boy or girl?

we don't know. and we won't know until roo joins us in august.

to hold you over until then here's what the internet has to say about roo's gender: -

according to the chinese lunar calendar, roo will be a girl because babies conceived in december to mothers who are 28 at the time are female.

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according to the gender predictor from childbirth.org, there is a 31% chance that roo is a boy and a 68% change that roo is a girl. even better this calculation is because:

• You are carrying the extra weight around the hips and bottom, so it's a girl.
• The hair on your legs is not growing any faster during your pregnancy, so it's a girl.
• Boys are carried low. You are going to have a boy.
• Your feet are not colder than they were before pregnancy. You are having a girl.
• Dad-to-be is gaining weight right along with Mom-to-be, which means that you'll have a boy.
• The maternal grandmother has gray hair, so a boy will be born.
• You had morning sickness early in pregnancy, so you are expecting a girl.
• Your chest development has been quite dramatic during pregnancy. You should expect a girl.
• Since the sum of the mother's age at conception and the number of the month of conception is even, it will be a boy.
• Your urine is a dull yellow color, so you will have a girl.
• You are craving sweets, which means that it is a girl.
• Your nose hasn't changed during pregnancy, which indicates a girl.
• You have been craving fruits, so it is a girl.
• Your baby's heart rate is 140 or more beats per minute, so it's a girl.
• Your belly looks like a watermelon, so it's a girl.
• You use the handle, so it's a boy.

so based on 5 minutes on google, it's kinda looking like roo is a girl. that is, if you trust the internet. which of course i do. isn't everything on the net true?!?!?!!? ;)

28 weeks

28 weeks! and fortunately it has not been as scary as the movie! the third trimester is here and the kid is getting huge! from babycenter.com:

By this week, your baby weighs a little over 2 pounds and measures about 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can open her eyes — which now sport lashes — and she'll turn her head toward a continuous, bright light from the outside. Her fat layers are beginning to form, too, as she gets ready for life outside the womb.

You're in the home stretch! The third trimester starts this week and lasts until 40 weeks. If you're like most women, you'll gain about 11 pounds this trimester.

round ligaments are awesome.

can't really type sarcasm :) i have discovered this new form of pain over the past few months. it ranges from the constant burning pain in my lower right side to a sharp, stabbing pain. these days a simple walk from the parking lot to the office will kick the pain into high gear, i.e. the sharp, stabbing pain. fun. dr. jeremy correctly diagnosed my pain. from web md: Round ligament pain refers to a type of pelvic pain caused by stretching of the round ligaments. This occurs more commonly on the right side of the pelvis. Your uterus is normally the size of a pear. Thick ligaments, one of which is called the round ligament, hold your uterus in suspension within your abdomen. As the uterus grows in size and weight, these ligaments become very long and thin, stressing and tensing like rubber bands. - The ligaments pull and tug on nearby nerve fibers and sensitive structures, causing pain. The severity of pain can worry you. Although round ligament pain is uncomfortable, it is also very normal. A ligament spasm, an involuntary contraction or cramp, usually triggers a sharp pain. These spasms are found more frequently on the right side than the left because of the normal tendency of the uterus to turn to the right. You might awaken at night with pain after having suddenly rolled over in your sleep. The pain may also be brought on by exercise.

we really don't know!

oh yeah - to clear up some confusion / speculation... we really don't know if roo is a boy or a girl. we swear. really. several shower attendees were / are convinced that we know it's a boy and just aren't telling. some folks noticed that our babies r us registry had a distinctly boy vibe. it just so happens that all the cute onesies, blankets, and other baby accessories that have puppies and dogs on them are boy-ish. we just love doggies and know that roo will too, regardless if roo is a boy or a girl :) i personally think it's a boy (and have since it was the size of a grain of rice) but have no clue if i'm really right. we'll be happy either way!

surprise!!

man. my coworkers got me good yesterday with a surprise baby shower. i had no idea they were planning anything!

a few of us went out to lunch at chili's. my friend jay had to leave early to run some errands, but i didn't think anything of it. we headed back to the office to the conference room we spend all day in working on our current project. i walked in and there were a lot of people in there (which is normal) including jeremy (which is not normal!) at first i didn't realize that it is weird for jer to be in a conference room at work. then i did. then i noticed the balloons, streamers, cake, and presents and it finally dawned on me. sneaky sneaky!!

a bunch of folks chipped in and got us all kinds of goodies, including the play yard we just adore! we'll be able to use it as a play pen, changing table, and bassinet. little baby roo is starting to acquire a lot of stuff, a trend that's not likely to change any time in the next 18 years :)

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love my coworkers! and i can't believe that jeremy knew about it and kept it a secret!

open house #3 update

so while we were out of town on sunday, our realtor held another open house to make up for the botched one the previous weekend. it was our best attended open house to date, but still only had 4 people came through. we did get a potentially good lead. a man and woman came through. they are scoping out houses for their daughter who is moving to richmond very soon. they really liked the house and thought it was what their daughter is looking for. the daughter will be coming to town in 2 weeks to look at houses so we're hoping to hear from her soon! we're not getting our hopes too high, but this is the most promising movement we've had! fingers still crossed!

wilmington weekend

alrighty i am way behind on all kinds of blog updates :) i'll plug through them tonight!

saturday we drove down to wilmington to see our friends krissy, jeff, brendan, and mrs. o. the drive down was pretty smooth - traffic heading south from richmond is so much more bearable than traffic heading north!!! plus we got to use our new tom tom for the first time. all we had to do was type in the address and off we were. jeremy even got his bojangle's fix :)

mrs. o threw and barbecue / baby shower for krissy and jeff on saturday afternoon. krissy and i got to compare bellies again. it's amazing how different babies grow. krissy is due 2 days before me, but she's carrying her baby much higher so her belly appears much bigger. she's so cute! the shower reminded us of just how much stuff babies require. one of the guests there brought her 2-week old little girl who was wearing her 5th onesie of the day. yikes! i see a lot of laundry in our future! :) mrs. o is just too generous. she got some awesome presents for us. jeremy received a baby medical book and kit (yeah doctor jer!) and a really neat digital baby book. it will allow us to capture this blog and other baby memories for posterity to embarrass roo with years down the road! mrs. o found some cool vintage stuff websites for snoopy stuff and got me a really cool painted mirror of snoopy and woodstock, as well as a red and white snoopy throw blanket which will look awesome draped across a glider chair in the nursery! the icing on the cake (hehehe) was the diaper cakes she made for both me and krissy (see picture above!) she used rolled up diapers, bottles, and other little baby things to decorate the cakes. so clever and so useful! thank you so much mrs. o!!! it was such a relaxing weekend away from all the stress of home (probably our last for a LONG time!!) we ate well, played lots of wii, and got to hang out with great friends we don't get to see often! fun fun fun!

