32 Weeks

Spencer and I had a fun weekend recently celebrating our niece and nephew's birthday at our house.  There was lots of yummy pizza, cake and ice cream, and lots and lots of presents to play with.  The next day was Violet's first baby shower.  My mom (Jeneane), sister (Robyn), and sister-in-law (Haylee) hosted the shower with lots of help from Mary (haylee's mom) and Joanne (long time family friend). I was so impressed with all they had done to make the baby shower so beautiful and perfectly executed.  I had such a good time seeing and talking with everyone as well as unwrapping all the wonderful gifts that Violet will get to wear and use.  here are a few highlights from the shower.

Violet has one more shower in a couple of weeks hosted by my coworkers. I'm really looking forward to this one too.  They are all extremely talented artists, stylists, and chefs so I know it will be fabulous.  Still, it doesn't take much to get me excited. Give me some chicken salad and a Publix cupcake anytime. Yum, I'm getting hungry.

Spencer and I are STILL working on Violet's room putting up decals. It took all of Saturday to place the alphabet decals above the changing table. A lot of math and measuring was involved in order to get them placed just right.  I was half tempted to get Chris Bisset on the scene to take over knowing he would get this precisely placed, but between our two brains, I think Spencer and I had pretty good luck.  Sunday started the next phase of decal placement: the forest scene. No math was involved, just alot of eyeballing things (well, maybe a bit of measuring). Unfortunately, I was not able to finish by the end of the weekend, so it's not quite done.  After all the decals are in place, all we have to do is get some picture frames hung on the wall, get a mattress for the bedding so it can be set, and get the last of our gifts washed and placed in the closet and drawers.  Here are some pictures of the room as it was Sunday afternoon.

The pregnancy is going pretty smoothly considering how far along I am now.  I get up multiple times in the night to go to the bathroom and switch positions in the bed to get comfortable.  Back pains rear their ugly head pretty often now, even sitting down can sometimes be uncomfortable.  My boss has even given me the pillow that he had been using as back support after breaking his neck and having surgery last year. And i can't even tell you how many Tums I eat everyday. Violet is so long now she nestles here feet in my ribs sometimes, and at my last doctor's appointment it was confirmed she had already descended her head down into my pelvis. That's right ladies and gents, we just might have an early delivery.

30 weeks - 3/4 of the way thru. What?!!

With my magical powers,  I will make this baby appear... in ten weeks! 

What have we been up to the past couple of weeks?  I went to my breastfeeding class (by myself) and enjoyed it much more than the CPR class.  You wonder, how difficult would breastfeeding be that someone would have to take a class? Well, I hear it can be very difficult to figure out.  It's all about technique apparently, and I think I picked up on a thing or two.  Hopefully I'll be able to execute these skills I've learned with ease.

Spencer and I then attended an all day Saturday childbirth class. I think I pretty much knew everything childcare wise already. I was mainly interested in what was going to happen at the hospital: when I could show up, when I could get the epidural, and was it true the hospital has a menu I could order from.  I suspect Spencer found the class much more enlightening.  When we met up at the hospital for a tour of the facilities toward the end of the class, I reminded Spencer to memorize the hallways because he would be by himself getting from the parking deck to L&D. He would also need to be able to instruct relatives on how to get there. I think the first thing he memorized was where the Starbucks and cafeteria were located.

Seriously though, Spencer has been hugely supportive.  I couldn't ask for a better father-to-be.  He's up and at-'em when I need or ask for anything.  He has had his nose in the few fatherhood books we've bought.  He has massaged my aching back even when I haven't asked. He has emptied that litter box exclusively without complaint since the beginning of all this.  He has loaded and unloaded my photo equipment in and out of the car when needed.  He has offered to drive to wherever to pick up whatever I might have been craving at that moment (although, I haven't taken him up on it). He has even been eager to decorate the nursery.  My favorite thing I have noticed him starting to do is quickly ask me if I'm OK when I let out my uncomfortable groans. Poor guy, since the weeks are starting to whittle away, I think his nervousness is beginning to form. I'll have to keep my moans and groans in check.

