Getting a bit bumpy....

You had to know it was coming, and now it's here:  the post in which we look at pictures of me from the side and analyze my baby belly!   Aren't you excited??!!

I can actually still zip and button most of my pants, but a few weeks ago I noticed that my jeans were sort of falling down, which seemed really strange to me, because I knew I certainly wasn't losing weight (hello, mac and cheese)  Finally, I realized that my belly was pushing down the waist of my jeans and creating a really unfortunate bunching/sagging situation in the crotch area.  Which I'm pretty sure does NOT fall under the category of "Hot Fall Fashions"--pregnant or not.  So I stated wearing a Bella Band, which, for those of you who have not been pregnant recently, is a *magical* stretchy tube that holds up and smooths over your pants when they are unbuttoned:  

Dead sexy, right??

I've decided that the specialty maternity stores (Pea in the Pod, etc.), like wedding dress stores, are conspiring together to charge women outrageous sums of money for pieces of fabric, just because they can.  I have started stalking the cute maternity clothes at Target, but let's just pretend for Jeromy that there is absolutely no shopping going on, and that instead I am fashioning muumuus and giant pants out of trashbags and duct tape.  And, yes, that is how you spell "muumuu;" I looked it up. 

 So, back to the star of this post, my belly.  When people see me in regular clothes--jeans, sweaters, etc.--it's still not at all obvious that I'm carrying a little peach-sized Smith Fruit, especially with the Bella Band, which kind of sucks everything in.  If you saw me out and about, it would probably just look like I've been eating too much oh, I don't know....mac and cheese, perhaps.  In less restrictive pants, on the other hand, the bump is suddenly much more apparent:

Pregnant Lady Mugshot

So you could say that I enhanced things a bit, because in these pictures I'm wearing super loose pants and a really tight tank top.  But still....the belly is THERE, people!  We never took the pictures to prove it, but I did NOT look like this 3 months ago.  And I did NOT have to twist around in weird positions to buckle the ankle straps on my sandals.  

Oh, and in case you think I cheated by sticking my stomach out....oh, no no. HERE is what I look like when I REALLY pooch it out there:

RAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!  BELLY MONSTER!!!!!

So, now I'm beginning to wonder just how big I'm going to look and feel 6 months from now.  The words "aircraft carrier" come to mind.....

***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

 On being asked by me, for about the 12th time, to feel my stomach and confirm that I do in fact have a baby belly going on:  "Ok, yes!!  It's out there.  You are no longer going to be running into things boobs-first."

Pickle Tragedy!

So, I ate an entire jar of dill pickles in under 48 hours.  And then I didn't have anymore, which made me really sad:

 No, I didn't eat them with ice cream; I ate them all by themselves.  And they were fantaaaaaaastic.

Questionable Parenting Around the World: A film Review by Rebecca

Imagine my complete shock surprise when Jeromy informed me that the documentary Babies was available on Netflix Instant Queue (Greatest Invention of Our Time) AND that he was actually willing to sit through it with me.  As we settled in to watch it, I promised myself that I would keep my cooing to a minimum in deference to my Baby Daddy's extremely low tolerance for sentimental movies.

If you haven't seen the movie or its preview--it follows the lives of four babies from four different countries (Mongolia, Japan, Namibia, and the U.S.) from birth to their first steps.  There is no narrator with informative voice-overs, just footage of the babies and their families.  There's not even much talking--you only hear the family members murmuring or singing to their babies, 3/4 of which is in untranslated foreign languages.  While I get it that the filmmakers were trying to just be unobtrusive, non-judgmental observers of the different cultures, I did find myself wishing that there was some narration to give more information.  For example, why did the mother from Namibia rub red paste all over her belly right before giving birth--is this some kind of natural alternative to the epidural that I should be aware of??  And why did the Mongolians keep the baby's legs wrapped up into such a paralyzingly tight burrito?

Over the course of the movie, it's difficult not to get the impression that the filmmakers were trying to subtly imply that Americans tend to overly fussy and paranoid when it comes to babies and children.  Which is probably true.  For me, this was both alarming and comforting.  Alarming, because I'm pretty sure I will be a fairly fussy and paranoid parent despite my best efforts not to be.  I'm always smacking Jeromy's arm and saying things like, "Oh no!  That child dropped his cheerio on the ground and the picked it up and ate it and the mom didn't see!"  It was also comforting, though, because the movie makes it seem like kids are not as easily damaged as we think.  

