2 Mommies and a Baby

I can't believe we've made it to 38 weeks!


I don't think anyone thought we'd make it this far, especially us.


How cute is Loey all pregnant in my boxers!!

On the baby front, he's moving just as much as he was weeks ago. Now, we can feel what is his foot, maybe it's a knee, or when he sticks his butt out.

Lois stated to me tonight that she is ready for this kid to be here, but not ready to bring him here. What do you mean there is no stork that just brings the baby here?!?!?




And, don't worry sports fans! I may be lacking in my college team wear, but I have not neglected my Yanks or my Pats!!

We are college football fans!
Ok, I am a big college football fan. Lois doesn't understand why bowl games take priority over Lifetime movies.

My family is a big football watching family. Even my mother partakes in college football watching.

I went to Rutgers. My sister went to Penn State. My father went to USC. My mother got her PhD from UConn (we are UConn Basketball fans). My brother-in-law is a HUGE Notre Dame fan and his best buddy, Steve, is a HUGE Michigan fan.

This is what we received in the mail from Steve today! It's the first college football gear!

C'mon! Where's the rest of my family members!?!?!? Am I really going to put my kid in Michigan wear??!?!?

Well, at least it's not an SEC team.

Lois' comment?

"I sure hope the BIG HOUSE is a name for their stadium."

LOL

My lack of posts doesn’t mean that he’s here yet!

Sorry to disappoint!

Despite Lois’ best efforts to walk as much as her body allows and make bold statements about spicy food, castor oil, ginger, jumping jacks, etc., he is not here yet.

I still believe it’s not going to happen until after February 14th, but Lois doesn’t want to hear that.

This weekend was busy and work is crazy today.

My brain is too filled with theories on complications of improper tax assessments from independent valuation companies to comprehend something as light hearted as a fun-filled blog entry.

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

Lois seemed to think that once she started walking around, things would move along quickly.

We hit 37 weeks and Lois is uncomfortable, so she thinks he should come now.

Guess what?

He's not ready to come anytime soon!

We had the appointment today. She's as effaced as she was 9 weeks ago and is not dialated AT ALL!!!

She was sorely disappointed.

Most of the OB office seems to be placing bets that she will be induced at 41 weeks.

My mother seemed to be a little sad that it doesn't look like he will be born on her 60th birthday tomorrow.

Lois' pregnancy buddy, Salina, is due 10 days after us.

At her appointment yesterday, she was 50% effaced. She's had Braxton-Hicks contractions for months and now, she's getting cramps.

After all of the worries about us having Andrew in December, I'm betting Salina and Ben a dinner that they go first!

I know that when you have a child, you want to protect them and keep them safe to the ends of the earth.

I know that I will from Day One. (Hell, I have since the day we found out we were pregnant!)

The thing that I am most fearful of is the day our boy turns 16.

Yes, I know it’s early to be worrying about this, but I can’t help it.

We all know teenagers and college students aren’t always the most careful, smart people on the planet. Boys, especially so.

My fear is that my kid might do some of the things I did in high school and college. I know I can’t prevent him from making some of those not-so-smart decisions, but maybe he’ll be a little smarter than I was.

My best friend from when I was 3 years old was killed in a car accident our junior year of high school. He wasn’t the reckless type, neither were the other kids in the car. The accident was most likely the result of a brief moment of bad decision making and possibly some black ice.

Lois’ nephew, let’s call him Boy Wonder, just turned 17 and while he doesn’t make the smartest decisions, he lacks the motivation to be overly reckless.

He joined his local volunteer fire department, so he’s already had a pretty good dose of reality as he’s been on accident scenes of fellow students who have tried to drive their cars 80-100 mph in 30 mph zones. Less than 2 weeks ago, he had to see a friend of his who didn’t survive a 110 mph collision with a tree.

On Friday, he sat in our living room telling us how he had learned from what he had seen.

Last night, Boy Wonder totaled the car we gave him.

He’s okay. So is his 14-yr old brother who was in the passenger seat. They are both probably feeling a little banged up today. The other driver refused medical treatment, so thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.

