111 "days to go" and an ear of corn

How far along? 24 weeks + 1 day

Total weight gain: I've only gained about 4lbs.

Maternity clothes? Not really... just a few bella bands to put over my pants and dresses that are flowy and light. After work, it's yoga pants & gym shorts when around the house!

Stretch marks? A few little ones popping up... using tons of creams but I'm not sure it helps. :(

Sleep: I'm always sleepy but I try not to take naps because then I wont be able to fall asleep at night, and of course I always wake up to use the bathroom.

Best moment of the week: Feeling a lot more movement and when I told Chris the update on how big the baby is (size of an ear of corn, about a foot long, and not yet chubby) He enjoyed that the baby probably looked like him... long and skinny.

Miss anything? No, not really. I'd love to eat a tunafish sandwich or try my father-in-law's homemade wine but it's not the end of the world.

Movement: Significantly more, but I'm looking forward to feeling more than just flutters. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really any more, I've pretty much gotten over the extreme aversion to onions but I'm not jumping into eating them right away.

Gender prediction: boy

Labor signs: None

Symptoms: Bloody noses! Excessive sweating... thanks a lot Chicago heat and humidity. Emotional... IT took about 2 seconds for me to start crying over the Google+ commercial... anything with babies or parenting and it's curtains for me. My round ligament pain & back pain comes and goes but luckily I have an awesome chiropractor and massage therapist!

Belly button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time? Happy!

Looking forward to: More movement on the baby's end and hopefully US moving so that I can get settled and start setting up baby things!

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Boy or Girl, names, and other #firstworldproblems

Because I am not working today... Because I have copious amounts of time on my hands... Because I don't have anything better to do (aside from the laundry, cleaning, filing, packing, blah blah blah...) Because I am just plain ridiculous... I may or may not have been online doing one or two gender prediction quizzes and calculators. Lately I've been hearing a lot of guesses here and there about whether this little one is of the male or female variety. So, come one come all to cast your vote, take your chances, and let your voice be heard. What do you think? Will the newest little Walljasper be a boy or a girl? Leave a comment with your guess or vote on facebok and we'll see where the guesses trend. THEN come September, we'll see if you all are right or not.

In other news, The Stir .com has posted the top 100 baby names of 2011 list. Interestingly none of our girl picks were on the top 50... the boys however is a different story. It's hard to name a baby, isn't it? We are sensitive to potential teasing, we want something unique but meaningful, we tend to be traditional, we think about how all of our kids names will work together (wouldn't it be kinda odd to have a Sally, Bobby, and LaShawnda all in one family?). Initials are important, we don't want a C.O.W. or something, that's embarrassing. Names are thrown out because that one kid in 2nd grade was named that name and he was a bully. Or "but so and so's cousin twice removed had that name and was a stripper". And over arching, there's the pressure of giving someone a name they will have to live with for the rest of their lives... yeah, its a big deal.

*Sigh*

I guess I'll go work on other things. Like buying a wedding gift for the wedding we are going to this weekend or doing laundry so I can wear underwear to the wedding this weekend... yeah, productive things like that.

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Baby's first photo shoot

Friday was our very first ultrasound...

I had to drink 32 oz of water before 10:45am and not go to the bathroom until after my 11:30 appointment. Because I am a bone head I thought the bottles of water I had been drinking were 8oz... they were actually 16oz - apparently that's what bottles of anything basically comes in. So, I was a whole 16oz ahead of schedule when I realized that I had had more than enough water and my bladder was waiting to burst.

I got to Alexian Bros Hospital early in hopes that we could get in early. No such luck. We waited for a while and then finally were taken back to get the party started. As I lay on my back the ultrasound technician says, "No let me know if you have to use the restroom" meanwhile she pushes the little ultrasound wand thing so hard onto my stomach that I nearly went right there. Unsure what she would do if I said I needed to go while I was laying there covered with sticky blue gel I decided to suck it up and wait a while longer... a long while longer... Who knew she would be taking so many pictures for my midwife?

"What's that big black blob?" my curious husband asks.
"That's Mom's bladder" the tech replies.
Yeah... I gotta go lady.

While the technician's bedside manner was less that awesome, seeing my baby for the first time was amazing. It is so crazy, those ultrasounds make the baby look so big and yet when she measured the little one's head it was only 5 centimeters across. It kind of threw me off. But everything looks fantastic and baby is actually measuring with a due date later - like September 23rd or so. We'll see if our midwife changes the due date but the tech said she probably wouldn't. Either way it was fantastic to see little legs kicking away but strange that I really couldn't feel as much movement as we were seeing on the screen. And the heartbeat! While we didn't HEAR that rapid little pulse, watching the heart beat on the screen was... fascinating? awesome? Words don't really describe.

All I know is that I ...we... have been given an incredible gift. Truly.
And the human body is really freaking cool.



And no, we didn't find out the gender of our little one. 

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What I want to teach my baby...

I think I'm having a boy... but regardless this is what I want to teach my baby.

“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

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