Baby Bump 22 weeks.

Here's another baby-bump picture. Everything is going great. We're starting to get so antsy about what the gender is. We set an appointment for January 2 for our ultrasound. Natalie is having crazy cravings. Yesterday we were at McDonald's late in the evening (around 10pm) to get an Ice Cream cone. But she went ahead and ordered a cheeseburger, too. Natalie is doing so great! 

Pinchy - Fluttery - Bubbley - Crampy

Those are some of the words Natalie has used to describe what's going on inside of her body. I haven't felt anything yet from the outside. But, it shouldn't be long now.

Natalie is also feeling better. She actually seems to have a little burst of energy. With the Holidays coming on, we'll be ready for our last Christmas as a 2 member family. Next year it will be three. Because three, is a magic number.

Baby Bump

OK, Here's little picture of the developing bump! We're almost half-way done!

-Joe

So Much Support

Well, we’ve made it into our second trimester. It seems that the nausea is getting less severe. That’s a relief. Although it’s not completely gone. Now that the announcement is outta-the-bag, we have received so many wonderful thoughts, prayers and vibes sent our way. We are truly grateful for all of our friends, family and loved-ones. Thanks for everyone’s support!

Living with "the Beast Within"

It's early Sunday morning. What is that sound? Chewing? Footsteps? It's more like a crunchy material like cereal being chewed but without the accompanying 'clink' of the metal spoon against the bowl. Then, a crinkle of a wrapper. - - "Cereal Bar!" I think. I discover I am right when I walk around the bed, I notice a few granola bar wrappers, cereal bar wrappers and other food items on the floor beside the bed. Natalie is always hungry! She even has a name for it: "The BEAST". She's not referring to the baby. She's referring to the actual hunger itself with its own personality and its own agenda! Living with "The BEAST" can be challenging.

• If you over-eat, you're sick.
• If you wait too long, you're sick.
• If you 'think' about food, you're sick.
• If you 'smell' food, you're sick.
• If you eat the wrong 'trigger food', you're sick.

So far, we've discovered what these trigger foods are: Pinapple, Citrus fruits especially lime flavor, egg, anything slimy, and watching food on T.V. commercials. She also gets "bad associations" where if she got sick doing it once, she associates it with that nausea feeling. Such as reading a certain novel, watching the local news, or going to a certain restaurant.

Some of the foods that work well: Bowl after bowl of cold cereal, soup, chicken, steak, pasta, bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, and any other meal not prepared at home.

Facts & Figures...

So readers may be wondering about the when and who and whatevers. Sometime in the middle of August, Natalie and I were arriving home from running an errand. As we were getting out of my little white truck, she said that she felt a little nauseated. Almost like she was pregnant, or something. Well, the next morning while I was eating a bowl of cereal, she came out into the living room and showed me a little sample strip that had two blue lines on it. That's it! It looks like we are going to have a baby. It's a wonderful surprise. We have not really been using any kind of control for a few years, now.

So, we are figuring that the baby is due on April 27th, 2009. Natalie is suspecting the baby is a girl. And, according to the Chinese Calendar for gender and as to when in the year conception occurred, there's a 56% chance it is a girl. Natalie has been dreadfully sick. But, she is handling it well. But besides being sick, she is also getting cabin fever from being cooped up in the house all the time not really being able to do much because of the nausea. I feel so helpless at times. I get awakened by her barfing in the middle of the night. I check to see if she's OK but, there's really not much I can do but massage her back and wait for things to get better. I wish I could take away the sickness.

Why this blog?

Well, we are pregnant. Well, actually Natalie is pregnant. It looks like it's going to be a successful pregnancy this time. Today we went to the doctor and we heard the heartbeat. What a wonderful sound! It seems like everyone now-a-days has a blog. And it seems like there are so many new types of social networking media formats coming out that it's hard to keep up. With MySpace, Facebook, twitter, linkedin, and others, it almost seems like doing a blog is little old-fashioned. But, I've been having so many emotions and feelings I want to share, that I decided to start this blog. Who knows how far it will go? I just wanted to begin to record some of the events and feelings from my own perspective of being a father. And, I want to eventually share my thoughts with my own offspring.