Our little monkey's in there!

A lazy Sunday...

Last Thursday, Keith and I went to another doctor's appointment. We were supposed to meet the new OB-GYN, but she was not available - Dr. Martin. Our first meeting will be in three weeks for a scheduled glucose test...yummy. We heard the baby's heartbeat, which the RN said sounded good and Dr. Bakos said the baby was doing well. What would life be without more appointments? We have another one scheduled this Wednesday with Dr. McGhee at the Fetal Care Center. Maybe we'll get a few more pictures of the little one. :)

Keith has been a fantastic partner; not only does he cook me dinner, but he also makes me snacks when I get home from the office (because he knows I'm ALWAYS hungry when I walk in the door). I know that I can be very sensitive at times, but Keith is the voice of reason. I'm very grateful that he moved all of the way to Dallas just to endure the pain!

Since we've decided not to find out the sex of the baby, we refer to it as "our little monkey." Over the last few weeks, the little ones' movements have been more intense. Every once in awhile Keith puts his hands on my belly and can feel the kicks and squirms - he laughs and smiles everytime it happens - it's really cute. Before I fall asleep at night, I always lay my hands on my stomach...it's like clockwork, the baby seems to know when I'm ready to go to sleep because somersaults and karate kicks are in-order. I still get goosebumps thinking that our little one will be here sooner than we know it.

As for sports, Keith and I have been watching the NBA playoffs. Sad, sad that LeBron and the Cavs lost to the Magic. However, Keith is determined to make our little monkey into a Lakers fan. He rubs my belly and tells the baby, "You're going to be the greatest Lakers fan because they're the best team in the NBA!" Too bad, but Keith doesn't know that the baby is secretly rooting for the Magic...our monkey is mommy's favorite!

Baby Bump at 22 Weeks & Other Random Stuff

To the left you can see my baby's baby bump.  She's not all that happy about the shape her body is assuming.  I however, am excited.  

You may also notice a strange picture in the bottom right of the picture.  MSNBC was doing one of their prison documentaries when I took this picture.  What you see there is an x-ray of a prison inmate at about waist level.  The solid white object at the edge of the frame is the homemade shank he has shoved in a place we will not name.  I have impeccable timing.

I'm going to guess that it's normal for expectant parents to imagine all of the incredibly important, grand and historic things their child is going to accomplish: first astronaut to walk on the moon without a space suit, using nothing but the power of awesome to sustain them;  first person to summit Everest dressed in formal wear, using only a walking stick and a pair of good sunglasses; President of the World, a role reluctantly accepted after a massive public outcry that only Max/Kaylee could be as awesome as was needed to save the world; winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Literature, Chemistry, and Medicine (simultaneously); inventor of whatever it is that ends world hunger; destroyer of hippies....just off the top of my head.

Of course the reality is that I don't care what the kid does as long as he/she is happy and healthy and roots for the Lakers.   

We haven't had a doctor's visit in a couple weeks.  We're getting to month six, at which point we'll be having a sonogram every week until the birth, just to keep an eye on things.  The amniocentisis results came back fine, so at this point it is just the doctors wanting to keep an eye on things, not an active search for something they think is there.

Overall things are going smoothly, Alison is still handling this whole thing very well, and other than a certain amount of indecisiveness about exactly what it is that she wants to eat at any given time, there really hasn't been any of the really tough stuff that I've heard about.   

We went walking around the 'we poop more money than you make' section of Dallas today.  Houses with columns and wrought iron gates, and stone lions outside the doorways.  It was a gorgeous day and I have to say, it's not quite Seattle on the first sunny day of Spring, but it was pretty sweet.

'Til next time...

Baby Classes Round 1

Well, tonight was the first night of baby classes.  There are about a half dozen of these we'll be doing over the next four months.  This one was Basic Baby Care.  Call it ground zero.  This is for people whose only experience with children consists of wishing the crying baby's parents would remove them from the restaurant.  I will soon be on the other end of it I suppose.

At any rate it was quite informative.  Here are some of the things we learned:

Newborn babies' poop doesn't smell for the first couple weeks.  I like this.  At least they ease you into it.

There is actually a medically accepted way to carry the baby that resembles carrying a football.  The baby is face down on you forearm, head in hand. They actually referred to it as the football carry, or football position.  I guarantee that at some point in the first four months there will be a picture of me holding the baby in this position, giving stiff arm in perfect Heisman form.

