Feeling Overwhelmed

You know that feeling. You have your to do list. And it's long...or at least it seems really long. And so you think, well I could that...or that ... or maybe that item. But instead I'm seeing that there is a Law and Order SVU marathon on so I'll just watch some of that while I figure out where to start. Of course if you just do one thing on the list, you're pretty motivated to do another and eventually you are done or at least feeling like you've accomplished something.

That's where I am right now with the baby coming in about 2.5 weeks. If she came right now..honestly we would be fine. But I want to be a little bit more ready and so there are things that have to be done.

Today is our 36 week appointment. We have an ultrasound scheduled at 3pm (yes...this will be the 5th one...I'm over it) and then we meet with the doctor at 3:45. Like Jason said, we think she might be sitting a little lower (I mean did have to get up twice last night to pee compared to my usual dead to the world sleep for 9 hours that I've been enjoying!) but I don't think she has turned around. I wonder if this would make it harder for them to manually turn her. That's why we are getting another ultrasound, to check and see exactly what is going on in there so that we can have a reasonable estimate for the probability of externally turning her to work out. I thought that we would have a definite feeling of what we should do by this point given that we have had 4 weeks to think about it, but we don't really know. I think that this situation is making the whole baby thing more overwhelming.

ANYWAYS. Don't say overwhelm.

My Dad has been away visiting his sister and his dad for about a week and a half and comes home tomorrow and I'm looking forward to him being back. It's funny, he was gone for 4 years and I only saw him once or twice a year for a few weeks and now that he's been around and we have seen him almost every day, it's like...wait, I haven't seen you in forever! With him back it will help too as now that I'm working part time we can work on getting the baby's room finished in the afternoons.

So that's it. Working part time has been *wonderful*. I do my work stuff in the mornings and have the afternoons off to relax and enjoy myself. So here's to Wednesday!

Hold the Phones...It's Not Just Me & You?

Ok. So right. This is an obvious one.

In about 3 months Lucille Jean R. will be here. In our lives. Consuming them. And we'll be consuming her with love and kisses and pictures and excitement.

Now here is where I get to sound like the worst soon-to-be-mother ever. What happens to You and I? And by 'You' I mean JasonR and by 'I' I mean LeahC. Jason and I have known each other for over 10 years now. We are both a little on the odd side which we recognize and it's because we walk on that side of weird that I think we love each other so much. In addition because we worked together for so long with a group of people that we didn't really fit in to we spent a lot of time together alone.

We found that we love hanging out with each other. The fun thing about being friends for a year and a half before dating is that we are still best friends. People always have these packed weekends filled with fun Chicago parties and outings and whatevers and when they ask what I did I always say, "Um...well Jason and I went for a walk. Then we sat in the park and read". Or something to that effect. We don't have to have any plans to have a great time together, in fact it is the weekends and the evenings where "we don't do anything" that I enjoy the most. Of course we are doing stuff, but it's not anything that would be interesting or fun sounding to anyone else.

Well what happens when a third party enters the party? Will we have time for just him and me? Will we care? Will we notice? I think what's important is recognizing that this could be a question and is a new situation that will arise. A baby changes everything as we all know. And it changes it for the better. But recognizing situations that could be a little tough or stressful is a good thing. Well that's my opinion anyways.

Ok. Thus ending my worst soon-to-be-mother rant, I'll go on to say that Lucy has been kicking up a storm and I love it. She moved a lot when I was getting my tooth drilled out for a cap that is going on a back tooth and I'm wondering if it was loud for her. Hopefully she get's her father's teeth and not these awful teeth that come down the LeahC line.

Hi there, it's Jason. And yeah, I also hope she doesn't get the LeahC teeth. She can have all the rest of LeahC's traits though (and whaddya know, she does!), but the teeth we can pass on.

I think having a baby is a funny thing. It's like, hey, things are great between us and we're happy so maybe it's time to have a kid. I mean, it's only a decision that will effect our lives UNTIL WE DIE. No biggie. And if we lose us, no biggie, it's not like it's a irrevocable decision or anything.

Oh wait.

And so, yeah, it's a scary concept. I guess I just try to look at the people who don't stop living their lives because they have a kid. The kids just become a part of their lives and joins the fun instead of the parents rewriting their lives completely because they had a kid. I look to the parents who didn't erase who they are and what they enjoy in the name of having a family. Perhaps there are times that has to be done, but I'd hope that's a last resort.

And what I most take to heart is that nobody has ever said that a kid has changed their lives for the worse, which is pretty impressive. So while changing a dynamic that has been working pretty damn well for the last 10 years is certainly scary, I think it's just another challenge to incorporate Li'l Lucy into our family the right way. We just have to make sure we don't lose "us" when we upgrade to "all of us".

(oh, and don't believe a word of LeahC when she says anything about being a terrible mother. It is not physically possible for her to be anything less than a spectacular mother. She just don't have the capacity to be anything other than great. So there.)

Quick Week

Wait it's Friday already.

And Hold. The. Phones. Today is August 28th. Ok so then. September 28th = 1, October 28th = 2 & November 28th = 3. Shit. That means 3 months from right now Lucy could be here. Knowing my luck she'll being enjoying herself too much not joining us and so I'll still be large and round and just hoping she comes out soon. Either way. 3 months. That's crazy! I feel like we found out we were pregnant like just a few weeks ago. Time flies!

