An Early Birthday Gift

Next month, I turn 30. And I'm okay with that. Mostly because most of my friends have already reached this milestone, so it doesn't seem so scary. But also because 30 is bound to be a good year for me, with little Baby Yasay making an appearance in March!

As such, Justin has always known that I wanted a really nice diaper bag. It was the one thing that was a "must-have" for me. I've had my eyes set on a Coach one, but the one I like no longer exists...and the current ones don't thrill me enough to spend the money on.

BUT, I did recently spot a beautiful Kate Spade one that I knew I absolutely had to have. The problem? I fell in love with the pink one - and I knew that if I had a boy, that it just wouldn't be right. I did, though, like the turquoise one almost as much...and I thought that it was girly enough to be girl-ish, yet I could make the turquoise work for a boy, as well. (Or maybe I just want it so much that I'm making up excuses to have it...)

Guess who did his research and found it on sale and with free shipping and who jumped on it and bought it for me early? (I opened it already because Justin feared it would get smushed if we kept it in the box - and I happily obliged!)

The card read: To Nori, From Justin. I love you and our future progeny.

Haha - I love it!

And for your pleasure, here are pictures of my beautiful new turquoise Barrow Street Anabel Baby Bag from Kate Spade. I CAN'T WAIT TO START USING IT!!!

Dinner with the Pros

Justin and I are rapidly realizing that we are absolutely clueless about the logistics in raising a baby! Sure, we can do internet research and buy all the baby books...and yes, we can ask our folks for advice, but who better to turn to then two of our good friends who are going through this process as we speak?

So, yesterday, we had dinner with Matt, Laura, and Baby Lily (who was born just over two months ago).

And, boy, was it productive!

We got lots of good advice about strollers (who needs two when you can get one really nice jogging one?) to cloth diapers (environmentally friendly and easy...if we do a diaper service) to the ins and outs of being first time parents (it is apparently possible to spend several hours doing nothing else but staring at your baby).

I feel much more confident about being able to handle this whole parenting thing. It will be a learning process, to be sure, but I think Justin and I have it in us to do a pretty decent job. (Of course, saying my prayers and crossing my fingers can't hurt, either.)

Oh, and just for fun, here's a picture of Lily's outfit:



Well, sort of - hers is purple. But the reason why I am showing it is because it is super cute and from Alaska. Hmm...I wonder where she got it? :-)

Thanks, Matt, Laura, and Lily! I have a feeling we'll be getting together again soon for more advice :-)

A Quarter Done!

Today I start Week 10 out of the (typically) 40 week pregnancy. I'm not a math whiz, but I do know that that's 25%....we're a quarter of the way there!

And, according to my countdown ticker, the Baby is the size of a prune (or as another site said, a garden beetle)!

Time has gone by soooooooo sloooooooowly, and the fact that I still have 30 more weeks of waiting to officially meet Baby Y is almost unbearable.

Luckily, the pregnancy has been pretty mild so far (where's the wood to knock?). No morning sickness or nausea (except for the time that Justin insisted on eating black beans in the bedroom and I yelled at him...a lot). No complications or problems.

The only complaint is this gosh darn fatigue. I had gotten so used to the summer naps (which, by the way, I never took pre-pregnancy), that I thought going back to school would be pure torture. It hasn't been too terribly bad, but with newly-added responsibilities on my plate this year, it's not been a total piece of cake, either. I'm able to tolerate it, though, except for the fact that hitting the gym before/after work has been pretty non-existent since I'm too tired to make it there. I haven't gained weight yet (thank goodness), and hopefully in a few weeks after I officially get out of the first tri, I'll be back to my normal self again.

Hopefully the next 30 weeks will start to pick up speed, and March will get here sooner rather than later!

Start Spreadin' the News!

So today's the day we decided to make our excitement fully public. We've spent all morning calling our family and closest friends and e-mailing everyone we thought might care even just a little bit about our big news.

As you can see, the blog's finally up and running, and we hope you guys come back to check out updates!

Nervous....Anxious.....Relieved beyond belief

In the days leading up to our first prenatal doctor's visit, I spent a lot of time online doing research and reading different pregnancy blogs and message boards. It seemed that a lot of people who were posting on the boards were going through early pregnancy complications and some had already had miscarriages and blighted ovums (ova?) - something I had never heard of before, but still sounds very scary.

Of course, I started to really freak out and get nervous about our own eight week ultrasound....even though we had seen the baby just a week and a half ago (see here). Sadly, I even took it out on Justin a few times getting easily upset with him and frustrated that he wasn't sharing my anxiety. To me, that made it seem like he didn't care if something was wrong...even though I know he was just trying to make me feel better.

Finally, the day of the appointment arrives. I was already bracing myself for the worst. I didn't allow myself to get too excited about it...in fact, quite the opposite. I was actually envisioning myself calling in sick to work the next day (which just happened to be the first day back at school) since I knew that I would be too sad to go to work if I got bad news.

Justin and I go in...and right away, the Amazing Doctor finds the baby and sees the flicker of the heartbeat. She said that everything looked perfect, and she said that because of this visit...our chances of miscarriage went from 30% to a mere 5%! She was very insistent that we could share the news with the world right away! I was so shocked and surprised because the thought of telling people never even crossed my mind...I had just assumed we would wait until the end of the first trimester to say anything (to anyone other than our parents and Amanda - see here and here).

Of course, Justin was all for telling the world. He had been dying to tell people from the beginning. [From Justin: I absolutely wanted to tell people, especially since Noreen had forbade me from saying anything while she had already let some people know! (See here)] I, of course, still wanted to wait a little longer....but after telling my mom the news and finding out that she and my father had both started telling people....why wait?

So, the next day (yep, the first day back at school), I made the announcement to my co-workers and Justin did the same. We're slowly starting to tell our close friends and family....and probably by the end of the week, the cat will most definitely be out of the bag. And I can finally make this blog public :-)

WHAT A RELIEF!!!

P.S. The Amazing Doctor gave us an estimated due date of March 16, 2011....but I'm sticking with the 17th. I'm all about a St. Patty's Day Baby Y!