15 Weeks!

The first 9 or 10 weeks seemed to drag by - mostly because we kept having to readjust our estimated due date later and later. Now I can't believe it's already been 15 weeks!

Not much to report this week - it boggles my mind (in a good way) that even though i've eaten my share of "bad" food during this pregnancy, I've only gained like 1 lb. (Mostly put on during a stress-induced ice cream binge last week). I'm still 8 lbs lighter than I was when we started our post-holiday crazy diet in January. Some people don't gain a lot, though - maybe i'll be one of the lucky ones :) My body is definitely "shifting", i guess, but still. I can deal with that because it's out of my control!

We're headed for a week vacation (yay!) to St. George Island tomorrow and are super excited. We've heard such great things about it from friends and are really looking forward to a relaxing week on the beach. Some friends are coming down Memorial Day weekend to stay with us, so we'll have a full house! That will be great. We haven't been to the beach together since right after we got engaged, so it will be fun to get back. Plus, we can take the dogs, and I can't wait to see how they react to all the sand and water. I bet they have a blast! I know we can both really use the break from regular life, work, etc, and hopefully will come back rejuvenated and relaxed.

Strangers in a Strange Land

It's been a long couple of days - I was in charge of organizing and carrying out the itinerary for a couple of our New York office visitors.  At nearly every turn, something went wrong - the projector wouldn't work, I blew out the motherboard on my two-week-old laptop by plugging the ethernet cord into a digital phone jack (since when are those jacks the same size??), a program we were demoing as part of the visit wouldn't work as well on my Mac laptop that we used as a replacement, the woman who normally helps set up all these things had to go home sick yesterday, etc...it just started being funny, and I had to laugh.  "But of COURSE that broke!!" I started saying.  But I digress.  I'd met one of the NYC-ers before and had been up there myself, so I knew there were cultural differences.  Not just between NYC and Bham, but between the Time Inc Interactive offices and SPC.  A few choices moments:

Upon arrival at SPC:

New Yorker #1: Where could I get some coffee?

Me: Well, there's some regular coffee in our break room right there - and a fancy coffee machine downstairs - and Starbucks in the cafeteria.

NYC #1: Starbucks drip? 

Me: Um, yes?

NYC #1: What about espresso?

Me: No.

NYC #1: No espresso in the whole building?

Me: No...there's something like it in the fancy machine...but that's not really what it is.

NYC #1: Ohh...[shuffles off to get regular coffee with amazed look on face]

In the cafeteria:

New Yorker #2:[Holds up Mr. Pibb Zero bottle]  What's this?

Me: Um, I think it's Diet Mr. Pibb - you know, like how they call Diet Sprite "Sprite Zero" now.

New Yorker #2: [blank stare]

Cashier: [yells from across the room] It's like Dr. Pepper - it's the Coke product.

Me: Ohhhh...I didn't even realize that's what you were asking!

At lunch:

New Yorker #1: So um, this is going to sound kind of ignorant...

Me: That's ok. We get that a lot.

New Yorker #1: Ok - um, you know the movie Forrest Gump?  Where could I see a house like that?  You know, big and white?  And a pond?

Me: Well, you'd have to go to South Alabama.  About 2 hrs from here.  But we do have a pond on campus, just down the hill...

New Yorker #1: [looks sad] Ohh.

Anyway, good times with that - glad the two days of craziness are over, though!

14 Weeks!

Today is the end of 14 weeks - so I'm officially in the 2nd trimester. Some books say 12 weeks is the end, some say 14, then some don't specify how they're counting, so that gets confusing. (Plus you would think if you divide 9 months by 3, you get 3 months = 12 weeks?) But the very latest anyone says it is is 14 weeks, so by anybody's count it's bye-bye to the 1st tri. (Haha I made a rhyme!) This is supposed to be the "golden trimester", when you are feeling energetic, "cutely" pregnant, feel good, etc...so yay! The 1st trimester was pretty easy for me - such a blessing - but I can already tell that I feel better in general. If anything, I think my moods are leveling out, which is definitely good news in the Shepherd household. It is not much fun to have your mind and emotions (or your wife's mind, I'd imagine) held hostage by zany pregnancy hormones. Brent has been absolutely wonderful in supporting me through all the craziness, though!