27 weeks

wow. 27 weeks. it's just flying by! from babycenter.com: - Your baby is really starting to fill up your uterus. This week he weighs almost 2 pounds and is about 14.4 inches long with his legs extended. He can now open and close his eyes, and he sleeps and wakes at regular intervals. He may suck his fingers, and although his lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with assistance — if he were to be born prematurely. Chalk up any rhythmic movement you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and isn't bothersome to him, so enjoy the tickle. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. Wonder what he's thinking? - roo is definitely thinking about how much it loves kicking me. this week it has discovered that it can wake me up with a really solid kick :) you can even see my belly move as roo rocks and rolls in there. i was holding jeremy's stethoscope to my belly to listen to roo and it decided to kick that too! - we're getting ready to head down to wilmington, nc for the weekend - we'll get to see krissy and jeff and grammy jean :) krissy and i can compare bellies again. her's was much bigger than mine last time but mine has gotten huge over the past two weeks! - the realtor is having another open house here this weekend, after the botched attempt last weekend. not sure many house hunters will be out on memorial day weekend, but who knows. maybe we'll get some bites. we really need to get it sold soon - jeremy has to be up in boston in a matter of weeks. if nothing happens soon we need to determine plan b (renting, buying a house without selling this one, etc.) fingers crossed that it just works out!

really? hadn't noticed...

home sales slump in april, further hitting home values

introducing dr. jeremy!!!!

as many of you know, a chapter of our lives came to a close this past weekend as jeremy FINALLY graduated from mcv after 7 long, hard years of studying. he is now officially a doctor doctor with his md and his phd. what a smartie pants!

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we attended 2 graduations totalling 4 hours. friday was the medical school graduation ceremony where jer got his green medicine hood. he also got to stand alone in front of the entire crowd because he was called out as this year's only graduating md/phd student. the dean called him the epitome of a physician/scientist. his mom and i are very proud, though she was much more vocal about it during the ceremony. :) we're fairly certain we'll be able to hear her on the dvd we ordered for her of the whole graduation ceremony! saturday was the overall college graduation for all of vcu. the ceremony was scheduled from 10-12 but as of 11:28 they had yet to confer a single degree. with over 3,000 students we thought there was no way we'd be done by noon. but because only the phd students walk and all other degrees are conferred en masse we actually finished by 12 - very impressive. saturday jer received his blue phd hood, giving him two and me none :)

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yeah for jeremy! is there a doctor in the house????? :)

26 weeks

i am way late on this one - it's been a crazy week - more later! from babycenter.com: Your baby now weighs a little under 2 pounds and measures about 14 inches, from head to heel. The nerve pathways in her ears are developing, which means her response to sounds is growing more consistent. Her lungs are developing now, too, as she continues to take small breaths of amniotic fluid — good practice for when she's born and takes that first breath of air. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days.

house update

still no action on the house, but hopefully we'll kick up some this weekend. we're having another open house on sunday. will be lots of fun considering that saturday is jeremy's graduation so we'll have folks in and out of the house, plus less time for cleaning. fortunately we've kept it pretty clean since the last open house and for each showing so there's really not that much to do. interestingly, the house for sale next door finally dropped in price - quite dramatically to 299,950- over 15K down from what they had been asking. guess they're having no luck either!

happy mothers day!

happy mothers day to all the mommies, mommies-to-be, dog mommies, cat mommies, grandmas, and grandmas-to-be!

25 weeks

25 weeks. it's crazy - it seems like we just found out we were having a baby! from babycenter.com: "Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. His weight — a pound and a half — doesn't sound like much, but he's beginning to exchange his long, lean look for some baby fat. As he does, his wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and he'll start to look more and more like a newborn. His hair is probably recognizable now (in color and texture), although both may change after he's born." had another appointment this week. found out i gained weight for the first time - but still down based on how much i lost early on. 5 pounds this time. i was freaked out, but the nurse said that most pregos have one crazy month where they put on a bunch of pounds and then stabilize to a slower weight gain. it was really cute when i was at the doctor's office. a couple came in for their first appointment including their first ultrasound. they were so excited. it seems like just a short while ago that was us. but now we're dealing with an ever-expanding belly, heartburn, and all the other fun stuff you experience during pregnancy. also this week, i moved on to the full belly panel pants for the first time. gosh i love them. so comfy. i think everyone should have a pair of those, even if they're not pregnant! :) now it's time to start researching all the gadgets and gizmos we need to support this baby - strollers, car seats, playpens, bathtubs, baby monitors, etc. we don't even know what we need! any advice from experienced parents would be helpful - what do we need? good brands? that thing you just can't live without? anything babies r us will tell us we need but we really don't?

i heart jenny and suz!!!!

jenny and suz - you two are too sweet!!! thank you for the very, very comfy pants!! it's so nice to have pants to wear! thank you thank you thank you!!!!

24 weeks

no wonder my pants don't fit!!! from babycenter.com:

Your baby's growing steadily, gaining about a quarter of a pound since last week, when she was just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long, that makes a pretty lean figure, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon put on more baby fat. Your baby's skin is thin, translucent, and wrinkled, her brain is growing rapidly, and her taste buds are developing. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" and cells that produce surfactant, a substance that helps the air sacs inflate easily. The top of your uterus is now an inch or so above your belly button, which means it's about the size of a soccer ball.

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just for reference, the non-pregnant uterus is only about the size of a fist.

Jackie's Home

After a hard night of drinking, er iv fluids, Jackie is back home with us and almost good as new. You could just see it in his face that he was feeling a lot better. He's on a diet of hamburger and rice for the next few days, now sure how that is a bad thing for a dog. He's also got some antibiotics to take to help restore his normal colonic flora. His brother was very excited to see him too! We're really relieved to have him back home and happy!

Jackie Update

We didn't get any calls from the vet last night or this morning. So, no news is good news. I called this morning and they said Jackie was very "frisky" this morning. He is still getting IV fluids but is doing well. The vet will call us later to give us the details but this was welcome news especially for Bailey. He knows something is wrong with his brother and has been very sulky and clingy. Hopefully Jackie will be coming home soon. We will let everyone know what the vet says when he calls!

we love you jackie pants

Jack's In the Hospital

Our oldest beagle Jack is spending the night at the hospital. He was vomiting and had really bloody diarrhea all day. We took to the vet as soon as the vet could see us. He was diagnosed with hemorrhagic enterocolitis. It sounds a lot worse than it is. Basically, his bowels are so inflamed that he is pooping blood. It can be serious if not treated, but he is getting excellent care as I write this. However, it is still scary and we are anxiously awaiting word that our special dude is doing better. We will keep everyone posted. Please keep Jackie in your thoughts. We love him very much and miss him a lot right now.

good call cate!

cate - thanks for the tip on motherwear.com! my order got here yesterday :) i got loads of cool new shirts and stuff to wear that actually fit! woo hoo!

sigh

the house has been on the market for four full weeks now with minimal interest. we dropped the price earlier this week but no bites yet. we haven't even had anyone come see it since last sunday :( hopefully something will happen soon!

