Ooh, We're half way there . . .

"Ooh-oh, we're livin' on a prayer" (Thanks Bon Jovi!)

So, I just calculated and I am exactly one day past half-way thru with my pregnancy. . And, I know I just posted, but I wanted to put up this really cute picture of one corner of the nursery. It's the little, frilly, hot pink tu-tu I bought for the little lady.

Getting a move on

Well, since I am finally starting to feel better on a pretty regular basis, things are really staring to change in the Fess household. In the past weeks we have 1) put in hardwood floors in both bedrooms, 2)gone to market to buy a ton of baby stuff, 3) decided on a color scheme (btw, its black, white, and lime, with hints of magenta) and grown a BABY BUMP! Now, people are really able to tell that I am expecting. I can wait for the perks (like no waiting in line for the bathroom, closer parking spaces, no dirty looks when I take the last cookie/piece of pizza/brownie/scoop of ice cream), though I haven't been pregnant-looking enough to get any yet.

1-Curtis and Aunt Sandy labored long hard hours to give me the most wonderful hardwood floors ever. They are bamboo, and the perfect honey-sand color and the look and smell wonderful. No more musty pet odors, no more vaccuuming, no more wiping up pet messes (ANNABELLE!!). Nope, now it is just wonderful, and slippery, and oh so nice. Here's an action shot.

2-At market, I got a stroller at Curtis's request. Its fancy-schmancy looking, and hopefully it will be as practical as it is sleek. Its from an eco-conscious company, which makes me :) called baby planet, and the stroller is a max pro.
 At market, I also found a wonderful retailer called 3 Marthas that I love. They have really cute and simple things for baby that are so sweet. I got a ton of cute and wipeable bibs, burp cloths and all things necessary for baby throw up (from 3 marthas) and a few too-cute-to-pass up dresses and onesies for the little lady.
    While at market I also got two diaper bags (a colorful one for me and a slightly-manlier-but-still-girly one for Curtis to carry) and I also found out that I love (though I can't afford) a few other baby brands like baby au lait (how funny is the name "hooter hiders" for a nursing cover) and the bedding brand CoCaLo.    ,

In fact, this brings me to point 3) (I have decided on a color scheme) because I found bedding. Its called Harlow and its from CoCaLo, and though its more expensive than any bedding I've ever bought for myself (Aghhh?!?!?!) I love it so much and I have to have it. If you know me at all, I think you would have to agree that this really suits what I hope my stylistic preferences come across as. Don't get me wrong, I dig some cute pink shit (just wait til you see the rockin' magenta tutu that I got for baby's first pictures) but I just can handle being surrounded by things that look like bubblegum. It will make me want to eat it, and that won't be good at all, will it. So, I have decided that the nursery needs to be a place of peace for me (after all, I'll be the only one in there in the middle of the night with a little parasite suckling off of my chest) and that a big part of that will be me liking how it looks. Now, I just need to find a chair.

And finally, I have started to grow a bump. Its not full blown or anything yet (I am only 5 1/2 months people) but its starting to get more prominent. Here's a slightly embarassing taken-by-me-with-my-camera-phone-in-the-bathroom shot, followed by a slightly more embarassing photo of me as a bama-er fan (sorry Amber!) for haloween.

"It's a girl. Buy some pink shit . . ."

 Hehe, one of the lines from the infamous fight at the doctor's office in the timeless classic Knocked Up. I am finding that movie more and more hilarious being, well, knocked up myself.

We went to the doctor today and we are having a girl. A healthy girl with a strong heartbeat, two eyes, a nose, 10 fingers and toes, and equal length femurs. Who weighs exactly 8 oz. Right now we are busy at work taking out the carpet (me) and moving furniture (Curtis and Neighbor Dan), so I don't have time to give the whole story. But, I will put up a bunch of pictures.

I word of warning. Cleatus the fetus is definitely still fetus-looking. Or kinda more like skelator baby. How fitting. I am glad our festive baby little baby is already in the celebrating mood for Halloween.

***after trying for a frustrating 20 minutes the pictures keep failing to load, so I will try again later.

The bump has appeared

Well, well, well. This week I got my first stranger recognition that I was pregnant. It was in the form of a questions, particularly, "Girl, what kind of bun do you have in your oven?" Considering the sources, it was a very sweet question, and the woman that asked was so nice and asked me to keep her updated. But then, I had an awkward hug from a superior in the bathroom. Ugh. . . .

And, while cleaning my house for the GODDESS PARTY (which was super awesome, BTW), I finally found the camera cord, so I should be adding quite a few pictures to this post. I'll try to put them in order, but I seem to be having memory problems even more so than before I got knocked up.

In baby news, we fing out on friday if we are having a boy or a girl. We are also getting some great help from Curtis's highly-skilled carpenter aunt to lay hardwood in our bedrooms, so the nursery is coming more and more together everyday. In fact, Curtis is now spending another hungover football Sunday to clean out his crap from the if-its-a-boy nursery, while I spent some time yesterday organizing the if-its-a-girl nursery.

In other news, I am feeling much better, and throwing up a lot less. And, my belly is starting to show. Its so weird. I can feel Cleatus the fetus moving around too. Its hard to explain, but I imagine it as a little gerbil-sized human floating and swimming around. So far, Cleatus has been nice and isn't kicking me or punching me too hard.

Okay, so time for pictures.To the left is at a birthday party that we threw for our good friend Dusty Dawn's 30th, called tour de Franzia, in honor of our group's love of boxed wine. Here, I have no clue, but I am about 4 to 6 weeks pregnant. This is me and Curtis after he got into an egg fight with the birthday girl.

