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Yesterday, I bought a body pillow. I really didn’t want to get one, and I held off as long as I could, but I finally caved. I honestly have sort of a problem with the idea of body pillows. It’s fine if it’s on my side of the bed, but if I roll over and drag it with me, then there’s sort of this “line of demarcation” down the center of the bed between me and Dave, and I didn’t like that. Not that we’re very cuddly sleepers, but still. It didn’t seem like a romantic addition to our current stock of bedding accessories.

Another reason why I didn’t want to buy one was because I kept thinking that if I only use the body pillow during pregnancy, where on earth am I going to store the damn thing later? There’s so much stuff that we’re going to have to acquire for the baby, that it’s making me go through this phase where I don’t want to buy anything for myself that falls into the category of “crap I don’t really need.” And I don’t know how familiar y’all are with body pillows, but those things are huge. When I put it in my car, the pillow alone took up the entire length of my backseat. My linen closet is full, I have no idea where this pillow will go when I’m done having babies. I guess it’ll go in a hefty bag in the garage, like so many other things have done in the past.

Also, I guess I figured that since we have at least a dozen or so regular-size pillows in our house, surely I could arrange them all in such a way that I could sleep comfortably at night. That’s logical, right?

The thing is, I could arrange them all, but then I’d have to rearrange them every time I rolled over. And sometimes I’d wake up because one of my hips would start to hurt. (Usually the hip of the side that I was lying on.) Or sometimes I’d wake up because I had rolled into a position where I was half on my stomach, and the baby decided to let me know that she wasn’t too happy about that.

Anyway, last night? With the sleeping? And the body pillow? That might possibly have been the best night’s sleep that I’ve gotten in the last two months. And I had no weird creaky/achy things when I woke up today. I think I’m in love.

Consider this my formal apology to the body pillow manufacturers of the world: you were right, I was wrong. That was the best $9.99 that I’ve spent in a very long time. I shall never speak ill of you again. And if you let me know your address, I’ll send you a box of candy.

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The biggest news of the weekend: The Alphababy has arrived! My cousin Cat and her husband Tony welcomed their bouncing baby girl early on Sunday morning. Hooray!

I think it’s worth noting that although the baby wasn’t technically born until the 24th, Cat’s due date was the 23rd, and she started having contractions at 2:30 a.m. on the 23rd. That is one seriously punctual baby.

I can’t wait to see photos. (Hint hint, guys. Get on it. You’ve had 24 hours to recover already!)

Since I had the day off on Friday (as I always do - man, I do so love this part-time gig), I headed out to look for baby stuff, hoping to avoid the weekend traffic. The other perk of going on a weekday is that Dave wasn’t expected to go with me. Because honestly? Yes, there are a couple of things, like furniture, that I want his opinion on before I buy them. But as a general rule, shopping is more fun when I don’t have someone tagging along who’s constantly whining about how long all of this is taking because he’d rather be home playing World of Warcraft. So we were both much happier with this little arrangement.

First, I hit one of the local baby furniture stores to look at cribs. For those of you who have kids: how on earth did you decide on this stuff? Because I can find a crib that seems perfectly nice at Target for somewhere in the $200 range, but the baby specialty stores have those gorgeous Italian imported cribs that are like $700-800. I can’t quite justify spending that much money on something that’s only going to get used for a few years (assuming that we have more than one baby), and that we’ll probably end up selling on Craig’s List someday, but I also don’t want a piece of crap that’s going to fall apart in six months. Help? I’ve been using my Baby Bargains book as a general reference point, but my god, there are just too many choices out there. I’m lost.

After the baby furniture store made my head spin, I headed over to Babies R Us to start our registry. It’s less of a gift registry and more a list of things that I absolutely have to remember to buy before the baby arrives, because woe betide us if we forget to buy a diaper pail. (There is some gift-y stuff on there too, because I felt bad about only putting the high-priced “need to have” items on the registry. And also because a few people have warned me that I should register for way more burp cloths and receiving blankets than I think I’ll need.)

I really had no intention of buying anything at Babies R Us, I was just there to do the registry. But I made the mistake of wandering through the clothing section, just to look at the little girl stuff (mostly to compare it to Target and see if they had a better selection). And then, I came across this little pink cap that had a cat’s face embroidered on the front, and the cap had kitty-cat ears, people. And matching kitty-cat booties, too. I really didn’t think I’d cave to the cutesy pink stuff, but my god. I’m only human. That was pretty much it for me.

Overall, I did pretty well. Everything I bought (ahem, except for the pink cap/booties) was on sale, because I limited myself to the clearance racks. And I bought a few sizes ahead - everything was in the 6 or 9-month sizes, since people keep telling me that I’ll get more newborn clothes as gifts than I’ll know what to do with. So I stayed pretty reasonable about it, and I think Dave was shocked that I only came home with one bag of stuff (although it was one very big bag).

I ended up spending about three or four hours on my feet at Babies R Us, so I basically collapsed when I got home that evening. The next day was better, but we kept the rest of the weekend pretty low-key to give me time to recover. It was lovely. I plan on taking full advantage of lazy weekends while I can still have them.