According to our class, between 99 and 100 degrees is how hot you want the water you are using to clean you baby.  Nice to know there's some wiggle room on that.

I can expect to deal with between eight and 14 diapers of poop per day, some of it runny, some of it semi runny.  I suppose that will give me some idea what it is like to be A-Rod's PR guy.

It is, apparently, a universal truth that if you have a baby boy, you can expect to recieve a faceful of tinkle on a fairly regular basis if you aren't careful when you're changing them.  You aren't entirely safe with a baby girl either.

The secret to calming a crying screaming baby is not, as it turns out, bourbon in the bottle.  The most current craze is "The Happiest Baby on the Block".  I don't remember the guy's name right now, but he was about what one expects a baby specialist to be, really nice, kinda hippy-ish, and truthfully kinda creepy on camera.  His method however - the five S's: Swaddle, lay on the Side, Shhhhhhh, Swing, and Sucking (a pacifier, for the kid) - looks like it may be a godsend.

So all in all it was pretty informative.  This whole thing is looking like it may be difficult and frustrating, but I can only think none of that will matter when that little baby looks up at me and smiles.  I'm a pretty lucky guy. 

If someone ever comes to you and says "Hey, I've got a million dollars and I want you to start a business," you should immediately go into something involving babies (other than making them, I guarantee your money will be gone in a flash).  I mention this only because Alison and I went and did a baby registry at Babies 'R Us today.  Now, I'm normally not such a practical man when it comes to money.  I've always been of the opinion that it comes and goes (Alison's reaction to this attitude is something that anyone who knows her can imagine), and after it comes and goes, it will come and go again.  Not the healthiest attitude to have, but I am what I am.  I've been trying hard to change this over the past four months or so.  Knowing that soon you'll be buying new clothes every couple weeks and paying for the down payment on your Dr.'s new vacation home will do that to you.  

However all of that went right out the window as soon as we walked into Babies 'R Us.  Our apartment down here is a three room deal: bathroom, bedroom, and  everything else.  The baby monitor I was looking at had the thing that you put with the baby, two monitors, and a video screen.  The crib I was looking at was this enormous hardwood dealie that looked like it would take Paul Bunyon a year to work through. 

They give you a little registry gun, that looks a lot like a Star Trek phaser, to zap your chosen items with.  You would have thought I was at the shootout at the OK Corral the way I was whipping that thing at every bar code I saw.  And to be fair, I was having fun with it.  

Safe to say we have some editing to do on said registry.

The other thing that happened at Babies 'R Us was that I almost broke down and agreed to find out the sex of the baby early, if only for planning purposes.  I'm not saying she was frustrated with me, what with her being a planner and all.  She says it was because I have it set in my head that we're having a boy and I seemed to be picking a large number of blue things.  That is of course probably true.  But I think it's an instinctual male habit, some primal desire to see the genes and name passed on.  I have no doubts though, that if we do have a girl, I will be putty in her little palm, and react with a fair amount of chest thumping and goo-goo eyed jabbering at the sight of my little princess.  Even right now, four months from the event of the birth, were I to have a girl, I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason I shouldn't get her a pony if she were to ask.  It would fit on our porch, and it could probably help with a fair amount of landscape maintenance, what with the grazing and all.

Healthy and Happy is all I'm really asking.

Now, some of you may not find this to be funny.  I do.  In a 5th grade kind of way.  Alison has, as she mentioned in her post, sprung a couple leaks.  Don't ask me why I find this amusing.  I couldn't give you an answer that made me sound even halfway intelligent.  All I know is that Alison is handling all the indignities of pregnancy with far more grace than I could were the situations reversed.  She is, as always, a trooper.

This might have been mentioned earlier, but our current Doc is moving to a different job.  We have one more appointment with her before we start with our new Dr., and though we don't know exactly who it will be, it will be one of the current Doc's partners in the practice, so we're pretty confident things will be fine.

Until next time....

Moodswings, dreams and leaky nipples

Goodness, pregnancy comes with so many exciting adventures...that no one seemed to ever explain. I guess if you haven't gone through pregnancy, this is just fair warning, but if you have then you'll understand completely.