23 weeks

the belly is getting huge! all non-maternity clothes are officially booted from the clothing rotation which means it's time to buy some more maternity clothes (or start doing laundry like 5 times a week!) from babycenter.com: Your baby is more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound. His skin is red and wrinkled. Blood vessels in his lungs are developing to prepare him for breathing. He can swallow, but he normally won't pass his first stool (called meconium) until after birth. Loud noises heard often in utero — such as your dog barking or the roar of a vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze your baby when he hears them outside the womb. look at that - i was right a few days ago when the wiener dog woke up roo :) hopefully roo will learn to sleep through anything, like a true bard!

We got a Wii

Hope everyone is doing well. We've been kind of bummed with the house selling and some of the other stressors in our life, er the baby moving etc. anywho, we had sort of wanted a Wii for a little while but they are hard to come by. Yesterday, Keira was not feeling well, so I took her to work. She figured she wouldn't be there for long so I lingered around the west end of richmond. I decided I would try to find the elusive Wii, mainly because I thought I wouldn't find one and it would kill some time. I went to Best Buy, 2 Circuit Cities, Target and CompUSa. No Wiis to be found. Then I went to Walmart and they had like 10. I went and picked Keira up and told her Walmart had Wiis and she said let's go get one. So we did, and it is soooooo much fun. By the time we got back, the had already sold 4 of them! The Wii has brought some fun back in our lives. The sports games are way fun to play. I got a Mario game which is a lot of fun too. But the best part is this morning I downloaded the original Super Mario Brothers. There are so many fun old games to download. We figured this was justified since we might as well have something to do in the middle of the night with the baby crying :)

can dogs smell pregnancy?

we've been wondering, because the dogs here have been very clingy, martini the dachshund especially. she insists on snuggling with my belly whenever possible. jackson has been cuddlier than normal as well. dogs can smell cancer and termites, why not unborn babies?? apparently it could be for real!

good luck jodi!

roo's "aunt" jodi is defending for her PhD tomorrow - best of luck dr. jodes!!!!

roo can hear! (and it thinks wiener dogs are annoying too!)

aunt lois, her friend carol, and their irish setter puppies spent the night here last night. richmond was a good halfway stopover point for their boston to florida trip for a dog show. the red dogs were sleeping in their crates downstairs in the living room and our dogs were upstairs in bed with us. i was laying in bed awake around 4 a.m. this morning (i have a cold - more about that later) thinking to myself how lucky roo is that it was able to sleep. one of the setters was rustling in its cage which caused tini the wiener dog to commence her high-pitched yapping. roo immediately kicked me hard as if to say, "mom, shut that dang dog up!" :) so having a cold when pregnant is no fun. the only cough medicine allowed is robitussin dm which doesn't seem to do anything. i can't take any of the good stuff :( i haven't gotten a good night's sleep in days since i am coughing so much. and the house situation still sucks. we got a call from our realtor today at 2:15 to see if someone could come see it in 30 minutes. jeremy and i were both asleep on the couch at the time and the house had not yet recovered from our having our overnight guests. somehow we managed to get up and get going. we got all the vacuuming done and the house in respectable condition within a half an hour - not too shabby. i'm sure we could have said no but at this point we just want to sell it so badly. it's like we're being held hostage by this house. the realtor thinks we should drop the price a bit to see if that helps. we're open to that but it just sucks to not make as much money as you hoped. the feedback we've gotten from people who have looked at the house so far has been less than helpful. most of it is stuff we can't do anything about and the other things are things people could change if they wanted. someone said they wished our kitchen cabinets were taller. someone else wished the family room was more formal. someone didn't want a newer home (???) and others are concerned about the fate of the empty lot across the street since we don't know what will go up there. we can't make our next move (buying a house in boston, moving, etc.) without selling this place so we're screwed. kinda sucks.

22 weeks

another week down! they seem to be flying by! from babycenter.com: Your baby now looks like a miniature newborn, checking in at 10.9 inches and almost 1 pound. Her skin will continue to appear wrinkled until she gains enough weight to fill it out, and the fine hair (lanugo) that covers her head and body is now visible. Her lips are becoming more distinct, and the first signs of teeth are appearing as buds beneath her gum line. Her eyes are developed, though the iris (the colored part of the eye) still lacks pigment. Eyelids and eyebrows are in place, and her pancreas, essential for hormone production, is developing steadily.

i have decided that roo is a fitting name for this child as all it seems to do it jump up and down in my belly all day. it's a real wiggler!

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we've had 2 more private showings of the house this week and another tomorrow. maybe one of these will work out!!!! we had to take the dogs to doggie day care today since someone was coming to see the house, and jeremy had to take his boards today (and i had to work of course.) the dogs are so tired now and it'll only get worse - beaglefest is tomorrow. they'll be pooped!

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yeah for jer! 24 years of schooling and he's done!!!! :)