Now, if I can just figure out this whole baby furniture dilemma…

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Aaaaaahhhh!!! This was a total shock, all of my instincts were dead wrong.

More updates to come as soon as I can get pictures scanned, uploaded, etc.

UPDATE:
Ok, so the ultrasound tech is kind of a sadist, because she seriously checked every single part of the baby before finally getting around to the gender. “Yes yes, the head measures perfectly, that’s great. And the heartbeat is right in the middle of the range where it should be, fantastic.” By the time she was checking the baby’s kidneys, I was ready to scream, “Will you get on with it already?!?!!!”

But, once she got a good angle with the ultrasound, our little girl full-on mooned us, so we are 99.9% sure that she is, most definitely, female. I’m afraid that she gets her complete lack of modesty from my side of the family.

Other stuff: I’ve only gained 10 pounds so far, so I’m quite pleased with that. The baby appears to be perfectly healthy (and a girl! Aaahhh!!), so that’s fantastic.

What else is there to say? I’m kind of in shock. I think I need to go eat something.

And now, let the shopping spree commence!

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Ok, just so y’all aren’t wondering where the update is tomorrow, here’s the timeline for how things are going to go. (I suppose management types would call this “setting expectations.”) This will probably be of no interest to anyone except the five or six people who read this site on a regular basis.

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.: Work. Me likey half-days.

1:00 p.m.: Leave work, drive to doctor’s office, get there way too early, and proceed to have an anxiety attack over the fact that Dave won’t arrive to meet up with me until 1:58 p.m. (I’ve suggested carpooling to work in the morning, which would solve that issue. But given our very different morning routines, I doubt that’ll work out very well.)

2:00 p.m.: Ultrasound appointment. I am totally snagging a can of juice from the office kitchen before I leave work, and downing it five minutes before the ultrasound. Hopefully, the jolt to my blood sugar will ensure that the sprog is moving around, so we can get a good look at his/her naughty bits.

2:30 p.m.: My regular OB checkup. I need to remember to make a list of questions that I want to ask her.

3 - 4 p.m.-ish: Drive home. It probably won’t take that long, but I’m really tired of cooking this week, so I’m going to stop to grab take-out or something for dinner on the way.

Basically, I don’t think that I’ll be home and online (and hence, able to update this here bloggy thing) until around 5:00 p.m. That’s 8:00 for you east coast folks.

Sorry. Believe me, if I could’ve gotten an appointment earlier in the morning, I would’ve been happy to take it. But hopefully, that little bit of advance notice will save you from abusing your browser’s “refresh” button too much.

Or, if you want, you can just go on with your lives and check back on Friday morning. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings (much).

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I started to write this last night, but I was so upset that I couldn’t find the words.

I got home yesterday around 4:30, same as usual. I checked the voicemail, and I had a message from my OB’s office. They said that they needed to reschedule my appointment. For the record, they left the message at 4:00 p.m. - approximately 22 hours before my actual appointment time. My heart sank before I called them back, I knew it wasn’t going to be happy news.

Apparently the ultrasound tech is going to be out all afternoon. No explanation, she’s just out of the office. I’m assuming it’s some kind of emergency - or at least, it better be for them to bump me at the last minute like that. They rescheduled me for Thursday afternoon at 2:00.

I managed to hold back the floodgate of tears until after I hung up the phone, which is not easy with all these crazy hormones. I tried to call Dave, but he didn’t answer his office phone and he had left his cell at the house. (I heard it ring downstairs when I tried to call him. I’m working on trying to make him remember that he needs to be a bit more reachable in case of emergencies, because my worst nightmare is that I’ll go into labor at some point and have to drive myself to the damn hospital because he won’t call me back until four hours later.)

Since I couldn’t get in touch with Dave, I tried my mom. I didn’t get nearly the sympathetic response that I wanted. I just got the, “well, I had to wait 9 months to find out. And anyway, it’s only two more days, big deal!” She also reminded me that the only reason I was crying about it was because I’m pregnant - which, thank you, I know that’s true, but that isn’t helpful, Mom.

Dave called me back about an hour or so later, by which time I had long since glued my ass to the couch and had several off-and-on crying jags. I cried again when I told him, and got the same, “oh well, it’s only two more days!” chipper response. I think he and my mom both were honestly trying to make me feel better, but… argh.

The thing is, I know it’s not that huge a delay, but it feels like forever when I’ve been counting it down since the day I found out I was pregnant. Which, for the record, was 15 weeks ago. So I know it’s not the end of the world. I’m just really upset about it right now.

Last night, I even left a couple of messages with some random ultrasound places in the area to see about their openings. Apparently my OB doesn’t have a 4-D ultrasound, and I had been thinking that I wanted to get some of those groovy high-quality pictures at some point anyway, so I figured what the hell. Unfortunately, my insurance won’t cover it if I go to one of those places, and I have no idea how much it costs. And none of them have called me back yet.

So. It seems as though I’m stuck waiting until Thursday. And also? There goes my plan for Dave’s Big Birthday Surprise.

This sucks.

