Almost 17 Weeks and Happy Holidays

It has been a busy several days! My last day of work for 2008 was last Friday, and I was busy right up until I cut off my computer. Everyone seemed to have one last "little" (usually not-so-little) change they wanted made. I may dislike my job at times and wish I didn't allow it to cause me so much stress, but I do admit that I have a pretty nice situation working for a local university. We get several days off for the holidays and then a few years ago, they started closing the university for the other days. You have to use vacation for those extra days, but it's ok to me because I would have taken those days off anyway. I took a couple extra days off and won't return to work until 1/5/09! Happily, Christmas shopping is done and gifts are wrapped. I make goodie bags for family every year and will start that baking tomorrow.

In the meantime, Husband is working on installing hardwoods in what will become the guest room. The hardwoods symbolize our first major purchase for the baby. We had truly hideous carpet in our bedroom and the other two bedrooms, and we would either need to replace the carpet or do something different, and we decided to put in hardwoods. The current guest room will become the nursery, and the empty room (the one being worked on currently) will become the guest room. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first room is taking a LOT longer than anticipated. I made a deal with Husband that if he insisted on starting this project during the holidays, I would not help him (much) because he had been insisting for months that I needed to relax. Well, installing hardwoods is not my idea of relaxation! So I've done everything to prepare for Christmas, and he's been dealing with the prep in the first room. And on top of that, we think we might have sinuses infections.

We had our second OB appointment today, and it went well. It was supposed to be a fairly routine visit, but the doctor couldn't find the baby's HB consistently with the doppler, so we had another u/s! Reassuringly, the little heart was beating nicely, and we were able to get a classic profile picture of the baby. It really looks like a baby now. It wasn't moving as much as it had been during other u/s, but it did kick its legs and I think I see toes in our picture. Unfortunately, the u/s machine wasn't good enough to detect gender, so that will wait until our Jan. 19 appointment. And F is showing! It's so cute! We'll be 17 weeks on Wednesday, and it was a nice Christmas surprise to have another u/s. We had the quad screen bloodwork drawn, and I found out that unless something really worries them, we likely won't find out the results until our next appointment. I made sure that they used my age (31) for their calculations (because F is older and would technically be considered AMA at 36).

Husband and I have 4 sets of parents between us, so Christmas has already begun. We had dinner with my father and stepmother on Saturday and then Wednesday we travel to my hometown (near Winston-Salem) to spend Christmas Eve with my mother and stepfather. We'll go to my cousin's house on Christmas for brunch and then head back to our house later that day. And then on Dec. 27 we'll have Christmas with the in-laws. It makes for an exhausting week. I'm curious about how Christmas with my family is going to go. It's my mother's side of the family that has the two pg cousins (one of whom is hosting Christmas brunch) and the cousin who just gave birth last month. I am really, really ready to be excited and talk baby stuff non-stop but then another part of me still feels anxiety when I do. I think I'm just going to have to go with what feels right. Intriguingly, all of my cousins have had or are having boys. We are the only "unknown" gender right now. I'm trying to decide if those odds favor us to have a girl or if we will make the 4th boy. F still swears all her dreams are girls. Honestly, we don't care as long as it is healthy.

I hope all of you have wonderful holidays. I hope in some way this Christmas is different, better than what you experienced last year. I bought a tiny stocking for the baby while we were at Biltmore, and I felt panicky after I bought it, but it's up and hanging over my stocking, and I just need to embrace our situation. Last year I felt a tiny bit of hope that maybe Christmas 2008 would be different, and it is. This year, I feel even more (cautious) hope that Christmas 2009 will be even more different. May it be a good holiday for us all.