4 months down!

Today marks the 18th week and the start of the fifth month. I am noticing more belly, but still, I don't think it is terribly obvious when covered with a shirt. All of my regular t-shirts are clinging to my middle though.

Butterball should be about 5.5 inches from crown to rump, about the length of a sweet potato. And his/her ears are now standing out from the head. All the better to hear my lovely singing voice.

I feel like we are just in kind of a cruising mode now. Not much new on the pregnancy front. This is is a big month. In three weeks, we have the big ultrasound where hopefully Butterball will not be shy and I can be more specific in the pronouns when I write. This is also the month that I should feel the first movements that I am quite excited about. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that a baby is potentially doing somersaults in my body as I type!

This week was a whirlwind of emotions in the house buying department. Sean and I got very excited to put an offer in on a house. We decided to go for the one in Weare built in 1760. We low-balled the price a bit in hopes that the seller would counter and we could meet in the middle. Sadly, the seller really wants to stick near the listed price and it is a bit too much for us. Despite knowing we shouldn't, we had really gotten our hopes up. Now we are back in square one. We are going to research the Lyndeborough house a bit more. That is the one that needs the foundation work and perhaps a new furnace. Last Friday, the seller's agent had called our agent saying he had an offer in and wanted to see if we were going to put in an offer. We decided to wait that one out and not rush into it given the work it needs. It is still listed in the MLS with no indication that it is under contract though, so maybe that offer fell through. If so, we may put an offer in with the requirement that the seller fixes the foundation and furnace just to see what happens, but I can't really hold my breath. We may have to reconsider whether we are meant to be home owners at this time. More to come on this saga later!

Wedding Season

Well, it is that time of year to kick off the wedding season. We had a lovely time on Saturday at our friends', Tom and Sarah, wedding here in Akron. It really was a beautiful ceremony. It was actually the first time I have been to a wedding since our own and it brought back a lot of great memories. The wedding also prompted me to get my first maternity dress. I went to Motherhood Maternity in the mall. Not the best place on earth as it is jam packed and really tiny and many of the patterns are atrocious, but I did find this dress which was quite comfortable. We have one more wedding in a month and I think this will work for that one too.
I think it is becoming more and more obvious that I am sporting a growing belly:
Unfortunately, I discovered that wedding receptions are a little less fun when not taking full advantage of the open bar. Turns out I think I am a much better dancer when a little tipsy, although, I was really rockin in the train....


In honor of my new maternity clothes, I spent yesterday doing some spring cleaning. I went through my closet and packed away all of the clothes that I will not fit in for the next five months. In a spark of genius several months ago, I purchased a bunch of space bags (I love infomercials) and I must say they are very fantastic. I put all my clothes in those and vacuumed them to half their size. They can now be easily thrown into a moving truck when the time comes.

We also went to see Indiana Jones yesterday. I must say I really enjoyed it. I don't know if it was as great as the third, but it was still a really good time and the stunts are definitely worth seeing in the theater (not to mention I think Butterball must really love movie theater popcorn)! And, it is interesting to note that Cate Blanchett was actually pregnant when she made the film. Major props to her for those stunts!

Buttterball's First Gifts

Butterball got spoiled last week. My parents, Butterball's "Babou and Bubbles", just returned from a fantastic vacation to Paris and London. They got Butterball his/her first Harrod's Bear which is the softest teddy bear on the planet.

While in London, they went to see Wicked. If you have not read the book, I highly recommend it. They found this fantastic onesie:

And, Butterball will be rockin' out in these:

And, while we were in NH, Carrie gave us this outfit for Butterball's first halloween (and potential birthday):

Maternity Clothes

Well, I have finally had to make the jump into maternity pants. I realized halfway through our stay in NH that my jeans were no longer buttoning and even with the rubberband they were just not all that comfortable. Luckily, Carrie took me to a great second hand store and I got three pairs of pants and one pair of shorts for just $20.00! Great deal. Here is my belly at 16 weeks and 3 days. I don't think it is really obvious to the outside world, but it feels huge to me (and I know it has a long way to grow)! Lily wanted to be in the picture too.

The maternity pants take some getting used to as they come up high on the stomach, but the wide stretchy waist band is super comfy.

On Monday, we went to our 16 week check-up appointment. It went really well. I am measuring on schedule. In fact, the midwife was a bit surprised that my uterus is a little high for 16 weeks, sitting at about 2 inches below my belly button. I tell you, it is too early to find out that Butterball could be a big baby :) The midwife said it could just be that I am "short waisted" or just how I am carrying. All very intriguing. The best part was to hear the heartbeat again, and Butterball's was a strong 144 beats/minute. It was a relatively quick and straightforward appointment. We set up our 20 week check-up and also the "big" ultrasound will be around 21 weeks. Get your votes in for the sex before then!

House Hunting

We just got back from a lovely week in New Hampshire. It was a whirlwind of looking at houses. It was very much a learning experience for our first time in the housing market. The foreclosure scene is really something. The first day we went looking for houses, we saw four of them and they were either already foreclosed upon or in the short sale category. Some of them were so trashed, I couldn't believe it! Luckily, we did see some reasonable prospects. In total, we looked at nine houses while we were away and we have some options. We are considering three different places right now, although all of them have some kinks that need to be worked out before we make an offer.

Our first choice is in the small town of Lyndeborough, NH:
It was built in 1909. It has a lot of wonderful features and looks really great on the inside. It is 3 bedrooms, although the 3rd is a bit small. It has a small front yard and a nice fenced in backyard. We were seriously going to put an offer in on this one, but we got an inspection report from last year that indicates some potential problems with the foundation. We are trying to figure out how bad this might be, and if the seller might be willing to fix anything before we buy. Hopefully we will have more info this week to decide if we want to move ahead.

