Sunday 30 September 2012

island fever

as the baseball post-season draws closer and all my friends start talking about cooler temperatures and pumpkin flavored food, i can't help but feel sad about missing fall for the first time in my life.  tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the day colby and i had our first date, AKA the best day in history ever of all time.  along with the excitement of reaching this milestone, however, is a bit of sadness about the life we left behind.  we've never been to a braves or falcons game together.  in fact, we only lived in atlanta for a month before we jumped ship and moved to paradise.  i wish we could celebrate our anniversary at a braves game or oktoberfest, drinking beer and cuddling up in hoodies.  i know in my heart as well as logically that our life here is incredible and better in so many ways, and i wouldn't change any of our decisions for the world, but there's still a part of me that wants to break down and cry because i won't see any changing leaves or wear a sweater dress to starbucks to get a (triple grande non-fat with whip) white chocolate mocha.
i'm so jealous that the braves are going to the wildcard play-off and i won't be there to see it, or chipper's last game.  sam adams octoberfest is out and i can't drink it.  halloween is coming up and we probably won't be dressing up, and definitely won't be decorating our apartment.  college football season is in full swing and i can't watch any of the games i want to see.  i tried to bake a pumpkin pie and there's no canned pumpkin to be found on this island.  i want to wear cute maternity jeans and sweaters with riding boots and take maternity photos with colorful leaves.  and now that i got that out of my system, it's time to remind myself that i live here:

Saturday 29 September 2012

29 week pics


unfortunately the pictures suck this week!  with our car being worked on, some cloudy weather, and incompatible work schedules, we only had time to run to gibney for a minute this afternoon and then the camera battery was dead.  we had to use my phone for this week's pics, so colby has promised me epic ones next week :)

my belly is ROUND for the first time!

    
this child is wearing out her welcome over the past few days!  she's still transverse and it's gone beyond minor stress on my abs to constant pain and discomfort.  you would think that if she doesn't like when i'm laying on my side she would just get out of the way.   normally at this point, babies are vertical - either breech or head-down, but usually not still transverse in the third trimester.  i just hope our long-legged feline has enough room to get her head down ASAP so i can go back to loving every minute of this pregnancy.

i've been getting a good bit of exercise lately while our island car is in the shop getting some pretty major body work.  we had no idea the frame was so rusty and rotted, but we found out when colby got into a minor accident and the passenger side of the car imploded.  we had to get a new door, windshield, and parts of the frame welded on.  i'm disappointed that we didn't take a picture, but we were pretty upset at the time.  we get the car back today and i'm honestly going to miss being forced to walk.  i was doing at least a mile every day this week and it felt great, but i don't see myself taking that initiative when i can drive to and from work.

a couple nights ago i noticed white lines all over my belly and i panicked.  it didn't feel like stretch marks, but i just figured it was the very beginning of them.  last night i took a shower and when i got out i realized that the skin on my belly was shedding like a freaking snake!  all my tan skin is peeling off and being replaced with new white skin, and so far no stretch marks.  i'm so very happy about this!  i'm not out of the woods yet, but the longer i put it off, the less horrific they will be, right?

Wednesday 26 September 2012

29 weeks

baby cat is 29 weeks today and i seriously can't even believe how fast it's going!  her muscles and lungs are maturing and her head is getting bigger (yikes!) to make room for her awesomely large and superior brain.  i've been craving chocolate milk every night, and as it turns out, our kitten's bones are hardening and taking a lot of calcium from me.  she's still in a mostly transverse position and making it hard for me to fall asleep with her nudges when i try to lie on my sides.  fortunately i can still sleep on my back so i'm sleeping like a rock. 

i had a little growth spurt over the past couple days and i now feel like i look clearly pregnant to anyone i see in public.  my abs are still refusing to let go and i'm proud of them for hanging in there.  i tried to pop up out of bed quickly yesterday and got a stern reminder from my belly that i was overdoing it.

i took a picture of all the tiny baby clothes we've gotten in the mail so far from old navy and walmart.  it's a crappy camera phone pic, but look at how cute it is!!!!


Thursday 20 September 2012

healthy kitten

went to see our midwife today and everything is perfect!  she's measuring the right size and her heartbeat is strong.  we confirmed that she is laying transverse, and a little bit oblique, which is why i feel all her little bumps on my sides and nothing near my ribs yet.  i'm glad i can still breathe easily, but she's putting a lot of stress on my abs. i've only gained 6 lbs so far and i'm pretty proud of that considering my terrible sweet tooth. 

our work schedules are the absolute worst this week with 3 days off each but none of them together!  we decided to go out to hawksnest tonight after colby got off work to catch the sunset and we went ahead and took 28 week belly pics.  the water was calmer than we've ever seen it and the sunset was gorgeous and pink.  sometimes we still can't believe we live here.



