Our First Nursery Decoration

Yesterday Travis and I visited some little baby stores around Davenport, and by pure luck (and because of Travis's sharp eye) we found a great item for our hopeful Muppet theme. Even if we don't end up getting enough stuff to make the room a Muppet theme, this will still make a great decoration!

World, meet our baby

This is the 3D image of the baby. It's a little hard to make out because the baby wasn't cooperating, but it's arms are cross in front of its face. You can see the two elbows in front there.

Here's the best picture of the whole baby. You can see the profile, an arm, and the leg at the very right edge.

This is a closer shot of the baby's face from the side. The bright four dots there are the baby's knuckles, with the thumb right underneath. I like this one because it's the baby giving us a little fist bump :).

This week's exciting size developments....

This week the baby will grow to be about 3 inches long, roughly the size of one of my favorite Nabisco treats: the nutter butter. In fact, this post may have inspired me to add these to the grocery list this week.... :)

The End of the First Trimester

Today is officially the last day of the first trimester! I'm so excited for a number of reasons: 1. Because everything I read keeps telling me about how much more enjoyable the second trimester is and 2. (more importantly) the baby is really starting to take on exciting developments. It's a lot more interesting to read about how the baby intestines are all inside it's belly now and it's vocal cords are forming instead of a month or two ago when it was merely a blob of cells multiplying into more blobs of cells. It really is truly amazing how the whole process comes together.

We are both SO excited to go into the sonnogram on Tuesday. Because of the specific specialist we are seeing, I had to take a day off work. I wasn't jazzed about forfeiting a day's pay at the end of the year to take a sick day now, but now we are making it a baby-filled and fun day. Plus, I'm excited for the much needed break in the craziness that is school right now.

I'm hoping to start picking out some of the stuff we need for the baby this week, or least begin the researching process. I'm sure it's going to be an exciting but overwhelming task. My goal is to start working on the baby's room as soon as the play is over because I know the further along I get the less energy I'll have to do certain things. We are still kind of stuck on how we want to decorate the room, but I think once we find out if it's a boy or a girl the theme will be much easier to hammer out (and that's only in FIVE WEEKS! Time sure is flying!)

Speaking of, the gender of the baby has already been an interesting point of debate. Travis and I both have an inkling it is a girl (ya know, one of those hunches that have no facts to base it on) and I KNOW Grandma Kershaw has put in her vote, but there lots of people at work that think we will have a boy. So, we shall see :) Whichever it is, we both have the full faith that God is giving us the exact child we are meant to have. You can't get much more comfort than that.

not just a sugar packet anymore.

Exciting advances in our amazing child this week: reflexes, growin' some eyelids, and officially big enough to enhance a rum and Coke.

my little sugar packet

I have been meaning to start posting these images since the beginning and I keep forgetting to! For a few days longer, the baby is approximately the length of a sugar packet and weighs about the same as two of said packets :). It's not quite as cute as the Tic-Tac size it was for a couple weeks, but it's certainly more exciting!

Dr. Appt #2 and the big day

I went to see the doctor for the second time on September 10. I was anxious to see what we'd talk about and/or do, but it ended up being quite short. They took my blood pressure and weighed me (I had lost 2 pounds) and told me to get a flu shot. Because I'm pregnant AND I'm a teacher, I'm just about the first in line to get the H1N1 vaccine so we talked about that for a bit too. The entire thing was done in about 6 minutes. BUT -- I did get my question answered. According to my doctor, if I'm 11 weeks pregnant, I should be reading about week 11 in books. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm an English teacher and he's the doctor so I'll go ahead and listen.

On Saturday we had the annual Parchert family fish fry, which has quickly turned into one of my favorite days of the year. We decided it was a perfect time to start telling the family, since 55 or so of my family members would be all together that day. I was too nervous to make the announcement myself, so I asked mom to do it in a nice Parchert fashion -- over the dinner prayer. It was really nice to share that moment with everyone. From what I understand, Grandma Kershaw cheated and started making her phone calls Friday night. You really have to watch her :).

Then today, I made the announcement at school to the faculty and my students. My students were very excited, moreso for the caramel apple suckers than the news, but it was still nice to hear the congratulations from them as well.

It's just been a wonderful past few days of well wishes and love -- a nice reminder of how many great people we have in our lives!

Next up is the 12 week sonnogram, which is actually on week 13, on September 29. I'm very, very excited to hear the heartbeat and see (hopefully at least parts) of our new little one!

Because I'd like to know if my baby has knees or not...

Talking to Angie tonight I realized it had been a while since I blogged, so I thought I'd do a nice update. I've been discussing with many people how anxious I am to talk to my doctor on Thursday and settle something once and for all: which week I should be reading about in my books. Some make it seem like I am on week 10 and some make it seem like I'm on week 11. As I told Angie, "I mean, it makes a difference as to whether or not my baby has knees or not." Regardless, it's exciting to think I'm 1/4 of the way done with the pregnancy!

I'm also anxious to start telling the general public about the baby. We decided long ago that the date of the Parchert family fish fry would be the day we started dropping the news and now I can't believe that day is just a week away. I think that combined with our upcoming ultrasound will make everything a little more tangible and real. Right now, I still feel a bit like I'm taking the medical world's word for it that there really is a baby in there. I'm also still trying to think of an idea for how I want to tell my students. So far, all I have for sure is that somehow food will be involved. If there's one thing I know about high school students, they tend to be more excited about things when they get to eat because of it.

Eating is still a bit of a challenge for me -- now it's more of an all day thing instead of a evening thing. I have been eating lots and lots of fruits and grains, but there hasn't been a vegetable that has sounded appetizing in weeks. I have slowly developed a routine where I'm eating my 5 small meals instead of my usual 2 big meals and that has made falling asleep at night much easier. I told Travis a couple of days ago that I feel like I might be an expert at being pregnant right around the time I'm not pregnant anymore.

Next week is on to a new schedule since we start the normal school day on Tuesday. While I'm excited about sleeping in a little bit later, I am a little worried about my energy level in the afternoon teaching for an hour and a half longer than I am now. I am also starting play try outs next week. I tried to pick a play with as little stress as possible (13 cast members wearing one modern day outfit, a one room set that never changes, a little over an hour running time etc.) but it still looks like we'll be doing practice at night, probably around 6 or 6:30. But, I'm hoping with the right cast we can have short practices and the stress level will be nothing compared to the musical. I already informed my principal privately that this will be my last hurrah with play directing with the coming of baby Kershaw (he is one of the few people in the building who know about the baby). So, I just have to take it one day at a time and keep my eyes set on that opening night date: November 14th will be here before we know it!