The second choice on our list is in the town of Weare, NH:
This is a really cool house in that it was built in 1760. Wow, that was before we even declared independence! It has some beautiful post and beam work inside and the seller has done a lot of work to bring it up to date. As you can see it is a bit close to the road, but it has a nice backyard that could be fenced in. The town of Weare seems really nice as well. If the foundation issues on the first house become a major problem, I think we will really pursue this one.

Lastly, we are considering a house in Dunbarton, NH:
This one is in a funky community near a pond and comes with beach rights. It is quite nice, but exceptionally small. It is a two bedroom, but the "master" is so tiny that only a bed can fit nicely and there would be no room for dressers, etc. It still has some nice features, including a beautiful glassed in porch, a two story double garage and a nice lawn. The down side is that it is a short sale, so we would be dealing with the bank to try to buy it and it has a failed leach field which the bank would have to fix and we don't know if they would even consider that. I have heard that the banks drag their feet when presented with offers as well, so I don't know if it is even worth our while.

I tell you, this house buying business is complicated, but we remain excited and optimistic. We are still on the lookout for whatever might pop up in the mean time too.

Other than house hunting, we had a great time in New Hampshire visiting the family. We had a great time celebrating mother's day with everyone. Jonathon and Kate came down from Maine and Jon and Carrie and Libby and Liam were there. Kate is about 30 weeks along in her pregnancy so it was fun to talk about the upcoming babies. We played a cutthroat game of croquet and had a fantastic BBQ.

Sean had to work during the week, so every morning I would get up and take Lily walking with Carrie and Liam and Libby. I worked on my quilt some and Carrie, Libby and I got crafty one day making jewelry out of birch bark. It was really great! In the evenings, we had relaxing dinners with Jan and Peter. The dogs, Happy and Lily had a grand time walking in the woods and swimming in the pond. Lily even began to get the hang of jumping off the dock.

We wrapped up the week by going to the famous Warren's lobster house in Maine so I got the full New England experience.

I will keep you all posted as things progress in the house buying adventure!

Week 15

Okay, we are technically at 14 weeks and 5 days. This Friday marks week 15 and Sean, Lily and I are heading to NH to go house hunting! We are very excited. We are scheduled to meet our real estate agent and tour 5 houses on Saturday. Likely we will tour more throughout the week. We have our fingers crossed that we will find a nice place with great potential for a nursery for Butterball!

Here is the latest in the belly picture series. We took it this morning after a long walk with Lily. Butterball is becoming a very apt name in that I now continuously look like I have just finished a huge Thanksgiving dinner. I have had to use the rubber band trick to keep my tighter pants together (rubber band around the button and through the loop back to the button). Just that little inch makes such a difference! So I suppose it has officially begun and maternity clothes may be just around the corner.

This week has been a milestone at school. We just finished off the semester. I am going to finish my grading tomorrow for my Parasitology class and that will officially end my graduate student teaching career! Of course now I just have to write the darn dissertation! But, on that note I had a meeting with my adviser today and I told him that I am pregnant which means that I am now on a very firm deadline to get this thing done. He seemed just fine with that and after looking at some of my data with him, I really thing I am close to finishing up the data collection and getting into the analysis. It is still going to be daunting task, but it really seems that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Please remind me of this as I go through the ups and downs of the writing phase!

Well, Butterball should be about the size of a navel orange this week and still growing rapidly. S/he is growing lots of bone at this point. We return from NH on Sunday, the 18th, and then on Monday we have our 16 week appointment. I am excited to see how things are progressing and to hear the heartbeat again. Between the house hunting and the appointment, I am sure my next post will be filled with news.

Until then, I want to wish all the mothers out there (and the newly expecting ones) a very Happy Mother's Day this coming Sunday! It has all sorts of new meaning for me now that I look ahead to my impending motherhood!

Week 14 - Officially in 2nd Trimester

The dating of pregnancy is confusing.  I have been confused when people ask me regarding months.  The length of pregnancy is counted by OBs as 40 weeks, but if you assume 4 weeks per month, then that is ten months.  So, I found a nice conversion chart that breaks the weeks into months and trimesters.

1st Trimester

Month 1 = weeks 1-4  Completed!

Month 2 = weeks 5-8  Completed!

Month 3 = weeks 9-13  Completed!

2nd Trimester

Month 4 = weeks 14-17 In progress...

Month 5 = weeks 18-21

Month 6 = weeks 22-26

3rd Trimester

Month 7 = weeks 27-30

Month 8 = weeks 31-35

Month 9 = weeks 36-40

So, we are just now entering the second trimester and month 4!  Butterball should be quite active now and potentially sucking his/her thumbs and practicing facial expressions.  S/he is about 3 1/2 to 4 inches long and about the size of my fist.  Wow!

I feel like the next few weeks are the "tween" stage.  There was so much excitement initially with finding out and going to the first appointment and telling everyone.  Not to mention the ultrasounds and hearing the heart beat.  Now, we are sort of hanging out waiting for the next appointment, waiting for my body to change enough to look pregnant, waiting to feel butterball moving around in there.  By no means do I want to rush this experience, but I am so excited to look and feel more pregnant.

Sean has been gone for the past two weeks tracking sturgeon on the Grass River in New York.  Lily and I have been on our own and doing pretty well, but I definitely realize how much Sean helped take care of everything during the first trimester when I was so tired all the time.  These last two weeks, I have realized the dishes aren't magically doing themselves anymore.  And Lily is quite the demanding animal.  We have been doing about two walks a day and my legs can feel it!  Sean comes home Sunday and I am so excited to see him and I am sure Lily is too.  He is definitely in the running for husband of the year!