Speaking of nursery, we're still getting things organized and decorated, and I promise I'll share photos of the room once we are finished. For now you can check out a couple of wall decals we ordered:

 

I 'm looking forward to the baby shower my sisters and mom are hosting this weekend. It will be so nice having our families get together along with family friends. Spencer and I are especially excited my sister Robyn and our nephew Gavin will be here to visit.  We will also be having a joint birthday celebration for him and niece Lynlee. We've got so much to celebrate this weekend. It's going to be so much fun.

But wait, there's even more to celebrate! Our step-sister Christie and her husband Clark have just found out their also having a girl.  What's that saying: Girls rule and Boys drool.  Our babies are only 3 months apart. How wonderful to have the two girls so close in age. We just can't wait for cousins Simpson and Werner to play together!

28 Weeks

So we went to CPR class last week. It was both lame and educational, which pretty much describes all classes ever.  We realized it was the first time we had ever sat in a class room together.  Hard to believe but true.  We are so old, we could know each other for 7yrs. now and never have known each other from class or at least been taking classes while dating one another.  Anyway, the class consisted of us following along to a video while blowing on the mouths and pushing on the chests of adult and baby dummies. The instructor's job pretty much entailed pushing the remote buttons, and looking to see if we were doing the method correctly.  Any questions asked to the instructor were then relayed to another woman in the next room who proceeded to answer the questions for us.  The whole thing was a little weird, like maybe our instructor was doing this for the first time or something.  We spent much of the evening going over adult CPR, then infant CPR, then quickly covered adult choking and infant choking.  All in all, we were disappointed that we did not go over the infant heimlich more, given that this would be the situation most likely to present itself to us and more often than say, declaring "the scene is safe" (which apparently you have do a lot before administering CPR). Instead, it was the last thing covered in the class and seemed almost an after thought.

Marcy had her 28 week appointment at the doctor.  At this point she has gained 22 lbs. and Violet measures in at an appropriate size (or at least the uterus does).  The glucose screening test was performed at this visit, so Marcy had to go without eating any sugar for about 12hrs.  The syrupy juice the nurse gave her to drink didn't taste as bad as she thought it would. Kinda like a thick, flat, and sweet orange Crush.  The lab drew blood after that and then gave her a shot of RhoGAM in her backside because of her Rh negative status.  The doctor's appointment was pretty uneventful. If we hear back from the lab soon, it means Marcy has got the dreaded gestational diabetes.  Let's all hope not or we'll all be dealing with an unhappy Marcy for then next few months.  Speaking of Marcy's love of sugar, before her doctor's appointment, she made a half joking- half serious comment on facebook about requesting a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts afterwards. If you didn't see it, she was willing to give away all the money in her purse if someone brought them to the hospital waiting for her. Well, low and behold she got her doughnuts. A kind and generous co-worker of hers had them for her when Marcy arrived at her photo shoot that morning.  It made for a very happy Marcy, except when Spencer ate the last one without telling her.

The nursery is still coming along.  We bought a lavender side table and bedside lamp with a floral shade from Target. Marcy found a couple of silver picture frames from a consignment store, and a  handful of stuff from the Trussville Methodist Consignment sale.  It was her first experience at a church consignment sale, and an eye opening one at that. Jeneane, Marcy's mom, had advised Marcy to arrive at the door a few minutes before it opened the first night, but because of leaving late from work and having to eat supper first before going anywhere, she showed up about 30min. late.  The parking lot was full when she got there, and women were already taking arms full of clothes and misc. items to their cars. Inside, women were dragging around laundry hampers full of stuff, and baby gear was claimed already with "property of..." notes taped to them. It was all so overwhelming. After picking out about 6 outfits, some socks,  and a couple of other little items, Marcy was ready to checkout, but first had to stand in a line that rapped around the perimeter of the gymnasium.

