It's a dude!

I've been thinking this little bump was a little man for awhile, but I wasn't sure if I really felt that way or if I just wanted it to be that way. I have my reasons for wanting a boy:

1. Phoebe can be highly competitive, so having a little sister would make for a few rough years. I'm sure they would have been best friends when they hit their 30s, but growing up would be rough.
2. Bruce needs a little man to share his wisdom with. Phoebe doesn't care what gender it is; she will own this little guy no matter what.
3. Phoebe is also way more emotional than Bruce ever was. I feared having to deal with two girls in a row. I'm not sure I have the emotional capacity to deal with that, and God seems to agree.

I had my suspicions early on and they checked out in the voodoo science category and the old wives' tales category. Somehow chocolate didn't taste good for almost two months (what?! I know, weird!) and I found myself eating salty foods like tortilla chips and mixed nuts.

We confirmed today that we are having a boy! We had an ultrasound and I got some more of those eerie-looking profile pictures. The gender was not hard to detect; I am no radiologist, but it was pretty clear to me that it's a boy. The ultrasound tech printed a picture of our little guy spread-eagle in the womb, with a little computer cursor pointed at his manliness with a little label that read "BOY" just in case we didn't catch it. In case our little guy wants to go into politics, I'll hold that photo from the blog.

I'm a few days shy of 20 weeks and still feeling good. The ultrasound shows that the baby is growing on track and looking good. The only hiccup is that the placenta is growing really close to the cervix, which might dash any chance I had for a normal birth (boooooo! seriously every placenta I've ever grown is out to get me!). My doctor and I are hoping that as the uterus grows, it will pull the placenta up a bit so baby can get out when the time comes.

Not freaking out (yet). Not freaking out (yet). Not freaking out (yet).

Dr. Raymond

I found this snazzy little white coat while doing laundry tonight. This must be Scott's Super-man cape; he puts it on, saves a few lives, than takes it off and resumes normal activity.*

* "Normal activity" lately means studying for next month's exam, picking out paint colors for our living room, getting smothered by Bruce and Phoebe, rock climbing, cooking when I don't feel like cooking, reading "Moby Dick," and sometimes sleeping.

Pink or blue?

We find out on Friday whether this baby is a boy or a girl. I'm just tired of calling it an "it."

I haven't saved many baby clothes, but the few outfits I have are on Phoebe's dolls. Which baby will lose its wardrobe?

Boston Blizzard

On Friday morning, I went for a nice quiet run. School had already been cancelled and the streets were quiet as everyone prepared for the coming storm. Around noon, light snow started to fall. The wind picked up a little. Soon there was a dusting on the street. (Excuse the ugly photos, but this lovely parking garage/ office building is the scenic view I get when looking out my living room window - nice)

 The wind steadily picked up until it was howling and gusting into a full blizzard (sustained 30+ mph winds with 70+ mph gusts) by the evening. The snow stuck to the windows and blew sideways and every which way. When we went to bed, there were 3-4 inches of snow on the ground.

 When we woke up, there was nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground. Scott still had to be at work by 7 a.m., so he woke up early, dug out the parking garage entrance, packed his shovel and emergency supplies into the car, and ventured off. There was a state-wide ban on driving so as to avoid this situation (from the 1978 blizzard)...

...but the ban didn't apply to healthcare and emergency workers. So Scott set off, took a few detours to avoid big drifts, stuck to streets that had been somewhat plowed, and made it to the hospital without getting stuck.

 It snowed another couple inches on Saturday morning, the wind quieted down a bit, and the kids and I watched lots of plows and construction vehicles roll by.

 We ventured out onto the sidewalk. Someone had shoveled a small path by our building, but once it ended we either waded through waist-high drifts or walked right on the road. People were cross-country skiing down the usually busy streets; it was surreal.

 We found a pile of snow that didn't have a car under it and tried to go sledding, but the snow was so fluffy that we sunk down faster than we could get to the bottom of the tiny pile.

By Saturday afternoon, snow shovels were in demand as people were digging their cars out of the mess. Bruce and our neighbor found a tunnel someone dug and played in it for a long time. Phoebe happily ate the snow and was pulled around in the snow, but had a hard time walking through it. In the end, we got 25 inches of snow, with drifts up to 6 feet in places. This is a storm the kids will remember.

Baby, baby, baby.

My mind has been hijacked by this pregnancy; I am constantly thinking about the baby. Is it a boy or girl? Should I hang onto Phoebe's outgrown clothes or pass them along like everything else? Was that a kick or the bean soup I just ate? Will I really make it past 34 weeks? Should I start packing my hospital bag now?

The first trimester seemed to crawl by. Looking back on it doesn't change my perspective either: I still think that was the slowest period of time in human history. Waiting and waiting and waiting to see if that lump of cells would actually turn into a person.
Now that I have officially outgrown my standard pants and expanded into the funky paneled maternity bottoms, I am starting to think less about keeping baby in and more about getting baby out. I requested a stack of books and a few childbirth class DVDs from the library. I'm not willing to pay big bucks for childbirth classes because my chances of a normal birth are slim, but I'm consuming large amounts of info about VBACs and natural childbirth just in case my fantasy birth-day actually comes true.

Wouldn't it be awesome to have a baby without meds, then go for a run the next day?! Or at least not have to wait two weeks to drive, six weeks to jog horribly slow, and months before I can pick up my kids without pain? Even better, wouldn't it be nice to have a baby and bring it home from the hospital when I go home?

If you have some fabulous pain management tip or great VBAC story, send it my way. I can't seem to get enough of them.