Cravings may have started -- yesterday I really wanted to dip peanut butter Nekot crackers in hot chocolate for an afternoon snack. Unfortunately the snack machine only had regular peanut butter crackers, which was not quite the same, but still yummy. I also had sampled some Van Kaas gouda at Bruno's the other day and thought it was the best thing ever. I ate like 5 cubes of samples! So it was still on my mind last night, so I stopped by Bruno's to get some rosemary and olive oil triscuits and gouda (not easy :)) cheese. The Van Kaas was just calling out to me. Sooooooooo yummy, and somewhat healthier than chips and cheese dip from Moe's, which was another option I was considering...now I want some more gouda....

Parking Spaces and Bella Bands

While obviously the "Expectant Mother" parking at Bruno's is probably more intended for those women waddling a little more than me at this point in time, I actually did park in it when I got groceries the other day. And only felt a little guilty. At first. I figured hey - I can't drink alcohol or caffeine or eat imported soft cheeses or cold deli meat - by golly, I'm parking in the expectant mother's spot. You're only pregnant for 9 months at a time anyway (though I'm sure that 9 months will seem like an eternity come September and October!). Kind of funny though - my grandmother used to lend us her handicapped tag when we'd go visit her and have to go somewhere in town, and even when she was with us I felt guilty about using it, since I couldn't certainly walk fine. Guess I've grown in not feeling guilty about EVERYTHING, which is a good thing. God doesn't intend us to live in guilt, and certainly not about well-deserved parking spaces!

On another note - come week 13ish or so, I suddenly couldn't wear my "skinny jeans" anymore, and the rest of my clothes were getting noticeably tighter. Oddly enough, I'd also lost a pound since getting pregnant. I don't quite get it, but they say weird things happen to your body when you're expecting, so ok. In any case, I'd read that a lot of pregnant women think Bella Bands are the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's true! All they are are a thick ring of stretchy fabric (somewhat resembling a tube top) that you wear over pre-pregnancy unbuttoned/unzipped jeans to hold them up. Genius! I'm still not sure how exactly it works, but it does. So comfortable, and my jeans still fit great everywhere else. I'd bought a couple of pairs of pants two sizes two big, and they're still falling off of me and look ridiculous, so this was the perfect solution. I got mine from Pickles & Ice Cream on my first foray into a maternity store. I did feel slightly judged for being in there when I didn't look pregnant, but oh well. I won't be buying any of their way-overpriced maternity boutique wares anyway!

Our Almost-12 Week Appt

Last Monday was our "almost-12 week appt" - by my count I was 11.5 weeks, though the doctors add a few more days to that. I don't really care about the due date, because the likelihood of Nublet being born on either Nov 7th or Nov 11th is pretty low anyway. But, I think Nov. 7th is more accurate than the 11th anyway, and it put us a few days closer to that all important 12-week mark, when you can breathe a little easier and stop wondering if either a) having too many symptoms or b) having too few symptoms is a sign that something has gone wrong.

In any case, the appointment went very well! A nurse had told me over the phone that they would try to listen to the heartbeat via Dopper, and if they couldn't find it, they would send me down the hall for another ultrasound. It sounds slightly evil to be hoping they couldn't find the heartbeat via Doppler so we could see the baby as more than the 7-week blur we had a picture of, but so it was. But it didn't matter - the doc didn't even attempt to hear the heartbeat since I wasn't yet 12 weeks (by either of our counts!) and did a quick in-office ultrasound. Nublet looked grand - and was very, very active! The doc said that was a great sign and that Nublet looked very healthy. What a relief! After that, I finally gave in and told work and Facebook (lol, everyone knows that Facebook is the TRUE announcement of any news). We go back for the next appt the last week of May, and find out the sex sometime in mid-June.

The Nublet Begins!

Welcome to "The Nublet," where we'll be logging our journey to welcome our little one into the world. Since Brent was immortalized forever as "Nub" in an Auburn FIJI House composite photo, it seemed an appropriate name for the blog and babe-to-be. While I'm trying my darndest not to become one of those women who can't talk about anything but pregnancy or babies, I know there are some family and friends scattered far and wide who would like to hear how things are going!