I had a hard time at first remembering why we were on the roof at my building. I think it was when Brett’s sister Rachel and her friends came up to Seattle to go to a concert, but it sold out before they could get tickets so we went on the roof instead. If I’m remembering right, that weekend was also the first time anyone on the outside of me felt Elanor kick. Rachel was the lucky one to have that experience…it seems her connection with Elanor was present even then.

In the top one, it seems like my belly is lower and more sticky-outy, and in the bottom one, it seems higher and rounder. Strange.

Once again, sorry for the blurry bathroom pics…I’ve just found that if I don’t do them there, I’ll never do them.

Yeah, I think my face in this one is saying something like, “OMG I am so tired please get this baby out thank you.”

I definitely had some real (read: painful and frequent) contractions yesterday. They lasted for about five hours and then just stopped. I was disappointed that they did but hey, every contraction helps me make progress, right?

Once again, I’m looking forward to a long, four-day weekend. Hooray! We have plans tonight and tomorrow, but otherwise, we have nothing scheduled. (Although to be honest, I’m hoping to go into labor by Monday night. But we’ll see. These things seldom happen as we want them to.)

I’m particularly excited for our plans tonight and tomorrow morning. Tonight, we are going to a party for our friends Claire and Isaac, who are visiting Seattle from where they currently live in California. Claire is one of the two women I will always think of as my roommates (Daisy being the other one). Claire was Daisy’s and my next door roommate when we lived on Second South Marston our freshman year at SPU, and then the three of us lived together on Second Hill the following year. After that, Claire and I lived in an on-campus apartment together.

I remember meeting Claire on that first day at SPU and going to buy our books together at the bookstore, since we were both in the University Scholars program. I actually have a picture somewhere of the two of us leaving Marston and walking toward the bookstore. I wish I had it online!

Throughout the years that followed, Claire and I and a few other friends spent a lot of time being U-Scholars together. (Disclaimer: I will be the first to admit I was a bad U-Scholar. Claire, though, was a great one. She always did her reading and was just able to think on a plane that I never have been able to get to.)

Anyway, we haven’t seen each other in three years, because Brett and I were in Maine and then right before we moved back, they moved to California.

And, even cooler, tomorrow morning, she and I are going out to breakfast with…wait for it…Daisy, who is also in town for the holidays! HOORAY! The roommates, together again! I think the last time we were all together was…hmmm…well, I guess it must have been Daisy’s wedding in December 2004, and before that, at my wedding in 2003. And it’s not like we got to spend much time hanging out together what with all the wedding craziness.

I am very excited to get to spend a few hours with the two of them. I wish I had some of the photos from our roommate days to post here, but alas, they aren’t digital. I’ll definitely be bringing the camera tomorrow, though, that’s for sure!

Rachel’s car used to be their Grandma Pat’s car back in the day. Brett borrowed it to take me on our first date, almost nine years ago, and it’s the scene of our first kiss. A little strange to think we’ll be bringing our baby home in the very vehicle where our entire relationship started so many years ago! I think it’s kind of cool, actually!

Anyway, while Rachel was here, she took a belly photo of me. And guess what?! It’s not in a bathroom! Yay! :p Except I totally have hat hair because I was wearing my wool hat all day since it was cold…oh well…I’m convinced I won’t ever have a nice belly photo.

So here I am at 35 weeks, 1 day. You decide — do I really look all that ginormous for 35 weeks? I feel ginormous, but I don’t really have anything against which I can gauge my size.

I got home from childbirth class and hauled my sick self downstairs to the computer to do my blog post, and lo and behold, there was no internet connectivity. I think I know why (because Qwest is stupid, basically) but that’s a whole other post.

Anyway, after a sick hormonal pregnant lady freak-out wherein I shouted at Brett that “*bleep*-ing Qwest was ruining NaBloPoMo” for me, I decided that I would call my sister and ask her to post. She didn’t answer her cell phone so I called the house phone. She lives with my mom, and my mom picked up and said my sister was already in bed.

For that matter, my mom was in bed, too, but she is so fantastic that she got up, turned on her computer, and let me dictate a blog post to her over the phone at 10:30 at night. THANKS, MOM!

And now, what you’ve been waiting for…the ultrasound update. As I mentioned before, there are really only a few causes for measuring so far ahead: a big baby, polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid), fibroids, dates being off, or gestational diabetes.

Apparently, according to the ultrasound yesterday, it’s the former: It’s just a ginormous baby. No fibroids, amniotic fluid is normal for the baby’s size, I am 110% certain of my dates, and we already know I don’t have gestational diabetes.

So here’s the scoop: I’m 33 weeks today, according to my (correct) calculations. The ultrasound yesterday estimates that the baby currently weighs 6 pounds, 13 oz.

Once again, sorry for the crappy quality and the fact that it’s in a bathroom…I keep hoping to do some nicer belly shots but it never seems to happen. Maybe I’ll get at least one or two before I deliver this baby. I hope so!

