I Love My Baby's Daddy.

So lately I've been reading some pregnancy message boards, mostly from other women due in April. For the most part, I've realized that this is an incredible waste of time... However, one thing that has caught my attention is the fact that there are an awful lot of women out there who use those boards as a place to vent. Now, I can understand the need to vent, but seriously! Some of the things people say about their husbands is just wrong! And, when one woman posts, the reactions of other women seem to just get worse... "Oh yeah?? Well, listen to what MY husband did to me!" Because yeah, that's what we need. A bunch of emotional pregnant women (I'm allowed to say that, seeing as I am one) playing off of each other's already whacked out emotions.

Anyway, I've probably read, or at least seen... well, a whole lot of these threads where women are constantly tearing their men down. Surprisingly enough, I did see one thread (to which I think maybe 6 women responded, versus the 40+ who responded to the others) where a woman asked if other women's husbands "treated them like a princess" the way hers did. For several weeks I've been planning to post on how wonderful my husband is, and these posts just made me more thankful for him. So here goes...

Having been married to Andrew for 19 months now, I have had ample opportunity to experience how wonderful he is. He takes such good care of me, and that care has only improved since we discovered that we are expecting a baby. Life was definitely not easy for those first 4+ months because I was so sick, but he did everything in his power to make it easier for me... Including doing almost all of the packing and cleaning of our old apartment when we moved one or two months in, doing almost all of the cooking (smells were nasty!), letting me rest when I could, and just doing whatever he could think of to be helpful. (Oh, and if it's at all avoidable, don't move during pregnancy!) Those were hard days for both of us, but his support was irreplaceable.

And now, my growing tummy is making just about everything more difficult. I have to keep reminding myself that, as difficult as it is to do things and go places now, it will never be this easy again.:) I may feel like a house, but it's still easier now. I have to keep reminding myself of that. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do silly things like bend over to pick something up off of the floor, get off the couch (especially without first sliding to the edge), or tie my own shoes. Andrew has become increasingly helpful with all of those things...

He frequently ties my shoes for me, and pulls or pushes me up off the couch, doing whatever he can. I don't know how I would have made it this far without him. He is a constant encouragement to me. He makes me feel special, beautiful, and loved, and he's excited to share this pregnancy with me. I couldn't ask for a better husband. I am exceedingly thankful for him.

He's such a sweetheart. And I love him. I can't wait to see him with the baby. Just watching him interact with our baby now is such fun. I love it when he has his ear against my tummy and the baby kicks him. It just makes me smile. He's going to be a wonderful Daddy. He already is a wonderful Daddy. I am truly blessed to have him. He does all he can to make my life easier. I'm looking forward to embarking on this new section of this adventure with him. It's hard to believe that we have less than six weeks left!

Andrew, I love you. I am thankful for you every day of my life. You are a wonderful example of what a husband should be. Thank you for loving me, and for loving our baby. I don't know what I would do without you.

33 1/2 Weeks and Visits with Friends

So, the arrival of this baby is getting scarily close. Yikes! It's just hard to believe that April eighth is just over six weeks away. Of course, I'm still telling myself it's the 16th instead, so that I'm (hopefully) not too disappointed when I go over. Maybe we'll have a tax-day baby. Or, an end-of-March baby, which would be nice. :)

We had a checkup this last week with Carolyn, who is the midwife that we like. She said everything is going well. My blood pressure is a little high, but hopefully that will calm down by the next visit. She felt the baby and told us how he was positioned in there. That was kinda fun. But then she got the Doppler out to listen to his heartbeat and discovered that she must have scared him and given him hiccups! It was funny to both feel the hiccups and hear them on the Doppler. :) It made us smile. She did say that he's probably going to be a good size (surprise, surprise) and that I'm measuring two weeks ahead. Overall, it was a good visit. We really like her, and I wish there was a way we could know that we were going to have her there for the delivery. That would make us much more comfortable. She's not a worrier, but she does tell you when there is a problem. She said she wouldn't order an ultrasound just because the baby is probably going to be big, which I really appreciated. (I guess they offer an elective C-section if the baby is projected to be higher than a certain weight.) ANYway, I just like her. We have our next appointment on March 5th, and then after that it's every week until he (or she) arrives. Crazy.

Also, last night we met my roommate from college, along with her husband, sister, parents, and their youth group, for supper at CiCi's. They brought the kids to ski at Winterplace. It was just really good to see Deborah, as it's been a while. Plus, HannOni needed to meet his Aunt Room Frog. :) I wish I'd taken the time to get a picture, but I forgot! Hopefully we'll catch up again in July.

Okay, I'm off to make banana bread and rice and beans while Andrew works on school. I've been wanting banana bread for a long time, so I'm excited about it!

Hiccups

I've wondered over these last days and weeks why I've never felt our baby hiccup. Everyone is always telling me about being annoyed by the baby having hiccups. Why doesn't my baby get hiccups? But, during our birthing class on Thursday night, one of the labour nurses said something about hiccups, and Andrew looked at me pointedly... And it finally clicked that the movements I was feeling (it was almost like I could feel a pulse, but it was way too slow, but too rhythmic to be kicks or squirms) were hiccups! Eureka! And since then, I've felt it several times and it's like, "duh!" I can't believe I never put that together. Needless to say, our baby does in fact, get the hiccups. (Just in case you were wondering.)

