A Little Note To My Greatest Fans!

I can't believe how quickly time gets away if I don't keep on top of posting. The last time I posted was two weeks ago, so I'm now at 18 weeks in my pregnancy (almost half way!). This time, I thought I'd write a little note rather than posting a journal entry (since I am about to become even further behind). There is a lot going on right now, and the next two weeks aren't going to be any less busy, so there won't be any new posts after this one for a while.

What's going on? Well, my mom is coming in town on Thursday and then Candice Swanson (from Javelin/Dallas) will be arriving on the following Tuesday. All three of us are venturing off to a wonderful little thing called Artfest! It's in Port Townsend, WA, about a three hour drive (plus a ferry ride) from where I live. We'll stop along the way to do some shopping and sight seeing, and then we'll arrive in Port Townsend where we'll spend the next three days taking art classes!!

Lately, I've been working on "trades" (art/collage/assemblage which many of the 500 women who attend Artfest make to trade with one another). It's a situation where anything goes, and everyone trades without reservation or judgement. It's a lot of fun and gives us something to take home with us at the end of the week. This year's theme is "Sea Monsters" so many of the trades will involve things of the sea. I am including a picture of my works in progress (little toy compasses with a mermaid drawing inside who is pointing towards the West since Port Townsend is about as far West as you can go in the U.S.!). The compasses have clear plastic lids, and I will put some sort of ribbon or message along the side of the compass and include my name and the year on the bottom. Still a lot of work to go!

In the meantime, we are refinancing our house; I have to go pick up Matt's books and parking pass for his next quarter of school; I'm getting a haircut, and I have a doctor's check up... all in the midst of cleaning house and preparing to pick up my mom at the airport in two days! While mom is here, we plan to do a little more prep work for Artfest (finding supplies, etc) and a LOT of baby talk. 

Here is a list of blog entries you can look forward to when I get back from my art break:

• Results of our second sonogram - which should confirm that I can paint the baby room pink if I so desire

• Pics of our house as it is now (before it is filled with baby toys)

• A story about how we chose the baby name

• Journaling about Matt's workload and my hormones (two ingredients which should never be mixed!)

This summer is filling up fast with visitors, baby classes and decorating!! Baby George, ie. Little Pink Baby Button will be here before we know it! Thanks for sharing in this adventure with us. We love and miss all of you!

Week 16: Prego with an Eggo

Well here it is ladies... you've been wanting to see a picture!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For so many weeks, I felt like I was the only one who could see it, especially when wearing jeans and layering for Winter. But after Matt took this picture... I realized its getting pretty obvious. I'm starting to get used to the idea of a baby bump!

Week 15: The First Time I Saw You

When I went to the doctor's office today for my sonogram, I was expecting to see a grainy little picture of a rockstar baby. But what I was not expecting was for the sonographer to ask me if I wanted to know the sex! We have the "official" sonogram scheduled in another five weeks, and that's when I was planning to drag Matt along, telling him that he did not want to miss this! But today the sonographer explained that sometimes she can identify the sex this early on. So after showing a little disappointment that my husband was absent, the woman said, well, I don't have to tell you what it is...

HA!! Like I was going to fall for that one! Of course, I still wanted to know. I just wished Matt wasn't going to have to live vicariously through my beaming face.

As the sonogram started, I was expecting the usual sonogram picture where the mom points to a couple geometric shapes and says, "See?! See my baby?" And you're all like, um, mm hm, yeah, I see it. Then you clear your throat and quickly change the subject to baby names!

But when I saw the baby on the screen moving around, to my surprise it was actually pretty easy to decipher. I was amazed at how easily I could identify its head, arms, body, spine, eyes, mouth, etc... it was precious!

For some reason, even though my stomach is starting to pooch out and I've gone through some morning sickness, indigestion, uncomfortable nights of sleep, I still have this question in the back of my head that says, is this for real? And since I can't just take a quick peak, see that it's wilting, move it into the sun and give it a little water... there is always this relief when I go to the doctor and she doesn't say, you know, you really don't have much of a green thumb, do you? So maybe precious is an understatement... awesome? amazing? astonishing?!! I think those are more like it.

Finally at the end of the sonogram, one more surprise was delivered... the sonographer told me that she was 90% sure it was a girl! All this time, even though I'v been wanting a girl, Matt has had me convinced about this theory of his that we would only have boys. The Georges have produced only males for the last three generations. Well let me tell ya, I couldn't wait to go home and burst his little bubble. Of course, he says he is still holding out for that 10% chance. But that doesn't seem to stop him from asking at least twice a day, how is my girl going?

