One of the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your view) side 'effects' of having a sea monkey in your tummy is that people don't really like it when you use chemicals, stains and other toxic type substances. As you all know, our house has been under a bit of remodeling for the last 10 months and we are getting closer and closer to having it done. But the closer and closer part involved staining and clear coating the furniture pieces that Russ is making so beautifully.

So what to be done?

Ask the Grandparents to be for help.

Just like our wedding location, my dad agreed right away to help us do any of this work and then forgot that he'd said that. Luckily, he didn't change his mind about either. So momter and dadter had time to give us and drove up for the long weekend. They spent lots of hours in the basement applying dyes and stains to the various pieces of our new bathroom.
It. Looks. Awesome.
They also helped us clean and install windows and other little household tasks that really help us so Russ can spend time building the rest of the kitchen. Dad also got his upper body work out by trying to rake up the 10,000 helicopters that fell from the big tree. The lawn now looks the same as before he did it :)

And what did I do while I put my parents and husband to work? Napped. And made them food. And let them tell some folks the good news - or at least be present for the telling of the good news - which I know they enjoyed immensely.

For various reasons we chose to call my grandparents Terlizzi Sunday night to tell them to expect Great Grandkid #7. Well, silly me, I called about 30 seconds before the Brewer game was to start so the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi Gram, hi Grandpa, Happy Memorial Day to you. Russ and I have some news we wanted to share with you. We're going to have a baby in December!"

Gram: "Oh, honey that is great, just marvelous!"

Grandpa: "Are you going to give Grandpa a boy?"

Me: "Either that or a girl."

Grandpa: "Nice talking to you honey, see you soon"

Grandma: "love you."

Click

Hope the Brewers played well. Our plan is to tell the Egelhoff side of the family in person the weekend of Graduation parties (June 13this) and then go public for everyone. So thank you for keeping it mum and your support as we learn how this all works. Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend!

Heat wave = nausea wave

While it is a bit early to say what our little sea monkey likes and doesn't like, mom apparently does not enjoy the heat. This was our first really warm day where I wasn't in a AC controlled building all day and boy could I tell the difference. This was the first time I really felt like I should stick close to the toilet. Hopefully we get a cold front soon!

Looking forward to a Memorial Day weekend with Mom and Dad Ter. They are going to help us start staining the woodwork for the bathroom cabinets now that I have been banned from doing so. We also plan to tell a few key groups of folks this weekend so looking forward to that! Once we both tell work and the grandparents it will be a free for all - we'll keep you posted.

PS - we got a book of baby names. So far we have cut: Jemima, Matilda (how many supermodels have been named Matilda? none) and Quigley (rhymes with squiggly).

Hibernation

It would be much more appropriate to be in my first trimester in late fall I think when various animals start to sleep as much as I do. All I want to do is sleep. It was great having Melissa here earlier this week because we both were like "Dude, it's 3:00 we totally need to take a nap" and would go to our bedrooms and saw logs for a solid hour. Wednesday and Thursday the return to the real world did not provide for this option and I could totally tell. Last night I laid down about 7:30 to read and was pretty much out by 8:20. This morning I rose and shown at 8:00 and feel great. And already plan to take a nap at about 2:00 :)

First Visit

This morning was our initial visit to the baby doctor. Everything looks fine, I am indeed pregnant and most likely my right ovary was the winner this time - I guess it was bigger than the other one which is often a sign. She also talked a lot about the various screenings and tests you can have done at this point to screen for problems with the baby. We have some thinking to do about this over the next week. It's an interesting moral, budget and peace of mind conundrum to contemplate.

In general I'm feeling good, very little nausea and no toilet hugging time yet. I am however markedly more tired and have found myself taking a nap almost every day for a solid hour and sleeping a lot at night. Best get it in while I can here.

My friend Melissa is here visiting this week which will be a good thing for me I think - another person to talk to and someone who has had just a bit of experience in this department (three). The next appointment is June 9th so stay tuned!

Two pounds

I have three different books on pregnancy that I am currently reading. One is very technical and has good detailed information of what and why, another is pretty average and the last one I might classify as trashy. It has 'Tips for Dad' inside like: Clean or vacuum the house without being asked. Right. I love Russ to bits, but I won't h0ld my breath for that one. Or: Give your partner a lot of hugs. Many woman enjoy more hugging and cuddling during this very special time. Time out. Were the authors of this book ever actually pregnant? (Nope, written by a man) Because hugging is very much on the LOW end of what I want right now. You get near these sore boobs and I will most likely back up like you have really bad breath. I learned this last night as we have some very fantastic friends who also happen to be fantastic huggers. And as we aren't yet telling most people our news it's hard to decline the hug when we arrive or leave an event.

The other thing we learned this week about my boobs is that on average I'll gain two additional pounds of weight which will be centered there as they get ready to make food for the little one. Russ read that part of the book, looked up and immediately said "Two pounds?!?!" like I had just brought home two pounds of perfectly cooked bacon that he got to eat all by himself.

April 25th 2009 - the world changes

After a lovely day of Crawling around Art in St. Paul we got home and I was feeling more tired than usual. And since some incense on the crawl made my stomach...well...crawl and I was about three days late, time for a little test.

Do you know how awkward it is to pee on a stick for only 5 seconds, make sure the stick doesn't become inverted the wrong way, cap it immediately and still not get pee everywhere? I didn't either, but successfully avoided any major catastrophes.

So we're going to have a short one in about 9 months. We'd actually started trying in February so were elated, scared and nervous all at the same time. Our first appointment is on May 11th and it can't come soon enough. It's hard to know right now where I am exactly on the timeline but let me tell you there is a major difference in that when I am hungry? I AM HUNGRY. GET OUT OF THE WAY I'M CUTTING TO THE FRONT OF THE BUFFET LINE hungry. Which is only slightly above normal, so this should be fun. I think I'll carry a granola bar with me so I don't take anyone's arm off and have to blame the baby.

This journal will be an account of our experiences as we learn about our little one. Thank you for sharing this journey with us.