And, below is a picture of me and my good friend Ali the day after Curtis and I found out (which was his sister Amber's birthday). We are out celebrating our friend Jamie's birthday. Ali doesn't know yet, but a few people at the dinner did notice that I wasn't drinking.We hadn't told anyone yet. But, we did decide to tell both sets of parents the next day. We were able to get the Fess set to come and meet us for lunch, but we had to tell my parent's over the phone. Both sets were so excited. But we swore them to secrecy until after we went to the doctor.

The next set of pictures are at my birthday weekend at the beach with Curtis. We drew a welcome sign to the baby, but didn't think to start taking belly pictures yet.

And, as a final picture, I will leave you with my first official belly shot, taken in my p.j.s of course, about a month ago at 14 weeks. (I feel really silly taking belly shots of myself, but ven  sillier asking someone else to do it, so . . . )

Something blue . . .

        No, so this does not mean that we are having a BOY, though, Curtis would be so pumped if we were. No, I have now moved onto full on nesting mode, and since we don't know if we are having a boy or a girl yet, I have decided to improvise and come up with a plan for either.


    We painted our formerly brown master/guest bedroom a sweet, lovely light blue. I somewhere between robin's egg, tiffany, and baby blue and I absolutely love it. But, what I love even more that it my lovely DH (that's darling husband . . . I know what you were thinking. . . ) took a FOOTBALL SATURDAY morning to paint it. If you don't know Curtis, than this might not seem like such a big deal. If you do, you can now pick your jaw up off of the floor/chair/computer desk. Believe it. He did (though, not until I threatened, bribed and cried "When is the last time you have given me 8 hours of a day to do something I want. I go and tailgate with you EVERYWEEKEND!!"). I know, its cheap, but I blame the hormones. The un-preggo Emily would certainly never stoop so low.

  But, I digress. We painted it blue, so if we have a boy, it will be his nursery. And, if we have a girl, she will live in the green room. Thus, my new designing mantra, blue-for-boy, green-for-girl.


      We also went to the doctor yesterday and heard the strong and fast fetal heartbeat again. Our little baby fess seems to take after it's father, and tried to run away from the doctor, so we only heard a few seconds of heartbeat at a time. Did I mention, I love our doctor. When she asked how I was feeling, and I replied, "Awful!!" she gigled, and said, "Wow, that really sucks." 
       
             Normally, I think I would have been slightly hormonal and pissed, but she seemed to be coming from a I-know-what-you-mean sort of place, which just made me like her even more. We set an appointment for October 16th to find out the baby's gender. Though, it took about 10 minutes of semi-arguing  our somewhat sit-com-ish, bickering-old-married-but-still-young-in-age routine in front of the receptionist to find a time we could both make it. And when Curtis said yes to a time that I had to teach, I whined, "Why is your job more important than mine. . ." to which he replied, "It's not, I have have a longer way to travel"  and then I said, "Fine, I just wanted to hear you say that yours isn't more important" and agreed, while the beaming receptionist said, "I think you too just became my favorite couple. I am going to like working with ya'll." :).
     
      We are pumped. And, they are going to record it onto a DVD for us, so expect a video post that afternoon. And,  I  Curtis misplaced the cord that hooks our camera into our computer, so pictures of us will be coming after we I scour the house to find it. 

The beginning . . . sort of

Well, today is about week 16 of my pregnancy. And I have been meaning to start a chronicle of everything. So, here is a quick recap of the first trimester. (BTW, here is me, about 5 weeks pregnant with no idea at all on our 4th of July camping trip)

I found out I was pregnant on July 31st (my SIL's birthday). I

took Curtis to the park and told him, and he was really excited from the beginning.

I self diagnosed with all sorts of weird ailments before coming to the conclusion (after 5 or so pregnancy tests) that we were, in fact, pregnant. In the beginning, I was convinced that I had Celiac disease--I knew that there was something weird going on in my belly, so I checked my symptoms and that seemed to fit. Seems crazy now. Then, once I found out I was pregnant, I just knew I was having twins. My second trip to the OB (on my 25th birthday!!!) let me know, that indeed, I was wrong. One baby, healthy heartbeat. Thanks goodness. What a great gift. We started telling our friends that night.

As far as pregnancy symptoms go, I seem to have them all. First and foremost, I noticed my intense increase in my sense of smell. I can smell everything . I can tell if you have been in a room in the past hour or so, I know what you ate for lunch, everything. Its the weirdest thing ever. I could even smell tequila in a man's drink across the lawn at our tailgate this weekend. So strange!

Also, I have been really, really sick. You know how they talk about morning sickness. Well, I have all day and all night sickness. It--along witht the lack of sleep that comes with waking up 7 or 8 times a night to tinkle--makes me really cranky. Which brings me to my list of likes and dislikes:

Like: How Curtis smells, clean laundry, showers and baths, white bread toast with butter, icees, Jimmy Johns vegetarian sandwiches, oreos and milk (but only when eaten with a fork), lavender (which I normally dispise) and things that smell like cinnamon, Glade currants and acai candles (the best smell in the entire world right now).

Dislike: pretty much every food, especially raw vegetables, candy, pizza, hot pockets, chex cereal, cheese, fruit, Mexican food, Taco bell, people outing me on my pregnancy before I am ready to tell people, football, being around people that are drinking (because my biggest craving has been alcohol, though I haven't indulged!), riding in a car, taking out the trash (oh, the smell) and a variety of other things.

I don't have as much of a bump as I thought I would have by now. Since I have been really sick, I haven't been gaining much weight. But, it wasn't always like this. In week, ten I was certain that I was showing and everyone would be able to tell. I think all the rumors about pregnancy brain are true--even as I am writing all of this, I realize that I sound crazy.

Our next doctor's appointment is on Friday. I know that Curtis can't wait to find out if we are having a boy or a girl, but I think its still a little too early to tell. More to come later when I figure out how to put up some more pictures.