We gave Boy Wonder a 1999 Kia Sportage convertible that doesn’t go fast enough to be overly dangerous and is worth about $500.

The accident wasn’t due to speeding or reckless driving, it was due to a 17 year old inattentive driver making an “unsafe turn.”

We were hoping that despite his lack of attentiveness or full awareness of what is going on around him, that he was experienced enough in his firefighter role to be more cautious than the average 16-17 young man behind the wheel of a car.

I know you can’t control the decisions your children make. My mother probably never wants to know about the bad decisions I have made in my life, and somehow lived through.

But you do hope that you can impact your kids enough that they think a little, respect themselves enough to be concerned about consequences and respect others enough to consider how their actions might impact other people.

We have time to try to ingrain some common sense into Andrew’s head in the next 17 years. Hopefully, some things stick in there.

We ordered blinds. They had to be custom because we wanted something nicer than the $4.99 blinds currently in the baby’s room.

We ordered the Bali cellular shades, blackout style and cordless for complete baby safety and comfort.

$300.00

Let me say that again.

$300.00

The flipping blinds cost more than the crib.

That's an Inno, PSP or even an autographed Tedy Bruschi jersey for Mommy Holly that is sacrificed in the name of blinds.

(Like Lois would let me spend $300 on any of the above anyway)

Damn.

Am I upset about the Patriots loss?
Yes
Am I surprised?
No

We left Salina and Ben’s house at halftime and Ben was telling me how the Patriots will definitely win. Considering they were winning 21-3 at the time he said it, it was not an outrageous thing to say.
"I never think the Patriots can’t blow a big lead. Plus, Payton Manning never goes quietly into the night."
By the time we got home, got Lois her Mylanta and crawled into bed for some major football action, the score was 21-21.
Throughout the night, as the Patriots never put up a fight, Lois kept turning to me and saying, "Wow, your team really sucks!"

Well, they were definitely not Super Bowl quality this year. That was very apparent last night.

- - - -

A friend of mine once said that when the 40 week pregnancy was contrived in the big scheme of nature (however you believe it was all created), it was a perfect amount of time.

During much of the pregnancy, you are excited but really scared about ever wanting it to end, to have to go through child birth.

Once you’ve been pregnant for close to 40 weeks, you just want to get that F%$*ing thing out of you.

True?

Yes.

Lois is ready. I know I’ve said this before, but she’s really ready.

She’s cranky and whiney. She’s tired of the heartburn, she’s tired of the rib pain, she’s tired of the back pain, she’s tired of not being able to walk up the stairs without wiping herself out. She’s tired of being pregnant.

Now, she keeps saying "he’s never going to come! Dammit.After 8 flipping weeks of bed rest, he’s not going to come. I probably could have been up doing jumping jacks 5 weeks ago and he wouldn’t have come. Dammit!"

She’s very warm and happy and sunny right now. As probably most women are 3 weeks before their due date.

And for crying out loud, I’m exhausted.

I know that I am not the pregnant one and very little sympathy should be had for me, but I will bitch and moan anyway.

I slept for about 4 hours last night in total. 3 things kept me awake all night.

1. Lois is never comfortable. She must reposition all night long. Each reposition requires some heaving, loud sighs and a forceful motion that seems to move the entire bed.
2. There are these loud gasps that happen. Lois says that every so often, she feels like she is choking and has a gasp for air. When I am just at the point of falling back asleep, I hear this gasp and jolt awake with my heart racing ready for the next statement to be something along the lines of "Holy shit, my water just broke!"
3. Pregnant women snore. Really loud. Like a linebacker or a sumo wrestler might snore. And they don’t think they snore at all.

Time is now slowing down. It feels like he will not be here anytime in the near future.

This does seem like a really long pregnancy. It feels like we’ve been pregnant for 2 years.
Does it seem exceptionally long to anyone else?

Lois woke up yesterday feeling and looking more pregnant.

Has she popped?

I think it's adorable.

And she still has no stretch marks!!!!

