The Baby is Moving!

So a few weeks ago, I thought I might have felt some movement, but it is really real now! This kid is very active and especially likes it when mommy eats :) At first, I could only feel it at night when I was going to sleep and totally paying attention, now it startles me throughout the day. I love it! We had our sonogram yesterday and that was really cool. We are not going to find out the sex so our sonographer told us to look away when she was heading down the torso. Watching our baby move around and swallow amniotic fluid was amazing. S/he had his/her hands in front of the face and then was sucking on the heel of the palm of the hand. It was super cute. Then we got an awesome 3D image of the face. Our baby has Shawn's forehead and the cutest little button nose. Medically speaking, everything looked good for the baby, no cleft lip or palate, the spine is perfect and all that stuff. I do have a low lying placenta, which is not uncommon at this stage in pregnancy. It is far enough away from the cervix not to cause a problem right now, but we'll probably have a follow up sono in a few months to make sure that it has migrated away from the cervix so as not to interfere with childbirth. At least that's what I would do if I were managing me, but I'm not, so we'll see what my midwives say at my next visit later in November.

We are looking into childcare now and boy is it expensive. It's hard because we obviously want what is best for our baby, but realistically, all we need for the first few months is a place to keep him/her safe. Does a 3 month old really need a stimulating Goddard School curriculum 3 days a week? I don't know. There is much to be done and March is fast approaching. We did a little more work on the nursery today, there is only one piece of furniture from the office left in there.

Peru was fantastic, but I couldn't keep track of where we had been or were going while we were there let alone a week after we got home. I will direct you to Shawn's blog (smseifert.blogspot.com) for a run down of our trip and great photos at smseifert.zenfolio.com. I am proud to say that I contributed more of my photographic skills this time around and there are more pictures of Shawn than usual.

Juno

When the movie Juno came out, we knew it looked really good and got lots of acclaim both from reviews and friends, but it was such as sensitive time for us that we wanted to wait to see it.  I thought that being over 17 weeks would be a safe time to rent it.  I was only sort of right.  It was excellent with strong performances from all actors, but every scene with Jennifer Gardner broke my heart and made me cry.  I felt like I was both reliving my past and glimpsing what sadness my future could have been.  I am so grateful to be naturally pregnant, but it is still hard to completely embrace it.  I keep thinking I am going to wake up and it won't be true or something.  I constantly look at my belly, feel my uterus and inspect my body for the other changes to remind myself that it is real.  I am really pregnant, there is really a baby growing inside me, and I am really going to be a mom in March.  I hope when I can feel my baby move with more consistency that I will feel better.

I am definitely showing more, people are noticing my baby bump without me telling them :)  I'll have Shawn take more pictures this week.

Part time?

With my looming infertility and a nice raise for Shawn, I dropped to part time hours at work in June. That should come out to about 20 hours a week. Unfortunately, just because the pay period averages out to 20 hours a week, does not mean I actually only work 20 hours a week. Last week was 18, this week is 36, and next week is 18. I am 3 days in to my work week (which is Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Sat, Mon) and I feel like I have been run over by a truck. This little baby is sucking all of my energy and I can't quite seem to catch up. I sleep about 7-9 hours a night plus an afternoon nap and I am still a zombie. It's barely 9pm and I am going to bed right now!!

17 weeks tomorrow! 3 more weeks and we could find out the sex...but we're not going to :) I am looking forward to the surprise.