BRIEFS ABOUT THE BUMP

WEEK 24

Merry Christmas Eve-Eve!

I hope all is well and that you’re all prepared for a wonderful Christmas! I am soooo ready for Christmas; I am off tomorrow and don’t go back to work until January 4! Jim and I are staying at home and relaxing; I don’t think we’ve been off from work that long in our entire working careers and I don’t think we’ve ever stayed at home for a vacation – especially one that lasted 11 days! We’re looking forward to a very low key week and hope to start getting the nursery in shape. All we have for the nursery right now is the crib – I’m stalled on everything else until I can find bedding or at least some fabric I like (so far, no such luck)! Oh well, all in due time!

At 24 weeks everything with the pregnancy is going well. I had a surprise last Wednesday night when I looked down and realized that my belly button is starting to stick out – it doesn’t protrude thru shirts (it’s still tucked in the “cavity”) but it’s definitely turning into an outtie which is definitely one of those things that I am trying to get used to. Clay is still a kicking machine and seems to react strongly to bad music – I think it’s his way of protesting the bad music, I refuse to think he actually LIKES Bob Dylan’s Christmas album (it was a white elephant gift at my Uncle’s Christmas party this weekend – 5 minutes into the CD, Clay gave me his first kick that actually made me uncomfortable – smart boy!)

Also, I think Clay is for sure a good luck charm because last Thursday I found out that I’ve been promoted to Assortment Planner – My “effective date” is January first and I am soooo excited. I’ll basically look at our financial plans and then figure out how we should spend our money (we’ll buy x number of basic styles, each style will have y number of colors and we’ll buy it so deep, etc.)

Okay, so one more big event from this week…. I had my first, oh my gosh, I can really mess this life up moment this week. Well, we’ve started looking at Day Cares. Between my maternity leave, Jim, Yaya, and Granny, I think that we won’t need day care until the beginning – mid of July. I thought looking at day cares well over 7 months before you needed one was brilliant; yeah, not so much. The place we really want has a waiting list that won’t free up until the end of July and even then they won’t promise any availability by Fall. And it kind of got worse from there – one place I called today said that they won’t have an opening until December 2010 (I had a hard time not laughing in disbelief at that notion). So last night, I told Jim I think I’m a bad mom and if I can mess up daycare this early then I can only imagine what else I’ll mess up; yes, I am aware of my flare for the dramatic! I made a few phone calls today and think we may have a few options for day care until our number one choice opens up (in fact, one of the options is at my office, so that would actually be kind of nice). So, lesson to all of those out there – the second you decide you want to have a baby just go ahead and call day cares and tell them that you’re pregnant and just keep pushing the due date out! J/K – but it does seem like you need to call them right after you call your doctor!

Have a wonderful Christmas and know that we’re thinking about you!

Much love and Merry Christmas!
Erin


WEEKS 22 & 23

Good morning sunshines!

As of this past Sunday Clay is, theoretically, 4 months away from entering this world. That realization is pretty surreal and is very exciting; I can’t imagine the anticipation I’ll feel when he’s just 3 then 2 then 1 month away from being here! It’s been a big couple of weeks in the Morgan household. I missed sending a week 22 update because I was down and out with what turned out to be bronchitis (it first appeared as a cold that lasted more than a week). Fortunately, this is one of the few times where both my general practitioner and my OBGyn agreed that I needed to get on medicine. The bronchitis is still lingering a little bit but it is not nearly as bad as it was this time last week; I think Clay’s pretty excited about that because he delivered pretty hearty jabs each time I coughed last week – I don’t think he was a fan of mommy being sick.

The big news of week 22 is that my mom came to town and we got to do some fun baby shopping (holy moly, it is wayyyyy too easy to spend money on this kid!) and we got to enjoy one another’s company; it was a fantastic visit! She even got to feel Clay kick! Also, Clay’s crib came in! We have to move all of the furniture out of the nursery (which my dad has GRACIOUSLY agreed to “store” for us at his house) so that we can make room for the crib and other stuff. I’m hoping we can get all of that done by the end of the month.

Week 23 is off to a great start; apparently Clay is over 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound! I’m feeling better and Clay, who my dad has appropriately nicknamed “Clay-mation”, is super active. I’ve been feeling him move since at least week 16 but his movements over the last few weeks were pretty predictable (a few kicks around always around meal time and just before bed). Well, the past two days, he’s started getting active around 4 or 5am and keeps motoring until about 7. He’s still active at lunch, dinner, and at bedtime but the duration of the movements has increased 10-fold. I love it and Jim’s been able to feel a few more kicks. I have to say, it’s pretty strange seeing my stomach lurch with his more powerful kicks!

I think that’s just about it. I hope you’re having a great week and that you’re staying warm with all of this cold weather!

Much love,
Erin


WEEKS 20 & 21

Hi! Well you lucky folks are in for a treat, this week’s pregnancy update is a 2 for the price of 1 since last week’s big news (that this sweet baby is a BOY and the holidays kind of prevented me from sitting down the official email). I know I tend to be a little wordy so just in case you don’t want to buckle up for the full novel version of this week’s email, I wanted to let you know that Jim and I started a blog:

http://www.musingsbythemorgans.blogspot.com/

So…. I’ll do a “quick” recap of last week! Last week (week 20) marked the halfway point in the pregnancy! We went to the Perinatologist for the 20 week sonogram. At the early screening around 12 weeks the doctor said he was 80% sure (he’s right 4:5 times at week 12) that we were having a boy but we wanted to know for sure. Well for the week 20 visit they did lots of measurements, looked at the brain, the cerebellum, the upper lip (no cleft palate), spine (it’s closed so that’s great), kidney function (looked fantastic), heart and chambers (looked very good), bone development in arms and legs (also good), position of the insertion of the umbilical cord and placenta (also looked good)! The technician told us we were having a boy and the doctor confirmed that as well (saying “Did they tell you that you’re having a boy, good because no doubt about it, it’s a boy!”). They were also tickled by how active the baby was (as were we, but as the one that kicks those little kicks and jabs throughout the day, I wasn’t surprised by the baby’s activity). Another thing that was pretty amazing is that they were able to measure the baby and we found out that the baby was 12 ounces (according to the pregnancy update, that was about 2 ounces bigger than expected but the doctor said we’re right on track and all signs point to a HEALTHY baby, what an amazing blessing and a great reason to give thanks!)

Thanksgiving was extra special this year. We shared the day with my dad and Jim’s side of the family. It was pretty neat to have so much family around us while we celebrated our last Thanksgiving as a family of three (I always have to include our fur baby, Hershey); especially knowing that next year we’ll have a little monkey of our own sitting around the table. It was a great day!

So, that just about takes us to Week 21! Everything is good. I’m pretty much wearing maternity clothes exclusively (thanks to my great mother-in-law who was extremely patient and very generous and took me shopping for some new elastic banded threads! Today I went to my regular appointment with my doctor and again, everything is GREAT! The heartbeat is strong and I’m developing at a very good pace. Also, I got my swine flu vaccination today; it’s nice to have that worry out of my head now.

One more quick thing about today…. it snowed!!! They were the big fat wet flakes that melt as soon as they hit the ground but it sure was pretty watching them come down! Hope you are all doing well!

Much love,
Erin