And now that she's mobile again, she gets to wear the cute maternity jeans we bought right before the BRI (Bed Rest Incident).
She's still not "huge" though. But at least it's getting a little harder to hide!

I seem to be a flickr idiot, so I'm sorry.

Here are some before and after pictures of Andrew's room (I think you can tell which are which!)

No, the drinking did not commence until we were done!

Our friends are so wonderful. And My mother even drove up to help!

www.flickr.com

GO PATS!!!!

I'm ready for a weekend of fun furniture moving and painting with my girlfriends!! (And my mom too!)

We promise not to open the bottles of wine until the room is at least 80% completed.

Sunday morning may bring an outing to Target - if Lois is up for it!

And Sunday night??!?

What's going on Sunday night?

Oh yeah, FOOTBALL!!!

..and dinner at Salina and Ben's, of course. I know Ben is a little disappointed that we won't be watching his 'Niners, but my Patriots are playing WOO HOO!!!

Plus, we will only be 5 minutes away from the hospital we are to deliver at, so, just in case Andrew wants to come on Sunday, we're ready...so long as it doesn't interfere with the playoffs.

So Consumer Reports retracted that car seat report.

See an article here.

I can't wait to show it to Lois' mother.

This little guy is still so darn restless!
Everyone talks about how you don’t feel much movement in the last month because things are so tight in there.
Uh uh
So not true.
Our little guy just finds more space to move to.

Of course, he never does it long enough for me to run down 2 flights of stairs to get the camera or camcorder.

But when he moves, he moves OUT. He did something which could be comparative to the Macarena on Monday morning, or the hokey pokey

left shoulder in, left shoulder out, right shoulder in, right shoulder out, butt in, but out, shaking all about in there

This morning, Lois had a HUGE lump on her right side. It was almost like his entire back and butt were sticking out sideways.

Very cool. Weird, but cool.

---

On another note, I am again asking for advice from the parents out there.

We postponed out baby shower(s) in December because Lois was on bed rest. We figured we would have it when he came. But now, we are just trying to figure out what we definitely need to have in the first month after he is born before the shower.

Here’s what he have so far:

- bassinet (no sheets yet) (thank you Suz)
- newborn clothes (thank you Suz)
- wipes
- a few diapers
- crib (in the box)
- pack and play (still in the box)
- car seat and stroller
- some bottles (thank you Suz)
- breast pump (thank you Suz!)
- crib bedding (thank you S&A!!!)

We might be in real trouble if it wasn’t for Suz.

Some things were purchased from our registry that I might like to have before the shower, but may not be absolutely necessary, such as:

- swing
- baby monitor
- bathtub

What else do we need for the first 4-6 weeks??? Is it rude to ask around to find out who might have already bought things???!?!?

We are having a painting party this weekend and I might have the changing table too! Is it possible that I could get his room set up this weekend?

We made it to 36 weeks!

Holy crap.

I don’t think anyone, including us or our doctors, ever thought we would make it to 36 weeks.

On being thankful...

I must offer the highest praise to Lois who listened to the doctors, didn’t cheat, didn’t complain about the food I provided to her (mostly take out) or the lack of cleanliness or organization in the house and didn’t completely freak out about my being responsible for the household in every way, shape and form.

(Although, she did make a few comments here and there about how she clips coupons and goes to the grocery store for "food with which to make meals" and I seem to spend a lot of money only to bring back "snack food.")

On being back to normal...

Lois just called me after her doctor’s appointment. The OB told Lois today that she can "go crazy" and do whatever she wants. I told Lois she should be a little cautious about "going crazy" but maybe we can actually have a meal outside the house!

She is now a "normal pregnant woman" – whatever that means!

I need to clarify if this means any form of intimacy is a possibility. I didn’t want to ask Lois with her mother in the car.

On being early...

The one positive thing Lois held onto if he was born early was that he would be small, i.e. less painful for mommy when he comes into the world.

Now the joke it, after all of this, this kid is going to be late. The 10+ lbs, 2 weeks past the due date kind of late.

Just kidding honey!

