Week 23: My belly is a bounce house

I can’t put my socks on while standing up anymore. And I think I may have found a stretch mark. I’m praying it’s just my imagination. This morning I was feeling baby move stronger than I ever have. At one point I thought I saw my shirt twitch and couldn’t believe it! I lifted up my shirt to look and my belly started bouncing! It looked so cool!

 A couple days ago Seth and I were watching a video of our favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan. He earned our number one spot because he does a 15-minute bit on the awesomeness of bacon. He was talking about how he and his wife just had their fourth baby. He described with amazement all the crazy cool things a woman’s body can do. He basically said, women can grow a baby inside their body, delivery that baby with their body, and then miraculously feed that baby, with their body! Then he said when you think about what man’s contribution to life is, it’s really sort of embarrassing. 

Although the physical contribution of the sexes is unfortunately a bit more significant for the woman, I was shown this week what some of men’s different roles can be when their wife is in the “growing the baby with their body” stage. This week Seth has made a late night dessert run and painted the baby’s room. He even earned extra points with me for agreeing to paint one of the walls Kelly green. Sure, the guy can be the one who does projects around the house, runs out and gets you whatever your little taste buds desire, and tells you how beautiful you look even though you feel like a blob. Seth has done all these things, but this week he reminded me of how crucial our husbands are in the baby-making journey.

 I woke up on Friday morning with some minor pain in my lower abdomen. It sort of felt like the annoying pain you get when you have accidentally “held it’ for too long. I thought nothing of it but as the day went on the pain kept growing stronger. One of my greatest weaknesses is freaking myself out over situations that haven’t even happened yet. It could be a potential illness, the future, finances, etc. and I could sit there and worry for hours over nothing. I’ve really been working on it the last few years but I definitely backslid during our first few weeks of pregnancy. I Googled terms like, “ectopic pregnancy” and “signs of miscarriage” if I felt any sort of pain or cramp. I was giving myself different Google diagnoses everyday! Things had gotten out of control because I was trying to take control. I had to stop letting Google diagnose me. So, when I was feeling this ever-increasing pain in my abdomen I told myself to be calm and stop getting all worked up over nothing. Unfortunately I didn’t pray about it in that moment, I just tried to brush it off. Thankfully God used my body to talk to me since I wasn’t talking to Him. At around noon I was sitting on the floor and when I reached for something I felt a shooting pain go through my pelvis. I froze and realized that I had been in a fair amount of pain for a few hours but had been just trying my best to ignore it. I wrote Seth a text in a “just so you know this was kind of weird and I thought I’d tell you” sort of way to tell him what I was experiencing. I don’t think he’s ever responded to one of my texts sooner. He called me immediately and when I said hello he said, “Call the doctor.” I laughed him off and tried to say it was probably nothing. He was so insistent and said, “When it comes to you and the baby we don’t mess around. Just call.” Seth and I never tell eachother what to do. If on occasion it does happen, we know that the other person is strongly insisting on being taken seriously. I reluctantly agreed, called the doctor, and got an appointment for later that afternoon. After our appointment Seth could have given me a huge dose of, “I told you so.” But thankfully he didn’t. The pain I was experiencing was from a bladder infection, which my doctor told me if left untreated, can lead to premature labor. WHOA! I got the antibiotics and started feeling relief a few days later.

 Married ladies out there, I hope you have husbands who can fulfill the stereotypical male pregnancy-related duties, but even more than that, my hope for you is that he is a man who cherishes you and will take care of you when you aren’t taking care of yourself. By trying to ignore what my body was telling me I wasn’t taking care of myself, or our baby.

Blessings,
Shantastic :)

Week 22: Channeling my inner "Pooh"

So far this week I got stuck on the couch and balanced a bowl on my tummy.
The other day I was telling Seth a story and he kept looking at my belly and smirking. I was trying to ignore it and continue with my story but my curiosity eventually won. When I asked him what he was smirking at he quickly apologized, let out a suppressed laugh and pointed at my tummy saying it was so cute he couldn’t help it. I looked down to find that my shirt was in a “Winnie the Pooh” situation where it had gotten stuck on the top part of my belly and couldn’t go all the way down! Thank goodness we weren’t out in public! That shirt might have to go in the ‘post-pregnancy’ pile.

