Happy 6th of July!

I hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July! I swear, if I were a politician, I'd run on the platform of mandatory three-day weekends (willing to make up the time on the other 4 workdays!) and I think I'd win in a landslide. There's something about that 3rd day off that makes the weekend feel soooo much longer.

DH and I met friends down in Newport, RI on Sunday for dinner and then the fireworks. It's so nice down there and though we're experiencing a crazy heatwave in the northeast, it was actually nice on Sunday night. I love fireworks, though we forgot to bring a radio, so we couldn't listen to the cheesy Neil Diamond "Comin to America" while the show was going on ;).

On Saturday, we did our all-day childbirth class. Yes, we decided to do it. I suspected that I would fall in the camp of about 50% of my commenters who found the class a little bit of a waste, but we actually really liked it. Our teacher was AWESOME - really funny and had lots of advice. I immediately felt a kinship with her because she told us that she has a 7-year-old son and then just had twin boys 9 months ago. My IF antennae went up at that -- I'd put her in her late 30s and you just don't go 7 years between kids and then wind up with twins without some fertility intervention, at least in 99% of cases. Anyway, I feel like the class was very informative, especially for NoodleGuy. I think it made him feel good to see how he could make things better for me and where he falls into everything.

We both got much more of a feel for when labor starts and when it's time to head to the hospital, plus we felt better about a potential stress point for us: if I get to the 411 point where you should head in (contractions 4 minutes apart, last at least 1 minute, going on for at least 1 hour) and it happens to be rush hour around Boston. She suggested that we could just head into Boston at a more convenient time, like when contractions are 7 minutes apart, etc, and then just go to dinner or a movie near the hospital. It sounds a little basic and silly, but it makes sense -- we'd get a stressful part over with (the drive in) and can take it easy and have some fun (and a last meal!) as close as possible before heading in. The worst thing that'll happen is that things will progress faster than expected and we'll walk out on the movie early, no biggie. So, that'll be our plan.

She also talked about how important it is to try to relax and stay as stress-free as possible when you get to the hospital. The uterus is just like any other muscle, and when you're stressed, it tenses up and mama pays the price. She had all sorts of suggestions, mostly typical (music, taking a shower in the hospital room, getting a massage from DH) and I'm really trying to take that to heart and will try to go in and be as zen as possible. Also, I learned that I am a BIG fan of those bouncy birthing balls - I predict I will spend alot of time on that sucker while in labor.

Of course covering the pain medication was a big part of the class. Luckily the teacher wasn't judgmental at all about the idea of epidurals - that would have driven me nuts, I don't like people judging other people's choices in this. Anyway, armed with the plan to be as relaxed (and hydrated) as possible, I'm planning on playing the epidural by ear. I'll go in totally open to the idea of it, but waiting as seeing how it goes - I won't get it immediately. I suspect in the long run, I will get one - I have no desire to be a hero in this, I just want the most positive experience possible for Bug, NoodleGuy and myself. So we'll see on this one...

Tonight we have our "newborn essentials" class. Again, I think it'll be more helpful for DH -- I have young relatives and girls are just more comfortable with babies, usually, probably because most of us babysat. All the diapering, temperature taking and all that will help with worrying with the "what the heck do we know?" thoughts that creep up more and more as the due date gets closer.

Then tomorrow morning we have an appointment at a local childcare center that our neighbors highly recommend. These classes and meetings are coming fast and furious, but it's such a relief to be ticking these things off the list. Our childcare plan for now is for me to be on maternity leave from September through Thanksgiving, then I'll try and multitask Bug/work with help from relatives between Thanksgiving and New Year's - it's usually a pretty slow time of year for me at work, so I'm hoping it'll work. Then, as of January 1st, we'll put Bug in daycare (weep) in the afternoons. I'm lucky enough to work from home, so I'll try and see if it works to watch him and work for an hour or two between naps in the 6am to noon range. Then I'll drop him off for daycare at 12:30 and NoodleGuy will pick him up at 5:30 or so. If I wasn't able to get all my work done in the afternoon, NG will take care of all the nighttime rituals - bathing, feeding (I'm planning on pumping by then) and putting Bug to bed.

We'll see how this plan goes -- it'll be alot of work, but to be honest I'm generally not super productive at work in the mornings -- I'll do my conference calls but also all my emailing/blog reading/gossip-site perusing in the morning but I really hunker down for serious web development in the afternoons, so it's not THAT different. OK, yeah right, I know. It's way different. But we'll try it this way -- I don't have the heart to put Bug in full-time daycare at 3 months -- a luxury I have since I work from home, I know if I had an office job, I'd have no choice. To be honest, I'm underpaid in my current job, I could get a job in Boston that pays at least 25% more. But the perks especially this particular one of working from home, make it too good to leave, so that's our plan. Putting him in daycare for half-days also cuts the cost in half which is really appealing, obviously.

