When I was thinking about writing this blog earlier in the week, I was going to write about how comfortable I had become at my current size and how awesome the second trimester has been. I will still take this moment to reflect on the second trimester as this coming week will be the last week of it and it really has been good…or as good as pregnancy can be. I remember back in the first trimester when I didn’t feel that great and was grossed out by things as subtle as the scent in my car that had been applied months earlier. The pregnancy veterans would constantly tell me to hang tight until the second trimester because it was going to be great. I probably managed an unconvincing fake smile and half laugh while thinking that I didn’t really believe them. As always, they were right and the second trimester has been quite pleasant besides the “beached whale” feeling I inevitably have at least a few nights a week and a few other mild complaints.
Back to the feeling comfortable part of the post, earlier in the week I felt really good and comfortable with my current belly size and I felt like my body had adapted to my current state. It is strange how the pendulum is constantly swinging though and your comfort level when you are pregnant may not only vary day to day but hour to hour depending on your clothes, how much you have eaten, drunk, etc. There were times at 12 weeks when I felt like my belly was pushing out so hard and I felt so much bigger than I did at points during this past week. Like I said, swinging pendulum. After a very comfortable week, the weekend brought a jeans crisis which led me to wear an uncomfortable pair of pants to a friends house for dinner, which made me feel self-conscious all night. That coupled with an unsuccessful attempt at running this morning, a stiff back, a sore rib and now a hopefully temporary pinched nerve in my hip has made the pendulum swing far to the side of the uncomfortable spectrum. Oddly enough though I do generally feel a lot more uncomfortable during the weekends than I do at work, where I have a very supportive chair and sit with good posture all day long.
That is my quota of complaining for the week. Every time I complain about anything pregnancy-related, I think of that “Office” episode a few weeks back where they had a baby shower for Jan and Stanley started talking about pregnant woman in the office. Here is the quote, “I do not like pregnant women in my workspace. They are always complaining. I have varicose veins, too. I have swollen ankles; I’m constantly hungry. You think my nipples don’t get sore too? You think I don’t need to know the fastest way to the hospital?” In sensitivity to the Stanley types of the world, I will try and keep my complaining to a minimum although I am sure Andy will disagree that I have achieved this.
I do need to mention how awesome Andy has been through every phase of the pregnancy. He has made every meal we have eaten at home and we are actually eating at home quite often these days. He has helped with the “nesting” process and helped me get our basement and house organized which was a much bigger task than normal considering all of the stuff we had in boxes from our time in China. Lately especially, he has been very good about telling me that I look cute or beautiful even when he knows I don’t feel this way. I don’t know why it matters so much but it is really great to hear and I believe him when he says it more than when my mom or sister say it for some reason. Finally and most importantly, he is clearly excited for the coming of our daughter and it makes me so happy to know that our kid will be born to two parents who are really excited to have her. Call it hormones, but it brings tears to my eyes to write that last sentence.
People at work started noticing that I was pregnant this week. I don’t know if I am just finally to that size or if it was something I wore but on Wednesday and Friday of the week (I worked from home most of the day Thursday) but all sorts of engineers I had worked with in the past stopped by my desk to congratulate me/us. It is really neat how people seem so genuinely excited for us.
Today a couple of my friends were getting together at a coffee shop to plan our baby shower. My good friend Sage was coming in from Nissa, Oregon and had to bring her daughter Maite with her since her husband was working today. Andy really wanted to see Maite, Sage’s 21 month old daughter, and give Sage some great photos that he had taken of Maite last time we visited their house. We realized that we could offer to watch Maite and that would give us a chance to hang out with her and also help Sage out. The catch was that I was going to meet my friends after 45 minutes of their planning and have coffee with them so Andy would be alone with Maite for an hour. Sage asked about a dozen times if we were sure he/we were okay with this and we finally convinced her we were.
A little before 2PM, Andy and I ceased work on our garage organization since Maite and Sage had arrived. Sage explained to Maite that she was going to be leaving for a little while and if it was okay if she stayed with “Tia Alecia” and “Tio Andy” and the kitty while she was gone. Maite quickly agreed as she was already infatuated with Ozzy, our cat. Sage explained what was in the diaper bag (diapers, wipes, books, water, snacks, etc.) and then took off.
For the first 10-15 minutes, Maite and I went downstairs to spend time with Ozzy. Ozzy had a bad experience with our neighbor kid years ago and it left him scared of little kids. Because of this, after a few moments with Maite he had hidden in the laundry room. I coaxed him out by petting him and as long as Maite was on the opposite side of me, he was fine. She was very gentle petting him and was even trying to get him to sit on her lap by patting her legs like I had done. This lasted for awhile before Ozzy decided he was a little too freaked out which caused him to hide in the litter box. I explained to Maite that Ozzy was scared and that he needed to use the bathroom and we should leave him alone for awhile. She understood and repeated “Ozzy” “scared”. We decided to go upstairs and read some books (trying to take the focus away from the cat.) Andy read a book about a caterpillar and would stop on each page and ask her questions like, “which one is the ice cream cone?”, “where is the leaf?”, etc. She would answer and often conclude her answer with “Ozzy scared”, “Kitty downstairs.” Andy and I smiled at each other and continued the book. A little ways into the second book, it was clear that her focus was no longer on reading so we gave up. About this time, it was time for me to go and meet my friends. I told Maite I was going and she agreed it was okay to be left with Andy and the kitty.
Forty-five minutes later, I called Andy to see how it was going with Maite. He said that it was going fine and that Ozzy had warmed up to her for awhile until she got a little too excited and wanted to share her doll with Ozzy which caused him to bolt under our bed. Since then they had been playing with dollies and now Maite was trying to coax Ozzy out from under the bed by bringing him dollies. Unfortunately for Maite, Ozzy wasn’t falling for it.
Sage and I returned to the house about 15 minutes later to find Maite up in the play area we had created in the basement remodel out of the existing concrete half-wall in the baby’s room. It apparently was a hit as were many of the dolls my mom had saved from when I was a kid that we had put into the nursery last week. All and all, baby-sitting Maite was a great experience and it helped us feel slightly more prepared to have our own kid. Maite is a great kid though so it may have not been a very accurate representation of what we will be dealing with in two years. Luckily we still have a few more months to take some classes and hone our parenting skills because honestly I still feel completed unprepared to be a parent.
One last thing to note. I have been going through old photos and adding them to the blog. The pictures include some from my trips to India and Argentina, our trip to New York City to run the NYC marathon and our year living in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2003. Adding these pictures is an attempt to document more than just our time in Asia and also because we like to look back on old photos and memories. Enjoy (if you are so inclined)!
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