Drumroll Please....

Finally!!! Internet service and ultrasound scans all in the same place at the same time!!!

Tomorrow it will be exactly two weeks since Deanna was kind enough to invite us to come in during her lunch hour for a 3D/4D ultrasound to have a sneak peak at Sofie's little face. We had quite a time coaxing her to cooperate since she spent the first half hour or so sleeping with one hand and two feet covering her face. Since we know Deanna, we were able to do some things that you probably wouldn't get to try at a typical ultrasound. We had a fun time poking at my belly and watching how it made Sofie move, and at one point I even rolled over to try and encourage her to move her appendages away from her face. Until she decided to cooperate, we entertained ourselves by checking out and measuring all her parts: we're pretty confident now that she is in fact a Sofie and not a W. Orm!, she was estimated to weigh about 4 pounds and 4 ounces, and she still sports extra long femurs! When we were close to giving up on a good shot of her face, she decided to surprise us and let us peak at part of it. Following are five pictures of the side of her itty bitty face...

Clearly she takes after her papa! I'm pretty sure there's not an ounce of me contributing to that face. It will be really interesting to see how much she looks like her "first pictures" when she is born.

The following two pictures are more traditional ultrasound shots of Sofie's face. They look quite a bit different from her alien pictures from ten weeks prior!

And, just in case you weren't convinced that this kid is a spitting image of her daddy, I submit the last piece of evidence...

Just for kicks, a close-up shot of Sofie's nose and lips!

It was such a neat experience to have Deanna give us our first good idea of what Sofie looks like, and being able to have Kyle attend a viewing of his niece was pretty cool too. We had such an amazing time and owe Deanna an enormous thank you!

I just can't wait to kiss those chubby cheeks!

(I did finally upload the cropped belly picture on Sofie's 32 week post as well, if you're interested.)

First Night in Heaven!

Only we could decide to move on Thursday, go apartment hunting on Saturday, get approved for a lease on Monday and pack up and get the heck out of dodge by Wednesday's wee hours. And only I could do it eight months pregnant! Now I' m not suggesting that everything is pleasant and organized around this heavenly new apartment of ours, but holy moly what an efficient week!

As a tribute to that place we lived for two years too many, I will tell you that Ben informed me that tonight, as he was returning there to pick up his car before dropping off the U-Haul, there was a lady bum squatting down in the front of the apartment, pants around her ankles, peeing. I think that about sums it up!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I swear I have such good intentions of getting Sofie's pictures posted, but things have been so crazy nuts around our place lately...

Thanks to some volunteered help from our fabulous-ly supportive family (it takes a village!) and some pride-swallowing on our part, Ben and I will be moving on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky...er...the Cleveland area! Hold on to your hats because this place has two bedrooms! (no more sleeping in the dining room!) and central air! (no more sweating like pigs!) and a washer and dryer in the unit! (the end of my five years toting laundry somewhere else!) and a dishwasher and garbage disposal! (holy cow, what luxury!) and a garage! (what's that?) and the community has a pool and a tennis court!!! (and you better believe I will be pruny from now until Sofie arrives!) and I feel like we're moving from the ghetto straight to heaven. Of course, considering we just went apartment hunting this Saturday and have only just today learned that our application was accepted...and considering that we need to have everything clean and moved by this Friday, things are just a little crazy. This also means that this morning when I went to put the 3D pictures on the flash drive, that we've just recovered from the last place we misplaced it, in order to bring it to the student center so I could post the pictures here, I found that the computer had been dismantled and packed away in the wee hours of the night by my especially productive husband. So...rest assured that I have not forgotten about posting them, but also rest-assured that you will probably not find them here anytime soon!

This weekend the girls from my class got together and threw me a splendid little shower. It was also sort of a last hurrah since we've just finished our VERY LAST CLASS and will not all be in the same place again until oral comps next spring. We had a lot of fun with some unconventional shower games, ate way too much really tasty food and laughed a lot. Intentions were to start Sofie's library, and everyone was so generous with books and clothes and little baby paraphernalia including the cutest tiny emery boards you ever did see. The whole class also pooled their money and bought us our baby swing, which is, I'm convinced, the coolest swing ever invented. I was so overwhelmed by the generosity of this group of penny-pinching career-college folks...I can't wait to share Sofie with them!

My enormous family shower is coming up this Saturday and it's always fun to get the cackling hens together. I can't believe all this is happening already. In some ways it seems like it was just yesterday that we were surprised by two pink lines. So much has changed in the last eight months, and the next eight are sure to bring exponential changes with them. I am hopeful, excited and terrified all at once!

