It begins. . . the start of the belly pictures

So, imagine this. You find out you are pregnant . . . shock, awe, disbelief, panic, exuberant joy, paranoia, all day sickness. You know, the works. Then, you get sick at the smell of just about everything--food, people, standing water (the absolute worst in smell in the entire world). And lost lots of weight fast because you throw up. And then, you continue to throw up for 6 weeks after everyone said you would stop. And then you finally get your appetite back, and food tastes good. And then you feel the little Cleatus moving around inside of you (BTW, it feels very strange, sometimes like you are really hungry, sometimes like you are nervous or excited, sometimes like a little gerbil doing acrobatics in a bowl of jello, you know, the usual stuff). And then you start to eat. And eat. And eat. And that weight you lost is back, and then some. Enough to grow a giant Santa Belly. Except instead of sugar cookies and spice, its a little, tiny, fast growing fetus. If this was you, then your belly might look like this . . . 

More Belly

Here is me and Kelly (who is obviously not pregnant) at the park. Its kinda like a before and after, but at the same time.

6 month Belly!

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 . . . )