Wednesday 19 September 2012

28 weeks

our sweet kitten is now the size of an eggplant.  she should be somewhere around 15 inches long at this point, but the most exciting development this week is that she has eyelashes!  she can also blink and see light and her brain is developing like crazy.  somehow, the eyelash part is what excites me the most, though.

my belly button remains deeper than most people's pre-pregnancy navels, but it's spread out and wrinkly.  i know i have a long way to go but so far i still haven't gotten any stretch marks.  when i lie on my back and crunch up, i get this weird bump in between my formerly awesome upper abs.  colby made a horrified face when he saw it and i was equally weirded out.  i hope that all goes back to normal!

in other news, my grandma's health and desire to live have taken a turn for the worse.  she misses grandpa so much and one can only read the harry potter series so many times and watch every episode of rizzoli and isles before it becomes pointless to get out of bed and struggle to the living room every day.  when i was there a few months ago she said to come back with the baby, but i don't think she'll make it that long, and i'm not sure she intended to when she said it.  i love that the middle name we've chosen honors grandpa and grandma's names (emery and mary) and it also contains "amor" which means love.  colby didn't even choose it for that reason, but it's perfect.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

meow

we've been calling baby girl a kitten since pretty much the beginning even before we knew she was going to be a girl named catherine.  just last night it occurred to us for the first time how funny it is that colby's nickname is colby cat and i used to think i was a cat and made everyone call me kitty.  we're just two big cats having a litter of one tiny kitten :)

so, i bought her this:

Sunday 16 September 2012

27 week pics

we hiked to salomon beach early this morning and had it all to ourselves for a couple hours.  when we first moved here last november, we lived in the national park employee housing at the top of the trail for two weeks and that was our go-to beach.  we haven't been there since january when our friend darius sailed us over on a hobie cat for my birthday.  i had forgotten how beautiful the water is, even for this island!


Saturday 15 September 2012

where's my bump?

i woke up this morning and my big ol' belly i had last night is gone!  kitten kicked and punched me all night in whatever side i tried to lay on, so unless she has super long arms (not out of the question, really) she's definitely transverse.  and a champion kickboxer.  but seriously, where'd my bump go today?  so weird.

my abs are still killing me from stretching, but i'm going to keep using them as much as possible.  i keep reading about all the other women due in december who feel like turtles on their backs and can't get off the couch or out of bed or their cars and i'm determined to avoid that as long as possible.  i think it's common nowadays to let yourself go, eat whatever you want, stop exercising, and then mistakenly believe you will "lose the baby weight" afterwards.  back in the day, women kept working on the farm and maintaining the home and taking care of their other children up until they gave birth.  they didn't sit around boo-hooing and eating ice cream and blaming it on their hormones.  i'm certainly nowhere near perfect -- i've been making pies and not exercising enough, but i eat fruit like it's going out of style and take the stairs when given the option.  tomorrow, we're going to wake up super early and hike to salomon beach.  i'd like to hike the reef bay trail again before my feet start swelling.  i like the idea of being somewhere miles away from my car where i have to exercise because i have no choice.  on thursday, we went to oppenheimer beach in the morning and i got my fat butt into this tiny tire swing.  it was NOT easy, but i felt accomplished!

Wednesday 12 September 2012

27 weeks

kitty kate is the size of a rutabaga.  what the crap is a rutabaga?  she weighs at least 2 lbs and is ~14.5 inches long.  she can open and close her eyes and has developed a sleeping pattern.  according to babycenter, i should be having leg cramps and problems with balance, but so far so good!  i had calf cramps in the 1st trimester, but none since then.  my hips are still going numb when i sleep, but i've had problems with that my whole life and i still sleep like a rock with a few breaks to change position and pee once or twice at night.  she'll be getting hiccups more regularly from here on out and colby got to feel them last night.  it's so weird having this alien in my belly!  the last time we checked she was breech, but if i had to guess she's transverse right now, because i feel all the bumps and nudges on the far sides of my belly, the hardest ones being on my left.  she has plenty of time and space to move head down so i'm not worrying about it.

depending on which chart you use, i am starting the third trimester today, but some go by 28 weeks.  i'm far from nesting, but we did go ahead and buy a couple things from walmart.com.  i'd love to stock up on diapers and wipes but i'm afraid she'll be sensitive and we'll have a million things we can't use, so i'm trying not to go overboard.  we're going to use a cloth diaper service that lets you try out different kinds to see what works best, so we don't invest $200 into fancy diapers that leak.  we have wipes and receiving blankets on the way, and a friend from high school has sent me a bunch of her daughter's clothes.  once we get that stuff, i have no idea where we'll put it, but we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there.

and now, we're off to the beach to maximize our dwindling opportunities to do whatever we want on our days off!

