It's a Girl!

I'll upload some fun pictures soon, but today at the super big 20wk ultrasound the doctor at the hospital said he's 90% sure it's a girl!

It still seems like such a surprise when Patrick and I were both pretty convinced we have a little boy since we have soo many boys in our families and no little girls yet, but I guess someone has to break the mold? The little legs were moving like crazy & she had her arms stretching and covering her face. Soo cute. The little girl measured just right; we have 10 fingers and 10 toes.

She measured about 10-12 ounces (almost a can of soda) & is about 6-7 inches long now. The doctor took a few 3D pictures too but that looked a little freaky to say the least ... he said they look cooler between 26-28 weeks so we'll wait again for that one...

We have another appointment on the 27th, just next week, with our regular doctor so maybe he'll take a peek again and confirm that there really are no golf balls and a club in there...but it looks like a girl!

It's one more day (actually, 20 hours and a few minutes from posting this but it seems like it's another week) until we find out if its a little boy or a little girl cooking in the oven. I'm even thinking of drinking 1/2 a cup of coffee before to wind the little muffin up to make sure there are no crossed legs and its flapping all over the place. I figure if it's squirming I have a good shot, right?

Bending down to get something has a whole new meaning for me. It's getting trickier and trickier. I feel like I have a big waterballon inside of me that is on the verge of exploding. And that's my biggest fear ever ~ balloons popping. (I'm saying water balloons because water is heavier than air and I definitly don't feel as light as air). Back at Uno's in South Portland I would have to blow up a bunch of ballons in the morning and atleast half would explode. Especially when my fingers were stuck in that knot-tying thing.

I can also compare it to taking one of those big yoga balls and sticking it in a vice and cranking it. One of these days its going to pop and I'd prefer that to be April 9th, 2008.

For example, I was at Target this weekend and the nice older lady infront of me in the checkout line dropped her pen & looked at me, obviously hoping I'd snap right down and get it for her; which of course I would always do. But I found myself thinking, Good god, between you or I, we might get down there, but who will get up first? We're both likely to get down there and get stuck, and this line will get even longer and everyone's going to get ticked off because of course Target only has three lanes open on a busy Sunday. It would all be my fault.

I also can't take any bad karma before our big appointment, so I gave it a whirl and did a little back-kick with my left leg, hoping to kind of kneel done there, keeping everything else somewhat straight. Instead, I ended up jamming my leg underneath the lady's cart behind me (who is talking to me in Spanish, and of course being from Maine, I only know French), BUT I did get the pen. Thank God ~ and the little bean didn't get squished. For the next 5 months, I'm getting in my own lanes at Target.

Since we can't go home to Maine for Thanksgiving, Patrick is kicking up Thanksgiving a notch and making a turduckin ~ or something like that, for everyone. A turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken and he's thinking of stuffing it with with a goose and a game hen. Maybe its a phesant or chickadee, I'm not sure. But I think this involves de-boning it first, so I'll just have to go grocery shopping when he starts that so I don't yack.

Kurt moved out last week so now our house actually seems huge and echos. We know we're just being tricked ... there's nothing huge about a 865 square foot house. So far, its been great to just live with Patrick. This weekend we broke out the 5 gallon bucket of primer and primed away the fire-engine red feng shui color that coated the ceilings and the walls of Kurt's old room. My job was priming the details ~ like the window sills and corners, and scrubbing it off my face every hour or so. This week we're going to paint it a nice Atlantic Shale color (light grey/blue/platinum/something) with a sugar-white trim & then crown mold it & swap out the brown carpet. We're getting there!

We took a trip over to Kurty's new apartment Sunday and I checked on Zena (the cat); she still has yet to come out of his room for the last week and is just pissed off to boot about the new move. After a while she finally stopped hissing and meowing like a sheep and remembered who I was. She's entirely ticked off that she's now forced to share a place with a Mastiff, the size of a horse, named Apollo. She forgets that she's 9 lbs and Apollo is 190 lbs. Clearly, she should be friends.

I've never seen Kurt run and scoop the kitty litter as fast as he did on Sunday. Until Zena moves out to the rest of the apartment, the litter box is in his bedroom. I definitly don't miss that in our bathroom. No more waking up, going to the bathroom to a nice scent of kitty urine - or one of her presents. YAY! Kurt mentioned that soon he hopes to move it to the little half-bath, but will have to scoop it even faster before Apollo tries to figure out what it is and mistake it for a chew toy. Gross.

Well, that's the update so far! I can't wait to post tomorrow ...

Talk to you all soon,

~ Kristin

Footballs and Papayas

Patrick and I have just 11 days until our Super-Big 20wk ultrasound over at St. Joseph's hospital. We were both hoping to find out at our regular appointment on Oct. 30th just what is cooking in there but they were too busy in the office. But we did get to hear the heartbeat which was always very very cool. I'm soo excited to find out ...

Working on the 5th month has led my eyes to pop out a few times...please read on!

I had quite a few questions for the doctor when we saw him at the end of October ~ like ~ if the heartbeat is found down there, then what is all this stuff up here where I'm showing??? Is that just extra fluff?