Here are a few of the scenarios that you see in the movie that, as a parent, I would probably try to avoid at all costs:

• A large rooster is strutting around on the bed next to the Mongolian baby, who seems to be left alone a lot.  Me: Ack!  That rooster is going poop on the baby and give him bird flu!
• The Namibian baby frequently wallows in the dirt and puts unidentifiable objects in his mouth.  Me: Was that a bug or a piece of bone?  I think that baby just ate a bone chip!
• The older brother of the Mongolian baby wheels his defenseless sibling in his stroller out into the middle of the family's grazing cows.  Me: Those cows are going to knock over the stroller and trample the baby!  That mean older brother needs a SERIOUS time out!
• The Namibian baby NEVER wears any kind of diaper, and his mom uses her knee as a baby wipe.   Me: I'm really excited to be a parent and all, but I don't think I'll ever love another human being quite THAT much.
• Once he seems to be weaned off of breast milk, the Namibian baby has to shove his way in to get food from a dish shared by several other children, all of whom are quite a bit larger and more aggressive than he is.  Me: What, you think they're all just going to share nicely, Namibian Mommy??  Did you not READ Lord of the Flies?? 

The scariest thing that the American baby does--which, in full disclosure, did also stress me out a bit--was try to play with the family cat.  Of course, all of the above scenarios turn out just fine--no harm ever comes to any of the babies.  In fact, the  Mongolian and Namibian babies come across as being much more mellow and independent than the Japanese and American babies.

So, I think it was definitely good for me, O.C.D.-Parent-in-Training, to watch.  Jeromy did pretty well with it; he thought it was a bit slow and repetitive, but at least he didn't grumble about wanting two hours of his life back, which is what happened after I got him to watch the Phantom of the Opera movie with me.  

Speaking of my beloved husband...

***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

On possible baby names:  "We should totally just name the baby Doctor.  That way, everyone automatically has to call our child Doctor Smith!  That would be awesome."  (So now, of course, "Doctor" is our nickname for the baby...talk about setting high parental expectations!)

It might be a gymnast, but I will draw the line at a Mary Lou Retton haircut

Today I had my second doctor's appointment, and since it was supposed to be another "Don't Miss" for the father, Jeromy again bravely accompanied me to the OBGYN office, which he calls "the Alien Universe" because "it's like a time warp that you get sucked into and can't get out of."  It's true that we were there for a couple of hours again, and kept getting cycled back out into the waiting room between the ultrasound, the exam, the lab work, etc.  

The only really exciting part of the appointment was, of course, getting another ultrasound, which they only did because it's part of the Down syndrome/chromosomal abnormalities testing that Jeromy and I opted to do. We're not considered high risk, but the doctor recommended it.  The sonogram tech zoomed in on the baby, which definitely looked more like a human this time.  Jeromy commented that it looked like the baby was just laying there, "hanging out."  Right then, the baby did a big bouncing type move!  I'm not really sure how to describe it, other than that it looked like when a kid on a trampoline jumps and then sort of sits on the trampoline to bounce on his butt.  Jeromy and I both went, "whoa, what was that?!"  I thought maybe it was like a full-body hiccup, but the technician said babies sometimes just bounce off like that.  We saw it happen a few times, and we could definitely see some movement and twitching limbs...pretty amazing!  It's hard to believe that I can't tell that there is something the size of a lime doing gymnastics in my belly, but supposedly it will be at least another month before I can feel anything.

Unfortunately, they decided to be super-efficient by taking the blood sample for the test during the ultrasound.  I got pretty distracted, because the lab lady said she was "jsut going to do a little finger prick", which I hate; I tried to get her to take blood from my arm instead, but she didn't go for it.  So she popped the little needle into my finger, and I was brave and didn't make a peep, but then it wouldn't even bleed!   So she began squeezing the heck out of my finger, and Jeromy started massaging down my arm to try to help, and all I wanted to do was have a precious darn moment with the ultrasound of my wiggly baby! Finally, the lab tech called me a mean name ("non-bleeder") and switched to my other hand.  She still had to wring and squeeze my second finger to get out a few drops of blood, but she finally got what she needed.  No wonder my hands are always cold...I have no blood circulating through them!

When we went in to see the doctor, it was pretty uneventful...how are you feeling, blah blah blah, any questions, blah blah, blah.  She did ask me about my nutrition, and I had to confess that I had pretty much abandoned meat and vegetables in favor of all things starchy.  And SOMEONE whose name rhymes with "Deromy" told her about my little mac and cheese problem.  No more OBGYN appointments for him for a while!

