A Very Round Birthday

I'm 23 today and 33 and a half weeks pregnant.

If you haven't watched the video on my other blog, you should.

Oh the Adventures You've Had, Baby

Someday I will tell the baby of how this duck tried to attack him or her and then how I made friends with it.





Confused? Read about it on Blog 1.0.

Hilarious

My mom sent me a package with some nice pants and shirts (thanks mom!) and in the bottom of the box was this:

Happy Valentine's Day

Love,

Brooke, Joe and the egg

__________________________________________________________________

We went to dinner tonight and then saw a children's theater production of "Alice Through the Looking Glass" in which I encountered my kindred spirit:



Upon seeing this, Joe looks over at me and says: "Don't sit on any walls."

The Egg

So we've been calling the baby "the egg" for the last few weeks, primarily because my belly has taken on an egg-like shape, but partially because I sometimes joke that I'm going to pass the egg to Joe for a while as penguins do.

The other night I got stuck on my back in bed and realized I felt very much like humpty dumpty — like a big egg with arms and legs that couldn't get up.

Joe rescued me, of course.

I've also been really into the idea of having a pet turtle one day. Maybe it's because I feel a kinship with creatures that get stuck on their back ...

These are some pictures from 32 weeks.



See the egg shape?

Why, Aren't You Just a Ball of Sunshine, Pregnancy Email

Update: Upon receiving an email from them this morning with the topic "can working moms have happy babies?" I promptly unsubscribed to their services. No more iVillage for me.

I've been receiving a pregnancy progress email throughout much of the pregnancy. It's been fun to read about how the baby is developing and what changes to expect in myself. It's also made me happy not to have had a lot of the side effects they detail.

A few weeks ago I decided to double my efforts and sign up for a new one at iVillage.com, despite knowing that that website is extremely commercial and generally loosey-goosey with their advice.

This week I received this cheerful message in my inbox:

31 weeks:

"At this point you may be quite eager for your pregnancy to end and your baby to be born. Aches and pains, along with feelings of anxiety, may be on the rise. Your body might be weighing you down, and weird stuff (like false contractions and vaginal secretions) is starting to pop up. The final weeks may begin to drag, but you're very near the finish line now."

Um ... Thanks iVillage.

Although I am getting more uncomfortable, it's definitely not as bad as they make it sound. I can't wait to see what they come up with next month ...

Spellbound Baby Sneak Preview

We finally obtained copies from the ultrasound I had while I was in the hospital, which was done at just shy of 12 weeks. Here they are:

You can see the umbilical cord in these first two.






And a little spine in this one:



Arms:



And legs:

Ow ... I'm Getting Kicked ...

Spellbound baby was having a disco dance party yesterday and it was, for the first time, actually a little painful.

At the risk of having someone who's been pregnant before laugh at me, I must admit, I didn't really believe that baby kicks could make you sore. But I do now.

In a way it's nice because it's just another marker of how big and strong the baby is getting.

It's begining to look a lot like baby …

… everywhere you look around here. Jody and Toby were kind enough to ask the Hinkle family to lend us the bassinet pictured here. Something like 9 kids in total have used it, including my niece and nephews Ali, Matt and Joe.


(29.5 weeks)

Joe also bought Spellbound baby a cute turtle that plays Calypso music and the board book Goodnight Gorilla, which we've been reading to the little one. As you can see above, our little one is getting big — 14-15 inches and somewhere around 3 pounds. It's hard to believe there is 14 inches of baby within me.

Right now the bassinet has been sitting in our living room. Tonight Joe looked at it and said it makes him wonder, "where's the baby."

Music

I've said from the beginning that I think this baby might be a musician like his or her grandfather and great-grandfather. For whatever reason music has been more pronounced to me while pregnant.

I'm amazed at the way an album or song can remind you exactly of a time and place, or even, collective state of mind. Ani Difranco's Reprieve album reminds me of the campaign so vividly that I have actually refrained from listening to the album much since so that I can preserve that connotation for a time when I am able to write down a few reflections about the experience.

I wonder what songs will bring back what it feels like now to be so close to this baby, yet so curious about and unknowing of who he or she is. It's bound to be Andrew Bird songs and maybe a little Zeppelin.

Regular Jeans

When I went to post this picture on the other blog I said to Joe, "Am I actually wearing my regular jeans?"


Photo by Nikki

Until a few months ago the concept of "regular jeans" was foreign to me. Pants and shirts were pants and shirts. As my wardrobe shrinks and I expand, I'm almost fascinated by what I look like here, just three months ago. It's not something that bothers me, but it is, simply, fascinating.

To put you in the same mindset I'm in, take a look at this diagram of pregnancy at 28 weeks:



As I said to Joe last night, "I'm an ecosystem."

She wore a ...

.. not so itsy-bitsy bikini (for obvious reasons =).



We found an awesome maternity store out west in Worthington, MN. Though it's late in the game (I'm 27.5 weeks here, or just under 7 months) I've been wanting to swim, so I picked up this swim suit at the store.

More belly below:



Joe and I have been watching my belly button to see what happens. He thinks it will pop out. I'm not so sure. So far, it's kind of just become oblong. Only time will tell ...

I'll Be Famous

25 weeks

With morning sickness long behind me and a happy protruding belly in front of me, I've finally entered the strange pregnancy food hall of fame, at least at Perkins.

After enjoying an inspiring Andrew Bird performance at the Guthrie Friday, Joe, his brother James and sister-in-law Nikki and I headed to Perkins for a late night meal.

We had possibly one of the most excited waiters I've ever seen serve people at 11:45 in a restaurant that closes at midnight, we'll call him Ted.