32 1/2 Weeks

So I've just spent a few minutes reading some of my favourite pregnancy web sites. Sometimes what these people say just makes me laugh. I read a funny "Top Ten Things NOT To Say To A Pregnant Woman" list last week and was going to post a link to it, but now I can't find it. They just crack me up. Sometimes I totally agree with everything they say (it's perfectly okay for friends and family to touch my belly, but NOT for strangers), and other times I just think they're nuts. But, if you're bored and want to read the account of one woman at 32 weeks go here. She's got some much-more-extreme-than-I-do feelings about some things, but it was an interesting read. Some of the things that really annoyed her, I think are cute. Like everyone staring at a pregnant woman... I think they're cute, so I want to look at them and grin, too. That doesn't offend me. But, to each his own and I did enjoy reading her side of the story.

Also, last night was our last childbirth class. It was basically a quick tour of labour and delivery (they only had one delivery room available, and there was actually someone ready to come up after our tour) and a peek through the glass into the nursery. Then they showed us how to bathe a baby, and a bunch of other basic baby care info... jaundice, taking temperatures, feeding, diapering, taking care of the umbilical cord, etc. Andrew did a very good job diapering their little prop baby. I'll be sure he gets LOTS of practice with the real thing too, though. :) Something that was really sad was that there was this young couple in there... The girl asked a question about who gets to decide what the baby's last name is and the educator then asked how old she was. She was only 15!! And her boyfriend was 17. And they basically told her that because she was a minor, her dad had to sign off on all paternity papers. She told us that her dad didn't want the baby to have his name, even though that was what she and her boyfriend had decided. And then she went on to ask questions about whether or not they could decide who would be allowed to come into the room, etc, and it just made me feel for her. I'm so glad that I'm doing this with Andrew, and that our families are so supportive. There is such a tangible layer of comfort in that.

Anyway, I need to find something else to eat... Honey Bunches of Oats simply aren't cutting it this morning!

Visitors

It was so great to have Luke and Helena down for a few days. We hadn't seen them since their wedding last July. Plus, they were our first non-family guests here. Although, I'm not sure if they count as "non-family" or not. We had lots of fun... a freezing trip out to Grandview, several games of Cranium (Helena's very good with the clay!), Pit, food, laughter (mostly this was Luke and Andrew being giddy just from being together... and sometimes it was Helena and I laughing at them because we just couldn't help it because they were SO silly), and video games (again, Luke and Andrew... watch out for those hamstring injuries!), etc. It was just a good time.

We got to talk a little about the baby and it's so nice to have friends who are excited for and with us. Babies are wonderful little miracles, and we can't wait to meet this new little guy (or gal). (Also, Gina will be glad when we are no longer calling the poor kid "HannOni.") Although, our stance on girls names has been slightly shaken recently... so, we're thinking about that still. I always wondered if that would happen, since we decided on a girls name so quickly and easily. We'll see.

And, for those inquiring minds, I'm still thinking/working on a picture possibility... We'll have to see how that goes. I did realize this weekend that we really haven't been good about taking pictures during this pregnancy. We have only a few, if any, in which you can actually tell I'm pregnant. Hmmm... Okay, that's it for now.

Baby Stuff

Today I had another checkup. Everything is fine, and it's crazy to think that we only have nine weeks left. Yikes. It's still fun to hear the baby's heartbeat. That doesn't get old. Today the baby's heart rate was 140 beats a minute... That's right in between the usual cutoffs for "above is a girl and below is a boy." So, we either have a calm girl or an active boy... Somehow I think it's the latter. I've pretty much stopped saying that I think it's a girl and embraced the fact that it's probably a boy. :) It'll be fun either way, but really... He is currently moving around and making my stomach look like... I don't know what.

The last few days I have been fairly obsessed with looking up baby stuff online. It's hard when I really don't want to do the yellow and green thing to find appropriate clothing. Actually, green isn't so bad. I think it's yellow that I really don't like. The problem is that they usually come together. But, there are a few boy things that would work for a girl. And, baby gap has SO many adorable things. I had to stop looking, cause they're so expensive, but it made me realize that there are things out there that would work. I'm really loving brown, blue (most of gap's things that are blue don't have anything but the little bear on them, so it's not like there's a big sailboat or bats and balls all over them, which is what I like), green, and white. There are just some really cute things out there.

It's hard to know what we actually need before the baby comes, too. I mean, yes, we'll need clothes, but not that many. We should be able to get a few things and maybe borrow a few things and then see what we need there. But, how about health and safety things? How many diapers will we need? Wipes? Do we need a bouncy seat before the baby is here? When will we actually need to buy a crib? I guess I'm just realizing that, beyond a few essentials, I don't really know what we'll need, when. And I don't want to do the "new mom" thing and go crazy and have a bunch of things that we don't need. Fortunately I've been around enough family with babies to have some idea of what I need and what can probably wait, but still. And, part of me is so excited that I want to go out and buy a bunch of new, cute stuff. :) We'll just see how it goes.

Also, we're having our first visit from Uncle Luke and Aunt Helen this weekend, all the way from Canada (that's way way up in Asia, according to little Andrew, a couple of years ago). That should be fun! HannOni has been waiting to meet them. :) We're excited to have them stay for a few days and we're looking forward to it!