18 weeks

I hope everyone had a fabulous and restful holiday weekend. Thank you so much for the kind words about my grandfather and WWII in my previous post. My husband's parents came up from Ohio and spent the weekend with us. On the fourth in the evening our city does fireworks over the golf course. It's a really nice show and best part of all, we have a clear view from near our house - perfect for me especially right now!
Our first "family portrait with our little Spot" taken at 18 weeks.

Alright here's our first "complete" family photo with our first "furchild" and Spot.


Spot is 18 weeks today - hip hip hooray! Less than two days until our anatomy scan and maybe seeing if Spot is a boy or girl (thanks for voting so far - looks like most people think Spot is a boy, that's my secret hunch as well. But my husband thinks girl.) Most pregnant people are excited about finding out the gender - I am, but am more excited to find out what my cervix is doing, and to find out if Spot is measuring okay size wise.

If you have a moment go over to give Adriane a little hello. She was just put on hospital bedrest for possibly the duration of her pregnancy due to an incompetent cervix - yuck - one of my most current dreaded fears. She is looking for ideas to keep her entertained and good websites that are entertaining as well. I myself can't think of too many great suggestions - so go give her some cool ideas if you can. It's hard enough to keep busy at home on bedrest, but being in the hospital would be so much worse to stay entertained. So if you can - go give her a bunch of good websites, entertainment ideas, or just a hello.

Some more things I learned about bedrest the last week:

1. When you send your husband to the grocery store asking for organic fat free skim milk, he will call from the dairy aisle. My husband is such a sweet guy he phoned and said, "Some milk says fat free and some says skim milk. Which one do you want?" I then say, "Either one honey since they're the same." He tries to get exactly what I ask for, and the poor guy looked through two aisles of milk for one that said skim AND fat free on the label before he called!

2. Speaking of groceries again, my engineer husband has even taken his new duty of grocery shopping and made it all his own. I rarely if ever shopped with a list in the past. When he started going, I had to start making a detailed list for him to take. After about two weeks one evening he showed me the laptop screen. My husband made an excel spread sheet with all of our most common grocery items in categories and blank spaces to add new things. He now obviously has his own little system :-)

3. Most of the time while lying down I do so on my left side. When I roll over to my right side - it's like I'm seeing the room through a whole new set of eyes - aahhh magnificent!

4. I still haven't felt Spot move (which I know it's still early) - but I'm looking forward to this moment so much. During the day and evening I try to lay very still and see if I can distinguish any fluttery feelings or something more recognizable. This is what I have discovered in my grand journey of trying to feel Spot move: I have gas - a lot of gas between 8-9AM and 6-8PM. Yes, I know the baby can feel like gas - but I'm pretty sure Spot isn't releasing the fart that follows these movements during these times, LOL! So I definitely am having movement, just not baby movement yet!

5. While glancing out my window or while sitting outside, I have discovered that five families on our block alone have children that were adopted from various countries - one from Russia, two from Korea, and two from China. I knew that there were a couple of families - but I didn't know the number was as high as 5. The kids range from 3-7 in age. Every Tuesday evening the moms and kids get together and meet at one house for a little dinner/discussion/playgroup/support system for each other. How cool is that?

6. I read two quick and easy reads this weekend that made me laugh the whole time:


Bedrest by Sarah Bilston is a hilarious book about a busy New York lawyer who is put on bedrest for a couple of months towards the end of her first pregnancy. I could really relate to her funny spin on things and about how she struggled to go from having a crazy busy job that she loved, to having to leave it all behind to be a prisoner in her house for weeks on end. The author had been so busy with her job, and then could do nothing when being put on bedrest that she suddenly finds herself weeks away from the baby's arrival with not a single thing bought or prepared for the baby. Yup - that's me. Despite being home all the time now on bedrest - I have not a single thing bought or prepared for the arrival of our little Spot. I think that may have to change, sometime soon. I think my husband has been more worried about getting things settled for us and getting used to doing everything I used to do. Baby preparation has fallen by the wayside the last few weeks, as we adjust to me occupying the couch for the next four months.

Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy is just plain funny. I don't really have to give much explanation - she talks about every untalked about pregnancy body change. She even includes my "Blue Twinkies" that I talked about recently as McCarthy calls them (swollen lady parts). Sully you were right - good choice of a read!

In between those two books I continued to read Middl.esex - which is still really good as well - I'm almost done with that one. One pleasant surprise in that book, is that it takes place in Detroit and makes references to suburbs and landmarks I grew up around.

7. My dog and I are on the same bathroom schedule. I mentioned before that my dog uses a doggie litter box (very different than cat litter) in our back room. Well, whenever I get up to go to the bathroom - if she isn't too busy stealing my pillow - she goes to the bathroom in her litter box. Kind of like the thought that women living together or are close get their periods on the same days.....well my dog and I relieve ourselves on the same schedule! Well now that is one loyal dog :-)


Neela got all spiffy for the holiday weekend and broke out in one of her new shirts for company at our house yesterday. But by the end of the weekend, I think she was glad to rejoin me back on the couch. I have to admit I did miss her while she was running around with my husband's parents from lap to lap.

Well, I'm off to rot my brain on some more TV - I'm finally caught up on America's Ne.xt Top Model from last season so far. I'm thinking maybe it's a Crim.inal Minds kind of TV watching day perhaps? But more importantly, I really should start browsing some websites for baby things. I swear the whole bedrest thing may have me taking online shopping to a whole new level. I seriously have not looked at anything, or heavens forbid bought anything for Spot yet. One of these days I have to start because if not my husband will be running out to buy an infant car seat the day we're released from the hospital!