Answering Your Questions...

I'm 25.5 weeks in now, and I've had so many questions about my pregnancy. I wanted to take a minute to answer them:

My view when I look down... 24 weeks.

Q. Is your husband excited?
A. He's very excited! He kisses my belly and talks to the baby. I think he's afraid, like I am, of what changes may be in store like finances and time management, but he's also so excited by the thought of a baby in our home and our lives.

Q. How are you feeling?
A. I'm very tired. I'm a little bit stressed because of everything we have to get done, but I've also been told that I'm glowing. I think it's sweat, but others claim it's a "glow".

Q. Do you have any cravings?
A. I've had a million cravings. My friends didn't so much, but I get them almost on a weekly basis. At first it was watermelon and lemonaide. Then it was cheese dip with nacho chips. Then it was Thai food. It's still Thai food in fact. Right now it's also chocolate milk and candy. I also randomly want cookies, olives, blue cheese, avocados, or pomegranites.

Q. Do you know what you're having?
A. My husband didn't want to know. In fact, he was adamant that we shouldn't find out. He thinks it's one of the only real surprises in life. At first, I was fighting him tooth and nail to find out, but now that we are only 14 weeks away, I feel like it's a little easier to hold on until we meet Peanut.

Q. Follow up - Do you feel like you know what you're having?
A. In all honesty, I really want a girl and Aaron really wants a boy. I've just always wanted a girl first, then a boy. Do I feel like I know? Not really. I have a lot of the "old wives tale" symptoms of a girl, and many people tell me that I carry like it's a girl, but I don't believe in any of that because I thought Jay was having a boy and Emily was having a girl so I'm 0 for 2!

Q. Do you have names picked out?
A. I did a lot of research in the beginning on names and their meanings. I would email Aaron and find out what he thought. We made lists of our favorites. He has a favorite girl name. I have one for each. And then we both have back-ups. But do we agree on any names? Not yet. We're not sharing our names because we feel that people are too judgmental. We also just want to meet the baby for the first time and see what she/he looks like. We may name him Bob beforehand, but he could look more like a John. :)

Q. Do you feel the baby kicking?
A. Yes, I sure do. It's getting higher and higher as well, which is fun and distracting all at the same time. But now Aaron can feel the baby as well. That's probably been the most fun thing of all for me - feeling the movement and sharing it with Daddy.

Q. Is the nursery finished?
A. Not even a little bit!!! My family is coming over for my birthday next month and we're all going to work on it together. The theme is picked out, the crib is purchased, and some of the furniture is at our house waiting to be worked on. We still have to pick out paint colors and get some of the cute touches together. I am super duper thrilled to get everything eventually put away and in their place, and I think until that happens, my anxiety will be a little high. Aaron and his dad will be working on the dresser and rocking chair after their move is complete.

Q. How are you handling your changing body?
A. Not very well. Period. I knew I'd gain weight, but I didn't think I'd gain it in my arms, my back, my hips... I thought I'd just get a big belly. I didn't think that I would be so uncomfortable this soon. I didn't think I'd lose so much energy. I thought I'd go to yoga and aquafit and walk every day. I just don't have the energy to go, nor the finances. I'd rather put the money towards baby.

Q. Are you taking birthing classes?
A. Yes, Aaron and I start next week. It's a 6 week course, and we're both excited to learn, but scared to know some of the gory facts that go along with childbirth! I think Aaron feels weird about it, but we heard from my BFF and her hubby that it was one of their best parental decisions.

Q. Are you planning a natural birth?
A. I am planning on no drugs, but if things start to go awry, I'm screaming for pain killers! It's no time to play hero, ladies! I don't want an IV, but if worse comes to worse, I'll get the epidural. My mom didn't have drugs for me or my brother, and I like to think I have a high pain threshold (like grabbing a red hot cast iron skillet handle last night with my bare hand and not even crying)... and I did have kidney stones in 2011 which some people say is more painful than childbirth. But I cried for drugs in that instance, so I just don't know. I can't plan for what will happen, but I have high hopes that things will be okay.

That's pretty much it... so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Pumpkin Patch and Other Fun Things...