Not really.


On being ready...

We are ready for him now, and he is getting stronger and healthier every day. I am getting the room together this weekend and have all of my work priorities in order so if I have to leave, I won’t be stressed out.

He now can come now. Anytime. Well, any time except for this Sunday between 6:30-10:30 pm or Sunday, February 4th between 6:30 – 11:30 pm.

Just kidding!

Not really.

1. Lois is back to work.

2. Her belly button popped back in.

Work involves a 1/2 mile drive to work, walking 50 ft to her desk and playing computer games pretty much the entire day, with a few interrupting phone calls here and there.

The belly button thing is apparently temporary. I assume that after a Big Mac extra value meal, it may pop out again.

---

Tomorrow afternoon brings another OB appointment, then the purchase of the crib. It's another big exciting day for Lois.

Lois needs to work on how she starts conversations or reacts to kicks or moves.

She called Jody last week and started the conversation like "Jody, I'm so scared!"

It was a gossip call, but Jody had one shoe on grabbing for her keys.

Lately, she's been saying a ton of "OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH"s or "Oh My God!"s at a fairly alarming tone. After a giant heart rate blip, I soon realize that she is fine.

Usually, I ask her if she's okay about 25-30 times per day to make sure. I think she's getting a little tired of that.

Saturday night, she gave me another quick scare when she stood up and said "OH MY GOD!" as she held her belly.

No, it was not a water breaking moment or a contraction. Apparently, her belly button had popped out.

Everyone in the room slowly released the breath that they had just held in. Thank you again Lo for stopping time with an excited utterance.

---

And here's one for the "oh how our lives have changed" category...

We're using shot glasses from my collection again lately.

Every night, I take down a different shot glass from the shelf and Lois does a shot of....




Mylanta!


Whoopie!!!!


We are wild and crazy girls!!!

---

*I think the term "excited utterances" is one of the few things I remember from Evidence in law school - one of those hearsay rules. Hey, I'm not a litigator.

Hey readers!

Even if we don't always comment, we love keeping tabs on all of the blogs we visit.

This blog community is a wonderful thing!

There have been a lot of changes in these families since we started all of this almost 2 years ago!

Here are two new blogs of women ready to start this journey!

Please visit their blogs and offer any advice or thoughts!

Mommies in the Making

Starting this life

---

Also,

I think Loey would be mad at me for spending any money right now, but I really want this shirt for Andrew.

It comes in a onesie!

First of all - GO PATS!!!






Secondly, I want to say that I am recovering from my breakdown and we had a very successful weekend.

Saturday morning, Lois stayed in bed for a while. Lois was on the phone with Suz when she heard vacuuming.

"What did she break?" Suz asked.

This is what Lois saw when she made it downstairs:






What is it? It's our living room - our cot-free living room!

She was so excited. All she kept saying was "I've graduated! I've graduated! I've graduated from the cot to the couch!!"

Yes, friends, she has graduated. She can now move around, a little.

We had a wonderful morning in our clean living room as I made her a great breakfast!

She took full advantage of her new found freedom as we spent 1/2 of the day at Salina's baby shower and a few hours at Laura and Nancy's afterwards.

Ok, so she spent the entire time on the couch in both places, but at least it was a change of scenery.

Congrats Lo! I can't believe how well you have done to make it this far!

Lois has had a few breakdowns during this pregnancy/bed rest thing. Actually, she’s only had maybe two. Which is pretty good.

It was me who had the latest breakdown.

I’m not sure what really set me over the edge, but it happened last night.

I was upset because I was busy at work and had to leave to play tennis in my mother’s group because I was too absorbed in life that I forgot to find a sub.

I was upset because I have to much to do at work and had to bring work home and hate leaving this “new great career job” for other obligations.

I was upset because if Lois went into labor last night or today, I would feel awful about all of the loose ends at work, and I hate feeling that way.

I was upset because I just didn’t want to screw everything up.

I was upset that I needed to get stuff to eat for dinner because I hadn’t been grocery shopping and all Lois had to eat in the house was frozen bourbon chicken and one piece of pizza.