To ring in her 3 months to go she's been moving like crazy. After the Software Craftsmanship North America conference we went out to a meetup and I stood around and chatted with people for oh about 4 hours. When we got home and I had the chance to lay down the child went crazy. Jason looked at my undulating stomach and then at me and asked, "What the hell is she doing in there?" Who knows...what do the babies do in there. Maybe she's like her father who can never get comfortable (seriously..have you ever sat next to him in a movie theater? It's infuriating.) and so she's just trying to find that impossible perfectly comfortable position.

We also think she's really shy because I'll be sitting there reading or knitting and she'll be moving and I'll call people over to look at it or feel it and then she stops. All together stops moving. So there, she doesn't like to be looked at and already wants to be left alone. When I was a little girl and I would get mad I would always shout, "DON'T EVEN LOOK AT ME!!!!" As if not looking at me would solve all the problems and thus I would win the fight. I never won the fight.

Great day at work yesterday. Finally was able to help the code base a little and fix a teeny tiny part of it. But baby steps is what it's all about. Hopefully people pay attention to the e-mail about where to keep parts of the code so that we can keep things nice and neat!

We have another packed weekend this weekend although I'm about 1/2 through The Hunger Games and I might have to cancel everything to finish it. My cousin Lisa has been telling me to read this for about a year now and wow is it good. I already highly recommend it. Looks like book 2 in the series is coming out soon and I'm already itching to read it. But other than the reading we are meeting friends for breakfast tomorrow morning, then we have a wedding for the rest of the day. Then on Sunday we have the cloth diapering class and that's about it.

So yeah. We bring in the third trimester and we keep up with the busy. I think that next week will be pretty calm which is nice. Also if you live in Chicago start using the Chicago Public Library online holding system. You can search for books and then send them to whatever the cloest library to you is. Then you get a nice e-mail telling you when your book has arrived. I have not taken advantage of the library like I should have been and so it's been a nice find. Also the Lincoln-Belmont branch is very nice and I highly recommend it.

We Got a New Running Partner

Why has Jason had to start training alone for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon?

How come Leah can't beat Jason in a sprint anymore?

Is that Leah wearing two sports bras?

The answer to all these questions is yes! Wait. The answer to the last question is yes. The answer to the first two questions is

Because Leah's Pregnant! YAY!
(pause for effect)

Yep, for the last 12 weeks, Leah has been running for two and at a much slower pace (gotta take it easy, you know). About, oh, 14 weeks ago we decided to try for a baby and 2 weeks later - well, you've seen Look Who's Talking - and two weeks after that: pink line! Holy Crap! Didn't really expect it to happen so fast (that's what she said).

As so now we are taking a new turn in life as we try to deal with bringing a baby into this world and not ruining it once it gets here. So answers to questions you might have:

• Yes, Leah's already starting to show a bit, although it's the kind of show that's much more visible in the evening than in the morning (which we don't understand at all, but over the past few days even that's starting to change)
• Yep, she's still running. The doctor cleared her for 30-45 minutes of easy running. The rule is that she has to be able to talk. So she's been doing 3 miles 3 times a week and 4 on Sunday at about 11 min/mile or as Leah likes to say a lot slower than her normal comfy pace of 9 or less.
  
• No, Leah isn't runnning the 1/2, but Jason is. And, while he's sad to be training alone, he's surviving. Luckily it's only a half. Leah is now just Coach Leah and tells Jason what to do (insert joke here).
• Is the baby a boy or girl: yes
  
• We are in the 12th week of pregnancy and so just getting out of the first trimester, which is awesome.
• At 8 weeks we got pictures from the ultrasound when the baby was only 1.87cm long. Now the baby is the size of a lime. That little guy (or gal) grows fast! We think it looks like a gummy bear at this point. Which is good cause we know how much we love our gummy bears. Here are some blobular photos (there will be way cooler photos in the future...I can't help how blob like it is at 8 weeks!):
  

So yeah. Baby. Should be fun.
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Leah speaking now:

Yep, we are oh so excited about this new turn in life. When we got back from our trip to Zurich we thought well we could start trying to have a baby because you know it's going to take a few months to get things going and by that point we'll really be ready and so on. Turns out it didn't take quite that long and 4 weeks later we had a positive pregnancy test. So yeah, we were a little shocked with the pink line (I might have taken 4 home pregnancy tests).

Jason and I have been writing secret posts (which I accidentally published a few of over the past 8 weeks or so, so you might have gotten a sneak peak if you were on your google reader on time). I am going to publish all of those in a day or so and you can read them all, by filtering on pregnancy, and I'll include a link when I let those out. Of course these are going to be in reverse order of when things were happening and we highly recommend you read the earliest post first and work your way to the most recent. There is a lot of them, but they are pretty funny (at least we think so). There will also be a lot more posting in the future, it's hard to not talk about something this fantastic and so that's why there was such a slow down in our posting.

We hope you enjoy the posts, and we hope you enjoy reading about this next challenge in our lives. I am going to continue running for as long as I can, so that should be an interesting experience and I know I'll be looking for tips from any women out there that are currently pregnant and running or have been pregnant and running.

Enjoy!