boston update - day 2 - sunday

after thoroughly enjoying our good night sleep in the westin, we got up and going pretty early on sunday. after a botched attempt to find the realtor's office on our own, we got directions and made it there. we had a bunch of houses to see so off we went... house #6 was a nice old victorian in quincy. beautiful house just didn't meet most of our needs. the front yard was fenced but not the backyard which doesn't work for the dogs. the rooms were small and none of our furniture would fit. house #7 was also in quincy. it was really cheap but being sold as is. we pulled up to see it but soon found out that it had actually sold the day before. too bad, since it had promise. house #8 had an AWESOME view of quincy harbor - right on the water. unfortunately the house itself was not nearly as nice. it was obvious that the owner "fixed" it up to sell, but only really took care of the cosmetic stuff. dad said the house was in lousy shape and was the worst one we saw. we had really high hopes for house #9. from the internet listing, it looked like an exact replica of our current house (which of course we love.) too good to be true. the house was as awesome as described, but they did fail to note in the listing that the 1/3 of an acre was almost entirely unusable swamp land :( that wouldn't work so hot for us or the dogs. house #10 was also in quincy. it was an ok house but didn't have a garage. it also backed directly up to an apartment complex which makes us wary. we had to take off our shoes to look through this house which was a little weird. nothing really wowed us about this one unfortunately. we liked house #11 quite a bit. it was also in quincy and had a ton of square footage. it has an in-law suite, which we don't really need, but did provide a lot of space. the only issues were that it didn't have any fencing at all (would be pricey to add) and it has been on the market for close to a year which just made us wonder if there was something wrong with it that we just didn't notice. we've ranked this one as #2 for now we LOVE house #12 in milton which just went on the market. it is perfect perfect perfect for us. what is unfortunate is that there is already an offer on it. we could put in an offer too but given that our house hasn't sold yet, it's highly unlikely that our offer would be accepted. wicked bummer as this was our #1 favorite house from the weekend. house #13 was in milton and was built in 1765. it has a ton of character but just needs more work than we can handle (both time and money wise.) jeremy could hardly stand up straight since the ceilings were so low. house #14 in milton was a similar story. lots of charm and space. good bones and could be an awesome house if you have the time and money to put in to it. unfortunately, it was already close to the top of our budget and my dad estimated that it needed another $100K of work to make it right. so at this point we have one house that we love but can't have. there are 2 others that we'll keep on the list but aren't ready to commit to. we're just going to keep our eye on what's out there but we feel stuck until our house sells. somewhat depressing since we loved the house in milton but just couldn't get in fast enough. we feel like we're at a disadvantage being so far away - we just can't act as fast as the local house hunters. :( the good houses are going to get gobbled up before we could even see them. we're going to get stuck choosing from the leftovers :( and add on top of that - the train ride home sucked. the train was filled to capacity due to the weather and all the airline cancellations. we couldn't sleep sprawling across multiple seats so it was difficult to get any sleep at all. the train also got in almost 2 hours late because of the bad weather along the way.

boston update - day 1 - saturday

we're back! the train ride up to boston on friday nite and saturday morning was good - the train wasn't very crowded so we were able to each use 2 seats and sleep a bit. we pulled into south station right on time at 8 a.m. and walked the 1/2 mile to our hotel. we were too early to check in so we found a restroom in the lobby and got changed and cleaned up a bit. we grabbed breakfast in the hotel restaurant - jeremy loves hotel restaurants. it was yummy but pricey - jer's breakfast buffet was $21! we grabbed a cab and headed over to the realtors' office where we met up with my parents. we were scheduled to see 5 houses on saturday so we headed out. house #1 was in quincy and only a short walk to the t station - good for jeremy's commute. it was our favorite house of the day, but it did have some drawbacks. there's a gorgeous in ground pool in the backyard, but it isn't fenced off in any way which isn't good for beagles or babies. my dad also had some concerns about the lack of insulation in the attic as well as how the roof was vented. that's why dad was there - because that's not stuff we would notice on our own! despite the drawbacks, we're keeping this one on the list. house #2 was in milton, a little further from the t, but a better overall town with a better school system. the house was ok but there were just too many things wrong with it for us to keep in on our list. the yard was tiny which doesn't really work for all the hounds. there was also some weirdness going on in the attic with some really classy cardboard-box insulation. not sure what they were hiding with that. my dad had a bunch of other concerns, making this one just not worth the money :( house #3 had a ton of promise. it is an 1870 farmhouse on a gorgeous lot in milton. the yard and landscaping were awesome so we had a ton of hope for the inside. unwarranted, unfortunately. the inside was interesting. very quirky, with little rhyme or reason to the decor and finishes. some rooms were really nice and others were horribly outdated. it was listed as 2 bath house, but unfortunately one of the bathrooms was in the unfinished basement just like our last house we rented on kensington avenue here in richmond. good for jeremy and monkey, except that they'd bump their heads since the ceilings were only 6' high. also the rooms were just too small and would never fit our current furniture. this one did not make the list :( we were SO excited about house #4. it was our favorite house from our internet research before the trip. it is a gorgeous 6 (yes 6!!!) bedroom colonial built in 1893. it has everything we want (except central air - sorry jeremy!) we pulled up for our showing and rang the bell. nothing. so our realtor called the listing agent only to find out that the owners took it off the market because the offer they had made on another house had fallen through. wicked bummer. :( house #5 really only made our list to look at because of the central air and promise of a short walk to the beach. it is not enough square footage but we figured we'd check it out anyway. the layout actually made the smaller size workable, but again my dad found too much wrong with it. it needed a new roof and a complete exterior paint job. more work than we have time for! no dice :( so day one we saw 5 houses and only one was good enough to keep in consideration. oh well. after the houses, we had tickets to the red sox game. our realtor sent us in the direction of fenway park and we were off. somewhere along the way, my dad decided that we had plenty of time to go back to the hotel before the game despite the fact that none of us are too familiar with the city of boston. we had a map that mom had bought but it was a terribly un-user-friendly map that just caused more issues than it helped. we proceeded to drive around all of boston for almost 3 hours trying to get to the hotel and then just back to the fenway area. my dad was driving like a madman - pretty much just fitting in with the rest of beantown drivers - and cursing up a storm. finally we figured out how to get near fenway. we found a parking lot where they were charging $30 for parking. at that point we didn't care - we were late for the game and we all had needed to pee for hours at that point. we were just happy to be getting out of the car. but just as we were about to pull into the lot, a parking spot on the street opened up so we grabbed that. (but, none of us considered putting quarters in the meter... more on this later.) the game was fun. fenway was packed as it was home opening weekend for the sox. sox won 8-0 which was good given the drama we endured getting there. we headed back out to the car to head back to the hotel. there we found a fluorescent orange parking ticket waiting for us. bummer - until we realized that it was for only $25, which is still cheaper than they were charging to park in the lot! considering all the numerous traffic violations my dad had committed that day, this was a blessing. it could have been so much worse! somehow jeremy figured out how to use the bad, bad map to get us back to the hotels with minimal cursing and crazy dad driving. we grabbed some more expensive dinner at the hotel and crashed - happy to be sleeping in a comfy bed rather than on a train!

21 weeks

here's the latest from babycenter.com: Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long. His eyebrows and eyelids are fully developed. And you can certainly feel him move. He's oblivious to your schedule, though, so don't be surprised if he starts working out just when you're settling down for the night. If you're having a girl, her vagina is formed now, though it will continue to develop until birth. so roo should be 3/4 of a pound but according to our ultrasound this morning roo is already 1 pound and 1 ounce! big little roo! my doctor said that roo is about 10 days ahead of schedule! roo is very, very cute. we got to see it crying and kicking me on the ultrasound. we also have some fun new roo pictures that we will post as soon as we can get them scanned in. roo was not shy and the ultrasound nurse could tell what gender roo is, but we didn't find out. it will be a surprise!! now we need to quickly get the house clean and get packed for our trip to boston this weekend. someone is coming to see our house today at 3:30 and our train to massachusetts leaves at 6. crazy!

peeps are peeping and so are we

we've got someone coming to see the house on friday and someone else coming on saturday! fingers crossed - our realtor said he's feels pretty good about the lady coming to see it on friday!

meanwhile, we're almost ready for our trip to the town of beans this weekend. we've sent our realtor up there a massive list of houses we like, and have flagged the ones we really, really like. i think he has a much better sense for what we're looking for now! we'll be seeing 5-6 houses in milton and braintree on saturday and a whole bunch of houses in quincy on sunday. most of our faves are in quincy, which is really convenient for jeremy. it's about a 25 minute subway ride to mass general from quincy - not too bad!

