oh, hey baby - week 33

you know i know you've seen this sort of thing before (in this blog even, if you've been bored enough to traverse deeply back in time). the head shots with the fuzzy edges and barely-there human features. it's not new stuff, but this one sure does make me swoon. the ultrasound tech today was kind enough to keep her thoughts to herself up until the very first minute i stepped into her lair. "so the baby had pyelectasis? did you find out the sex? because boys very commonly have a mild form of pyelectasis in fetal development." thank you, but no, to answer your question. we didn't find out the sex. on purpose. i asked her kindly to watch her wand while she investigated so we would avoid any unnecessary discoveries, and she smiled in agreement as she smeared the coldest jelly i've ever felt in broad strokes across my tummy. as she wandered through the shadows of my uterus, she eagerly pointed out the symmetrical kidney measurements, both well within the normal range for 33 weeks, and hovered over the lungs long enough to highlight the up and down movements of practice breathing (fetal lungs are filled with fluid until birth, so "breathing" now serves little purpose). she took head measurements and heartbeat sound shots, she checked the femur length and stomach/heart location. towards the end of the sonogram, she punched some numbers, re-worked a few measurements for clarity, and declared my baby very healthy and quite large. we either have a healthy growing boy or a female basketball player with genes from not-these-parents. the head measured in scale with a 36 week fetus, and the legs were the average length for 35 weeks. our precious sumo wrestler is already tipping the scales at a hefty 5 pounds, and did you know we've still got 7 weeks (at least!) to go? size in the next few weeks will only become expedited and we all know eventually the goal is to birth the little (but really i mean big) darling.

worries for another day. i'm off to bed! have a great week.

**thank you to those who checked in about the navy yard shooting today. joey works about 5.5 miles away in arlington and i was safely locked away in my windowless classroom in alexandria. we're safe and sound, but it is surreal to be so close to something so horrifying. we're thinking about everyone involved tonight.

oh, hey baby - week 21

the size of a carrot this week, and it's obvious! it's crazy how much we've grown in the past few weeks. baby is kicking like crazy lately, but i haven't been able to nail down a pattern yet besides a heavy dose of kicks whenever i lay down. i've been feeling great, my energy is back to normal, but bedtime never seems to creep past 9:00. no matter how hard i try those sandpaper eyes fail me every night.

on sunday joey finally came home from a.t., and he's been busy packing all week.

it breaks my heart when i come home from work and one more piece of furniture has disappeared from the house; three more cupboards are bare. obviously i knew this is what moving would mean. obviously i suspected that the final week would be full of scarce furnishings and echoing rooms, but nothing prepared me for the emotional melt-downs that would threaten as the days on the calendar tick down towards july. i'm in emotional turmoil these days, but joey refuses to let me drown. somehow he always finds a way to make me laugh or come down from whatever anxiety train i've weakly caved into. he's incredible at being married; i learn so much from him about being a partner every day. I'm the luckiest to have him along on this ride!

last night, joey and i battled the heat for one of our last twins games before we move. the stadium was bustling, even on a random thursday night, and it was gorgeous. by the time the first pitch was thrown we'd nestled into some nose-bleeds with shade. the temperature was perfect, the company even better.

have i mentioned how much i'm going to miss this place?!

before we left for the game, joey took a quick 21 week picture. it's been a while since the last one! 

oh, hey baby - week 20

and so it goes, another week (almost) gone and zero documentation of this blessed pregnancy via thee blog. after last week's update dump, i swore on a stack of moving boxes (of which there are plenty strewn throughout my abode this week!) that i would diligently find the time/energy/enthusiasm to hash out the weekly happenins, ensuring no details were missed, all photos were properly displayed... and then this week came. to be fair, there have been distractions. i won't tell you how many boxes i may or may not have carried up and down the stairs with sheer determination to finish packing the "extras" before joey arrives home on sunday. and then there were the unexpected house guests, whom i love dearly (of course), but those young folk know how to suck my nights dry of excess writing power. but alas, we are still here, miles within our week 20 parameters, with news to share.

but first, ma bebe:

oh, hey baby - week 19

oh the sultry and exciting life of a married couple in their (very late) 20's. apparently so much that the blogs go unauthored for months. apologies. let's recap before the 19 week low-down.

after week 11, all hoped for energy and spunk returned nada, so there are no pictures of my growing bell for week 12. in truth, the absence was due entirely to my foul mood and joey's crazy busy school schedule = no photos = no posting, because everyone knows it's the pics the fans come back for... not for this wit, we can all be sure.

there was however the exciting reveal to all of our friends and family via text, for the most part, using this photo. to those we didn't tell in the intimate and planned out text message (sarcasm, of course), we told at the finke family reunion at this place. below are some pictures of my family during the reunion.