Here's one of the latest ultrasound pictures...head on the left, foot sticking up on the right.

If it looks like the head is the same size as the whole rest of the body, it's because at this stage, it is. 

 ***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

On being shown a photograph of what the average fetus looks like at 9 weeks: "It looks like a shrimp.  Kinda makes me hungry."  (He was a little bit in trouble for this one)

Man vs. Food Aversions

For the first several weeks after finding out the I was pregnant, I was feeling pretty darn proud of my eating habits.  Over the past year, Jeromy and I have really improved our diet, especially in terms of what we cook.  We had gotten into a groove of eating dinners of lean meats and vegetables, and had pretty much stopped eating pasta, rice, etc. at home.  We had also switched to buying pretty much everything organic.  Picture weekly trips to Whole Foods where we smugly filled our re-usable grocery bags with all kinds of fruits and veggies and free-range chicken.   Back at the house, Jeromy would grill pieces of salmon while I made a salad or baked cauliflower and broccoli.  We were eating like health-conscious, environmentally-aware grown-ups.  

I had read about women who gleefully began "eating for two" within hours of seeing the positive pregnancy test.  Women who demolished entire packages of candy or potato chips on a daily basis, and ended up gaining 15 pounds during their first trimester.  Not me, I thought.  I was still making it to the gym most days, and was following all the Golden Rules of Pregnancy Eating, from "Thou shalt eat tons of leaf greens" to "Thou shalt NOT eat lunch meat."  I was the best pregnant lady ever!

.....Until the food aversions and cravings set in a few weeks ago.  Suddenly, I was eating nothing but  goldfish for lunch.  Goldfish!  Such packaged snack food hasn't entered our house in years.  The idea of eating meat or vegetables now sends me into a fetal position. If the aversion/craving monster that has taken over my body had its way all the time, my diet would consist of: plain pasta, naughty delivery pizza, cranberry-applesauce, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, and Mexican food. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

One of the worst parts, though, is that the cravings and aversions change all the time!  Poor Jeromy needs a flow chart to keep up with them.  A few recent conversations:

Jeromy: What do you want for lunch?  

Me: (unintelligible grunt) 

Jeromy:  How about that vegetable pho you liked last week?

Me:   Ugh.  Don't even MENTION vegetable pho to me.

*******************************************

Jeromy:  Why don't you try to eat something? 

Me:  (pathetic whimper)

Jeromy:  Here's the rest of the goldfish that you took with you to Colorado...how about those?

Me: I DO NOT WANT THE GOLDFISH!!!!!! EVER. AGAIN.

(Silence)

Jeromy:  Um, ok.  I guess I'll eat them then.  I finished the rest of the box while you were gone, anyway.

********************************************

Jeromy:  I'm trying to decide what to make for dinner...is there ANYTHING that might be appetizing to you?

Me:  Macaroni and cheese.

And you know what?  The poor guy when out and bought me some Mac and cheese.

***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

"I'm sorry that you're miserable.  If it makes you feel any better, it's making me miserable, too."

Baby Highlights So Far

Since I'm starting this blog after some of the big first events in the Smith Baby Saga have occurred, I'll do a little re-cap.

The Test(s)-- O Jeromy of Little Faith

The first test I took was apparently too early; it was negative.  But, as I still had my hopes/suspicions, I took another test three days later and saw the Holy Grail of the those Trying to Conceive--or "TTC" as some of the books and websites annoyingly put it--the double pink lines.  Unfortunately, you have to take the tests first thing in the morning, when Jeromy is not at his most cheerful or lucid (to be fair, I'm the same way, but the pee stick adrenaline had me WIDE awake this time).  I showed Jeromy the test as he stumbled out of bed to get ready for work.  He took one look at the very faint second line and said, "well, that doesn't look very convincing," which burst my bubble just a bit.  After I explained to him that, according to all of my obsessive reading, ANY second line, even a very faint one, is a good sign, he became cautiously excited.  He still found it very hard to believe that a piece of plastic purchased from Target could make any kind of medical diagnosis, which IS kind of amazing if you think about it.  I took two more tests over the next four days, which helped Jeromy become convinced that a bun was, in fact, in the oven. 

*NOTE: When I sent my immediate family an e-mail with the big announcement, I did actually attach a picture of the three positive tests, but as my darling brother (see previous post) squeamishly declared the picture to be "T.M.I." (Too Much Information) I have refrained from posting the picture here.