Jeremy's Weekly Post 4/7

Hello all. As you can see we woke up to find about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Good thing we planted all those flowers :( I can't believe how big the baby is getting. We are already half-way home! I think Roo may be grounded on its birthday for all the kicking, nausea, and stress it's putting on Keira :) Hey, anyone wanna buy a nice house in Richmond? Open house was less than stellar but hopefully it will all work out. I've seen a lot of people take flyers about our house, that can't be too bad. We're going to look at houses next week in Boston. We were hoping to have an offer on our house by then, but who knows. It's kind of exciting b/c this is the house that Roo is going to come home to! I hope he or she likes it :) This week I take the clinical skills portion of my boards Thursday in Philly. Wish me luck. It shouldn't be too bad, but will be a long day and a little bit of driving. The following week I take the written part. Looking forward to putting all my efforts into moving and preparing for graduation!

snow!

we haven't had any snow all year here in the RIC, why not now???

there goes all the nice flowers we planted!

a good reason to buy our house

richmond is less deadly than normal this year

20 weeks

half way there!!!! no more produce comparisons. i guess roo is just a baby now: from babycenter.com : "Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. She's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom, and about 10 inches from head to heel. (For the first 20 weeks, we use measurements taken from the top of the baby's head to her bottom — known as the "crown to rump" measurement. After that, we use measurements from head to toe. This is because a baby's legs are curled up against her torso during the first half of pregnancy and are very hard to measure.)A greasy white substance called vernix caseosa coats her entire body to protect her skin during its long submersion in amniotic fluid. (This slick coating also eases the journey down the birth canal.)Your baby is swallowing more, which is good practice for her digestive system. She's also producing meconium, a black, sticky substance that's the result of cell loss, digestive secretion, and swallowed amniotic fluid. This meconium will accumulate in her bowels, and you'll see it in her first messy diaper (although a few babies pass it in utero or during delivery)." it's hard to believe that we're halfway there! roo is definitely getting big as evidenced by the rapidly increasing size of my belly. it's a wiggly little thing with a powerful little kick. and 10 inches long - that's almost as long as tini, our dachshund! in general, i am feeling much better. i am eating more actual human food and not throwing up nearly as much. what's weird is that the random aversion to tissues is back this week and has made me throw up a couple of times this week. just can't win! no hits on the house yet, but we must be patient :) fingers crossed that the cold temps this weekend don't ruin all the nice work we did out in the yard last week!

if a house is open and no one comes, is it still open?

no good news to report from the open house. it's was pretty darn slow according to our realtor - only three families came in. :( at least they were all actual house hunters as opposed to nosy neighbors. but he said it's pretty rare to get an offer straight from an open house unless it's a super desirable house for whatever reason. fingers crossed that we have better luck with realtors showing it to individual clients. at least the house is super duper clean right now so we can keep it this way and be ready for additional showings at the drop of a hat. our house needs someone to love it as much as we do!!!! it really sucks that there are now 3 houses on our block of our street for sale. the one to our right is for sale and so is the one three doors down on the left. the one right next door is smaller and more expensive, but does have a garage which we don't. the one on the other side is also more expensive. it has one additional bedroom and a formal living room but is still the same (or less) total square footage. it will be interesting to see how this all works out! one of the houses has been on the market since 2/28 and the other has been on the market forever, since the fall i think (i can't find it on the yahoo real estate site or on the local prudential office's site, but the sign is still out front.) so yesterday for the open house we had to scoot and take all the pets with us, so jer and i drove around richmond for a few hours with 5 dogs and a cat in my jetta. loads of fun. how does it work for private showings? any experts know (carey!!!)? do we have to do something with the dogs during the showings? if it's on the weekend or at night we can load them into the car again, but if it's during the day, we can't exactly take them to work with us! doggy/kitty day care would be expensive! people have to understand that we still live here, right???

open house

the house is listed - 4 and 1/2 hours until the open house! got some last minute touch ups to do but we're ready. amazing! check it out! wish us luck! we've got our fingers crossed for a quick sale! wanna buy a house?

Dude I felt Roo

Last night, Keira said Roo was acting up so I put my hand on her belly and felt Roo kicking! It was so awesome!

19 weeks

roo is a zucchini! babycenter.com has this to say:

"Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces, and he measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the length of a small zucchini. His arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of his body now. His kidneys continue to make urine, and the hair on his scalp is sprouting. This is a crucial time for sensory development: Your baby's brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. If your baby is a girl, she has an astonishing six million eggs in her ovaries. They'll dwindle to fewer than two million by the time she's born."

wow! getting bigger!! probably because roo likes ice cream. it really really likes ice cream.

Jeremy Column for 3/30

Basically gonna keep this one short and sweet. Moving sux! Very excited to move, but very painful literally and figuratively. We have an open house on Sunday. If anyone's in the neighborhood stop by and be sure to make a good offer. The baby is very wiggly, kind of like its dad :) I haven't been able to feel it move yet but I still think its pretty cool. When Keira told me Roo was moving, it really made me feel happy. With all the stress in our lives right now, just hearing that the baby was moving made me realize how amazing it is going to be to be a daddy. anywho, enough sappy crap. I'm gonna go drink some beer, get a tatoo, and plan a fishing/hunting weekend b/c I'm a man who shows no emotion :)

whirlwind boston trip

we're going to boston 4/13-4/15 in hopes of finding a new house! it will be a crazy weekend. flights were absurdly expensive so we're taking the train. we'll leave richmond at 6:00 p.m. on friday 4/13 and will arrive at south station in boston at 7:52 a.m. on saturday. hopefully we'll be able to hook up with a realtor saturday morning and afternoon to see some houses. we have tickets to the red sox game at 4 p.m. we hope to look at a ton more house on sunday before we catch our 9:45 p.m. train out of boston. we'll be back in richmond by 10 a.m. on monday and i will get to head straight into work. we'll be in boston in less than 38 hours! crazy!

moving hurts

less than a week until our house goes on the market. we're having an open house on sunday and we still have so much to do. we did get the POD full of boxes and extraneous furniture. the attic is virtually empty. the carpet cleaning company is coming tomorrow to suck the pet essence out of all the carpets in the house. hopefully the power washer will call us back tomorrow so we can schedule an appointment, otherwise jeremy and i will be buying a power washer at home depot and attempting to do it ourselves! oh. and we have to clean and declutter every room in this darn house by sunday. and paint the trim. and mow the lawn. and freshen up the landscaping. the list goes on and on. our current to-do list is 8 pages long (10 point font, single-spaced) and growing! jeremy is in pain because he has carried many large heavy boxes out to the POD. i'm in pain because i am pregnant and simply don't have the energy to do what i am doing right now. plus by the end of the day my feet are so freaking swollen. ouch! roo is definitely complicating this whole moving process, but we still love it anyway!