Please get out of my ribcage. It hurts when you’re all squished up in there.

Also, I love feeling your different appendages when you move around. It’s weird, but super cool. And your dad and I are sorry in advance if all our poking and prodding of you when you are moving is hurty or annoying…we just love feeling you in there!

Love,
Mama

~~~~~~~~~

So, do you ever see a picture of yourself and think, not without a tinge of surprise and embarassment, “Oh, my God, I look like that?!”

That’s what I thought when I saw this photo, which our friend Joel took at the barista competition this weekend. Somehow, seeing a candid photo is way different than looking in a mirror at this point…I had no idea how much you can see my belly button. I think I need to start taping over it or something. (And I’m cracking up at our friend Dean behind me, who seems to be checking out my butt…)

It’s not that I’m complaining about how I look, necessarily. It’s more that it is just startling to realize I’m that huge, and that I’m going to get even bigger before this is all over. I don’t think of myself as being that pregnant…and then all of the sudden I get a glimpse of myself somewhere and I think, “WOAH. My belly is giant.”

Overall, though, life is good, albiet tiring. I am afraid to say this because I don’t want to jinx anything, but I am feeling better and better these days. How strange that as most women feel worse I am feeling better! Don’t get me wrong; I still have the normal later-in-pregnancy aches and pains, but that’s really about it these days.

One question, though, to the other pregnant ladies or moms out there: any tips on how to deal with breathlessness? This kid is up in my ribcage to an insanely frustrating degree. I realize I am short torsoed and all so there really isn’t anywhere else for He/She to go, but OMG, so uncomfortable!!! The breathlessness makes my heart race and makes me feel all lightheaded. It is very un-fun. I do try moving positions and also getting on my hands and knees, which helps some, but not enough. Plus it’s not super practical for when I’m in the middle of work or church or something. :p So, any tips?

And now, some random facts, pregnancy-related and otherwise:

• My belly button is almost entirely flat and is starting to pop out, which is really strange.
• I am saddend to report that I have one stretch mark, despite religiously applying lotion every day. (NOOOO!)
• As of my next appointment on 11/6, I will start going to OB appointments every two weeks. This pregnancy is flying!
• We start our childbirth classes on Thursday. I am looking forward to it.
• Brett came to water exercise class with me yesterday. It was pretty funny, us with all the old ladies. :p
• We went to Café Presse yesterday for dinner. It was fantastic! I highly recommend it.
• I am going to Portland this weekend for my baby shower! I am excited; it’s mostly family and close friends on the guest list. It will be really good to see everyone, including a lot of people I haven’t seen in years (or at least since we’ve been back from Maine), I hope. Again, it seems like this pregnancy is flying. I can’t believe it’s time for this already!
• We are both getting very, very excited to meet this little person who is inside of me. It’s beginning to dawn on both of us that it is a person and not just some vague concept of a baby. We love feeling my belly and being able to identify body parts. (Well, or at least try to identify them. Like, “That’s a leg! Or maybe an arm!” and “That’s its butt! Or maybe its head!”)

And here is a belly shot. I took this last Friday, at 27 weeks. It’s super blurry and is, once again, in the bathroom, so please excuse those two things.

27 weeks

1) Where did you meet your husband? The general answer is that we met in high school. But, being the strange person I am, I actually think I remember the exact circumstances of the first time we met. It was in the auditorium at our high school during my sophomore and his freshman year. He was sitting next to my friend (well, our mutual friend, really) Adria. I was talking to her and he just happened to be there. He and I really got acquainted, though, after we were both on the newspaper staff the following two years.

2) What was the first thing you said to your husband? I don’t remember exactly but I do remember one of our first conversations, in newspaper class my junior and his sophomore year. It was the last period of the day, and I had a car, and he tried to bum a ride off me since he HATED riding the school bus. He made some silly joke that it wasn’t really out of my way becuase I was going to work which was near Walker Road and he just lived off Walker Road and his last name was Walker, and wasn’t that funny, ha, ha, ha. (I didn’t give him a ride. Heh. I was mean.)

3) Where was your first date? First real date was my senior prom. But before that, the first time we went out just the two of us, was about a month before prom. We went to the Haagen-Daaz in Beaverton Town Center and had ice cream. I had, like, one scoop of chocolate ice cream and he got a hand-packed pint of Jamocha Almond Fudge. He claimed he was getting such a big one because he wanted to take some home to his mom (HAHAHAHAHA) but now I really know that he probably went home and ate the rest of it while sitting in his room listening to AFI or something. First kiss? After prom. Big long story short, I had never been kissed and the whole newspaper staff knew it. They were all egging him on to kiss me that night, even though we technically went to prom as “just friends.” (At least that was what I thought…to this day, Brett won’t admit whether or not he really actually liked me and had an ulterior motive all along.) We went driving around after prom and we went to this overlook place that looks out on the whole Tualatin Valley. He kissed me while we were there. It was nice. The rest, clearly, is history.

4) Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement? The dating part was long, way too long. Four and a half years is a very long time to be together before getting married if you are not going to live together or sleep together. I do not recommend it! But we were actually only officially engaged for about 5 months, although I think we’d both known since very early on in our relationship that we were heading toward marriage.

5) Where did you get engaged? At Kerry Park in Seattle, sitting on the steps on the west side of the park, on Valentine’s Day 2003. It was very sweet and a perfect day.

6) Where did you get married? In Oregon City, Oregon, in a ballroom called the Grand Oregon Lodge.

7) How did the reception go? I remember it being really fun, but being absolutely exhausted by the end. The DJ was great, and everyone was dancing, there was good wine, and there were tons of people there. I love looking at the photos of everyone dancing and seeing os many people we love from so many areas of our lives. The one part that wasn’t fun was trying to leave the reception to head to our hotel. It was a nightmare — it took over an hour to navigate through the crowds of people who suddenly HAD to talk to us before we left. The poor limo driver; he kept having to circle the block over and over and over again. (Seriously, we were exhausted and hadn’t seen much of each other in a week, and had more important things on our minds [yes, exactly what you think might have been on the minds of a newly-married young couple about ready to go to the hotel on their wedding night] than making small talk with people. So a note to all you wedding-goers: just let the couple do two things — 1. Eat their dinners in peace, and 2. Leave when they are ready to go.)

How was the honeymoon? So much fun. We went to the Oregon Coast for about 5 days, and stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves books and the ocean. It was so nice just to relax and to be with each other after the craziness of the wedding planning. We have wanted to go back there ever since our wedding, but it hasn’t worked out. And now, with the baby coming, it looks like it may be quite some time. Ah, well. Someday we will go back there!

And now, I tag Isabel and Marci.

• The new house is fantastic and is feeling more homey every day, as we get more and more boxes unpacked. Brett finally got our crappy Ikea bedframe (for which we paid $189 right after we were married, and which we have moved four times in four years) re-jury rigged last night (it’s broken twice, but Brett’s handy so he’s just fixed it both times) (yes, we are cheap), so thankfully we are no longer sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
• It is very hard for a pregnant lady to get her butt up off of a mattress on the floor to go pee in the night. I’m just sayin’.
• The move went pretty smoothly, thanks in very large part to our friend Gregory and to our good friends Josh and Crystal. We really couldn’t have done it without their help!
• We have no Internet at home as yet, thanks to Qwest’s ridiculousness. I have called them no fewer than three times in the past two days and spoken with roughly four representatives, only to be told to call back to speak with someone else in a different department each time. Perhaps I’ll have the time/energy to deal with it this weekend.
• Things are really crazy at work right now…that’s all I’m going to say other than that it is really stressful.
• I get to see my really really good friend Daisy tomorrow, and I get to meet her baby!!! She is only in town for a couple of days for her sister-in-law’s wedding, but we managed to find an hour or two tomorrow morning that we can connect. It means getting up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday, but for Daisy? I’ll do it! I can’t wait to give her a hug and to see her beautiful little girl in person.
• The Snugglefriend/He-She is dancing around in there a lot more these days. I am to the point now where when He/She moves, it feels like He/She is using my bladder as a trampoline. It’s a really strange and pretty uncomfortable feeling, but I like feeling the movement so much that I don’t mind too much.
• I’m 21 weeks pregnant today. Although you can’t really tell in this picture, I still have the double belly, which annoys me. I look really big on the top belly and not so much on the bottom part. Oh well. I guess that’s what you get for having fat rolls when you get pregnant.

16w — At a work event

(excuse the faucet and bathroom-ness, please…)

Anyway, as you can see, I’ve pretty much got a pregnant belly now. Exciting! Also very exciting is the fact that I am nearly certain I’ve been feeling movement. Well, actually, it’s safe to say that I’ve definitely been feeling movement. It started out as a very rare flutter or two toward the end of week 14, and within the past few days, it’s definitely increased! It’s not totally regular yet, but I feel it multiple times a day now, and it is so cool.

It definitely makes all of this so much more real to feel this little person moving around in there. I am beyond excited for Brett to get to feel it, too. I’m hoping that will happen in a few more weeks, although I know it could take a bit longer. Still, it’s very fun, and it definitely reminds me to pray for the baby more — I try to say a prayer every time he or she moves.

I have my next doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, after which I’ll schedule the “big” ultrasound. Although we aren’t finding out the gender, I’m still very excited to see this little person again!

I’m feeling better as this week has gone on (knock on wood) so that is great. I really hope it continues. I’m so tired of feeling sick all the time! I’ll be interested to see on Tuesday whether I’ve gained any weight back since my last appointment. I hope I have, at least a little.

I should go find something to eat now…It’s lunch time, and I’m actually hungry for once. YAY! I have to jump on that while it lasts!