"Dear little 4lb, 11oz Baby Barnes..."

33 weeks: Well, as many of you have heard by now, I have officially been put on bedrest. "Modified", which means I don't actually have to lay in bed like a complete invalid, but I can't actually go for a walk or do anything to make myself useful. My humback whale-like belly is starting to grow barnacles, I think. I feel fine, the baby's doing great, he's just determined to meet this world earlier than we all would like him to. "Threatened pre-term labor" is the technical term according to Dr Barnes, but I think that sounds so ominous, "threatened". Guess this little guy doesn't know that he's much better off where he is- nice and warm and weightless (weightless- what a beautiful thought!).
We got our last U/S to look at his kidneys earlier this week, and they were back to normal size, which was awesome (means no testing for him after he's born), and these are the pics we could get of his face. It's really hard now, because he's all squished up in there. He's got his umbilical cord hanging in front of it, but you can see about half. Not sure where those big lips came from, but they sure are sweet! He's getting big! 4lbs11oz right now.

31 weeks

Here's some pics of me at 31 weeks. The astute observer will notice that I am wearing the exact same outfit as a few weeks ago, but the belly has grown more in the front and has totally filled in my sides and up towards my diaphragm. Just when you thought you couldn't get any bigger, nature says "take that!", goes ahead and causes you to gain more weight in an amount of time you didn't even think was possible... yay. You can tell how thrilled I am by the bottom picture. This face makes several appearances on a daily basis. ;)

29 weeks

We got another scheduled ultrasound to take another look at his kidneys, and looks like we'll have to have another one 3w from now to follow them. They're still a little bit bigger than they're supposed to be, but only a little, so no one really seems concerned... just continuing to follow their size.
He is getting big now! His growth measures is the 46th percentile, except his arms, which measure above the 95th! Meaning, he has inherited my long, long arms- and Derrick, it's really not nice to call your son a "knuckle scraper". Long arms come in handy for many things such as reaching items on the top shelf, scratching your back, making those critical end-of-game goal saves, etc... He weighs close to 3lbs now, and man, it feels like a heckuva lot more than that. By the end of the day I find myself trying to hold my belly up for a little relief from that anchor feeling. He moves around constantly which is great, however, the bigger he gets the more uncomfortable it gets. We're having quite the battle of wills these days. I keep trying to tell him that backs go toward the back and bellies go towards the front, but even with all my nagging and poking him, he still insists on putting his big old hard back right in the L side of my tummy. It's like this big, hard mass sticking out, and trust me, it does not feel too good, and my already football-shaped tummy looks like a retarded humpback whale...
I've attached a few U/S pics from last week. He was really grumpy and pissed off that we were doing this, and refused to let us see his face. In most of the images he was either covering his face with his arms, or turning it in towards my back, so we couldn't see. In the profile pic, the one where he looks like a grouchy old man, you can see that's he's getting quite a lot of hair! No bald little eggheads for us! Just hairy eggheads, I suppose... ;)

Baby shower

We had our baby shower on the 7th of July. Sooo fun! Elma came out from Cali and Jelly came from Boston to help us celebrate.

Big thanks to "the moms" (Mom and Elma), and Christy for making it so great! The food was awesome, the decorations were so cute, and Baby Barnes made out like a little bandit. :)

26w

Well, the little guy is quite active these days. Derrick and I spied on him again the other night earlier this week. He had the hiccups which was super cute to watch and was doing an awful lot of swallowing. I guess it's a new trick he's recently learned. In the pic you can see his tongue going from his lips to the back of his head. Kinda weird to literally be able to see through someone like that.
Thought I'd share with you some of the new things I am learning about being prego.
1) While I have come to enjoy (most times) feeling him move around, looking down and seeing the shirt over your belly moving is not enjoyable, it is creepy. Lifting up your shirt, and seeing your nakie belly move around and poke out and such is even creepier. Again, very, very Alien-esque.
2) The belly is immovable. You cannot bend around it or push it out of your way, try as you might. This makes certain activities, such as putting on undies and pants quite awkward, and other activities such as painting your toenails a near immpossibility.
3) I am quickly losing view of everything below my belly. The bikini zone is long gone, and I am starting to lose my feet. Only my toes remain.
4) This one is sorta for girls only, simply because men will never be able to understand, not because I am modest, because I am not. The tummy has become a shelf. If I am sans bra and I sit down, my boobies rest on it. This is the most revolting feeling that has ever existed. I hate it more than anything. Absolutely disgusting.

The nursery

Mom came up for Memorial Weekend and like always, we put her to work, just like a little Mexican. One of our goals was to get the nursery painted, and paint we did. Well, I didn't know this, but apparently paint fumes will cause me and my unborn child to spontaneously combust, so mom and Derrick painted, and I sat on the floor outside the room watching and pouting like a petulant child. After a while of this, I guess they got tired of me staring at them, and I was finally allowed to paint near the door and window, much to my joy. I love (hate!) the concern, but there is nothing worse is the world than an overprotective mother and Ob/Gyn husband.

22 weeks

This little boy is quite the active bugger! In the last week I've really started to feel him moving around- a lot! It was kinda freaking me out at first, having this thing pounding on my from the inside out (think Signorney Weaver and Alien), and had several strange dreams as a result (one involved our child being born with a full set of teeth which was absurdly distressing, but that's a whole different story). But now that I've started to get used to the feeling, which one can only describe as Alien-esque, it's kind of nice to be able to tell when he's sleeping or awake/mellow or awake/hyper. Right now, for instance, he is not too pleased with me leaning forward in this chair to type my weekly missive, but he is just going to have to deal for the moment...

Have I mentioned how I love being married to Derrick? Besides the fact that he is obviously fabulous, he also comes with perks. Last weekend, I went to visit him in the hospital while he was on call (for a friendly, not conjugal visit- hah ha!), and he scanned me so we could spy on our son for a bit. It's so fun to just sit around and see his face and his hands, and just kinda watch him hanging out. He apparently recently discovered his hands, because he was quite fascinated with his fingers.