Also, if you look up a picture of Pooh you will notice he is without a belly button. I used to have a pretty impressive “inny” bellybutton. Now it’s just a tiny little dip across my tummy. It’s starting to look like Pooh’s completely non-existent one. My baby hijacked my belly button! However on the bright side, pretty soon I’m going to have the classic preggo belly button that sticks out!

Even when Seth and I were dating we had already talked about baby names. We learned from the very beginning that we have dramatically different tastes in names! Ever since we got pregnant we have been just a little obsessed with figuring out what our child’s name will be. At the heart of it we believe God will ultimately reveal to us our child's name. Nonetheless, we’ve played ridiculous games such as, “You have to pick a boy and girl baby name from a Disney movie” or “If our child had to have a superhero name it would be…” Amidst all our frantic searching and silly games I completely neglected to realize our baby won’t be the only one getting a name that day. I’ve had quite a few different names and titles in my life: Shan, wife, babe, daughter…In a few months I’m going to be named mom and Seth will be dad! Just like any name or title, part of your identity can be found in it. It's crazy cool to think about how much our identities will be changing. I will be Mom: the soother of nightmares. Seth will turn into Dad: the ultimate fort builder!

Thankfully, getting this new name has been a life-long ambition of mine. I’ve been looking forward to being a mom since I was in high school. My senior year I had to fill out a questionnaire that was read to the entire school. One of the questions asked what I want to do with my life. At the age of 17 I wrote down that I was planning on getting a degree in Elementary Education but I really just wanted to be a mom someday. Is that what a normal 17 year-old says?

Not too long ago I came across an old journal entry from 2008 that made me smile. I was 22 at the time and still had the same feelings about one day becoming a mom.

Today in class one of my students nonchalantly called me mom by mistake. I was surprised as to how good it felt. In all my years of working with young children I have never once been mistakenly called mom: the term given to the ultimate female caregiver. Maybe I'm taking this a bit too seriously...but it really felt good. Then I realized why hearing that name made my heart swell up like a giant balloon. Someday, I will be mom to someone. How exciting.

“Someday” is now only four months away! I'm ready to be this little one's mom.

To those of you who have been reading this blog every week, I’d like to thank you for allowing my inner-monologue to have a voice. It's been really fun.

On the right side I added a poll to see if people think little one is a boy or a girl! So far 95% of people have been verbally telling me the same guess. What do you think?

I also added a tool on the right to make it easy to share my blog with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

Blessings,
Shantastic

Week 21: You need to measure my what??

Our long-awaited baby-viewing went incredibly well! Aside from my ignorance on how things in the medical world are done these days, everything else was amazing! We were told our baby is developing exactly the way he/she should be!

So what is it that I’m completely clueless about when it comes to ultrasounds? First, let’s back up and give you a little history on my personality when it comes to being poked, prodded, and most of all having to endure pain. In high school my best friends referred to me as, “The Fragile One” because unfortunately it didn’t take much to get me frazzled. I have a low pain tolerance and, therefore, do everything necessary to avoid it. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say that I cried when I got my first “lady” check up. I knew once I got pregnant I was going to have to suck it up, endure a lot of pain, and be ok with having doctors and nurses invade my privacy in a very big way. Before each of our appointments, I have had to mentally prepare myself that something incredibly invasive might happen. For our ultrasound I didn’t even know if they were going to do the “goin up there” version or the more favorable “gel on the tummy” one!

Now that brings us to ultrasound day. I was told on the phone to come with a full bladder. So, like a good little rule follower I had held it in. When the technician led us into our room she informed me I could go ahead and hop up on the table. Since my urge to go to the bathroom had grown pretty intense I quickly asked her if she needed a urine sample first. When she gave me her reply I swear it was one of those moments you see on tv where they show you that in the character's mind he/she responds to the situation with horror and shock but then the scene cuts to how they are really responding on the outside and they look completely calm. She said, “Oh, first we’re just going to measure your cervix and then you can empty your bladder.” … Inside my head the scene had frozen and I had backed into the corner of the room shrieking in my scared little girl voice with my hands covering my face,. You’re going to measure my what? I know what a cervix is but how on earth do you measure one?? That sounded a little terrifying to a fragile person like me. And why hadn’t she given me a gown and a nice little privacy curtain to hide behind? When my imagination finally snapped back to reality I politely asked her if I needed to undress first. She said I just needed to unbutton the top button on my jeans... For those pregnant women out there who have never had their cervix measured….they can do it via “gel on the tummy” ultrasound these days. Absolutely nothing invasive about it at all! Yes, I do feel a little silly.