Our more recent trips to Babies-R-Us have been more pleasant.  We went ahead and ordered the crib conversion kits with the gift card we received form our bedroom set purchase.  This time, the employee knew how to use the computer to place the order, and we lucked out again by receiving more coupons at checkout.  We then used those coupons this past weekend to order the upholstered glider Marcy wanted.  All in all, we think we saved about $650 on Babies-R-Us coupons and promotions.  It might just have been worth the bit of frustration we had dealing with the store staff and delivery man. Now let's just hope the chair will fit in the back of the CR-V.

Marcy is officially in her third trimester now.  Less than 12 weeks to go.  Her need to get things done before Violet gets here is growing along with her belly.  She now recognizes Braxton-Hicks contractions and it makes her a little nervous. She also has begun to pile her pillows up behind her when she tries to sleep. Sleeping propped up is a bit less painful than sleeping down lower.  Poor Spencer tries his best, but there are not enough back massages to alleviate that pain. Marcy's energy level is still pretty good and constant most days, but occasionally it will drop suddenly and drasticly to quickly put her in a crabby mood.  The only remedy lately has been doughnuts and ice cream.  If none are available Spencer has resorted to this for defense:

CAT ATTACK!

26 weeks

So February is down and all that is left is a March, an April, and a May!  February finished with some furniture, a painted room, a 32-year-old husband, and a case of some very uncomfortable feet.
We saved some serious bank when we ordered our furniture a couple of weeks ago. Of course that made Marcy very happy.  We went through Babies R Us (not sure what keyboard shortcut does the backwards "R", so you'll just have to use your imagination), but that was not without its issues.  First, we had quite a few instances of under-trained store employees.  No one knew much about the furniture, no one knew how to order properly, and no one knew how to have something shipped.  At one point we had four employees helping us at the same time, all of them not quite sure how to use the computer, but on the upside, they were very insistent on several coupons and promotions.  So we ended up with some gift cards and a hefty percentage of the price tag reduced... the delivery is another story, one that took place the following Friday.

That evening, a Saturday, and we were late for it due to the ordering brouhaha, was Spencer's celebratory birthday dinner (the actual day was Sunday) and we had some sushi.  it was actually birthday dinner number three of four for the 32-year-old dad-to-be.  One thing Violet won't be light on will be plenty of loving family members (and gramma's and grandpa's), so we had to visit and catch up with all of them.

The following Friday was the awful delivery day.  It started with a 2 to 4 dropoff time that ended up being 730.  The driver was not the most courteous individual with regards to our property or our bodies.  it was just one guy and a truck (and there was a woman in the passenger seat, we assume was his wife) and he had a handtruck and thank goodness Spencer was there or we never would have gotten the stuff in the house.  He proceeded to nearly take out a chunk of the wall on several occasions, and rammed Spencer in the heel with his handtruck at one point out of sheer clumsiness or on account of rushing to get out of our house.  Speaking of rushing, as he drove off, backing down the driveway, he took out half of our crepe myrtle, leaving a mud flap from his truck as a souvenir.  On the plus side, our furniture is great:

It's still for the most part covered up in sheets of thin Styrofoam and the crib isn't even constructed yet.  Marcy's mom has been diligently painting the nursery and finishing up this weekend.  Here's a pic of the room with a coat of our gorgeous new wall color, the covered furniture, and the much appreciated free labor:

We are actually a week and a half behind posting this blog entry because we ran out of time uploading the 26th week photo before Marcy headed off to Fairhope for work, and also out of sheer laziness.  While out of town, she experienced her first case of swollen feet, a major downside of pregnancy.  Long days of working on her feet will do this to a pregnant Marcy:

Still at this point in the pregnancy, it's not all bad.  Violet gives us little kicks to the tummy that can been seen even under a sweater, so it's exciting to know how much bigger and stronger she is, meaning how much closer we are to meeting the little girl we're both already so madly in love with.