Sofie's Spot 32 Weeks

Here we are at 32 weeks. Sofie made me eat too many minty cookies this month and so it's totally her fault that I gained another ten pounds. Yup...ten...that means I'm up 38.5 pounds, officially over the recommended weight gain for the entire pregnancy, with eight weeks left to go. Hmph. I'm trying very hard to ignore the extra chub hanging out on my thighs and upper arms and daydreaming about the postpartum updates in which I will tell you how many pounds up Sofie is and how many pounds down I am rather than up. Sofie's movements have slowed down a bit this month, probably because it's getting awfully tight in there. I still feel her bopping around, but not with the same gusto she had just a month ago. I'm starting to slow down too and getting more and more uncomfortable, especially in the heat. We only have one ancient window air conditioner that barely keeps the kitchen cool, and it obviously isn't sufficient for pregnant lady sweats. Also, I never realized that when pregnant ladies say that it's hard for them to bend over, it isn't just maneuvering the massive belly that's getting in their way that they're complaining about. It is actually painful to bend over because doing so causes the baby to smash into some organ or another, and you can imagine how comfortable that is!

This has been an incredibly stressful month for Ben and I. Ben is still looking for a job and we are quickly running out of cash. If something doesn't work out very very soon we're facing not having enough money available to cover our bills for August. That's right...August. You know, that month when we're supposed to be bringing home our first child. So you can imagine that I'm freaking out just a wee bit. We had hoped to be moving right around this time, and obviously those plans have fallen through as well. I've been pretty down and very bitter that I'm allowing these annoyances to rob me of the joys I should be feeling over bringing a precious little life into the world. Then again, I've never done anything the easy way. There's no need to start now...

Here are a few extra photos. The one on the bottom was the first time I saw what my belly looks like when I lay down and I happen to think it is ridiculously cool.

I also have some awesome scans to post from the 3D ultrasound that Deanna graciously had us in for on Friday as soon as I can manage to coordinate my technologies. I'll just tease you with the information that this kiddo definitely takes after her father...

BOOBS!!

Or...

More Than You Ever Cared to Know About My Boobs and Why I Hate Them!!

You've been warned.

Those of you who've known me for awhile can attest that in earlier years pregnancy was fascinating to me. When I was in high school I made some abstract pregnant lady sculptures out of clay and bought the coffee table book, "Pregnant Goddesshood" which is filled with portraits of funky pregnant ladies. I always thought that I'd absolutely adore being pregnant, embrace the changes in my body that meant that I was creating a new life and bare my belly with pride.

I was so wrong!

My body image has suffered a horrendous blow through this whole stretching and growing ordeal. I have never had major self esteem issues (sure everyone feels ugly and bloated from time to time, but overall no big problems) until now. These days are complete with loads of negative feelings about my body. Recently, especially, as I have grown out of a lot of the maternity clothes that I have (GROWN OUT OF MATERNITY CLOTHES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!) and I've been shopping for some "professional" clothes to wear for the bloated month and a half that I'll be in clinic before Sofie is born. Who knew shopping for maternity clothes could be so depressing. I am blaming the majority of the disgust that I feel when I envision myself in the mirror trying to make a decision on the lesser of the evil outfit, on my new boobs.

Boobs. In the midst of puberty and beyond, the bane of many youthful girls' existence. I've been fortunate to never really have much of a boob complex either. My boobs were (WERE!) not too small and not too big, pleasantly pink and acceptably perky. Sure, I sometimes envied the girls who could get away with sleeveless and spaghetti strapped shirts and sundresses without worrying about hiding pesky bra straps, but all in all I felt pretty decent about my set. I wish someone had told me, at the beginning of this pregnancy, to spend some quality time appreciating my boobs. I'm quite confident that they will never (NEVER!) be the same again.

These new enormous and misshapen monsters have abandoned their pink perkiness and turned dark and splotchy. They flop and sweat in ways they never knew before and I guarantee they are not pleasant to behold. I'm sure that they're the culprit in my need for increasingly large shirts, and they make tops that would otherwise be pretty darn cute look ridiculous. I'm also quite sure that added boob weight makes me appear much more swollen and whale-like than I otherwise would. And...surprise surprise, blimpiness was not so much the look I was hoping to achieve during pregnancy.

I can only imagine the changes these boobs have yet to make. Needless to say, I am NOT looking forward to experiencing them, and further I am quite depressed about the quite real possibility that I may be stuck with these horrendous boobs, or something even worse (GASP!) for the rest of my life.

This body, it is not my own. And, whoever you are out there who sneakily traded me this one... It's been lovely, but could I please have mine back now?! Pretty please?!

Hmph.

All Clear

Just a short post to say...

I had an OB appointment today during which the midwife assured me that I have not dilated any more, that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the amount of dilation that has already occurred at this stage in the pregnancy, and that I have no reason to worry that this kiddo won't stay safe and sound until I'm so overly ready for her to vacate!

Huge sigh of relief...and back to life as normal!