I was upset that I was going grocery shopping at Stew Leonard’s and I didn’t know what to get because Lois wasn’t with me.

I was upset because I heard that Target was having a HUGE sale on winter infant clothes and I really wanted to go get some 12-18 month stuff but Lois couldn’t come with me.

I was upset that Lois’ mother hasn’t bought the crib yet and is using the fact that I don’t have the room done as a reason.

I was upset because everything costs money and the town property taxes are due this month.

I was upset that Lois’ boss is being an ass and will fight having to give her unemployment so she will be hanging in this oblivion of unpaid leave until she finds another job.

I was upset because I am so out of shape and heavy that my clothes don’t fit and one hour of tennis made my back hurt again.

I was upset that my stupid Hyundai is less than 2,000 miles away from the 100,000 mile warranty being up, it’s been in the shop 3 times in the past 8 weeks and still has that fucking rattle somewhere underneath the car.

It’s all silly little stuff, I know.

I’m not much for crying but Lois cracked me last night, knowing that something was wrong.

We cried together as she held me in bed. Then, I fell into a fit of restless sleep for the rest of the night.

I feel awful that she’s the one going through the insanity of the bed rest, no income thing and I’m supposed the be the one keeping everything together. The last thing I want to do is stress her out even more.

On my way to work this morning, Bryan Adam’s “Have you Ever Really Loved a Woman” came on and I cried. I think it was the “can you see your unborn children in her arms?” that did it to me.

Sigh.

In the grand scheme of things, I know there are so many bright sides to what we are going through right now, but I still just needed a breakdown I guess.

Lois is irritable and testy.

She’s tired.

Last night, she put the Christmas stuff away, cleaned up all the bills, threw away junk mail and sorted the bags of crap that had accumulated around her cot in the last 7 weeks. (Nesting, maybe??)

Tonight, she hasn’t been feeling very well.

Either she’s about to go into labor or it’s going to be a very long next several weeks.

BTW - the doctor joked today that Lois will probably go late and have to be induced. This made Lois even more irritable.

I get nervous when I don't go to Lois' doctor appointments and then don't get a call from her until an hour after the appointment started. I guess with the non-stress tests, these appointments do go on forever.

All they did today was the Group B strep test and measure her belly. No vaginal ultrasound today to check the status of the cervix.

They told her that they are treating her as a normal pregnant woman now, no need for the constant cervix checks.

They are not lifting her bed rest just yet - (she can go to the baby shower this Saturday and probably back to work next Tuesday).

But the good news is that she can go to the hospital we want to go to, and we are not in the "critical" stages anymore, for the most part. This does not, of course, mean that she can get up and start dancing!

As for me, I leave work everyday with my entire work area ready to not be in the next day. I have a Word document in which my secretary and my boss' secretary have the document ID # for that basically has everything I could possibly be working on, where to find it, who to contact, etc. which I take very pristine notes on and save at the end of each day.

This is going to happen! It could happen soon, it could be another 3 weeks, who knows, but the end is in sight.

Wow. Holy crap.

Why can I write so much today, because I am sitting at work on a 2 hour conference call with a utility company client.

We are at 35 weeks today!
Lois has a appointment with the OB this afternoon!

She's hoping that it will involve a positive report and possibly even a slight lift on the bed rest. Lois is even hoping to be back at work tomorrow.

We don't want to push it, but if her co-worker picks her up, she goes 1.5 miles to work, sits at her desk with her feet up and plays computer games all day, at least she's out of the house and getting a pay check!

Plus, Lois is determined to make it to Salina's shower on Saturday. That will be her big "outing" for the week.

We'll see what they say.

We keep talking about what is going to happen when Andrew is coming!

No one can tell us what it's going to be like. It probably won't be a typical labor where she has all the time in the world. With the cervix issue, she'll probably be very effaced, but maybe not dilated. She hasn't had contractions yet, so we don't know if she will have any before she totally effaces.