24 Weeks

Wow, this month has gone by fast.  I can't even tell you what we've done this month.  Let's see, I met one of the other doctors in the office at this months visit. He was an older gentleman that seemed very nice.  Think I'd be perfectly fine with him delivering Violet if he's the one on call.  Again, I was told Violet's heartbeat was "perfect!"  I start to suspect the doctors, nurses, and techs are trained to say that.  If they are, I don't care.  If the word is used to ease any anxieties or eliminate any questions about the strength of the baby's heart, it works.  They can say it every time because I love hearing it.

Sausage biscuits are still my favorite food.  I drink a mini can of coca-cola everyday, and there have been a number of trips to Cold Stone Creamery lately.  A Like It is not enough these days, I've moved up to Love It. I won't be surprised if I eventually get a Gotta Have It in a waffle cone.  Ok, getting sad I can't have some right now. Let's move on.

Spencer and I checked out about 5 daycares around Trussville a few weekends ago. We are hoping that we won't have to have Violet in full time daycare, but at least we have an idea of what there is in Trussville just in case. 
I've got 6 paint samples up on the walls in the nursery right now.  I think I've decided on the shade of gray, but now I've been thinking of painting one of the walls a deep plum.  I can't commit quite yet though. After putting the plum samples on the wall, I've been thinking "Is it too dark?" or " Is this just going to look weird with the gray?" 
We did our taxes this weekend, so we have a good idea of what are money situation will be like in the coming months and what we might be able to afford as far as baby furniture is concerned and if we can still get some other repairs done to the house before baby gets here. 
I just finished reading Girlfriends Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood, now I'm reading What to Expect the First Year. I think I'm on book number 6, including one Spencer got at Christmas that I read in one night. It's funny, I read all of these books trying to educate myself on anything and everything, and can't help but get the feeling I'm still going to be crying for momma asking for help and advice. 
All in all, everything is going smoothly.  Violet makes herself known on and off throughout the days, and I've still got a fair amount of energy right now.  The third trimester doesn't start for a few more weeks I think.  Although, I have been dozing off on the couch at night again lately. My only physical complaints right now are waking up with back pain,  occasional round ligament pains, not being able to bend over or lift my legs as easily, and getting a little sad when I've finished eating and run out of food.

Meet Violet Ruth Simpson!

 As you can see, IT'S A GIRL!!! and she wasn't shy about letting us all know it.

 Here is her torso on the left and her creepy skull on the right.

 Let's look at something less creepy and rather cute.  Sweet little feet!

And finally a brief little 3D image of her shy little face. You can see just a bit of ear, lips and her nose being shielded by her arm.

So much has happened in these past two weeks. Let's start with the ultrasound. The doctor says she is doing great and the tech said her heartbeat was perfect. The baby is growing fast enough they moved the due date up to 5/23/11.

So we had our boy and girl names picked and when we found out it was a girl, we were suddenly struck with the idea that this was a person, with a name, who we hadn't even met yet.  She never quite showed us her face, and the tech was nice enough to give us a second chance (hence the 4d shot above from a second session). While waiting to go in for the second ultrasound, we paced along the hallway.  There was still snow outside, and the parking lot was still a mess from all the ice stuff we had.  The windows outside were nearly all blocked by construction.  What all of this led to was a nice, quiet, insular moment for the two of us, where we could talk and think about how much closer we were to being a family.

So the name, we had both liked Violet for a long time, well before we had even seriously discussed getting pregnant and although we entertained several others, we eventually concluded it was the most awesome.  Violet was vetted among many strong contenders (names that evoked everything from "serious and studious" to "eccentric and artsy").  We tried to picture what our little girl might be like and for Violet we jotted down "pretty, graceful, kind, and playful."  Which is good because Spencer is kind of clumsy and as he says, "everything else she's pretty much sure to get from her mom."

