Thursday, February 28, 2013

Brothers Don't Shake Hands, Brothers Gotta HUG!

A 20 week update:


So far still no strangers have asked if I'm pregnant and nothing has happened with my little psychology experiment with the class for adults I'm teaching (I haven't told them and am waiting to see when (if?) they'll ask!) so I guess I still look mostly like I'm getting a bit chubby from my lack of running.  But I do think my belly popped out a bit almost over night on Sunday night.

Speaking of running - sorry if this is a lot less running blog and a lot more pregnancy blog lately.  When there are posts at all, that is.  But I do promise a running update soon.  Spoiler alert: I have been running SOME.  But not a lot, and rarely more than 3 miles.  It's a bit disappointing.  

Back to the task at hand.  We had the big 20 week anatomy ultrasound yesterday and everything looked GREAT.  What a relief.  Going 4 weeks in between appointments is a LONG TIME when you're worried and not sure if you're feeling the baby move or not.  I feel weird things that MIGHT be the baby or also might be digestion / hunger pains / gas bubbles / all kinds of crazy crap.  The doctor said in a few weeks I'll be 100% sure and I'll say that those feelings definitely were the baby.

The baby has all it's parts - everything looks normal, good measurements, etc.  Baby is measuring in the 75th percentile for size so I hope hope HOPE that means it will come early and NOT that it will be a super-sized baby!  It even seems to have inherited JMan's weird toe trait (his 2nd toe is oddly long - longer than the big toe!)!  

We also found out for sure (we'd been told once tentatively and another time more definitively but now it's OFFICIAL!) that it's a....

Monday, February 25, 2013

The Transformation of a Mess to a Nursery

Does anyone else have a secret room in their house where all of their junk goes to die?  No?  Just us?

Well we definitely have one of those.  We live in a cozy 3-bedroom home and our room and our guest room stay pretty "clean" (this is a very relative term for us) most of the time.  But the office.  Oh, the office.  This is truly the "dumping grounds" of sorts.  It has undergone renovations several times and been clean and livable at certain times, I think as recently as summer 2012.

But then I got a new job, and the office I'd had for 5 years filled with TONS of papers, books, and seriously BOXES of dissertation data needed a new home.  So it simply got transported from my office to the house and dumped in this room.  Then Christmas happened, and any new items were also dumped in this room.  Finally, we had a few guests come to stay, so any extra clutter throughout the rest of the house was also discarded here so the rest of the house would look cleaner.

So, yeah.  A picture says a thousand words:

This is embarrasing.

So thus began the very horrible task of transforming that complete mess into a lovely, peaceful, serene, livable nursery. 

Maybe even something kind of sort of like this (found on Pinterest of course):


But there's a long way to go to get to that.  Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Step 1: Move the actual office-related mess to a new area of the house.  This:



Became this:


Step 2: Move other stuff to the new shelves in our bedroom we built in December:


Step 3: Take a RIDICULOUS amount of stuff to Goodwill.  Hello tax write-off.

Step 4: Never give up, and never surrender, even though this task seems to take up your entire life every weekend for a month.  This is mid-way through the process:


Step 5: Relish in your accomplishment and all your hard work!!!

And yes - we bought a crib!  Our first big purchase awaits in that big box. 

Whew.  Apparently we belong on that show Hoarders or something.  Anyone else have secret spaces where they stash all their crap inappropriately?  Also, who wants to come over and help us paint?! 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

One Moment That Can Change Your Life

It's strange how in one tiny moment your life can COMPLETELY CHANGE.

There has been no other one moment in my life that was like that.  While finding the one and dating them and getting engaged and then getting married are of course HUGE decisions that of course change your life, they happen over such a long course of time that you never really have that one moment.  I already knew I wanted to marry JMan before he asked, and I had no doubts at our wedding.  So it wasn't anything like this.

Anything like this moment:


I want future Ricole Jr. to know that he / she was wanted.  They were NOT an "accident".  Buuutttt, it was also DEFINITELY a "surprise" at the same time.  

**Disclaimer.  The following is likely way more than you want to know, so if you're my Dad feel free to stop reading now.  

Although in October we intentionally decided to no longer prevent pregnancy, due to uterus activities that are probably way past your interest level in my life, I had long deemed that it would be VERY difficult for me to get pregnant should we ever actively try to.  We both assumed that doctor intervention would be necessary in order to conceive.  This was just the given that I had known for years, it had been supported by doctor opinion in the past, and I had actually always assumed adoption would be involved down the road, and was very okay with that. 

So when we decided to stop preventing pregnancy I did not think for even ONE TEENY TINY SECOND that ANYTHING would come of it.  I assumed (and was fine with!) that it would still be years down the road.  In fact, I had plans for this summer!  ULTRA RELAY PLANS PEOPLE!  Going to Europe for two weeks with JMan plans!  Running Hood to Coast plans!  Running a marathon plans!  Jumping on trampolines and eating deli meat and drinking delicious Blue Moon seasonal ales and going wine tasting plans! 

But life doesn't work out the way you think or plan.  So when it happened in the very first month, to say the word SHOCK might be an understatement. 

 At the Mustache Dache, just 1 measly day into knowing I'm carrying a life inside of me.  SO weird!

But no matter how shocking, how crazy it seems that we are going to be PARENTS, how weird it is to carry a living thing inside of me, how could we ever think anything but how incredibly lucky and blessed we are to have that one moment that changed our lives. 

Friday, February 8, 2013

Keeping the Biggest Secret of My Life

So the word on the street is out.  The biggest secret of MY LIFE finally got let loose this week.  FINALLY.  Cooper is going to be a big brother!  I'm a little over 17 weeks along, due July 18


When I first found I was pregnant, I immediately knew I wanted it to be kept a secret.  But I did not realize in the LEAST how incredibly difficult that would be.  Keeping this secret was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

But what I knew more than anything, was that I absolutely did NOT want to get people's hopes up and then have them face that dissapointment.  There were a few people who I really wanted to tell who I probably could have.  But my parents, my in-laws, and some of our friends who I knew would be so excited and I just didn't want to let them down (Rachael and Leandrea - I'm talking to you!). 

It didn't help that my very first doctor appointment wasn't for MORE than THREE WHOLE WEEKS after I found out with those little blue lines. 

Why yes, I did take not 1, not 2, but 3 tests.  And yes, I did take a picture of them.

The waiting seemed like an eternity.  I even kept questioning - is there really a baby in there?  Even though I had about a billion pregnancy symptoms (um, hello fatigue and food aversions), I kept questioning if they were just "placebo" effects!  Yep, I'm crazy.

There were certainly times that were harder than others to keep it a secret.  We went through Thanksgiving AND Christmas with our families without telling them.  I ran the Mustache Dache, the Seattle Half Marathon, and the Christmas Rush 10k knowing I was pregnant but somehow not telling the running buddies!  Others around me were pregnant and talking about their's and I was DYING to share and especially to ask questions.  There was the work holiday Christmas party where I was one of the only people without a drink.  Michelle kept telling me to enjoy her favorite beer for her and I couldn't!  Yep, keeping secrets isn't my strong suit.

But FINALLY I got some proof that there was a baby in there after all! 

Isn't it adorable?!  :-)

So I am SO happy to finally finally FINALLY tell the world that yes, I am indeed, "in the family way".  I finally told my boss, we bought a crib, and major works on the baby's room are underway!  This is happening people!  Whether I'm ready or not... 

Monday, February 4, 2013

The REAL Reason I Haven't Been Blogging...



Surprise!