What if she's home alone? Before 35 weeks, she was going to call an ambulance and go to the local hospital. Now that we've hit 35 weeks, we want to go to the hospital 30 minutes away which is where our doctor is. But what if I am 40 minutes the other direction at work?

We're coming up with all kinds of contingency plans as to who will drive Lois to the hospital if it happens that way.

I, on the other hand, think she's going to go to one of these doctor appointments and they are just going to look at her, tell her she's ready and send her to the hospital.

And I'd like to see her go 2 more weeks. If possible. She hates it when I say that.

Our car seat is in the car!

Lois' brother (a local cop) had his buddy (a certified installer) put it in the car yesterday!
He said that our car seat was the Cadillac of car seats, very safe and easy to install. (Take that Consumer Reports)
He didn't have any foam at the police station yesterday so we'll have to get something under the seat so it doesn't ruin the leather in the new car.

...and

No progress has been made on Andrew's room at all.

But, I moved the glider chair and pack n' play out of the garage and into the basement last night.
After moving a bunch of crap around, I was able to do something we haven't done in months....actually park a car in our one car garage!

It was a huge accomplishment for me.

Of course, I would love to park my car in there since I don't have the "automatic start" on my car, but since Lois isn't driving lately, her "posh" car gets the garage. My little Hyundai sits outside in the cold.

We need to make sure that the pregnant mommy's car is well preserved and ready for action - for a quick drive to a hospital!

For several years, Lois and I joked about having a baby. I mean, we joked about it but never had any real motivation or actual conversations about DOING it.

Lois was steadfast in that SHE wasn't going to be the pregnant one and I really had little motivation to do it either, especially since I was beginning a career.

Then, about 2 ½ years ago, we were at a baby shower for our friend Spie and we sat next to her mom, M. Now, I had never met M. before, but she was a known name in my household when I grew up because she was the most famous golfer in the area before women could golf in so many places.

Spie told me that her mother was old school and wasn't the most liberal person on the planet. However, one this certain day, the first day I actually got to speak to this woman that I had heard so much about, she changed everything for us.

She spent the entire afternoon going on and on about how we absolutely MUST have a baby, how great it would be, what are we waiting for, etc. We were flabbergasted.
I mean, here was this woman, who may not have been the most open-minded towards gay couples years ago, in her 60s, just marveling at how wonderful it would be if we had children.

That was the kick in the rear that we needed. Shortly after that, we began our donor search (2 known donors were lined up, then they backed out for similar reasons - which is better anyway).

Lois turned to me one day - after swearing for years that she didn't want to get pregnant, she didn't need to be the bio-mom - and she said "I want to try. I don't want to regret not trying. You have more time, I want to try now!"
And here we are!

Now M. has 2 granddaughters and spoils them as frequently as possible. And when we found out we were pregnant (both times), we just had to tell her personally! She's been so excited about all of this!

We haven't seen too much of M. in the past year or so, usually it's by phone or email. She's been battling cancer on and off for years (currently cancer free), so she tries to lie low after chemo sessions. She is such a trooper!

And she is very excited about a baby boy!

Yesterday afternoon, Spie came over with a "little" bag of stuff from M. She called and said "my mother went crazy again! I have bags from Kohl's!"

I couldn't believe it when she showed up with this:



And the warm toasty bundle for those cold New England winter days - hey it was 72 on Saturday!



Lois spoke with M. last night to give some much deserved thanks. And to try to convince her that she went overboard and better not show up with anymore stuff when we have the baby shower!

I can't wait for Andrew to be old enough to get golf lessons from his Auntie M.!!!!

Lois’ mother said something this weekend about your body prepares you for sleepless nights with a newborn.

Now, Lois’ mother is one of those people…how should I put it…she’s a “often wrong, but never in doubt” type person.

She worked outside of the home for 2 weeks when she was 17 years old, watches TV all day, but is the expert of all things. (i.e. The one consumer reports child seat report is the only fact there is to her, all place crashes must be tied to terrorism, etc.)

I know she will never change, so I just bite my tongue. A Lot.

I digress.