Week 14: Positives and Negatives

So this week's entry has a bit of medical jargon, which may or may not be of interest to the reader. I wanted to add it to my journal for family medical history.

---------------------------------

On February 25th, I had my monthly check up with Dr. Partida. It was actually the first time I had met her since I only met with her nurse on my first appointment. It seems that everything is progressing as it should be.

I did, however, learn some interesting information. Evidently, I have a rare blood type of B negative (only about 2% of the population has this blood type). But even more interesting is what I learned about having negative blood (which only about 15% of the population has and probably only half of those are women). If a woman has negative blood and her baby ends up having positive blood (due to the father having positive blood, which is the case with Matt), there can be complications if the baby's blood enters the mother's blood stream (such as through miscarriage, some sort of accident or delivery). The mother's body will start to produce antibodies to kill the positive blood, thus killing the fetus. To hinder this, there is a fairly simple solution, which is to take a shot at 28 weeks and then again right after delivery to keep the body from producing antibodies. If the body were to learn how to produce antibodies, then during any future pregnancies it would immediately start to produce them, terminating the pregnancy. (This is not a concern for women with positive blood, because positive blood can be mixed with either positive or negative blood types.)

All this was a bit disconcerting to hear at first. But it seems that it can be easily handled if one is aware of the situation. Luckily any daughters that I may have, should not have to worry about this since they will inherit positive blood types from Matt.

On another note, Dr. Partida wants me to come back next week for a sonogram to definitely date the baby and confirm my due date. I can hardly wait to see my little one up on the big screen!

-----------------------

The envelope (with the buttons glued on it) on the right hand side of the journal will include a print out from the internet with some more information on negative blood type for pregnant women as well as info on my parents' blood types. As soon as I learned this about myself, I was curious as to what blood types my parents had and whether my mom had faced the same thing. Evidently both my parents had positive blood types, and occasionally this can result in a baby with a negative blood type (me!). So it was not a concern for my mother.

Week 13: New Duties

Much to Matt's chagrin, he is now assigned to cleaning out Dash's litter box. We had heard rumors that pregnant women shouldn't change litter boxes, but the doctor confirmed that there is a chance of transmitting toxoplasmosis to the fetus (even though adults generally develop immunity to it). When I first explained these new duties to Matt, he quite frantically exclaimed, "You're sh#!!ing me!" I'm not sure whether the double entendre or his disbelief was more funny; evidently cleaning his "stepcat's" litter box is the ultimate sacrifice.

Guess I won't get much sympathy for carrying our child for nine months!

_____________

FYI: We learned this info a while back, so Matt has had this chore for a while now. I am just now getting around to giving him credit for it. Additionally, Dash thought he deserved a little credit too, so he stuck his head in front of the camera as I was trying to take a picture of this page. Cats have little humility.

Week 12: Valentine's Day

This week I thought I'd add a little Valentine's Day card for the baby to be. Matt calls the little one his "Baby Button". So the valentine is addressed to Button. On the back, I wrote a note about what we did this Vday. It reads:

Originally Daddy and I had planned to avoid the crowds and spend Valentine's Day at home grilling a few steaks for dinner. But then as the evening progressed, we decided we might like to go to a movie and out to eat. We headed to Bellevue Square, bought tickets for Gran Torino which was playing later in the evening and then headed to Maggiano's for dinner. While sharing a spinach salad and baked ziti, we thought about what it will be like this time next year when you will be 6 months old!! We are so excited and anxious and really can't imagine what our lives will be like with you as a new addition. In the meantime, we were even more appreciative this Valentine's Day of our alone time together, just the two of us out for a romantic evening!

Week 11: Telling Friends

This page is  a little busy, but there was a lot I wanted to convey. On the left hand side, I took messages that people sent me on Facebook and made a little list of their comments. It actually ended up being two pages long, so you can lift up the first page (from the bottom, lifting out of the photo corners) and read the second page. On the right, I journaled about spreading the news. It reads:

We finally decided to start spreading the news about you this week. Technically, we should have waited two more weeks (completing my first trimester), but we were getting too excited to wait. Almost all our friends live out of town (it's been a year and a half since we left Dallas), so spreading the news required many phone calls. Only after that did we post our news on a popular networking website called Facebook. Matt's status read: Matt is Stephanie's baby daddy. And mine read: Stephanie has a bun in her oven. Soon we were flooded with well-wishes and congratulations!