Nesting

He knew this day would come.  The day I opened the door to his "man-cave," shook my head and said, "This has to go."

Since the gender reveal Drew and I have  been hard at work dismantling the sports memorabilia, film equipment and boxes upon boxes of wires that every tech guy seems to acquire, and slowly transforming our spare room into a more welcoming space for a baby, with fewer choking hazards.

Thanks to family and friends, we already have a lot of the essential equipment: a crib, changing table, swings, etc.  We're finding that babies are a lot like Apple products.  They're pretty cool on their own, but they come with a lot of additional accessories.  Unlike Apple products, some take a lot of work to assemble.

With the main furniture in place, our little nest looks impressive and almost complete in photos, provided I take said photo while balancing on top of a pile of junk in the opposite corner of the room.  It's a work in progress.

*A quick product endorsement* The wall decal is from www.popdecors.com.  You can order custom colors, they're easy to apply, removable, and ship very quickly!

 

The Athlete

Maybe it's too early to start bragging about our baby who hasn't arrived yet, but in his 24th week of gestation I'm already convinced that he will be a fantastic athlete.  Why?  Because the little guy has the energy level of a marathon runner, and it seems he's already training around the clock.

It all started while I was watching an episode of Glee, (don't judge) and I felt powerful kicks every time the characters sang their own rendition of a Beatles song.  I couldn't tell if the kicks were in protest to the diminishment of music legends, or dance moves to a catchy beat.  I tested the next morning with a real Beatles song and got the same response!  Unfortunately, to mine and my husband's disappointment, he did not react the same way to Michael Jackson.  We're still running periodic tests.  

Ever since then, the activity level has sky-rocketed.  Often times I wake up at 4a.m. to realize my belly is dancing, and not in the veil and jingly scarf sort of way.  I have found a few things that seem to be triggers.  So far, they are: going to sleep, waking up, eating, drinking, music, laughing, Max laying on my lap, attending important meetings, watching zombie movies, and prenatal appointments.

Drew and I had our second parenting class this week, which also includes checking our own vitals.  We took my blood pressure, weight, and Drew gets to check the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler (my favorite part!) As soon as he found the familiar "womwomwom" of the heartbeat, it was interrupted by a loud "WOMP!" and the biggest kick I think I've ever felt.  The machine hadn't had time to register the heart rate, so he tried again.  "womwomwomWOMP!" And again.  

Three big kick later, we finally registered a heart rate of 150bpm, and a baby with impressive aim!

A runner, a dancer, a soccer player? I guess we'll have to wait a little while longer to find out.

Just Keep Swimming

Shortly after we found out we were expecting, Drew and I joined a gym.  I have no idea why the timing worked out that way and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person so confused as to spend money on a membership to a gym while embarking on my first pregnancy, but the food in the cafe was good and the machines were so new and shiny and there was a water slide.  

Unfortunately water slides are discouraged during pregnancy... but swimming is highly encouraged!  That became my exercise of choice.  Maybe it's the low-impact, or the cool temperature, or the fact that gravity isn't pushing a growing baby into the rest of my organs, but being in the pool feels great.  As an added bonus, the bigger I get the more buoyant I become, so my swimming is actually easier and faster than it was in the beginning.  I swim for about 30 minutes two or three times a week.  I admit, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for just having the energy to get out of bed in the morning.  Then, I met a woman swimming in the lane next to me who noticed I was pregnant. 

"How far along?  I'm three weeks from my due date!" she said.

I looked down and realized she was probably one good butterfly stroke away from going into labor in the pool, and as she told me about swimming an hour a day, my pride faded.

Then, she told me this was her seventh.  Pride restored!  She's obviously a professional by now, on the same level as the women who compete in the Pregnant Olympics, and for all I know she could've been on performance-enhancing drugs.  Those prenatal vitamins consist of a cocktail of substances with all sorts of interesting side-effects.   I could develop fins and gills in the next few months too. 

Either way, I'm proud to say our gym membership is not going to waste.  And they have childcare, so eventually I'll be able to take advantage of that water slide.