Nursery Pictures

Here's the crib!

I made a bird mobile out of the extra fabric from Grandma Gustafson's quilt.

Quilt by Grandma Gustafson

Here's Tiny's baby quilt made with love by Grandma Gustafson.

I used some of the extra fabric to make soft blocks.

Wall Hanging for Nursery

I finished this wall hanging for the nursery last week. The embroidered animals where made by the Great Grandmother Mimi. We are not sure when she made them or who they were intended for, but I am honored to have them. My Grandmother had the large quilt top that included 24 embroidered images for quite a while. She passed it on to me I used 12 of the images to create this wall hanging. I'm still brainstorming about a good project for the other 12. The vintages fabrics are perfect with the other elements of Tiny's nursery.

boy?girl?

On a walk up South Congress today a large black man, who appeared to be homeless, stopped me to let me know that the baby is a boy. I asked him how he knew and he said he could tell the future. Hmmm? I'm always curious about people who can tell the future- but have to beg for money at a bus stop.

Other sources of prediction, such as dreams and intuition of non strangers point in different directions. My friend April is pretty confident you can rely on dreams- So far all the dreams I've had about the baby star a baby girl. Sheri, Sean's sister is guessing girl as well. My mom and grandma are predicting boy.

I'm not carrying particularly low or high, I haven't lost my curves or acquired extreme acne, all theories of indicators. Neither Sean or I have a confident sense about wether it's a him or a her- and we don't really have a preference- So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Another Ultrasound picture

Another profile- but this ones nice because you can see his/her little hand. The one on the right is hard to decode- it's the baby's nose as if you where looking up at it. you can just barely make out the nostrils towards the left side of the image.

Ultrasound

We had our ultrasound on Oct. 15. It was reassuring to see that Tiny is healthy as can be and very entertaining to see him/her squirming around in there. We didn't want to know the gender and we actually had the discipline to keep our eyes closed when the technician explored those areas. Sean said he was very tempted to peak- I think I was just so excited to see the baby I forgot about my curiosity about the gender. Here are some pictures.

Profiles

Feet.

3d face.

(These 3d images are always a little creepy. But I promise if you stare at it for days on end it gets really cute.)

Good Morning.

The last 2 days in a row I have been awaken not by the alarm, or the sun, or even the need to pee- but by my baby moving and kicking. It makes me smile and think about the fact that I will probably be awaken by that same little person every morning for many years to come.

Little baby Fifi

The sweetest baby related thing that happened in the last week was Cohen (our babies 3 yr old cousin) expressed her feelings about our baby. During a dinner she called my attention from across the table to say "Cybil, I like your baby". It was sweet and honest and a delight to hear. She did go on to comment that she was pretty sure it's a girl and that her name is "Fifi".

Sleeping like a baby?

Right now I feel completely sympathetic with tiny babies that wake up in the middle of the night crying. I woke up around 3 am so starving that all I could do was wake Sean up and express, on the verge of tears, that I was "soooo hungry". He was brilliant- suggested I eat something. Duh, you'd think I could come up with that on my own. I just felt horrible and helpless. I imagined myself as a tiny baby unable to solve my own problems. Turns out it was nothing a banana couldn't fix, temporarily anyway, an hour later I was back down to the fridge looking for milk and cereal.

Aside from a myriad of food issues, this has been a fun week or two of pre-motherhood. Our last prenatal appointment went really well. Everyone is healthy and thriving. Baby is measuring just the right size and I am feeling better and better all the time. We listen to the babies heart again- it was loud and fast and sounded great. So great actually that it made me giggle. Every time June would find the heart it would "turn my tickle box upside down" (as Grandpa Larry would say). It was joyful and fun. A little distracting for June, and after the third try at determining the heart rate the conclusion was that it sounded healthy and counting out a heart rate was not going to fly for a mommy-to-be who was that giggly.
Other excitement- I am definitely looking pregnant. I even ventured into the world of maternity clothes. I wanted to resist but after days of going to my closet and feeling defeated in finding something that fit comfortably, I went for it. It was good, I'm thankful to live in a time when fashion has crossed over to maternity wear and the moo moo is a thing of the past. We'll take a picture this weekend so everyone can see the baby bump.

A place for a baby

I've been nursery planning. Focusing on the fun parts like quilt fabric and cute themes, letting daddy-to-be focus on the fact there's a little remodel that needs to occur before I can buy a crib and hang a mobile. Here are some baby things I like:

The crib of choice. It's smaller than a standard crib, which accomodates our tiny nursery and I love the casters.

I like these wall decorations. Embroidery hoops with stretched fabric.

Super cute bird mobile. I down loaded the pattern for the birds and want to start testing my skills at bird making soon.

And of course there will be a very special hand made quilt from Grandma Gustafson. Here are my color ideas and some possible fabric choices.

First trimester complete!

