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!

Almost Outed at Dinner

To preface this post, for the past few years there have been a "core" group of my co-workers who'd get together on the occasion with spouses for dinner and drinks. Well, we're all growing up and some are now with babies, one is moving to a new school, and one is moving to a new school and state (well, District). So the other day we had a going away dinner to say our goodbyes to Gary, Anna, and little Ella Grace as they move on to a new chapter in their lives in Washington, DC (yeah, I'm jealous - I miss it up there....)

Gary, Anna, and little Ella Grace were already at McCreary's Irish Pub when Justin and I arrived. After I ordered a lemonade, Gary very bluntly said, "Not to be rude, but are you pregnant? Anna used to order lemonades when she was pregnant." I kind of expected people to wonder, but I was not anticipating a straight-up question (I mean, people do order lemonades when they aren't pregnant, right?), so I avoided it as best as I could with the old "Nah, I just don't like beer" falsehood (what I'd have given for a Harpoon of my own...). He went on to say how a friend of his didn't tell them, only to have them find out later after the friend had moved....making me feel totally guilty for lying, but I just had to maintain the lie. So, Gary, here's my apology to you. I'm sorry for lying. Forgive me?

You'd think that'd be it, right? Nope. I could see people looking at my humongo boobs and checking out my tummy (okay, this might not have been true, but I felt like it was) for hints. I really wished that we hadn't openly talked about wanting to have kids as a group because it made it all the harder to lie about it. I felt like the worst person when Amanda whispered to me, "So you're not drinking tonight, huh?" and I pretended I didn't hear her because I didn't want her to see it on my face. She was, after all, the drama teacher - how can I hide things from her???

After the yummy meal, a few of us went on to Sweet Cece's for delicious froyo. While the boys were talking, Amanda managed to bring up the subject again. Yikes. I did my best to be vague and make it seem like Justin and I are still trying but not quite there, but she kept asking questions about my next running race and coaching cross country and whether I was charting my temperature, that I just KNOW that she's on to me. So, Amanda, this is my apology to you, too. Sorry for lying to you...hope you forgive me, as well.

Man, I can't wait for September to roll around....this secrecy nonsense is driving me bonkers!

Telling the Parents over Baby Back Ribs...Get It?

The original plan was to have Baby Y a secret between me and Justin (and Amanda - See here) until we move on in to the safety of the Second Trimester. Yes, that meant keeping it a secret from my parents....including MY MOM.

After just a few weeks of keeping mum from Mom (ha!), I already had to avoid a straight "Are you pregnant?" question...not to mention the feeling of guilt of not telling her the good news.

Our original rationale was that our parents would be so super excited that they wouldn't be able to keep it a secret. Plus my mom has been hinting for grandchildren since even before we got married. You don't believe me? Here are a few examples: on my 29th birthday, her card said something about how I'm getting old and need to make babies. Oh, and not to mention the e-mail forward I received about how a woman's eggs go bad after they turn 30. Yikes.

But after seeing the first ultrasound, we figured - eh, why not? They'd get a kick out of it, and I can finally talk to them about all of the questions about pregnancy and child-rearing that I have no clue about.

So we invited the 'rents over for Sunday dinner of Baby Back Ribs (haha...I didn't even realize the pun until after I made my menu) and other Summer Goodies. As we sat down at the table, Justin took a picture of everyone and said those magic words: "Smile and say.....she's pregnant!" and the pictures were priceless.





Apparently, my parents already had an inkling that we were announcing something...but as you can see, they were all quite pleased with the news.

After our meal, Justin and I presented them with picture frames that said "Grandpa & Me" and Grandma & Me" with the inside saying "Picture to Come Around March 17, 2011." They were thrilled.







It is now slightly more tolerable to wait until September to tell everyone else the good news.