Sunday 9 September 2012

hiccups

i'm feeling baby hiccups for the first time ever and it is super weird!  she spent a good portion of last night stomping my bladder and now i guess she has flipped around again because i feel her little nudges above my belly button.  she is having way too much fun in there and i'm loving it!

Wednesday 5 September 2012

i had my first official pregnancy meltdown last night.  it was amazing boyfriend colby's 30th birthday and i failed to order him the gift he wanted in time to get it here for the 4th.  we don't go out drinking for obvious reasons, can't spend money going out to eat, and his nfl fantasy draft was 45 mins after he got home from work.  the only gift i could give him was to cook/bake anything he wanted.  neither of us realized how ridiculously difficult it is to make homemade cheesecake when he asked for it.  i assumed that since i had most standard baking supplies on hand, i could just get a pie shell and some cream cheese and whip something up.  wrong!  it turns out there is a very long (6 hours!), part science, part witchcraft process to real cheesecake.  i don't own a springform pan and wouldn't be able to get one on this island, so i opted for an "easy cheesecake" recipe i found online.  after three trips to the grocery store, i finally got the faux-cheesecake in the oven.

colby asked for pizza for dinner, so i called every pizza place on the island and they are all closed for the down season.  trip #4 to the grocery store to get pizza supplies is where the full meltdown occurred.  i took colby's debit card to the ATM to withdraw $200.  the ATM made a long, drawn out money counting sound and then said please take your cash but never gave me any cash.  then it ate his card.  with two people standing in line behind me, i dissolved into tears assuming i had just lost money with no recourse, colby's debit card from north carolina, and still had no cash or card to buy dinner.  the banks here are notorious for terrible customer service and money going missing from accounts, etc. so i just got overwhelmed with the absolute certainty that we lost all that money and could not be convinced it would all work itself out.  i went back a 5th time, got the stuff and made us some awesome pizzas.  and of course, colby went to the bank this morning and got it all straightened out, but it sure seemed like the end of the world at the time.

26 weeks

our sweet kitten is now comparable to a lettuce or an english hothouse cucumber, whatever the hell that is!  babycenter says she's 14 inches long and weighs 1 and 2/3 lbs, but she was already 1lb 1oz at the last ultrasound and had crazy long legs like her dad, so i have a sneaking suspicion that our tiny cat is bigger than other 26 week babies, although my belly wouldn't lead you to that conclusion at all.  i have no idea where i'm keeping something that big, but i'm not complaining.  i do feel a little stretching and expect stretch marks any day now, but i'm going to keep drinking water like there's no tomorrow and applying cocoa butter every chance i get and maybe i'll grow slowly enough that i'll escape unscathed.

what we do know for sure is that her hearing is becoming more developed and she's inhaling amniotic fluid to practice breathing.  she's hearing a lot of colby's voice, sebastian's barks, and waves hitting the beach. she's also hearing a little too much CNN, but we have plenty of time to correct that.  the fact that so little new development is happening this week is actually very exciting because it means she's almost reached the point where she just bakes for a few more months putting on fat and then we get to meet her and love her more than anyone has ever been loved!

we're pretty settled on the name catherine amory.  i liked the other spellings originally, but i do agree with colby that the C is a smidge classier than the K spellings.  after all, the duchess of cambridge is named catherine and she might be the queen some day.  there were a lot of names we didn't get to use, but this isn't our last baby, so i feel confident i'll get my little mary elizabeth or at least my super pro athlete nolan emery some day soon.  although colby really had his heart set on d'qwell.

Monday 3 September 2012

countdown

as of today, we have exactly 100 days until kitty cat thompson's 12/12/12 due date!

i spent yesterday finishing up our wal-mart registry and amazon wishlist.  we're not going to have a nursery so we are instantly saving a ton of money and all we desperately need is the playard (that's what she'll be sleeping in indefinitely) and a carseat.  we tried so hard to pick out non-pink things because we don't want to drown her in girliness, but the best pack n' play and cutest boppy were pink!  as long as nothing says "diva" a little pink is ok, but she's going to be rocking a lot of braves gear and gender neutral things for sure, and probably some actual boy clothes.

we plan to cloth diaper to save money, but decided we're going to use disposables for the first few weeks while i recover, get the hang of breastfeeding, and generally figure out how to take care of a baby human.  colby has to go back to work right away since it's going to be peak season, so i'd like to keep things simple at first.