 at or before birth - I turn 35 in Dec.) then you have to do some extra testing like the genetic screening we did and this detailed ultrasound.  It even checks blood flow to and from some of the major organs in a color-coded real-time display.  It was pretty interesting actually and they said everything looks normal.  Poor thing though, she looked pretty squished in there!

This has only added to our sense of reality setting in as I have also had to go to the dark side this week and finally commit to wearing maternity pants.  This weekend I think I felt our first kicks and it made me wonder if it's because I was wearing my non-maternity pants (which I can't button) and she was trying to elbow for more space... so that was enough guilt to get me to put out the bat signal to friends looking for any maternity hand-me downs.  Thankfully a number of friends came through!  We have a maternity consignment store nearby which I've been frequenting and have found a few things in my size, but we don't have any regular maternity stores nearby to try stuff unless I want to spend a small fortune.  Which I can't.  So we're trying to be as thrifty as possible on things so I can afford maternity leave in the spring.

Our winter Farmer's Market is finally back up and running, so Saturday morning we had a date to head to the market to wander around, enjoy food, and pick up some organic veggies.  We also got to see an education display of local raptors and they had two live screech owls which were ADORABLE.  Who knew they were so little and so cute!?  

Unfortunately I have not mastered pictures on the iPhone, so these adult screech owls are blurry.

The weather was perfect and now that I can enjoy food again we had a tour de force that morning of our favorites - Ethiopian food, fresh lemonade, kettle corn, and an almond blueberry jam cookie.  Oh lord I was in heaven and it was so nice to just be able to eat food and thoroughly enjoy it.  It was a great date and we had a lot of fun - it was a perfect start to a lovely weekend that was ultimately a lot of work, but really productive.

We spent the entire weekend putting together a bunch of storage furniture from Ikea which was pretty fun actually.... mostly because we've been talking about redoing our living room and dining rooms for over a year now to make them more functional and enjoyable and we finally did it!  I'll show some before and after pictures in the next post.  

We had to move some furniture around in the house to turn the Den into the Nursery which means moving a lot of stuff we store in the den elsewhere.  The new storage in the dining room and living room make that possible.  It also feels a little bit like we're in a new house since everything's been changed around in the majority of the rooms and as a bonus we get even better views of our yard an garden now from our living room!  It's nice to feel like we can get started on the nursery now, although we still have two pieces of furniture in there that will have to go first.

Well, I'm head out of town this week for a work trip to Philadelphia to do interviews for a project.  Fortunately I get home just in time to enjoy Halloween at home, but I am hoping I don't freeze my buns off while I'm there!

The registry dilemma

So it looks like a missed a few FAQs in my last post - particularly as related to baby "stuff":

1. I've finally got to putting a registry together on Amazon which has been more work than fun since it takes a while to look for things that aren't plastic, organic/made from natural materials, don't have flame retardants, aren't toxic, and will breathe in our Florida summers.  We also want to avoid "disposable" anything and focus on reusable things that will last for a second kid.
2.  We have NO storage space in our house, so we're trying to be minimalists about what gear we get since we don't have a closet or spare room to hide baby stuff in.
3.  We're not doing a theme in the nursery (the former den/guest bedroom next to our room) since you can see it from every room of the house, so we're going with colors (walls are already periwinkle blue with white trim and we'll add sweet orange accents) and things in that range - orange cats, butterflies, goldfish, owls, foxes, etc.  We're fans of variety and don't want the room to scream "baby girl nursery!"
4.  We're also fans of recycling baby stuff, so hand-me-downs (clothes, gear, whatever) are welcome (however we're looking to avoid any of the frilly pink princes nonsense, especially since we want to use it again for #2 down the road).  I'll even take "boys clothes" as long as they don't have sports themes on them (I am not a sports person at all really).  We've already been the benefactors of some recycled baby stuff from generous friends who are leaving their kids' baby years behind and we're super thankful!

I've been doing so much research that I've been using our registry more of a check list for me to jot down what we need, rather than using it as a public registry.  In our house we have had to work on reconcile two conflicting emotions with registries - not wanting it to seem like we've created a list of stuff for people to buy for us, but also wanting to help give people some guidance on ideas if they do want to get something for the baby.  Growing up, I came from a "list" family - for birthday and Christmas I made a list of things I like that family could look through to pick something they liked to get for me and it worked great - no one was disappointed and gift givers always felt like they found something that would be valued and appreciated.  Maybe it's the Midwestern side of my family, but I really hate gift giving if I'm not 100% sure the person is going to like it.  It might also be that after years of living in small places on my own (and moving a lot) I really hate clutter and waste.  Surprises are nice, but I like small surprises so if things don't work out, it's more about the thought that counts and no one is upset they spent a lot of money on something the other person isn't that excited about (I am flashing back to our first Christmas together when Wade and I were both clueless, after that we employed "the list".)