Aaron's not a fan of Halloween. In fact, he's not a fan of most holidays with the exception of Christmas. He makes a stink about celebrating, but he still tries to make the most of it for my sake. It's one of the reasons why I love him.

 

On Sunday, we headed out to the "pumpkin patch". I didn't really know what to expect since we usually go to the one in Chilliwack, but I was told that the Art Knapp in Port Coquitlam (maybe 10 minutes away from us) was decent. We hopped in the car and headed over there. It was pretty well done, and almost everything was under covers for the kids. 

 

 

 I just had to take this picture! :)

 



Here's my pumpkin. I was very well aware of how huge my belly had gotten, but didn't realize my face had exploded as well. I'm 25 weeks at this point!

Aaron picked out his large pumpkin...

And then he grabbed a small one to carve for baby!

Inside they had created an entire Halloween Haunted Ghost town. I have one of these started for Christmas with my village, but this Halloween one was far more impressive than mine!

 

I get excited to do these traditions every year. On Halloween, we're going to get take-out, put on some scary movies, and hand out candies. We do this every year. It's something we can carry on when Peanut arrives.

 

I think what made this more special for me was picturing us going here year after year with our child or children. I was envisioning getting on the train and the merry-go-round with Daddy and Baby, letting her/him choose a pumpkin, getting popcorn and hot chocolate, taking photos as a family. Family is becoming more and more important to us as we get older, and now that we're about to become a family ourselves, I'm getting even more excited about holidays and traditions!

My Best Friend's Baby...

I've spoken before about how fun it's been to go through pregnancy with my 2 best friends. They both had different pregnancies with different outcomes. Jay's water broke on Thursday evening around 9pm. I got the alert at 10:37pm.

I couldn't sleep, work, or think all day on Friday. My best friend was in labor and I was 45 minutes away. At 9:23pm, Jay and her husband welcomed Charlotte into this world, and their lives forever changed. She was healthy, beautiful, and stubborn just like her mom!

Something happens to you when the people you love the most in the entire world become parents. It happened when Emily brought Daniel into the world, and again with Charlotte. Suddenly the women in my life, my rocks, my support system were mothers to beautiful babies. I didn't know what my reaction would be. I knew I was happy for my friends, but what would their impending motherhood do to me? What it did in both cases was bring me such a feeling of overwhelming pride, happiness, and joy. These little people have changed my best friends immensely. They have made these strong women stronger. They have given these generous women an outlet for their love. They have tasked these kind women with the enormous goal of being the best mothers they can be because these tiny creatures deserve the kind of moms I know that my friends will be.

As their friend, not as an expectant mother, I'm deeply connected with these babies and would do anything for them. They are always at the front of my thoughts, always in my heart, always in my future plans. I want them to be friends with my baby. I want us to be family.

Welcome to the world Charlotte... I can't wait to see who you become!

Making Him a Priority...

I had a very interesting conversation on the weekend with someone who said that she would rather stay home with her kids than leave them to spend time with her husband. She thought that the kids are small for such a short amount of time, that she had many years to come to be with him and that she'd rather develop a relationship with her children while they are young.

I have always had it in my mind that my husband and I would continue our date night traditions even after the kids are born. Some date nights, of course, will include the kids. But we have said that if we are able to afford it and find the energy for it, we would like to leave the baby with the grandparents so we can leave the house for a few hours together as a couple. We want to continue to have date nights, just the two of us, alone, one-on-one. We want to continue to grow our relationship as husband and wife, not just as the parents of unnamed baby.

Growing up my parents took time for themselves. I remember spending nights at home with babysitters or my nana, or going to my aunt's condo for an evening or staying overnight with my Grandma because my parents went away for a weekend or wanted an evening alone. We also went to stay with my aunt and uncle at their trailer in the states, or went to summer camp. This wasn't always just for us - it was for my parents. And my parents never hid this fact from us! They told us that they were still in love and wanted to go on a date. And we understood that in order for them to do adult things, they needed to have a break from us and, in all honesty, we needed a break from them as well so that we learned some independence and saw different perspectives. It never made us love them any less.