She was going on about how prepared Lois will be for waking up at all hours with a crying baby because nature is preparing her for it.

I left it alone.

This morning, Lois announced to me that her mother was correct.

She is sleeping about 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off all night.

She gets comfortable, then Andrew gets the hiccups (which in his case makes his whole body jerk), then she gets a back spasm, then she has to make a big incident about trying to roll over, then she has to pee, then her rib hurts and she has to readjust herself, then her heartburn starts in again so she has to try to sit up a little. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Poor thing. The finding a comfortable position is a doosy. It takes a lot of shifting around, some grunts and many, many pillows.

I don’t have this problem, because I take Tylenol PM before I get into bed with the hyperactive pregnant sleeper.

It’s also funny because I realize that Lois is carrying very small. The doctor always comments about it (Andrew seems to be fine, so it’s not a concern) and I realized how small Lois was when I was talking to a woman on line at Babies R Us who is only 33 weeks and looks like she was 40 weeks pregnant with triplets.

But the bed rest has made her muscles fairly useless so the belly is heavy and frustrating regardless of its size, or lack of size.

I hope Lois does find some peaceful restful nights before the little guys gets here.

As for me, I keep my Costco-sized Tylenol PM at my bedside for nights like those.

Lois has been a little Chatty Kathy this weekend, usually in the early morning hours.
Yesterday, it was at 5:45 am when she felt the need to tell me every piece of news or goings on that she neglected to tell me throughout the week.

This morning, she at least waited until 7:30 am.

She started with “aside from the whole cervix thing, this hasn’t been a bad pregnancy.”

“You know, aside from the entire bed rest thing.”

“Well, except for the 3 whole months of throwing up in the beginning.”

“And except for the back pain.”

“Oh, yeah, and aside for the stabbing pain in my rib.”

“And aside from the incredible heartburn!”

“Aside from all of that, it hasn’t been that bad!”

I don't want to be one of THOSE parents who is overly neurotic about everything.

I am not going to panic about everything.

I want to thank Estelle for being a voice of reason on more than one occasion.

We were a little perturbed this morning when every major news source was announcing that our car seat - the one we decided on because it was "one of the best" in safety ratings - just failed all of the new tests by Consumer Reports.

My mother-in-law already spent the morning making Lois feel like we will be putting our child in a moving death trap if we stick with our Britax Companion infant seat! What horrible parents we must be!!!

THANK YOU TO MY GIRLS!

P-FED, LIZZY, SUZ, SHAWNA, SALINA, SUE W., NICOLE!!!

You ladies rock!

We now have a car seat/travel system!!!!!

Here’s the catalog pic of our exact system.






Now, even better, we have offers from two different cops who are child safety experts to come to OUR HOUSE and install the seats!

We are just too spoiled aren’t we?!?!

Thank you everyone for your comments. I made Lois read them, and she's regaining energy to keep him in there. I did promise her that if she makes it to January 13th (35.5 weeks), I will allow* her to go to Salina's baby shower.

I did let* her out of the house for a little bit yesterday.

We had the orientation at the pediatric office last night.

The office has "well" waiting rooms and "sick" waiting rooms and does not have any toys due to the spread of germs.

I know my pediatrician when I was a kid did not have separate waiting rooms, and I am pretty sure there were toys in the waiting room, the toys that we sneezed on when waiting for our "sick visits," and those toys were not Lysol-ed every 15 minutes either.

The doctor who ran the orientation was very young and she was cute. (Every knows about how Lois must pick cute doctors: dentist, OB/GYN, etc.)

They have a bunch of doctors, but you always see the same pediatrician, so we have to pick one. Therefore, it looks like we are using them and will be choosing cute young orientation doctor as our pediatrician.

- - -

I opened up the Expectnet game again.

I’m inviting anyone to come back and place more guesses, now that we are closer (and we know it’s a boy), we are going to rely more on the date and time!

I’m hoping the winner is a date as close to the due date as possible!






*my use of the words "let" and "allow" make it seem like she will really listen to me. however, those of you who know us can probably all laugh at that since we really know who's boss in this relationship. lol.