18 weeks

sweet potato! love it from babycenter.com :

"Head to bottom, your baby is approximately 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a large sweet potato) and she weighs almost 7 ounces. She's busy flexing her arms and legs — movements that you'll likely start noticing more and more. Her blood vessels are visible through her thin skin and her ears are now in position and stand out from her head. Myelin (a protective covering) is beginning to form around her nerves, a process that will continue for a year after she's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and Fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If your baby is a boy, his genitals are noticeable, though he may hide them from you during an ultrasound."

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roo is a wiggly little potato and a night owl like its mom. every night, roo is just rocking and rolling in there!

boxes, boxes, everywhere

we're on box overload here! last saturday i went to uhaul.com and ordered an obscene amount of boxes ($300 worth - ouch!) however, i never received a confirmation email from uhaul and when i logged into their site it said they had no record of my order. eek. especially considering the POD is being delivered tomorrow. we need to get stuff packed and into the POD before we have our open house on 4/1, so yesterday after work, i went down to the uhaul store. i bought $200 worth of boxes (which is a lot of boxes - we have a lot of stuff.) after artfully shoving them into the jetta i brought them home and started packing. today - what's on our doorstep? yup. the $300 worth of boxes i ordered last week. nice. fortunately, uhaul buys back any unused boxes. but who knows? maybe we'll need them all. we do have a ton of stuff to move. i fear we may need multiple PODs.

prep for our big move

forget selling the house, or buying a new one. jer and i need to work on our boston vocab :) wicked good guide to boston english i'm further up the learning curve thanks to my masshole upbringing, but i do need to brush up! it's funny to read some of the vocab words - things i thought everyone said (until i got to the south for college!) like "cellar" instead of "basement", or even worse "down cellar" as a noun. or like "grinder" instead of "hoagie" or "sub". "packie" instead of "liquor store"

17 weeks

more produce comparisons this week! roo is now a large onion! from babycenter.com :

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"Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now, and he's around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. He can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden to bone. His sense of hearing is also developing. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker."

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getting there! roo can hear! time to start teaching it to love wake forest, and hate duke and carolina! :)

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we had our third appointment this morning. roo's little heart is still beating like crazy. i still haven't gained any weight, but i'm not losing any more either so we seem to be stabilizing. next appointment is in 4 weeks (on friday the 13th!) and we will get our second ultrasound then. if we wanted we could find out if roo is a boy or a girl, but we're still opting to be surprised when roo is born.

i knew it!

first of all, congrats to jeremy!!! very well deserved!!! he's a harvard boy now!

and i totally called it! i had a dream about match day earlier this week and we ended up at mass general. i reaffirmed my bet as we were walking in to match day today. even more ironic, here's a picture taken on the MLK weekend trip to boston last year with john, suzanne, jenny, and nathan:

it's hard to tell, but that's me in front of mass general, crossing my fingers :)

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boston here we come!!

We're Going to Boston!

I matched at Mass General! We're all very excited!

I Matched

I matched! We won't know where until Thursday. I'll update the blog as soon as I can on Thursday!

Jeremy Post for Match Week

Hello. So the week is now upon us where we will find out where Roo will be born. To say I am full of anxiety would be an understatement. When I think about the day, I get almost crippling panic! I am really looking forward to knowing and having it behind us. Between the anticipation of Match Day and the VERY time intensive surgery rotation, I know I've been a little scatter brained. I'm not always cleaning up and forgetting to do little things here and there. I'm looking forward to not having these distractions so I can be a better husband for my pregnant wife! On a more exciting note, Keira thinks she has been feeling to baby move. I still can't believe it all and can't wait until the day I finally get to meet and hold little Roo. I'm sure Keira will be more than happy to let me hold Roo after holding him/her for 9 months! Oh well, got get back to panicking, studying, feeling guilty, working etc etc. Talk to you next week!

16 weeks

roo is 16 weeks. and apparently the size of an avocado (i really like comparing roo to fruits and vegetables!) more from babycenter.com :

"At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado. In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby's ears are close to their final position, too. Some of her more advanced body systems are working, including her circulatory system and urinary tract. Her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, circulating her total blood volume through her body many times. (By the end of your pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn't recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she's even started growing toenails."

toenails! how fun!

go deacs!

double OT baby! bring on the hokies!

woo hoo nc state!

yeah! down with duke! roo also likes basketball.

one week to go

we will know where roo will be born one week from now!!!

Jeremy Post for the Week of 3/4

Hello. Trying to keep with my goal of a weekly column. Well we are approaching the fourth month and I've yet to have a panic attack! I can't believe how fast things are going, it seems like last week Kiwi was peeing on a stick and now we can hear the baby's heartbeat! We are down to less than a week until we find out where Roo will be born. Very nervous and excited about that. I think I may be facing an uphill battle in my campaign for husband/father of year as I continue to cook foods that give Keira nausea. This week was Asian noodles from PF Changs. She didn't quite dig the aroma. I really should have known better, but i thought she was starting to feel better. I just can't live off of the tan food group :) My time and the hospital and time spent studying at home are also hurting my campaign. Finally, this week at school was the week of the butt. I had a perform a rectal exam, scrub in on a surgery for the removal of anal skin tags, and remove sutures and a tube from some dude's rectum. Medicine is not really a glamorous field, not really at all. Talk to everyone next week!