Aaron's parents, on the other hand, spent that time away from their kids to engage in partying. They had different priorities at that point in their lives. They worked hard all week at the business that they owned, and spent their weekends with their friends being consumed in their bad habits, making poor choices that made their children resent them, coming home late so as to not be able to wake up to make breakfast. Their priorities weren't always their children or their own marriage. This has since changed, but growing up, Aaron didn't have a great role model for a healthy marriage, and it carried into all of his relationships, including with me at the beginning. Again, his parents now have a wonderful marriage, and are celebrating 45 years this weekend. They are very much in love and are very committed to their marriage and their partnership.

You see, my husband is my first priority. My husband is my favorite person in the entire world. My husband is everything to me. And if I allow my responsibilities to interfere with my marriage, I will be turning my husband into a co-parent and roommate instead of my partner. It is my own (humble) opinion that if our marriage suffers for the sake of the children, we are giving them a toxic example of what a relationship looks like, and they will in turn go out and seek unhealthy partnerships, using our marriage as their model. I want our children to be able to use us as their point of reference, as the core of their value system for what a nourished, strong marriage should be. And in order for us to give them this model, we need to continue to focus on our own relationship. Leaving our baby with Nana or Grandpa for a few hours a month so that we can reconnect as partners is not going to put any sort of fracture in our connection with our child. If anything, it will help our baby build a bond with its grandparents and learn that they can rely on other members of our family. The last thing we want to do is make them so dependent on us that they feel lost when we aren't around. Building independence is important to the growth of their personalities and confidence.

So... date nights in our house WILL happen. A night away WILL occur. We will not allow ourselves to become strangers who pass each other in the halls. We will not allow ourselves to lose sight of the reason why we fell in love in the first place. We will shave, put on some nice clothes, and try to impress each other with witty lines and fancy dance moves. We will eat delicious food, walk hand in hand, entice each other with naughty invitations... and we will do so alone, as husband and wife. And when we wake up in the morning, we will go back to making our child our number one, never forgetting about each other in the process. After all, we made the choice to become a couple, to move in together, to marry, to buy a home together, to bring this child into the world, and we will make the choice to always continue to choose each other, and to remember why we made those choices to begin with - because he is my priority and I am his.

From Across The World...

My Auntie Robin and Uncle Ted have always been part of my life, in fact, a very big part of my life. I've talked about them before, but I wanted to delve a little deeper into our relationship.

 

 

 

My aunt is my mom's older sister. Our families were always very close growing up, and my dad was actually my aunt's friend who my Nana convinced to ask my mom our on a date. And history was made! When I was 2 years old, we moved into Kanata Co-op where my aunt's family already lived, as did my Grandpa. So they were a 5 minute walk away from our house. I remember spending a lot of time at their place playing with my cousin Ben. They took us camping with them to their trailer in Whatcom County, Washington. My aunt got tickets for herself, my mom, and I to my first ever concert when I was eleven - New Kids on the Block. My uncle coached my brother's hockey team. My aunt often did crafts with me or taught me how to use the computer. Our families shared a motorhome, spent every birthday, holiday, and Christmas together, as well as just many meals and events. Our two families were very close.

 

When my parents broke up because my dad left, my aunt and uncle took it just as hard as the rest of us did. It took them a very long time to forgive him, but now that it's all in the past, we can all be together as a family. Spending our first holiday together for Easter in 2012 was a remarkable event - it was my brother's 30th birthday, it was 7 months until we got married, and it was the first holiday we hosted for everyone.

 

I've found that in the last 5 years I've been able to reconnect with my aunt again on a level that is different, as adults. We joined Weight Watchers together. She was one of the first to learn about Aaron right after we met. She was one of our biggest cheerleaders. During our wedding planning, they were very helpful and generous. And when we said our I Do's, my aunt was crying more than any other person in the audience, and it was so embarrassing for my uncle! My aunt is the matriarch of our family now, and she really does keep our family whole. When we announced that we were pregnant at my aunt's 60th surprise party, she was almost as excited as my mom, and throughout this journey so far, they have been so wonderful and thoughtful!

 

They are more than just my aunt and uncle - they are a lot more. They are such kind, generous, lovely people who have been married for over 40 years and continue to grow together. They are both very family-oriented, and would do anything for anyone who needed help!