oh, hey baby - week 11

this week has been pretty blah; nothing to report back besides extreme laziness, coupled with sandpaper eyes and 7pm bedtimes. needless to say, my husband is impressed with my behavior this week. not a single dinner cooked, no ravishing/insightful conversations to speak of. i was a bump on a log all week. judging by the sticks required to pry my eyes open even as i type this out, sights for this week are looking bleak as well. where is my energy and please oh please won't you return?!?!

until next week, or until i have the energy required to compile more than 4-6 lackluster sentences... tootles!

oh, hey baby - week 10

although you've been hanging around with me for a few weeks, there's always been this sinking thought in the back of my head telling me we couldn't possibly be having a baby. having babies is for adults. your daddy and i mostly just pretend to be adults. don't worry darling, we have jobs and a perfect little house, cars to drive you around in and a real live marriage that spills love and commitment, 'til death do we part. our lives and drivers licenses tell us we're adults, but our goofy selves are in hard denial about the fact that some time between high school graduation and this world we live in together, married with masters degrees, we became corduroy wearing (what else spells adulthood better than the wearing of corduroy?), full-time job swinging, tax paying adults. so even though we've wanted a baby forever, and even though you came to us at the perfect (if that's possible) time in our "adult" lives, we still couldn't quite get over the nagging suspicion that the positive home pregnancy test, positive blood test, and continued serious conversations with our prenatal team about the fact that you really do exist were all just a hoax. until tuesday.

tuesday was our second prenatal appointment. we had no idea what to expect as we waltzed into our snug little meeting room, chatted with the super friendly nurse, and derobed from the waist down (only i got the lucky pleasure of derobing for this appointment) as we waited for the doctor to see us. i sat there nervously giggling with daddy, trying in vain to keep the back of my derobed self from overexposure. an impressively short time later we were greeted by our ob, who introduced herself and proceeded to ask the typical (i would assume) follow-up questions while we sat straight in our chairs and attempted to convince this fine doctor that we were in deed fit for nurturing, birthing, and raising a human being. at some point in the q&a session we discovered that our previously determined due date was perhaps not as accurate as we'd originally bet, and she called in the "e.t." machine to be absolutely sure. as it turns out the "e.t." was a huge, white, 1980's style computer on wheels, which we found out later was the money pot we'd been hoping for. this machine would be the window into my ever-stretching uterine walls, and i for one was ecstatic that this beast of a machine decided to evacuate itself from the cobwebs to "check my due date". heck if i cared at that point if my due date was november 4 instead of october 31 (a mere 4 days apart); i however agreed whole-heartedly with the dr. that an ultrasound was clearly in order here.

the doctor asked that i stretch out on the table, she lifted my shirt, and exposed a sliver too much of my waste down regions as she heartily applied the chilly blue gel to my lower stomach. with a white wand, she rubbed the gel around and announced she would let us listen first to my heart beat, then switch to baby's. joey stood close to my side, and with a noticeably cold hand, he took my hand and we waited. thump.... ... thump.... ... thump.... ... thump. there it was. my heart beat. then, she moved to the right, and we heard thump.thump.thump.thump.thump. it was like machine gun heart beats, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. this is completely telling of my first-time mama status, but the sound of your own child's heart beat is the one sound in the universe that is sure to cure all evil, grief, and pain. my eyes were a wet mess as i looked up at joey, and he squeezed my hand as we giggled together over the miracle that was happening in front of us. the doctor let us listen for a few seconds longer as she counted out the beats per second and assured us that this was a normal, healthy sounding heart beat.

joey and i breathed heavy sighs of relief as the doctor switched off the light in preparation for the ultrasound; in that moment, our status as parents was confirmed via fetal heartbeat. no more doubts, and we were so relieved. although, perhaps not as relieved as we were when we saw you move! before i had a second to catch my breath from listening to your heart beating, a picture of you flashed up on the tiny screen above my head. you were kicking like crazy, with both legs, as if you were as excited as we were to finally see you. the screen was fuzzy, and you are teeny tiny at only 10 weeks old, but we saw your big head, small little body, and quick fluttery movements of your arms and legs. daddy said you have too much energy already for him :) but we were so proud of you as we watched your rapid kicks on the monitor. our ob confirmed that your symmetry was perfect, your head was developing nicely, and your length was spot on for 10 weeks and 1 day (your new age... set back 4 days from the age we'd been using since that morning). all of our fears were put to rest, you were there. you were moving. you were perfect.

in four weeks, we will meet with our ob again for another follow-up. i hope i get to hear your heart beating next time as well; i live for the day i get to feel those kicks against my side (although i'm reminded continuously that those kicks will be less exciting at 3:00am while i'm trying to sleep!). i'm still feeling a little nauseated throughout the day, mostly after i've eaten. i attribute most of the discomfort to indigestion. the heartburn usually follows most meals. i think my mood has (thankfully) improved a bit as i've started to feel better. in only two weeks we get to tell our family and friends that we're expecting. part of me is so excited to share, but a large part of me has started to take comfort in our secret, knowing we get to have this little piece of our pregnancy and our baby all to ourselves. i hold on to my privacy a little too tightly sometimes, but this just seems too precious, too perfect. until next time, honey.