Keith has been a fantastic partner over the last three years, especially during the last 6 months because I've noticed my moods can change in a blink of an eye (okay, for those of you that know me...it's worse than normal). As we have been trying to configure our 1BR/1BA apartment to accommodate two adults and one munchkin, it's been challenging to say the least. I asked Keith to help me measure and lay out the furniture so that we could fit snuggly in the "little box" (aka. the bedroom). A little misunderstanding and BOOM, I was frustrated and burying my head in the duvet ready to cry! Luckily, I did not. However, afterwards I realized how insane he must think I am because I can go from happy to sad/mad in seconds. I'm so lucky to have a patient man by my side. I love you, Mr. Ancker!

Dreams: Before I was pregnant, I rarely had dreams - at least ones that I could remember. However, lately I seem to have ones that have to do with the baby and family of sorts. Keith was home taking care of the baby and I was leaving the office. As I walked through the door, I went to give our baby a hug and kiss and noticed he/she was wearing the exact same outfit the day before. I must've had a look on my face because before any words could come out of my mouth Keith replied, "I did the smell test and the clothes smelled fine!" Hmm, I never knew about the smell test until Keith and I moved in.

Leaky nipples: Sorry guys, but I have to talk about my incident last Friday. So, I bought a new bra because none of my other ones fit. It's extremely comfortable, but it's a maternity/nursing bra. Before I went to work, I noticed that my shirt did not look right so I decided to tape my nipples with bandaids. Great idea, or at least I thought. Things seemed fine until I got home to rip them off and in the meantime, I pulled a generous portion of skin -- EEK! I also did not realize that the wonderful idea I had initiated my nipples to leak, gross. :( I don't know if this is normal, but I had to invest in disposable breast pads to combat my problem.

Doctors and Doctors and Shopping

Another visit to the Dr.'s yesterday.  Everything is going fine after the amniocentesis, the aftermath was more trouble than the actual procedure.  The doc ordered Alison to take a couple days of bed rest, and I had to try to keep her off her feet.  You all know that my darling girlfriend is so willing to just sit back and let someone take care of her, that it was a breeze for me.  

Yesterday's appointment was just a followup for the amnio, we went in sat down for our 2:30 appt. and waited.  And waited.  I literally saw a half dozen women come in and leave while we sat there.  Me, being the patient and laid back half of the super duo, was starting to tap my foot at about 120 bpm, while Alison looked over with an exasperated expression at my inability to relax.  Then she looked in her wallet at the appointment card and realized our appointment wasn't until 3:20.  But, I am gaining enlightenment day by day, and instead of looking at it as having gotten there way to early, I think of it as hey, we got out of there early.

The appointment itself was fine.  The did a what I'm going to refer to as an audio sonogram, which means we could hear the baby's heartbeat, but didn't get any pictures.  One cool thing we did talk to the doc about was storing the baby's cord blood.  Turns out the stem cells in the unbilical cord blood (or something to that effect) can be stored and used to combat an increasing number of diseases our child could possibly face, including diabetes and leukemia.  So we're seriously considering it.  It isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than a high end entertainment system if you throw in surround sound and a couple gaming consoles, so we'll probably figure out how to do it at some point in the near future.

The other major development yesterday is that our current doctor is moving on to a new job at Baylor Medical Center, meaning we have to switch doctors.  Not too big a deal for me, and Alison doesn't seem to be bothered by it too much either.  Our current doctor has made her recommendations and it looks like we'll be seeing someone from her current practice.  We have trusted her judgement so far and we are pretty confident with here opinion.

Today we go in for another sonogram with the fetal care specialist.  The elevated protein counts have them being careful and starting in about two weeks we'll be going in for weekly sonograms to keep an eye on things until our precious snowflake arrives.

I'm starting to get really excited. While we were waiting in the lobby at the doc's there were a number of mom's who were on at least thier second, and watching those little buggers run around and be all cute and stuff, well, I just wanted mine now.

This weekend Alison and I will begin registering for stuff at various places.  Once again I've been told that this would be so much easier if we would just find out the sex so everybody would know what to buy, but I have to be honest, I'm really excited about the surprise factor, so...no.  Alison in her usually awesome way has been keeping her eye on cool stuff to keep me feeling like as cool a dad as I can feel like, while I'm juggling poop filled diapers, breastmilk pumps, and stuffed animals.  She's a pretty sweet partner to have in all this.

I'm also working off a lot of the stress at the gym.  So that's nice.

