My how the baby is growing...

Week 6 - nothing to see here!

Week 7 - something's in there...

Week 8 - the bean is taking baby form

Week 12 - holy cow, there was a lot for the technician to point out to us, but heck if we can interpret it off these pics. I know that 12wks1day is with the arm covering his/her face. I think 12wks1daypic2 is the whole body, with the head (face up) on the right and the rear on the left. Notice I say "I think."

Week 20 - now THAT actually looks like a baby!

Week 33 - baby's too big to get the whole picture, but we got a neat shot of the spine and one of baby's foot. At this ultrasound they told us the estimated weight of the baby is already 5lbs 14ozs! He or she is going to be a bruiser, as they can put on up to half a pound each week for the next 7 weeks till our due date!

Sorry for the tease... scanner at work isn't doin it so I'll have to post this 33wk one later tonight!!

Love,

Heather

"Rotten" is right!

When my step-dad found out I was pregnant, he said "I'm gonna call it Rotten, because it's gonna be spoiled rotten!" And that is already proving to be the case. We are pretty much finished with the nursery now and ready to post some pictures. We are very excited for the addition of a dresser/changing table that my daddy is building for us, but that will arrive when he comes to visit the baby after the birth. It will go next to the glider where the boxes currently are. Of course the first thing you'll note is the Winnie the Pooh theme... welcome to Pooh Corner!

You'll also note as we pan around the room that there are a bunch of presents, largely resulting from the lovely ladies you see pictures of below. My good friend Helen was the hostess with the mostess in Chicago this past weekend and we ate and drank well while the baby collected a lot of "booty"!

Keep checking back as we have some cool updates coming soon! Tomorrow we're having an ultrasound. And this weekend my sister is hosting a shower in Milwaukee for us. (Talk about spoiled rotten, right? Baby Rotten will get another "welcome baby shower" with Jason's mom's side of the family at Thanksgiving too!) What a blessing to be loved by so many people before you've even arrived!!

Reality Check

So I just picked up Heather from the baby shower her friend Helen threw for her, and we got some great stuff. However, one thing really stuck out to me that was like "Whoa, this not just hypothetical, this is happening." The item in question was a package of newborn diapers, courtesy of Heather's friend Menucha. Yeah, Menucha's good for those reality checks - started with the baby heartbeat monitor and Snugli she gave us several months ago and doesn't seem to have let up. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came and gave us all the goodies, we really appreciate it. For those of you going to the Milwaukee shower, we can't wait to see you! Take care all.

- Jason

Lamaze weekend 2 day workshop

Hi all, Heather here! Jason and I had a very enlightening experience this weekend. We attended a Lamaze weekend 2 day workshop at Evanston Northwestern Hospital, where we plan to give birth. I've been joking that up until now my birth plan has been "denial"! This was a really incredible class though, and we both came away with soooo much more than we ever expected.

The teacher was a nurse who worked labor and delivery for 10 years before becoming a lamaze instructor. She was incredibly informative. We expected it to be two full days of breathing techniques and yoga-like positioning, as we've all seen in the movies and on tv. And while there was an element of that, it was only a small portion of the total experience. She walked us through all the stages of labor, including the list of things that would happen to our bodies in the weeks or days leading up to labor. She explained to us in great (but not graphic) detail about how the baby moves through the birth canal. She even explained in depth about some of the differences between the hospital's "routine procedures" and what was absolutely necessary, thus empowering us to make decisions and ask questions of the staff when we are in the hospital.

I have to say that my expectations originally were that I'd be asking for that epidural the minute I walked in the door, but having been through this course I definitely feel the opposite. I won't say that I will absolutely have an unmedicated birth, and of course you have to be prepared to be flexible with your plan, because goodness knows that the baby will sometimes call the shots (isn't that right, little Sofia?) But I definitely have the feeling now that I want to try to go as far as I can with as little intervention as possible.

We also got a tour of the labor and delivery, and the postpartum and nursery. It's a very nice facility! There's one birthing room with a tub, which I'm sure is the "good room" that all the mom's might fight over... They won't let you have a water birth, per se, but they will let you labor in it for pain relief. The recovery rooms all have recliners for the dads and also rollaway beds if they want to stay in with the mom and baby during the duration of the stay. We also got to see three brand new babies in the nursery! So cute and so little, it's hard to believe we'll get one of our own soon.

As for the nursery, the painting will be done tonight. Then comes the not-small task of reassembling everything and rehanging the window treatments, etc. So hopefully within a few days we'll have some pictures for you!

Decorating is under way!

Hi all, Heather here. Jason's brother Jeff is kind enough to come and help us with the baby's room this week. So after much deliberation, I think we finally made a decision on the paint today!

We're going to do a two-tone paint treatment with a stencil as the "chair rail". Similar to this idea.



Only our colors will be cream on the top and sage on the bottom, with this stencil as the border between the two. (Assuming we can actually find this stencil...) Today we chose Valspar Caribbean Walk as the cream and Pale Oak Grove as the green, but we may go one tone darker and get Spearmint Shale. I was going to load a pick of the swatches from Valspar's website, but the color on the screen is not true to the swatches we brought home, so it's kinda pointless. I think we're going to purchase the sample size of each to make sure they work the way we want them to on the wall at home.

Here's a link to the baby bedding we purchased. You can zoom in and note that the border stencil we're going to do plays off the green gingham. And I'm going to turn the bedskirt into a window valance, so that will be the window treatment. http://www3.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6E.aspx?DeptID=62438&CatID=62731&GrpTyp=ENS&ItemID=14e7ae0&attrtype=&attrvalue=&CMID=62438%7c62644%7c62645&Fltr=&Srt=&QL=F&IND=69&cmVirtualCat=&CmCatId=62438626446264562731

Love you!

Heather

Baby room on the way

So we got a great deal on a crib off craigslist last week (even if it came with a used mattress we'll not be using), therefore we finally felt the urge to actually get working on the baby's room. All of our office stuff is now in the dining room, which feels a little more compact with the extra furniture in it, but at least now the office looks more like a nursery. We even put up two Pooh pictures one of Heather's clients gave us. Now we just need the dresser Bud is quite graciously building for us, and to pick a new paint color - still vacillating between a lighter green and a light beige - and we should be close to ready for our new addition. Jeff will be down next week visiting and has offered to help out, so hopefully we will have picked out a color by then and can knock it out.

Heather has been experiencing Braxton-Hicks (sp?), but is not too worried about it yet. However, she does keep telling me about women on a baby forum who were also due in September and have delivered already, which gives me pause. Keep your fingers crossed for full-term and healthy. According to her the baby has been kicking like crazy and she thinks her insides have hickeys all over (that's for you Becca), but the baby also appears to be a smart aleck and stops whenever I try to feel it, then starts again when I pull my hand away. It'll be here soon enough though, so I'll be able to feel it for myself in due time.

With neighborhood fireworks going off over our nearby beach, I wish everyone a happy 4th of July. Take care.

- Jason