Since we're being particular about the kinds of things we're going to use (organic, cotton/wool, no plastic/foam/PVC, wood, non-toxic/no flame retardants, no disposables, etc) I came to terms with the fact that we're going to need a registry.  So I've spent some time putting the core things we need on there, but also putting some fun small gift-size stuff (books, toys) on there for people who feel like getting our little lady something.  We're hoping to build her a nice library, so if you have a favorite baby book not on our list - we'd love to see it!

(Warning: I'm in that phase of pregnancy where it's common to have awful nightmares about things going wrong with the baby - my nightmares however have come in the form of what kind of world she'll find when she grows up, especially in the face of climate change, so I'm about to get a little intense below about why making eco-friendly choices is important to me.  Please just humor me, I've been working on environmental issues for over a decade so it just all boils to the surface sometimes - one of those "when you know too much" moments...  I promise I do end on a happy note though!) 

The other reason I get a little keyed up about waste and giving meaningful, useful gifts is that having kids is actually a pretty wasteful enterprise.  Scientific studies have actually tried to quantify the environmental impacts of having a baby in the U.S. and they all seem to find that the most environmentally destructive thing you can do it bring another child into the world - no, I am not exaggerating (and it doesn't matter if they have an environmental ethic either).  I have seen scientific talks about this too - over population is, ironically, a real and growing threat to life on earth (limited clean land, water, food, and energy resources, pollution, etc) and I have seen presentations by world-renown scientists that end by saying, "if you want to save a coral reef, use a condom" (not joking).  This is for a variety of reasons that change depending on whether you're in a developed country like the U.S. or a poorer developing country.  Smart growth doesn't just apply to economies, it applies to people too.

We're all in this together...

To put this in perspective, humor me and think through this exercise:  What would it take a group of people to survive long-term in a space ship with no chance of help from the outside  -- you would need a self-contained, self-sufficient life support system and ship that provides clean air, water, food, and room for the residents, etc.  (If you've seen the movie Gravity recently it might give you some perspective)  Now realize that the planet Earth is exactly that and our environment (atmosphere, oceans/rivers, and undeveloped land/forests) is the life support system - we're all stuck on this blue ball in the vacuum of space with limited and finite air, water, and land/food resources - suddenly makes you think twice about where your garbage goes or what you put into the air or water doesn't it?  You could be poisoning or throwing away your or your kid's water, air, or food.  Suddenly recycling, organic (chemical free) food and gardening, and water conservation doesn't sound like such a burdensome idea.  This is why we environmentalists do these things and fight for these things, not because we're tree-hugging nutters (well, some are), but we have seen the science and seen the change in our ecosystems and/or personal health to know that things are changing and it's in our power to make the daily choices to not poison or waste resources for ourselves, our kids, family, and those who come after us.

I'm not trying to soap box this, I just wanted to point out that we're putting effort into finding non-toxic and organic baby things, using cloth diapers, avoiding plastic, recycling clothes/gear, and being minimalistic for a reason - we don't take our decision to add another human to the world lightly and I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure we leave her a cleaner, healthier place than she'll find when she arrives in this world.  I also want to make sure that we're not exposing her to any more chemicals in her life than necessary (a growing problem in the production of baby clothes and items) since babies have sensitive and developing immune and endocrine systems.  Ok, so maybe that did get a bit soap-boxy - my point was just to illustrate why these things are important to us.

The good news is that more people are starting to figure this out and make changes in how they live their lives or run their companies to reduce waste or pollution.  Everyone can take simple steps in their everyday lives to make a difference - we started years ago with carrying our own shopping bags (back when the store clerks looked at us like we were nuts) and now we grow organic veggies, compost, and raise chickens for our own eggs!  The point is, if you don't know where to start, start with one small act and it will likely grow into something you never thought possible. :)  I'm always happy to share ideas on where to start too!

A return to our regularly scheduled programming....