We wanted to include a family name somehow whether it was a boy or a girl.  If it had been a boy, we had picked a name from Marcy's family and for the girl's name we picked a name from Spencer's family.  For those of you that don't know the Bozemans, it's a large family comprised of Spencer's maternal grandparent, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  There are a lot of grandkids and they're more like siblings due to the close proximity of age and residence (after Spencer came to Alabama in 5th Grade, none of the the families have lived outside of Jefferson county until the various cousins have become college-aged).  Spencer is named after the patriarch, Spencer "Jud" Bozeman and now Violet's middle name come from Ruth Bozeman, Spencer's grandmother (or Nana, as she is known to pretty much everybody). 

So now it's all about shopping for girl stuff.  We had what you could call a "Violet" day last Saturday with 8 intense hours of shopping and registering. We started the day with a trip to 2nd and Charles to pick up some more parenting books. While looking through endless stacks we noticed many "Guides for Mothers" dog-eared and stained with who knows what, while the "World of Fatherhood" books were pristine without the spines even being cracked.  We left with four books, Marcy requesting one of them being selected from those mint condition father books.

Registering at either baby mega stores in B'ham on a Saturday is no walk in the park.  There were waiting lists to receive scan guns, and trying to look at strollers was like running an obstacle course. (I suspect choosing the travel system will be our most difficult task.) Obviously we've been looking at a lot of purple stuff. Even though we are trying to refrain from turning Violet into the poster child for purple flowers, we were finding it hard not to register for everything purple in the store (sorry kid, it's gonna follow you through life most likely). This is the bedding set we ended up purchasing that day. Sure, we'll return it if we find something better, but it seemed too perfect for our little Violet.

 

Yes, we know it's purple flowers, but how can you have a kid named Violet and not have them at least somewhere in her room. It doesn't look as candyland-esque in person, and the nursery walls will not be purple. We're thinking of a light gray, and we will really only be using the bedding and not all that other stuff, plus the carpet is green, so her room will not be vomiting purple.  Speaking of the baby room, Jezebel has officially moved out and Marcy's mom (Jeneane) was awesome to come over this weekend to steam clean the carpet.  The walls are prepped and ready for painting, just have to make that final color choice.

Got a couple more gifts, including from Spencer's mom Jenny.  She had kept a pink blanket given to her by someone who had a feeling Jenny would have a girl (or at least a girl at some point).  30 some odd years later, it looks the blanket will finally have a home with Violet.

I think we are up to speed now. Marcy feels Violet moving more and more everyday and with it comes other little pains and discomforts, but our excitement and joy of being able to picture our little girl has overshadowed everything else.

20 Weeks down - 20 to go!

Sooooo...... we were suppose to have the very important ultrasound today to find out the sex of our little Blimpson, but Mother Nature decided differently.  Today was probably the first time in my life I wish it hadn't snowed.  We haven't rescheduled our appointment yet.  Hopefully we will be able to and find out baby Blimpson's secret soon.

In the mean time,  I thought I would go ahead and post my 20 week pictures.  Or rather my "boy, looks like Marcy's let herself go!" pictures.  It's true.  My sweet tooth kicked in when Christmas (and all its goodies) came around.  I'm hoping I'll start looking pregnant soon, and not just out of shape.

Christmas was good to us this year with all the sweet baby gear (rhyme unintended). The guest room is starting to pile up with baby things and work on the nursery is well underway. 

As you can see we've emptied Jezebel's room of all the boxes and such, and I spent the day scraping decorative border decals off the walls. (Robyn, do you see your rainbow pegboard in the window!) I 'm hoping to have the room patched and ready for painting as soon as we find out boy or girl. I sound like a woman with a plan, but in actuality, I have no idea how I want to decorate. I just have that drive to get this room done and this house ready for baby.

Until we get to the doc to see that ultrasound, I don't have much else to report at this point.  So I'll end this post with a list of my favorite foods at the moment.
sausage buscuit
classic Coca-cola
Hershey bar with almonds (thanks Phyllis)
Simpson's signature spinach salad