Seeing our baby was very surreal. It’s a life-changing moment where you realize you never want to go back to the life you had a moment ago, when you hadn’t seen your child. We also made it without finding out the sex. As soon as the technician said she knew Seth started biting his nails and rocking in his chair. Then he started giving me “the look” and I knew it was driving him crazy! I told him the intensity of wanting to know would pass and to stay strong!

My new pregnancy snack of choice: Tums. Heartburn hurts! (low pain tolerance remember)

Moms out there: Did you have any embarrassing moments like I did where you showed off just how little you know about the logistics of having a baby?

Week 20: Why dinosaurs and butterflies are equally awesome

Our 20 week ultrasound is coming up on Friday. This is the infamous week in which the sex of the baby can now be determined. Brendon and I decided that we want to be surprised. To be honest, I’m a little shocked that I want to wait. I have a classic “teacher/planner” personality so it really doesn’t make sense that I want to surrender my 'masterful' planning abilities and jump into motherhood with a big surprise. The good news: it will be a fantastic surprise either way.

However, wanting to know does drive me crazy sometimes…Will we be clothing our little one in t-rex dinosaur onesies or putting butterfly hair clips in her tiny wisps of baby hair?

I definitely have some stereotypical thoughts floating around in my head about the difference between boys and girls. Boys equal playing in the mud and wrestling in the living room; girls mean princess tea parties and Barbie play dates. Right?
I may have some of these thoughts because I happened to be a “stereotypical” little girl (When I was four I refused to leave the house unless I was wearing a skirt and tights) but that doesn’t mean our child will be. We could have a boy who hates getting dirty (cough)Seth(cough) or a tomboy girl who refuses to even touch the color pink. Either way we will love our unique one-of-a-kind child to pieces: dinosaurs or butterflies!

I also have some preconceived notions about which gender is easier to raise because of my teaching experience. Statistically, my more challenging students were boys. They just couldn’t sit still! However, as kids grow up and the daunting journey of puberty begins, I'm sure girls become the more difficult gender. The phrase that already has me terrified that I will one day hear is my teenage daughter shouting, “Mom, you just don’t understand!”

We’ve narrowed down some favorite names for each sex but we both really feel like we want to meet our little one before giving him/her a name. We're just saving everything to the end I guess! Honestly, we also don’t want to share our favorites and have people crinkle their nose and say, “ohhhh…that’s nice….”
I prepared my mom for this by coaching her and saying that if she absolutely hates the name we choose she must keep her feelings to herself. A few weeks ago Seth played a prank on my parents by saying we had decided on a boy name. Seth quickly winked at me and said, “If it’s a boy, Elmer Rupert!” He knew my mom would hate it. My dad played it cool like always and my mom gave an honorable performance. She slightly paused, caught her breath, then smiled and nodded. When we burst out laughing it was the sign she had been hoping for. Now knowing it was all a joke she exploded from her chair with her hands up in the air and shouted, “Thank Goodness!!”

I signed up for free “Baby Wellness” text messages and I just got one that said, “You’re halfway there!” Halfway?? Only Half? It feels like the first half has gone by very slowly. Intense anticipation makes time slow down! A whole week has to go by and we only get to count up “one”?! I’m only at 20 and we have to get all the way to 40? Baby, I want to meet you!

I can only fit into one pair of my jeans now. Please don’t judge me for wearing them 6 out of 7 days of the week.

Confession time:
The 20-week ultrasound is traditionally when you find out if the development of your baby is looking “normal and healthy.” There is a little part of me fighting being fearful that we might find out something is “wrong.” For the most part I’ve been pretty calm and optimistic but all the enemy needs to do is knock us off balance just a little and plant that tiny little fearful thought in our heads. We usually do the rest of the work by letting the fear take over. I’m trying to fix my eyes only on Him, the Creator, the One who this baby belongs to.

Moms and Dads out there: Did you find out the sex of you baby before giving birth? Did you want to be surprised? Why?