I think it's a little funny that Lois thinks that when she's ready, that will be it.
She thinks that we'll get to 35 weeks or 36 weeks, and he will just come into the world.

I keep telling her this kid could be full term or even late. She hates it when I say that, but she’s now agreeing with me that she doesn’t have control over it.

As for an update on Andrew . . . (it’s not all about us I guess)

She had another appointment with the doc this morning and he’s estimated to be about 5.1 pounds. Of course, they tell you that the estimate could be off by 10% either way, which is significant enough.

The ultrasound did show his chest moving with each breath. How cool is that!?!?!

However, he is still facing outwards and the doc expressed that the child birth would be a little easier if he was facing backwards. You would think as active as he is that he would have rolled completely over by now, but apparently he’s pretty much in the same position as he was 8 weeks ago.

And it was discovered that Lois’ rib pain is attributable to his constant kicking of her right rib. Ouch.

Everything looks good.

The hospital bag is now ready. Tomorrow night, we get the car seat. Friday, we may be getting the crib. If he doesn’t come before tomorrow night, I think he will not arrive until February.

Murphy’s law of preparedness, right?

Lois is ready.

Not exactly ready for the child birth part, but ready for bed rest to be over.

And if pushing the child out sooner rather than later ends the bed rest, then I think she’ll embrace the child birth.

She has joined some Yahoo! Groups that involve bed rest and other pregnancy complications.

We know how lucky we are that she has only been on bed rest for 6 weeks so far and that everything seems to be looking good for the baby so far.

We know how lucky we are that we made it this far – we’ll be 34 weeks tomorrow.

But she is uncomfortable, miserable about missing very simple daily activities, tired of TV, achy due to the cot in the living room, the muscles have atrophied and Lois has actually lost weight (probably from losing all that muscle).

We went on full alert on November 22nd that this kid could come any minute. We are ecstatic that he’s stayed put as long as he has.

I am pushing for 3 more weeks, Lois is thinking that at the 35 week mark, she’s getting up and doing some sort of exercise that involves jumping jacks or a trampoline.

He did get the steroid shots, so we should be in fairly good shape at this point. He should be over 5 lbs.

We have the orientation at the pediatrician’s office tomorrow night and Lois is determined to go. She’s been so good this far, that I want to have her come with me.

Then, Salina (our pregnancy buddy) is having her baby shower on January 13th. We’ll be over 35 weeks then and Lois thinks it’s imperative that we make it to that.

When I heard our OB say she’ll lighten up on the strict bed rest at 36 weeks, Lois seemed to hear her say “35 weeks.”

I am estimating this little guy will be born on January 26th (my mother’s birthday).

Actually, after all of this drama, I’m thinking he’ll come past his due date. Lois will kill me for saying that.

Lois is convinced he is coming this weekend. I don’t know why, but she’s convinced of it. I think she’s just wishing it.

No, the room hasn’t been touched. No, we still don’t have a crib. No, we have not gotten the car seat yet. We should get it on Thursday night, then Lois’ brother, who is a cop, will have his buddy who is certified come over and install it for us.

Hang in there a few more weeks, Lo.

Andrew needs just a little more time. Hell, we need a little more time too!

I just realized that I don't have one picture of us together from the entire year.
Suz took this one on New Year's Eve for us in a rare, Lois sitting up moment.






2006 has come and gone and are happy to report that Andrew did not decide to come too early.

Let's hope he doesn't come for a few more weeks and that he is so healthy and happy that we can take him home with the hospital with us!!!

- - -

To break in the new year, I want to start with a breast pumping question for our readers.

This conversation was a little odd, but my mother and I discussed breast feeding and breast pumps yesterday. She suggested that we don't get a breast pump because they hurt. She said you can milk your breast manually, it's much better.

I have found this perplexing and we have asked our friends locally about not using a breast pump and the consensus so far is that my mother is crazy.

I don't want to be harsh towards my mother, but it was 30 years ago that she had to worry about that.

Anyone have any comments on pumping? I am now confused about the entire thing.