Brooke: "Are the gingerbread pancakes spicy?"
Ted: "No ... they're pretty much just sweet, like gingerbread. This is Perkins; it's sweet."
James, Joe, Nikki: various strange looks shooting my way.
Brooke: "I'll take the gingerbread pancakes."

Shortly after taking my first bite I come to realize that they a) do not taste very good at all and b) are grossly undercooked. Ted offers to make me more pancakes (cooked ones) but I opt for a waffle instead.

Powdered-sugar dusted waffle in front of me, I dig in and find it satisfying. But half way through I spot Ted and call him over.

Brooke: "Can you bring me some hot sauce?"
Ted: scampers off dutifully.
Joe: crazy-blue-eyes look.
Brooke: "What? The waiter didn't say anything about it, if he doesn't say anything about it, neither can you."
waiter returns.
Ted: "I just have to ask, are you going to use that on your waffle?"

Ted goes on to respond that if I do I have to tell him because they keep a list of all of the strange requests they get, which is passed on from waiter to waiter as tradition.

I later tell him it was delicious and he should try it. I'm pretty sure I will live on in perpetuity at the Perkins at 494 and France as that crazy lady who ate a Belgan Waffle with whipped cream and Tabasco.

Hungry

Throughout this pregnancy I have felt a kinship with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Pregnancy hunger has been like no other hunger I can remember feeling, though I expect it is something like the hunger you feel when you are very young.

Pre-pregnancy I'd grow hungry over a period of time. First feeling a slight twinge that would become more and more uncomfortable until I ate.

Sometimes it seems I can go from not hungry to extremely hungry at the drop of a hat. And sometimes, like the caterpillar, I can eat and eat and still imagine eating my way through an apple, an orange, a pear and piece of cake.

This began early. In Iceland we called this hunger "The Urge" because it was like a beast that would awaken me in the middle of night and beg to be fed. It could not be ignored and I had to purchase little midnight snacks to keep close to the bed so that I could feed myself when the "the urge" struck.

One night on the eastern side of the Iceland Joe awoke to what he thought sounded like a raccoon foraging in our room. It was me, furiously eating away.

Suffice it to say, I will have great sympathy for the little crying child that wakes me up at night to feed. I'll look at their sweet baby face and think, "believe me, I know kid."

New Baby, New Blog

I'm migrating most of the baby talk over to this blog. A few things will still be cross-posted, but in the future this will be the place to find baby photos. For now, I feel the urge to update.

At 23 weeks the baby is about 11 inches long (according to online sources) and is continuing to develop its ninja-like skills, seeming to be in multiple locations at once and stealthily waiting prior to striking. On occasion it will appear shy when Joe tries to say hello. But we must not be fooled, for when Joe placed his face near my belly, the baby was sure to kick it.

As you can see, the baby is already displaying its fine sense of humor.

Joe is reading some of Dr. Suess's finest to the baby because he or she can now hear us (and you, if you're around).

For a photo of my belly, see the post below.

Sweet New Wheels

(I'm 23 weeks, or about five and a half months here)



While I was on vacation in San Diego my family threw me an early baby shower. Among the mound of awesome gifts bestowed upon Spellbound Baby was this stroller, which we came in the mail yesterday and was assembled this evening. We brought the baby over to get acquainted with its ride.

It's amazing how much thought goes into choosing each of these baby things. After what seemed like a complicated series of algorithms, we decided on this one because it offered us a full sized stroller that was light weight.

Plus, it matches the blog =)

Thanks for the stroller Dad and Sally. I'll post more pictures of the baby shower once I get them from my mom.

Half Way There, Baby

Spellbound baby is halfway here. So I thought I'd post a little update:

We kind of think the baby is a boy. We have no reason for thinking this because we're not finding out the sex ahead of time. But for whatever reasons we find ourselves saying "he is kicking" or "I wonder if he ..." When we do this, we usually recover with "or she," because the baby might be able to hear us now and we don't want to give her a complex if she is a girl.

My mom, niece Elizabeth and friend Amy think its a girl. Feel free to guess for yourself; the odds are great.

As implied above, I can feel the baby kicking now. I started feeling him or her around 16 weeks, but the movement of their little hands and feet are a lot more regular now. Joe even felt the baby the other day, but that was a super-ninja kick.

After the baby is born we will stick their ninja feet in these starfish booties.

In other news, I'm headed to San Diego tomorrow to visit family. I'll be gone for a week.

Spellbound Baby

Photo from our wedding
by Michelle King, MK Photography

As most of you know, we're expecting a baby around April 1st. The midwife due date has moved up to March 31. Maybe we'll have to get a pool started =). The baby and I are both doing great, now that I have recovered from my crazy bought with pneumonia. The illness doesn't seem to have affected Spellbound baby, who's measuring perfectly on schedule.

A few things about Spellbound baby:

First I thought it was a girl. Then we both thought it was a boy. Now I think it's a girl again. Whoever said the mother is 65% right, wasn't counting on me changing my mind =). At this rate, I'm going to be 100% right.

He or she is a wiggle-worm, ninja-kicker. Though I can't feel it yet, the baby was wiggling and kicking a ton when we had an ultrasound two weeks ago. Yesterday the baby kicked the machine the midwife uses to listen to the baby's heartbeat.

If our memory of genetics is as clear as we think it is (no guarantees) our baby will almost certainly have blue eyes, dimples and either positive or negative type O blood.

He or she will also have an awesome name we're not ready to share.

And, because the joke has already been said: Yes, this will be a highly photographed child.