The Waiting--Rebecca's O.C.D. Fit

When I jubilantly dialed up the doctor's office the day after taking the third test, I was shocked to hear that they weren't even going to have me come in for another three weeks.  THREE WEEKS?!  I stomped around for a while muttering about cruelty towards pregnant women, especially ones like me who are a little bit O.C.D.  I mean, sure, I had immediately run out and bought What to Expect When You're Expecting and had been doing my homework, but they didn't know that, did they?  How did they know that I wasn't sitting around eating sushi and deli meats with unpasteurized cheese and washing it down with tequila?  I calmed down a little bit after reading online that it was pretty standard to wait that long, but I still think it's kind of crazy.

The First Appointment--Jeromy's Initiation into the Mysteries of the OBGYN Office

The big day FINALLY arrived, and we were off to the doctor.  Jeromy was able to take some time off from work, so he accompanied me, we won't say excitedly, but willingly, into one of the scary inner sanctums of the female world, the OBGYN office.  We had to sit in the waiting room for a while, and while I tried to think non-nauseous thoughts, Jeromy went to his happy place by playing solitaire on his phone.  Every few minutes he would look up and warily eye the several super-pregnant women in the room to make sure they weren't going to give birth on the spot.  After he used the restroom, I had to explain to Jeromy why there was a little metal door on the wall in there.  It was pretty funny to try to look at the whole situation through his eyes.

When we finally got to go back to the exam room, I realized that they really couldn't have made it any less husband-friendly.  We're talking anatomy posters and 3-D plastic models, not to mention the fact that the only chair in the room besides the doctor's stool was placed directly across from the exam table.  Think about it.  I almost sent poor Jeromy back out to the waiting room. 

The nurse went through a bunch of the boring medical history stuff with me, and then said that they were going to do an ultrasound---bingo!!!  I didn't think that they would do one so early.  So we got to go to another room, where, luckily, the guest chair was back behind my head.  The ultrasound was really reassuring and neat to see.  The doctor confirmed how far along I was by measuring the size of the baby (somehow), and we could even see the heartbeat!  Very exciting.  They printed a few pictures for us, gave me a tote bag of pregnancy magazines and brochures, and sent us on our way! 

The upshot of the appointment is that my due date is May 21st, everything looks fine so far, and we go back on November 2nd, when we should be able to actually hear the heartbeat.  Yay!

To Blog or Not to Blog...

When I told my favorite brother Travis that I was thinking about blogging during my pregnancy, he gave me such a disgusted look that you’d have thought that I had asked him to move to Austin to be the baby’s personal diaper changer.  Ironically, at the time of our conversation, I was helping Travis look over his TWO websites (one for his wedding to Victoria, and one for their trip around the world)….hypocrite, much?  I do kind of understand his reaction, though.  I’m sure he was imagining everything from detailed accounts of every weird/gross/boring symptom to sentimental raptures about the beauty of becoming a parent for the first time.  Certainly, there are some very self-involved, overly-mushy family and/or pregnancy blogs out there.  I really do hope to avoid these pitfalls, but I guess we’ll see!

So, while I do realize that a very large percentage of the world’s population go through pregnancy with no fanfare whatsoever, I have decided to start this blog for the following reasons:

1.    To show my brother who’s boss.  Who says that climbing to the Everest base camp, trekking through China, and RVing in New Zealand is more interesting to read about than having a little person grow in your belly?  Ok, probably a lot of people.  I’m actually really excited to read their blog.  I guess we’ll say that each Titus sibling will be having his or her own unique adventure over the next several months.

2.    To have more interaction with the outside world.  I used to talk to at least 150 people a day (if you count distracted 14-year-olds as “people”) and now I mostly talk to the dog and Jeromy.  They are both very loving and try to be good listeners, but neither has much idea what I’m going through; Lainey, because she’s been spayed, and Jeromy because he’s a guy.  So, the whole pregnancy thing has been a bit lonely thus far, mostly because of the first-trimester secrecy factor.  I thought about joining an online birth month community, but quickly vetoed that idea.  A group of hormonal women typing at each other from the anonymity of the computer…how stressful is that??!!

3.    To share this experience with any friends and family who are interested, especially those who don’t live nearby.  I figure that this will help me avoid flooding Facebook with updates and pictures that not everyone cares to see.  If people are bored or disgusted by the blog, they don’t have to read it.  :)