it never ends

every time i think the morning sickness is gone, bam! it's back. a couple of weeks ago i was gloating because i thought it was over, but alas i am being punished for that. the anti-nausea meds help with the random vomiting, like from seeing and/or touching tissues. but i still have not gotten my appetite back. i want to eat human food, i really do, but every time i try i pay for it later! spent a good bit of this morning hunched over the kitchen sink (couldn't even make it to the bathroom on time!) because the orange juice i drank just didn't sit well. so i had a sleeve of saltines for breakfast/lunch today. yum. i am trying really hard to get enough protein since the "tan" diet doesn't offer too much. i've had more milk in the past 3 weeks than i have had my entire life. i hate milk. but the pints of chocolate milk they sell in the cafeteria at work have 16 grams of protein each - nearly half of my daily goal. earlier this week, our foster beagle sunshine wasn't feeling good. she woke me up at 5:30 in the morning to take her outside. she's really insistent so i stumbled out of bed and took her outside. the other hounds followed us down a few minutes later so they went out too. it took 15 minutes before i could get them back in the house. sunshine was eating grass the whole time she was out there. thought maybe some water would help so i filled their bowl and flopped back in bed. minutes later, before i could even doze off, i heard the unmistakable sound of a beagle eating something they're not supposed to eat. i figured sunshine was eating tissues out of the trash so i tried to ignore it but a few minutes later i could tell she was eating something fabric. i found her downstairs in the dining room, where she had chewed a substantial hole in our dining room area rug. a very expensive (though i got a great bargain!) rug. grrrr. i yelled at her and tossed her in her crate. she knew i was pissed. then it got worse - i found three vomit puddles in the living room left by my darling sunshine. i have a hard time cleaning up vomit when i'm not preggers so this was a disaster. i had to run to the bathroom during and after each puddle to go throw up myself. lucky jeremy was already at the hospital for the day so he got to miss out on this whole adventure! my goal for this week to find some pants that fit! all the maternity pants i've bought need to go to the tailor to get hemmed so that's on my agenda. krissy also found some cute pants for shorties at gap.com so i need to check those out too! got a bunch of tops from oldnavy.com last week since they were having a big maternity sale - 25% off plus free shipping! i also need to start looking for a dress for this summer since i've got a couple of big events to attend - jeremy's graduation and the chris/katie nuptials! :)

expectant motherhood on... caffeine and alcohol

oh how i wish... darn scientific progress... "Tea and coffee may be drunk as usual provided the former is not found constipating or the latter sleep-disturbing. Small amounts of alcohol, let us say a cocktail now and then or a glass of wine, are harmless, but may prove a nuisance in aggravating frequency of urination." i don't know how i am living without my 8-10 daily servings of diet coke. caffeine-free just isn't cutting it! and damn could i go for a margarita! :)

Weekly Dad Post

Hi everybody! Hopefully this will be a weekly tradition for me. In this week's edition, I would like to talk about 1) a medical students perspective on the Expectant Motherhood Book that Roo's mom has been reading, and 2) update you all on where Roo is going to be born. 1) As you may or may not know, I am almost finished with my clinical rotations in medical school. I finished my OB/GYN rotation 4 weeks ago, that means I still remember a few things about it! If it were 4 months ago, all bets are off. As someone who knows slightly more than the average person about prenatal care, I can without a doubt tell you that the advice written in Expectant Motherhood is completely accurate. I can't tell you how many times I told a pregnant patient that the most important thing she can do is look good. More importantly, we all know nothing bad can come from smoking a pack and half of cigarettes a day. I remember patient TK saying, "Jeremy, I smoke 10 cigarettes a day. I've heard its bad, can you help me quit to protect my baby." I responded, "TK, obviously you don't read the literature because I am going to write you a prescription for a pack and half of smokes per day." In a nutshell, the medical community of 2007 fully endorse the Expectant Motherhood book. What was good in the 50s is good today, because science and medicine really haven't advanced all that much :) 2) This past Wednesday my rank order for residency became final. After I finish this year, I will begin a residency in pediatrics. To do that, I applied to programs and they interviewed me. After the interview process, I ranked the programs I interviewed at from 1 to 10, I applied to 10 programs. That list was finalized on Wednesday. Now all the programs I interviewed at will rank me and a program will try to "match" me to the highest program that I ranked that also ranked me high. On March 12, we will find out if I "matched." It won't tell me where yet, but it will let me know if I did. If for some unknown reason I did not match, my school and I will look for a program that did not fill all its positions and try to get me in there. That is a worst case scenario and is more common for more competitive programs like derm or ophthalmology etc. Then on March 15, there is a party at school where they draw an envelope with your name on it which tells you where you matched. So sometime between 1130-2PM on March 15 we will know where Roo will be born. For those who don't know, the potential destinations are (in no particular order): Richmond, Charlottesville, Winston-Salem, New Haven, Hartford, Boston, Springfield, or Worcester.

expectant motherhood on... smoking

oh boy. this is a good one... "A few years ago, Dr. Alexander M. Campbell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent a questionnaire to leading obstetricians in the United States asking the question: In your opinion does the smoking and inhaling of twenty-five or more cigarettes daily have an unfavorable effect on maternal health? Seventy-five replies were returned. Sixty-three, or 84 per cent, answered the question with "yes." Two, or 2.6 per cent, answered the question with "no." The ten others, that is 13.3 per cent, made replies which indicated some uncertainty. A number of obstetricians who answered "yes" qualified their replies by saying that moderate smoking is harmless. While most obstetrical authorities, then, disapprove of excessive smoking in pregnancy (twenty-five or more cigarettes daily), there is no reason for believing that a woman who smokes moderately, let us say ten or less a day, need change her custom at this time. If you have been smoking considerably more than this for several years, by no means try to give them up in pregnancy. There is no surer way of upsetting the nerves at a period when you should be calm and happy, or of converting a placid, sweet-tempered girl into an intolerable shrew. With negligible effort, even the most inveterate smoker can usually be content with a package a day or somewhat less, and if you arrange this there is no great cause for concern." again, bolding added by me for emphasis. a pack a day - no problem!

snoopy fun

we've gotten a couple more cute things for the eventual nursery! cute bookends, a toy phone, and some fabric for pillows

putting together quite a collection!

appointment #2

the good news - i got to hear roo's heartbeat for the first time! it's strong and healthy. i also learned my blood type which i've always wondered about - A+ the not-as-good news - my morning sickness continues. my doctor is a little concerned about it since i haven't eaten much of anything for months. i lost another five pounds and she's worried that i'm not getting enough protein. so she prescribed me an anti-nausea medicine. we'll see how that goes. ironically i am currently reading the chapter in the 50 year old maternity book called "common discomforts and their treatment." some good stuff and some funny stuff. so here it is - expectant motherhood on... nausea. "As many examples show, nausea is often psychic in origin. For instance, a repellent sight, or an obnoxious odor, or the mere recollection of such a sight or odor, may give rise to nausea or even vomiting." bingo. that is exactly what i have. i can make myself sick on command. but then it takes a turn for the weird, seeming to imply that fear is what causes morning sickness... "An upset mind may cause an upset stomach. Now in all life's encounters there are probably few things more upsetting, mentally and emotionally, than the realization by a young woman that she is pregnant... Emotionally, the implications of pregnancy extend far back into the past when she first met her husband, while its future ramifications are endless. The responsibilities entailed are plain enough also and seem on first thought, perhaps, more than can be assumed. These, and a thousand other thoughts, crowd themselves into the mind, and not infrequently the stomach, in a perverse sort of sympathy with the mind, reacts by nausea." yup. it's all in my mind. it goes on to advise that distractions like movie, novels, and comic strips will cure your morning sickness because they distract your evil mind. sigh. if only. oh - also from my appointment yesterday - my OB is also pregnant! she's having twins in may, and is only planning a 6-week maternity leave. i think she's crazy!