In pregnancy news, the ball of my left foot has been killing me in the past week. I'm used to the foot swelling by the end of the night, but I'm not sure where this swelling/bruising on the bottom of my left foot is coming from. I'll mention it to my OB on Thursday - it's not a big deal, just kind of a pain (literally). Along these lines, I read an interesting tidbit on Dr. Google last night when I was researching the foot pain. One article mentioned that the reason you go to the bathroom so many times during the night in late pregnancy is not so much that you had a glass of water before bed or that your bladder is squished -- it's that all the fluid that has collected in your legs and feet throughout the day is now reabsorbed into your body (now that your legs are elevated) and processed by your kidneys and into your bladder. So it's like we're camels, storing our own liquid resources ;).

FINALLY (geez how did this post get so long??), I bought my first set of diapers at CVS this morning (coupon in Sunday's paper)! So exciting - I felt like a mommy for the first time, though clearly I'm not yet. But it was fun to actually pay attention to that aisle instead of avoiding it. And OMG girls - diapers are EXPENSIVE! ;)

Half-baked and then some!

Thanks so much to my bloggy buddies who have checked up on me during my absence -- no reason for the absence, just life being busy and me not having much to chat about, which is a good thing. But I'm going to make a concerted effort to pop in more, even if it's just to tell you what I ate for dinner last night. Fascinating - I know!! I've tried to continue to be good about commenting, so hopefully you all knew I hadn't spun of earth's surface.

Baby news: We had our 21-week OB appt yesterday. We were scheduled for an ultrasound beforehand thanks to my "low-lying" placenta detected on the amnio 4 weeks ago. NoodleGuy came with me and I'm so glad because it turns out that it's our last scheduled u/s, thanks to my placenta moving up -- weep! How can they cut us off like this?!! I do have a 4D ultrasound scheduled in 4 weeks, cuz I'm crazy like that, so don't cry too hard for me here.

The radiologist who did the u/s this time was awesome - such a nice guy and he printed out something like 20 photos for us, it was insane -- the total motherload!! Bug was being shy in the beginning, keeping his hands up to his face, which was adorable, but made it hard to get a paparazzi shot. I wound up needing to be wanded after the tummy scan (oh, vaginoscan, how I've missed you!) to get a good look at my cervix, so the doc had me lie on my side and flip back and forth to try to shake Bug up. When we peeked at him again after I shook him up and got some good shots. We also got a money shot of his little frank & beans, but I'm sparing that photo ;)

Sucking thumb

Smiling. OK, more like chatting, but we caught him in a smiling-type pose.

Just hanging around

Waving hello

Another hand to face, but I like seeing his little arms and legs. Long & lanky like daddy!

Fashion news: I should have recommended these skirts before, to both pregnant women and those still TTC. They are NOT maternity skirts, but are nice and stretchy and fit great! I really can't rave about them adequately, they're so comfortable and versatile and only $15. They look great with a t-shirt & flip-flops or can be business casual with a short-sleeved sweater and flats. I could kick myself because I noticed that Old Navy is sold out of all but XL+ in most sizes, but definitely check your stores because they'll have more sizes -- it's worth it! It's the softest jersey knit and has a rollover top that is unbelievably flattering. I'm very happy to be able to buy items that I can continue to wear after Bug arrives.


House news: We're looking for a painter to redo our porch. It's wood, painted white and needs to be stripped and sanded before painted. We'd love a stained wood porch but got an estimate to both "properly" strip ours and stain it ($3300) vs tearing it down and rebuilding ($4700-$12,000 ouch!). Both options are more than we wanted to spend on this particular home-improvement. As I've mentioned before, we're hoping to move in @ 2 years, when we estimate our house has gained back the value we paid for it in 2007. We want to do good things for resale, but not necessarily go crazy with high-quality improvements. The guy who gave us the estimate was a carpenter, we're going to get an estimate from a more straight-up painter this weekend and hope it's not as painful.

Vacation news: OK, the fun stuff... we definitely want to do a babymoon but because of DH's training for the Boston marathon last week (and all the months prior) and my little sister's college graduation in May, we couldn't schedule it until June, when I'll be @ 28 weeks. Still plenty early enough to travel, but made us a little reluctant to do our first choice of a trip to the Greek Islands (so long Santorini, we'll get to you one day!). We pondered an easier European trip to London & Amsterdam, but with it being June (aka US college kids swarming the continent), prices are sky high. It seems that we have finally settled on saying closer to home and doing a week in Miami and Key West. We'll fly down to Miami, spend 2 days enjoying the sites and culture and then 5 days in Key West, fun fun and relaxation. We're both very excited about both places, neither of us have been and we love Latin culture and tropical settings. Wondering if anyone has any lodging and must-do recommendations for either place?

Whew! OK, clearly I should have blogged about some of these things over the past couple of weeks, instead of storing them up!