 

I think what makes me love them even more is that they have truly accepted Aaron as part of our family. In fact, they have more than just accepted him or welcomed him, they have embraced him. They love him so much, and his relationship with them is better than his relationship with anyone in his own family.

 

They recently returned from a month-long once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe, and brought all of these wonderful things back for the baby!

 

We're very lucky to have them in our lives, and can't wait to see the baby dressed in all these beautiful things from the other side of the world! This baby will be so lucky to have a great aunt and uncle like them!

The Rock Rocks...

No, not that Rock!

This rock...

When we were camping, my Auntie Robin and I were trying to keep the kids busy while we packed up the campsite. We were attempting arts and crafts, but the kids kept dropping all the supplies in the dirt and it turned into complete chaos! Instead, we went on the hunt for cool looking rocks. Again, that didn't last long.

The following weekend at a family dinner, Calista very proudly marched up to me and told me she had something for the baby. She presented me with this lovely painted rock! I told her that it will have a very special place in the baby's nursery, and I plan on putting it on display for the baby to see from her/his crib.

Calista and I are very much alike! She loves ballet and dance and singing, but she's also recently joined a hockey team. I was the same... except I tried out for a boys hardball team and almost made it were it not for the fear of a coach allowing girls to play on his team with the boys. Anyways, she can play in the mud or dress up like a princess. She is the best of all worlds, and I adore her for so many reasons. She has the ability to be silly and funny and cute and sweet. She also has the ability to be strong-willed and determined. She is a lot of what I hope my future daughter becomes. She has the ability to make friends quickly, make people feel loved and welcomes, make the world a little brighter. She makes my heart soar!

When I had breakfast with her on Sunday morning, she rushed right up to say hello to my belly with a very loud "HI BABY"! It's becoming more noticeable, and she's enjoying being curious about it. She made a BABY label on a label maker (see - a girl after my own heart!), and thought it was hilarious when I labeled my belly with it. She thought the gifts my Aunt and Uncle brought back from Europe were super sweet, and when I told her we'd see her next weekend for Thanksgiving, she squealed with delight!

I can't wait to see my peanut and its munchkin cousin grow up together, and I hope they will all be just as close as I was with my cousins growing up!

My body is your home...

There comes a point in every pregnancy when you realize that your body is no longer your own, and that it's now primarily the home that keeps your baby safe and nourished. I've come to that point now at 22 weeks, and I'm strangely comforted by the realization.

You see, many years ago I had an accidental pregnancy. It's not something I ever talk about, but it's part of my history. I made the decision to end the pregnancy, but in the weeks between finding out and ending it, I felt like I was trapped. I felt like my body was taken under siege by something I didn't plan, something I wasn't prepared for, something that changed me and shook me to my core. I felt like I was imprisoned by a very bad mistake, and I felt tremendous guilt, debilitating guilt, unbearable, unforgivable, rock-my-being guilt because of those feelings and by the choice I knew I had to make. And I did it all alone with only my best friend and my mom in on this secret.

This time, with my wonderful husband by my side and my family and friends happily engaged in the journey, I feel like this baby isn't just growing inside me, but that it's changing the inside of me. It's giving me something I've always craved, always longed for - a true family of my very own. My body hurts, I'm tired, I'm swollen, I'm cranky, my moods are as vast as the sierra dessert... but every day I smile and never feel sorry for myself because giving this baby a home to live in until it says hello to the world, a la Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl, is the very best thing I could do for this child. I look down at my belly with overwhelming joy, and as much as the stretch marks, cellulite, and acne are all horrible side effects, when the new member of our family arrives in February, every mark, pain, discomfort, cramp, and exhausting day will be beyond worth it.

Baby, make my body your home. Kick, swim, twirl, do acrobatics and complicated salsa moves inside me. Grow, eat, change. Use me as your high-end condo. Take advantage of all that room and all the nutrition I'm feeding you without realizing it. And when you join me in my arms and cuddle into me, I will tell you that you were the best darned thing that could have ever happened to me and your dad, and I will reassure you that my body was your home for 9 months, but my heart will always belong to you. I will promise you that you will always be my best decision, my favorite thing, my greatest accomplishment, and I will never let you forget that every minute of this pregnancy was the happiest of my life because it led me straight to you.