expectant motherhood on... maternity clothes

still working my way through the 50 year old maternity book... oh my how times have changed. "The most important consideration in regard to the expectant mother's wardrobe is that it should be attractive. This may sound like a superficial observation but it is profoundly true. Yes, more important than knowing the dangers of circular garters and high heels is the knowledge that you are well-groomed, because only then (if you are like most women) will you really enjoy entertaining your friends and meeting your husband's friends, and in turn visiting their homes. Pregnancy is no time to be a recluse. The more time you are in the company of others, the better off you are." (bolding added by me for emphasis!) screw comfort! focus on looking good! if only it were that easy! i'm still getting by with my two pairs of pants, but just barely. they are getting much too tight at this point. i bought a cute pair of maternity pants at target, which fit great except that they are made for someone significantly taller than me! i either need to find a good tailor or find somewhere that sells maternity clothes for short people! doctor's appointment #2 is tomorrow morning. fingers crossed that they don't need to take more blood. and hopefully i'll get to hear roo's heartbeat!

expectant motherhood

a few weeks ago jeremy and i found this gem of a pregnancy book at a thrift store for $1. so worth the price! it is the third edition of a book called "expectant motherhood" updated and printed in 1957 (the first edition was published in 1940.) it has some solid pregnancy advice that still resonates 50 years later. (sarcasm is hard to type!) as i make my way through the 198 pages, i will share some choice excerpts with you! page 1 of chapter 1 sets the stage and reminds us whippersnappers how much medicine has evolved...

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"even the most careful examination will rarely reveal clear-cut evidence of pregnancy until two menstrual periods have been missed, and occasionally the diagnosis may remain uncertain for a longer time. The physician bases his decision on three main types of evidence: the patient's observation, the physical examination and, in some instances on laboratory tests."

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No pee-on-a-stick home pregnancy tests that work days before your first missed period back then! but it gets better. later in the same chapter, describing the laboratory tests referenced above...

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"Since the very dawn of civilization efforts have been made to devise a satisfactory test for pregnancy. The priest-physicians of ancient Egypt, in the earliest writings handed down to us, tell of a test then in vogue based on the seeming ability of pregnancy urine to stimulate the growth of wheat and barley seeds; the itinerant physicians of classical Greece employed similar tests, while during the Middle Ages the omniscient physician merely gazed at the urine and in this way claimed to be able to diagnosticate not only pregnancy but many other conditions. Today, thanks to the studies of two German doctors, Aschheim and Zondek, we have at last a sound and trustworthy test for pregnancy and interestingly enough it is performed, like the tests of old on urine. In carrying out the test a small quantity of morning urine is injected into a mouse or rabbit. If the urine comes from a pregnant woman, definite and characteristic changes are produced in the ovaries of the animal within forty-eight or seventy-two hours; if the person is not pregnant no alterations whatsoever occur. The test is accurate in about 95 per cent of cases and in the presence of pregnancy will yield a positive reaction two weeks after the first missed menstrual period, sometimes earlier. It is expensive, however, quite unnecessary in most cases, and is generally performed only when the physician finds some medical reason for haste in making the diagnosis."

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wow. with that, we end chapter 1. stay tuned for more really current pregnancy advice!

one down, two to go...

trimesters, that is! still no sign that the morning sickness is ready to end. but i have adjusted to my life of constant nausea and only eating things that are tan (toast, plain pasta, cereal, crackers, etc.) we did go out to dinner for jeremy's birthday and i managed to keep it all down - even lettuce which has been my mortal enemy. so maybe progress has been made. haven't gained any weight but things have shifted so that i only have 2 pairs of pants left that fit enough to get through the work day. by 5 p.m. i have to unbutton those suckers because i just can't take it anymore! i bought some maternity pants from old navy but they are still too big. when i have enough energy i am going to head to target to find some better fitting maternity pants, or at least pants with an elastic waist!

happy birthday daddy!

love, roo

200 days til d-day

there are 200 days til roo's due date! roo's urinary tract is working, and its fingernails are growing. a big portion of the amniotic fluid from this point on will be baby pee. delicious! roo looks like a baby and has advanced to the stage that its brain can transmit messages. vocal chords are complete, and it can and does cry silently. the brain is fully formed and roo can feel pain. it may even suck its thumb. eyelids now cover the eyes, but will remain shut until the seventh month to protect the delicate optical nerve fibers. (from all that baby pee, i guess!)

last week... supposedly

this supposedly should be my last week of all-the-time sickness :) thankfully. i will be happy to have an appetite back. it's seems to have picked up in the past few weeks. we've added actual vomiting to the normal constant nausea routine. the past two days feeding the dogs has made me ill - just the smell of the kibble. ugh. it's a good diet, i guess! according to the books, i should have gained between 3 and 10 pounds by now. instead i've lost 10! it'll catch up to me eventually! thanks to the mcgowans for the care package. the books are awesome - we didn't have those and we have so much to learn! and i can't wait to try the morning sickness elixir :) i'm glad you guys have such beautiful pictures of eva on your blog because it makes it all worth it! :)

more ebay fun!

this week i found a twin size comforter, flat sheet, and a set of curtains in this fabric - circa 1966 - in three separate auctions. i won all three, though i almost lost the blanket. i got into a bidding war with someone (who strangely sent me a message through ebay to express their dissatisfaction with me.) but, tough cookies. it's an auction, that how it works.

Thoughts from Roo's Dad

Thanks to everyone who has posted! This is a very exciting time for us and we are very happy to be sharing our experience with our friends and family. Being the male in this situation has been exciting and humbling. While I am excited to be a Dad its very hard to watch Keira go through her "morning" sickness. I don't seem to help b/c all the foods I like to eat make her feel more nausea when she smells them. I really need to change my diet and replace Buffalo Wings and Orange Chicken with more benign smelling dishes like rice cakes or air :) She really hates needles too. I can't help but feel a little responsible for having to go through all this. Thanks again to everyone who posts/reads our blog!