As I crawl out of the first trimester, I'm at 14 1/2 weeks, things are starting to feel better physically and starting to feel more real. We had our first appointment with the midwife at about 12 weeks. She moved our due date (to later, darn!) but the best part was that we got to hear the babies heart beat. I was nervous because I was expecting to hear it but directly before she started up the doppler thingy she said "Now it's possible it will be too early to find the heartbeat, so I don't want you to be disappointed if we don't hear it" Um, that's the only reason I came the appointment! But I sheepishly nodded and luckily we did get to hear it.
Also with the 2nd trimester is came a new yoga class, our first batch of baby gifts, and lots of "spreading the word". All things that make it settled in reality.
Seeing 20 other pregnant women at Yoga was rewarding- I kept thinking "All these women are going to have babies, and I am here, AND I am going to have a baby!" The teachers started class with a birth story of a former student- I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. An easy audience I suppose, over 20 hormone induced listeners that are craving a baby story. It felt good to stretch and be back in the yoga studio- it was also rewarding to have set the time aside to focus on the baby.
Grandma Dee Dee and Great Grandpa Paw Paw got us our first big baby gift. A new BumbleRide stroller. It is amazing and we did a significant amount of research to determine just the right stroller to keep our family active and on the move. Thank you Dee Dee and Paw Paw. We can't wait to test it out. We also have a toy from Miss April my co-worker and co-new-mom and some cute outfits. It's nice to have baby stuff starting to move into the house- again making it all seem more real.
I had my first dream that involved the baby. It was a girl- but I am chalking that up to the fact that we just had Rylie Bowman (8 month old daughter of Eric and Molly) stay with us and I met Lyla (5 month old girl of work associate) both on the same day as the dream. Our baby in the dream was a combo of those two more than some sort of psychic connection to the sex of our baby. I have been wanting the baby to show up in a dream for a while- unfortunately I wasn't doing a great job taking care of her in this dream world- but I think there were other considerations- long story for another time.
Cheers to trimester 2!

Away We Go

You must go see this movie.
More info at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1176740/


We now know who would play Sean in a Hollywood movie of our lives.
Auditions are still being held for some to play me.

midwives and secrets

Today we visited our second midwife. We are anxious to start building a relationship with our care provider and to have someone to address our questions. Sean is ready for an expert to enter into the support team and I am ready to start making the next set of decisions.

We both loved Ms. June. She was warm and kind. She had just the right about of "mothering" to her personality- enough to make you feel comfortable telling her anything, but not so much that she calls you "hon" (one of my initial fears). We are going to think more about it tonight, sleep on it, see if we want to interview anyone else, but our feeling right now is that Ms. June is person we'd like to have at our side when we deliver our baby. It's so exciting to be able to write that, and with confidence!

I have not been feeling too well. It's not that my nausea is overly strong- it sort of pulses in severity through out the day- but it is constant. I been drinking raspberry leaf tea and snacking lots. It's hard to tell what's working and sometimes it feels like all the efforts to ward off the ickiness are pretty feeble.

Our list of "who's in the know" has grown a little. We were attempting to keep it to the immediate families and a few key friends, but it's definitely spreading. Sean was congratulated on the golf course last weekend. Aunt Sharla didn't realize the power of the Facebook network- so a few friends of friends of friends of friends know. No one that is in our circle so it's more funny than anything else. I couldn't get through happy hour with Jackie and Christopher with out letting the news out- I guess it makes sense that your drinking buddies are some of the first to know. So Mom and Dad Gustafson, Larry, Dee Dee, Sharla, Sheri, Tim, Cohen, Lorelei (I doubt she'll tell anyone), Derek and family, Lizzie, Molly S, Christina and Tom, Eric and Molly, 204 of Sharla's Facebook friends... wow, we are bad at secrets. I guess the cat is out of the bag and we might just need to pick up the phone to make sure the rest of our friends and family get in on the excitement.

staring at babies

Yes I'm going to be a blog mom- With so many of our friends and family so far away it makes sense to have a running update of our little ones life. It's probably a little early to start, our "little one" only being the size of a lentil right now- but I am so anxious for some part of this 'baby having' to start- that I've declared the blog to be step 1. (not really- we took the home test, made an appointment, took some vitamins, told our parents, bought 3 books, etc.)

I think the real reason I've started the blog is that I have now investigated nearly EVERY baby website, primarily ones with Eames rocking chairs and modern bassinets, but also ones with loads of information about everything that could possibly go wrong with a pregnancy. Now I am on input overload and need a venue for output.

So far I've felt ok. There have been a few bad moments where the nausea is distracting- but I'm fortunate to have a flexible schedule and some time to rest and lay low. The hardest thing so far has been maintaining my regular exercise. My exhaustion level, coupled with the 100 plus degree weather, has made it a challenge. But today I had a good swim and feel good about building some new active habits that fit with pregnancy better than some of the things I've been doing. Getting hit by cars on your bike and running in extreme heat have fallen off the list.

I can't wait until we progress into the pregnancy. I'm ready for the wooziness to be is over and to tell everyone. I can't wait until I look pregnant so that the mom's at the grocery store know why I'm staring at their babies or the people on the running trail know why I am studying their jogging strollers. I'm ready to make a place for the baby in our little home. I'm ready to buy a high chair and diapers... but for now I'll stick with reading my books, taking vitamins and posting a few premature blog posts.