we love you,
mama

oh, hey baby - week 9

this week, more than any other week i've ever had the privilege to know my husband, i was irrationally frustrated with him. the whys and details are trivial, i assure you; no need to go in to gritty detail here. i will say only that the things which usually make me only slightly - if at all - irritated with joey made me absolutely furious with him this week. and yell, holy hannah was i a yeller all.week.long. this baby is the light in my day, but the nausea and moodiness have sufficiently stayed their welcome. thank you, husband of mine, for your unending patience and understanding. where would i be without you?!

this weekend we made the four hour hike back to south dakota to celebrate easter with our families. we had the most amazing time and i was reminded ever more why i miss my family so much when i'm away for more than a couple of months. leaving on sunday was the last thing in the world i wanted to do. we spent friday night with my mom and her husband, saturday morning with my dad, saturday afternoon with my extended family for about an hour, and the rest of saturday evening was spent with joey's family. on sunday morning we woke up far earlier than i would have chosen to attend sunrise service, had brunch with joey's family after church, and spent a few hours celebrating and eating tons of phenomenal food with my mom's extended family. it was such a busy weekend, but the kind of busy that makes the long drive to south dakota seem completely worth every second. the drive back home to saint paul, on the other hand, was gruesomely long and i was forever grateful to pull in to our lovely little neighborhood and head straight to bed. this baby makes mama tired by about 7:30 every night, and with a weekend like that under our belts that bed of mine was the only thing that would have relieved my sorry little eyes.

next week joey and i have our first real prenatal appointment. we can't wait to see and hear more about our little love. until then!

oh, hey baby - week 8

this week has been a tough one! babes is starting to make mama sick at all the worst time - on the drive to work, in the middle of meetings, and especially every morning in the shower. we're trying lots of crackers and eating small meals all through the day, which seems to be helping. instead of decreasing my appetite, the nausea seems to convince me i need to eat lots more, which is making itself evident in my tight fitting jeans. i'm happy you're growing, darling, but i think i'm doing a little growing myself and i'm not sure i'm as excited about that! ;)

this past weekend we spent friday night with my brother and his wife eating large amounts of carbohydrates. it's getting more and more difficult to keep the little guy a secret! we want to tell everyone, and we're getting so used to having baby around that it seems so natural to mention it in every conversation. we snuck by this weekend, but we're going to have to work extra hard to be sneaking in a few days. it's easter this weekend, and we're bringing babes back to south dakota with us for the first time! we wish we could spread our exciting news to everyone while we're there, but it's still too soon. we haven't heard the heartbeat or seen the proof in sonogram pictures yet, so until then it's our little secret :)

we froze our rears off almost a year ago at the first home twins game. travis and jessie were in town searching for their new apartment!

oh, hey baby - week 7

oh, hey baby - week 6

we're still holding on strong to our vow to keep this little nugget a secret until we're out of the first trimester and safely moving towards 14 weeks. it's been incredibly difficult for both of us to lay low and not brag to every single person we meet that we're already 6 weeks along, but we know it's for the best not to let the whole world know quite yet.

the queasiness has increased this week, especially early in the morning before i've had anything to eat. i notice it much more on days where i'm nervous or anxious about some silly thing at work. i'm sure my normal antics, exacerbated by the hormone bath i live in these days has taken it's toll.  i'm hoping these next few weeks bring a slight relief, but i'm happy to live with constant nausea if it means the little guy is still hanging around for the ride. my biggest fear every day is that for some reason this pregnancy won't hold. it's semi-irrational, and completely representative of my perpetual pessimism, but it's there none-the-less. joey tries to be patient, but he's convinced only bad things happen when you invite them in - or worry and fret about them - and so he tends to roll his eyes in disgust when i mention anything remotely to do with 1.) how (not) far along we are, or 2.) how i feel like we're too lucky to have all that we do, and of course this couldn't possibly come so easily to us.

but, he's completely right, and what good will my worrying do anyway? so i try hard to be grateful - which i am, ever so grateful. besides, i have to allot a certain amount of worry energy towards the birth, and oh don't get me started on the fears that seep from my pores about my spread eagle behind, exposed for all to see, in a horrifyingly lit hospital room. because we all know the terrifying sites that are witnessed during the birth of a child. i ask you, how does one sustain a thread of self-respect after all that grunting, screaming, ripping, pooling, bleeding, and complete animalistic behavior erupts from one's body? i'm excited!

this is what we look like this week!

oh, hey baby - week 4

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