Aside to Dave: Happy 35th birthday, sweetie. I’m sorry I was such a grump last night (and still a grump this morning). I’m working on it. But I love you, and I hope you have a fantastic birthday.

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I’ll bet y’all really want to know what I got Dave for his birthday, hmm?

Well, the main present was this:

It’s a Sony HandyCam. This was a partially selfish gift, because I’ve been wanting a video camera for a long time. I knew that Dave would love it too, as he loves all things gadget-y. Does it have a plug? Does it have buttons? Rock on!

Especially now with the baby coming, I really want to be able to make home movies for our own personal archives. Plus, this nifty little guy will let us edit our movies and then burn them to DVD’s, which is extra-handy since all of our parents live so far away. Not that sending them DVD’s of their grandchild will necessarily make them less inclined to visit on a semi-regular basis, but at least they won’t feel like they’re missing out on quite as much.

Other presents of the day: a hair-trimmer thing (I know, it’s kind of boring, but he specifically asked for it), season 2 of “Lost” (umm… ok, that’s another partially selfish gift), and a couple of things for the baby. This was my favorite:

I found that onesie online and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Ages ago, Dave and I joked about finding baby clothes with a little Union Jack flag on them, I really didn’t expect to find something that so perfectly sums up this baby’s heritage.

You can see all of the pictures from our little Saturday afternoon birthday shindig here.

In other news: two more days until we know the sprog’s gender. Two days.

Twoooooo. Daaaaaaaays.

The wait is driving me insane.

This morning, Kris and I met up and went to church, and afterward (since I was in the neighborhood), I went to Target. I didn’t buy anything (!), but I wandered through the baby section for a while. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve always steered myself toward the gender-neutral clothes. This was the first time that I really took a good, long look at the boy and girl clothes. Here’s what I learned:

* Little boy clothes are heartbreakingly adorable. I don’t much care for the sports-themed stuff, because I figure that the kid can decide for himself whether or not he likes sports, and I’m not going to push that issue. But the clothes with puppies or firetrucks or little airplanes on them? I sort of love those.

* Little girl clothes, for the most part, annoy the ever-loving crap out of me. Sure, some things are really cute, but there are so many with slogans written on them, like “Precious Little Angel” or “Our Darling Princess” or whatever. Throw up. Considering this baby is going to be the genetic offspring of Dave and me, I can guarantee you that if it is a girl, there is no way that she’ll be either an angel or a princess. Unless they mean princess in the “diva” sense of the word. Because it would be entirely possible that we’d have a little drama queen on our hands.

I don’t know if the fact that I gravitated toward the boy clothes is any indication of this baby’s gender. It could just be that I’ve had a feeling that it’s a boy for the past fifteen or so weeks. I suppose we’ll find out one way or the other in approximately 46 hours. (Commence nail-biting.)

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I know some people (read: Dave) still think it’s too early for this, but lately I’ve been looking at a lot of baby furniture online. I had this idea in my head of how I wanted to decorate the nursery, but when I started pricing out the items that I really liked… ouch. That stuff adds up. I’m starting to think that maybe it would be wiser to check out some of the local classified ads.

Case in point: I stopped by one of our local kids’ furniture stores on my way home from work a few days ago. The crib that I liked the most? Was $700. That didn’t even include the mattress.

Of course, I know there are certain baby items that one is never supposed to buy used. Like car seats, since a lot of manufacturers have recalls on older models. But for basic items, like a changing table or a playpen? Buying secondhand seems like a good idea.

I recently learned there’s a neighborhood near us that’s having a community garage sale this weekend. They have these little events twice a year. Kris went to the one back in March and said there was tons of baby stuff for sale. (This is a very posh little neighborhood, they have their own community daycare center, which was apparently also selling off a lot of older equipment.) At the time, Kris tried to talk me into going back with her to look at what was available, but I wasn’t even pregnant yet, so it seemed sort of silly.

Not this time! No, Dave and I will be hitting the sale first thing on Saturday morning. After stopping to get Dave a latte, so he won’t be totally unbearable. That should be fun. Wish me luck.

In other news: I have my 20-week appointment - including the ultrasound where we’ll find out the baby’s gender - on Tuesday, the 19th. Four more days, I can’t wait. Tuesday also happens to be Dave’s birthday, so that’ll be a neat little birthday surprise.

It’s funny, I’ve always celebrated my birthday on whatever weekend was closest to the date. Whether it was before or after my real birthday has never mattered that much; the important thing is that I get to sleep late on whatever the chosen Day of Celebration happens to be. (Or, more likely, that I can safely be hungover on the day after the Night of Celebration. Whichever.) But Dave has always been a stickler about not doing cake and presents except on the actual day of your birth itself. But, since Tuesday is going to be a pretty action-packed day on its own with the doctor’s appointment and everything, he has mercifully caved in and agreed to make this coming weekend his Birthday Weekend. How very generous of him, no?

So we’ll do presents and cake on Saturday. I’m really looking forward to that too, because I’m pretty sure I kicked major ass with the birthday gift selection this year. He’s been trying to guess what I got him, but so far he really has no idea. And even if he did guess - which he hasn’t - I wouldn’t tell him, because (unlike me) he seems to really love surprises.

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