Sooo, yeah, it's been quiet around the 'ole blog again - for a few reasons:

1) Hooray, work kept me really busy this summer!,
2) Being on the computer all day didn't really entice me to spend extra time on the addiction box at night too,
3) We've been tending 4 baby chickens in the house since September which has kept us busy, in addition to prepping our garden beds for the fall:

Meet Pearl, Maybelle, Sunny, and Foxy the newest additions to our flock.

4) And ever since July, I've been, shall we say, managing a new distraction on my time:

Baby pumpkin makes three....

In case you aren't getting the hint, or haven't already heard, Wade and I are expecting a baby girl at the end of next March!  We're excited, but for most of the summer we were waiting it out while I was busy feeling like death warmed over.  We waited until 12 weeks to tell or to even let it feel real because we learned the hard way last year that things don't always work out.

I didn't talk openly about this on our blog last year because you never know who's reading and at the time I didn't feel like I worked for an organization that was "family friendly" - however, I wanted to talk about it because we know lots of people who have or have gone through similar experiences and I think the more people talk about it, the more people can feel supported and not alone.  Last year those times I was really sick and had to go in for a "procedure" were us struggling through trying to start a family.  The first time in the spring of 2012 we ended up having an ectopic pregnancy that we didn't catch for almost 7 weeks and it almost killed me (seriously, we later discovered I was bleeding internally and they had to remove one of my tubes).  Then in the fall we had a miscarriage (genetic misfire we later found out) that didn't fully resolve on it's own so they had to put me under again to clean things up.  This was about the same time things started imploding at work, so we took it as a sign to hold off trying for a while.  Now the biologist in us understood things happen and miscarriages are a way of the body sorting the healthy pregnancies from the ones that aren't going to make it, so we took it in stride.  The hardest part was actually managing everyone else's expectations/excitement then watching that look of horror or extreme discomfort with not knowing what to say when it didn't work out although we had actually come to terms with it.  So although I hate keeping secrets, we decided it was actually easier to wait to tell folks until it looked like this was the real deal - it's kinder to not have to put our friends and family through the ups and downs and it's less draining for us to not have to manage everyone else's emotions about it in addition to our own.

Soooo, let's get to the FAQ's shall we?
1.  We're at 16.5 weeks, and the little chicklet is "due" March 31st.
2.  The first trimester was pretty rough and I did once plead to die.  I had "morning" sickness 24/7 for 3 months.  All food and even water was the enemy.
3.  I still cannot brush my teeth without almost throwing up - EVERY time (and sometimes I actually do!)
4.  I will not be taking bump pictures - I do not want to remember what I look like right now, which is generally like I've put on a beer gut rather than a baby.  Sexy!
5.  I can still fit into most of my low cut pants (except my dress pants), however, the shirts are starting to look a little awkward (see #4).
6.  The cats have been super lovey dovey and snuggly so we think they know something is up and are already working to turn her into a cat lover.  Yay!
7.  I am just now able to start cooking again, Wade's been doing the lion's share of cooking since the mere thought of cooking food usually made me want to curl up in a deep dark hole.  Frozen lunches have been a savior during the day.
8.  Yes, I am still vegetarian and gluten-free, and no, I have had zero meat cravings; refried beans yes, but meat - ick!
9.  I have not had any real cravings so no late night runs for Wade.  Rather, all food has been the devil, so I'm just happy to be able to eat anything again.
10.  My bedtime companion for the last few months has been heartburn and we are not on speaking terms.
11.  At our 12 week ultrasound we could see her moving (although you can't feel it until ~5mo) and Wade and I both concluded it felt like I'd been invaded by an alien parasite.  It was creepy and weird.
12.  We did some early genetic screening which indicated that we shouldn't have to worry about any of the major issues and it also told us it was a Girl, which did help everything feel more real and less like an alien invasion.
13.  I am convinced that the "pregnancy glow" is a myth propagated to hookwink women into procreating.  I look like and feel like my worst teenage years - unruly hair, angry skin, and my hormones laugh in the face of any deodorant.
14.  Wade has been great picking up my slack around the house, taking care of me, and has been helping me keep a sense of humor about everything.  He has also been keeping the animals alive single-handedly since the smell of their food (meat) generally sent me running for the bathroom.

Well, that covers the essentials for now.

Stay tuned, I'll be better about blogging now since it's the easiest way to keep friends and family updated since we still have zero desire to get on Facebook. :)