For the most part I'm eating really healthy, but I've definitly had a few icecream sandwich meltdowns while watching Survivor or Kitchen Nightmares. Maybe a few cheese raviolis and Ragu at 10pm after getting back from work ... He explained to me that its because where the baby is growing, it normally pushes stuff UP to make room. So I'm still feeling a little weird that the 'showing' part is not all baby! I'm even more resigned not to let random people touch my stomach ~ they think they're hitting cute baby, when in reality they're hitting intestines. One of my coworkers insisted that she found a kick. "Yeah, no that was just my Cherrios from this morning." Let's see what happens further into the 2nd trimester ... Hopefully we'll start to go More Baby/Less Kristin Stuff in the front.

I also happen to see something in the mirror a few weeks ago that I've been dreading just might be there ~ I like to call them my new NFL footballs ~ which is my butt.

Just where did these come from? Am I this out of shape? We even have a beef jerky/doritos junk drawer here at work and I've totally avoided it... Honestly, this is the kind of butt you never want to bring into a Macy's try-on room. The three angled mirrors will just crush any self-esteem I may have stuffed away at this point...

And if this is just about 1/2 way through, I'm guaranteed to have atleast 4 NFL footballs attached to my butt by the end of this that I'll have to fight off... So I've decided to take the stairs every day at work. No more elevators no matter what floor I get stuck parking on. I just finished my second week of stairs and its just starting to get a little easier. It can be anywhere from 6 to 8 flights a few times a day. I just go slow, no marathon stair hiking, but I'm hoping to fight off the footballs. Hey, the plus side is it's getting my legs back in shape so maybe I'll have an easier labor?

The super funny thing is that when I first realized the extra shawdows following me were my butt, I cried to Patrick. Do my work buddies see these footballs even at the restaurant and are too nice to tell me? I'm very cool about getting bigger in the front, but the back? That just seemed like an extra present I soo don't want. He was soo funny ~ he instantly turned around and grabbed a book about pregnancy he's been reading, "but Kristin, you're supposed to get emotional in the 5th month ~ look!" He flipped to the chapter where it said on the first point, "Expect you're wife will become a super emotional wreck about her changing body size during the 5th month..." The second point read on that "She'll also be very gassy."
Now papayas.

This past weekend I went to Pasadena and found the Old Navy maternity section. I was soo happy to see inexpensive, cool, comfy clothes and grabbed my first pair of maternity jeans that should fit for this trimester. But who thought of all these different panels? Full panels, low-rise panels, no-panels but still maternity. It was overwhelming. I finally went with the low-rise panels since the Full panels made me feel like I could possibly wrap that panel over my head if needed.

Then I went to a local maternity store and tried to figure out the ole' maternity bra mystery. Lately, I can compare them to papayas. I had a nice sales lady that said she'd be happy to help me with my problem and asked me what I size I was wearing.

"Well, I think started out a B/C, but now I'm feeling like I might be a...hmmm..."

"Double D?" Stairing at my chest, she said it like it was just another day in the park. I felt like a piece of pork.

"WHAT?" I soo hoped she was kidding me. Is that what she sees? I'm only a little over 5' 2" and never in my life had I ever wanted to be beyond a B or even a C. For me, it's a little like the grading system in school ~ I always went for A's and B's, sometimes I got a C (anyone would get a C who had to take Intro to Africa in the 18th Century at USM when their teacher had a wandering glass eye, trust me). But a D? I always had to try and pull it up to atleast a C, especially for parents-sake. This was no exception.

"You're 18 weeks? We better get a size on you where you're only half-way through."

"What happens when I'm starting the other half-way out?"

"Your milk hasn't even come in yet. Just wait. And you might pre-leak. You need a good, padded bra."

Pre-leak? I don't even want to know.

Just wait. When I get out of this store I am SOO going to Nils's http://www.halhigdon.com/ runner's training site. I'm pre-printing out my novice training guide for next April. I will run these papayas off back to normal!

She grabbed out the measuring tape and did a little "hmming and yepping."

"You're definitly a D. And a 38, not a 36. Where did you get this 36?" She treated my favorite calvin clein t-back bra as if it was a bad 80's fashion mistake. Good thing I didn't tell her I'd had it for a few years.

"Measure it again. Measure it again." My eyes were popping & my heart was pounding. This had to be a mistake. She must have skipped a foot on the measuring tape. I felt like I accidently installed a home depot shelf on me instead of the wall of the house.

"It's for sure a D. You'll definitly be a Double D in no time, but we don't carry that size. We go straight to E. Let's try an E." She was soo over-cheery about this! I had to grab her and stop her from going back over to the bra-section. It was too late, before I could salvage my Calvin Clein bra from the floor, she had already yelled, "Elizabeth, can you get this customer an E in white?" There had to have been atleast 15 customers around her, and everyone instantly knew the E was for me. That's the 5'2" girl that needs an E. She couldn't be more top-heavy, could she? Why, she looks a little like an upside down pear, doesnt she? That's me. Good God.

"No,no,no... no worries on grabbing an E. I'll just take the D."

"Are you sure??"

"Yes. Positive." I grabbed it. Paid. Ran.

I now settled for my first D.