Amnio appointment

Keith and I went to Baylor's Fetal Care Center yesterday for an amnioscentisis. When we arrived, the waiting room was packed. I checked in at 2:20 for a 2:30 appointment and took a seat to play solitaire on my phone while Keith read his magazines. Keith was extremely nervous, tapping his foot and sighing louder than usual. Everyone must have been behind because we waited until 3:20 before the nurse finally called my name.

The appointment went a lot faster than I anticipated. The nurse came, prepped the materials, and the doctor was in. He completed the sonogram and found a good location. The doctor said the baby looked great, but would continue with the procedure. He poked his finger exactly where the needle would be inserted, away from the little one. They cleaned the area and "pinch," the needle was in. A bit of cramping and 30 seconds later the doctor was done. PHEW, thank goodness it was over!

The doctor advised us that the amniotic fluid was greenish brown in color (should be yellowish), but believed the discoloration was due to bleeding that happened earlier in the pregnancy. Therefore, with high levels of AHP they want to monitor the baby leading up to delivery. So, after week 24 we will be going in for weekly ultrasounds. Rather safe than sorry. The doctor believes that there is nothing wrong with the baby, but the results will be returned in 10 days. Now, we'll just wait and see.

All in all, I feel pretty good. I was told to relax for a minimum of 24 hours, so Keith has been really great about waiting on me hand and foot. Man, I wish life was like this everyday! 

Yeah Baby! Halfway There, Watch Out World

To the left you can see the second sonogram we underwent.  This was the first one where we could start to see the details of the actual person that Alison is constructing insider of her.  It was pretty cool to see the limbs and what not that will one day be breaking things I don't want broken, and covering our walls in crayon masterpieces.  

So, we're getting closer and things are starting to be more real.  Not that it wasn't real before, but the list of things Alison and I need to do is growing.  And growing.  Sort of like the little munchkin in my baby's tummy.

The list of stuff they (meaning the various websites and books) say we need is pretty extensive.  We went to Babies R Us the other day to look around, browse the selections and also so I could get a sense of what I was getting into.  It's staggering.  There's so much stuff out there.  There had to be 100 different models of strollers.  I kept expecting Xzibit to pop out and offer to pimp our carriage.  I've been imagining what my car is going to look like once our precious snowflake arrives.  It's always been messy, and now I imagine it will be messy with baby stuff.  I'm going to need a very cool baby bag.  Something with skulls maybe.

Alison, God bless her, spent a couple weeks wondering why she couldn't feel the baby move yet.  She seemed really anxious about it.  Then a few days ago, bada bing bada boom, the baby moved.  She said it felt like the kid was having a blast.  I still haven't felt the kid moving, but I suppose it will come soon enough.  

Other than that things have been reasonably uneventful.  Honestly hearing some of the horror stories I've heard about pregnancy, this one seems to have gone pretty smoothly so far.  Alison hasn't been sick or anything, and other than needing new maternity wear every so often, the only thing that I've noticed is that she occasionally - and in the most positive way possible - gets slightly irritated with me over things that might not necessarily have made her irritated before.  But I have to say she has handled it like a trooper and I'm very proud of her.  

We go in for an amniocentesis on Friday, just a precaution to take some of the stress out of our lives.  the Doctors say there are risks, but from what we can see they are all very good at what they do, and we have faith that things will be alright.

We'll be back to add more on Saturday after the doctor's to add more.

20-wk mark...halfway there!

Happy Cinco-de-Drinko, LOL!

Today marks the beginning of the 20th week. Wow, what an adventure it has been! My tummy is starting to get larger and my co-workers have begun to notice. I guess another trip to the mall may be in order. I'm still eating anything and everything I can get my hands on, but no strange cravings yet. I definitely enjoy peach and raspberry sorbet -- FAT FREE, mmm! I've tried to exercise regularly, I walk at least one mile every day during the work week and when I have enough energy I walk on the treadmill in our complex.

Talk about exercise, I finally felt the baby move in my tummy over the weekend! It was about 1am and I couldn't sleep, so I laid on the couch to read one of my numerous pregnancy books. All of a sudden I felt what I thought was a muscle spasm, but shortly realized it was the little one doing some stretching! Definitely an exciting moment and I hope to share it with Keith soon. Every time he puts his hands on my belly, the baby stops moving...go figure.