Here’s one of the pictures that Dave took last Sunday. I plan on having him do this every 4 weeks (and will probably change it to every two weeks when we get closer to the end). I’m going to wear the same thing in each picture too, to make it easier to see the belly’s progression (just so you don’t think I only have one outfit).
So anyway, that’s what I looked like on Sunday.
I did have Dave take pictures of me last night (20 weeks pregnant – woo hoo – we’re halfway done!!), but before I can post them I need to talk about our trip to Boston two weekends ago first. I need to try to keep some sort of chronological order here.
Dave had a conference for work in Connecticut so I flew up to meet him in Boston on Thursday night. Friday we went to the New England Aquarium. That’s really the only touristy thing we did in Boston. We had great plans to visit the Sam Adams Brewery and take a tour of the city, but the tour we wanted to take didn’t start until the end of March and we were lazy.
So yeah. Just the aquarium. We’ll be going back to Boston though – hopefully during baseball season. Here are some pictures of the fishes we saw. I thought “fishes” was improper grammar until Dave corrected me. Apparently it’s okay to say because we saw multiple species of fishes. I wonder if there are multiple species of mooses….
Here’s Dave hanging out with some penguins outside of the aquarium. Dave is actual size, the penguins are not – at least I don’t think they are. Dave thinks they might be. I disagree.
We also saw penguins inside of the aquarium.
They have water spray periodically to clean off the rocks. Most of the penguins jumped in the water when it started. This dude appears to prefer showers.
We also saw sea horses and sea dragons.
There’s a couple of sea dragons in the middle here (there were no sea knights or sea damsels in distress).
My favorite critters were the sea turtles. This is Myrtle. She’s over 70 years old and weighs over 500 pounds.
Here she is with a friend. Dave thinks this one was named Scoots.
And here’s one more turtle – just because I can. I didn’t catch his name.
And here we are. Dave even captured a big ugly fish in the picture with us. I’d also like to point out how wonderfully sweet and sensitive my husband is. When I was getting dressed that morning he was nice enough to tell me that the green shirt I was wearing “sort of just made me look fat and not really pregnant”. I think he’s working on material for a book he’s writing, “What NOT to Say to Your Pregnant and Hormonal Wife”.
And here’s that wonderfully sweet and sensitive man at dinner Friday night. He was not expecting a full lobster at all and really had no clue how to eat it. He (thankfully) only wore the bib for the photo.
So that’s it for our tourist account of Boston. We were able to spend a couple of hours Saturday night with Dave’s grandmother, Rose. We hadn’t seen her since our wedding and so it was really nice to actually be able to sit and talk with her for a while. Rose is another reason we need to plan another trip to Boston (during baseball season and when the Duck Tours are running).
Last weekend I asked Dave if he would take a picture of me so that we can track my growing belly. I change weeks on Sundays, and so last Sunday I was exactly 17 weeks pregnant. I figured that was a good time to start and we could repeat the pictures every couple of weeks.
Dave however, had something else in mind. He told me he would draw a picture of me instead and that it would be “even better” than taking a photo with the camera. So without futher delay, here is me at 17 weeks:
Dave did concede that my hair is not quite that scraggly, other than that though he says that photo looks exactly like me and Baby Fish.
I’ll see if I can take a picture of myself this weekend and you can be the judge.
I know I am a little late with these, okay, about 7 weeks late if you want the truth. But better late than never right?
On January 7th Dave and I had our OB orientation at the hospital where the baby will be born. It was just supposed to be the orientation, lab work, and filling out paperwork – but because my previous pregnancy didn’t end on a good note, they wanted to actually see the baby, make sure everything was growing all right and give me an approximate due date. So we got a surprise ultrasound!
Neither of us was expecting it and it was the most amazing experience ever. I wasn’t expecting it to be so detailed – we could see the tiny hands and fingers!! The baby was really moving around like crazy. I guess ultrasounds are really loud from the baby’s point of view, and in her words “the kid was really pissed at me”. We got to hear the heartbeat too – it brought tears to my eyes – it was just awesome.
Seeing the look on Dave’s face as we watched our baby on the monitor was almost as amazing as seeing the baby – the pure love and awe that was on his face – it was beautiful. He got the same look again on his face later when he talked to his stepfather about how cool it was. He is going to be such a fantastic dad.
They estimated at that appointment that I was 10 weeks and 3 days along, giving me a due date of August 2nd.
We had another appointment a week later and then one just this past Friday. I’ll have to catch you up on those later, since I don’t have the 2nd set of ultrasound photos (yep – we got another one on the 14th of January) scanned yet. My next appointment is scheduled for March 18th. It’s the big 20 week one where they might be able to determine the baby’s gender if we wanted to know – which we don’t. We’d rather be surprised. Plus, right now I am limited to buying gender neutral items. I can’t imagine if I had free reign over the gender specific clothes!
Anyway, here are the photos from that first ultrasound.
This was my least favorite of the photos we got that day. I’ll explain why a little later in this post (and my mom will probably yell at me again).
And this one was our favorite. It’s actually framed and sitting on our entertainment center right now.
So back to that least favorite one of mine, it creeps me out. It looks a little too alien to me. You see it too right? It helps if you flip it sideways…
Yeah, my mom was not pleased that I compared her grandchild to an alien. I’ve got my fingers crossed that at our next ultrasound the baby is more human looking.
I am in Mexico – barely – but still it’s Mexico. Just don’t tell my cell phone company since they think I’m in Texas and so I am not getting charged for roaming.
See the very tip of Texas, that city right across the border? That’s where I am. So far the trip is going well. I remember more Spanish than I thought I would. I wish I would have paid a little more attention to reading menus and translating food though. I’ll survive I suppose.
The hotel has free internet, the weather is fantastic (high 70s with a nice breeze), I can walk to and from work, and my room has a mini-fridge. As long as I remember not to drink the water I should be all set.
Dave has informed me that after I get back from Mexico I need to start updating this more regularly with baby stories. So I’m going to do my best there. I’m not sure how many interesting things I will have to talk about while I’m south of the border.
Okay – I know, no Taj post yet. Even worse I haven’t filled out or mailed any of the postcards I bought. Maybe I will be able to get them done before I leave. I don’t know though – since I leave in 5 hours!! Woo hoo!!!
That’s a whole 5 days before I was supposed to go home. You have no idea how happy this makes me. Hopefully I can get over a lot of my jet lag before all of our traveling for the holidays. Plus, I’ll be able to finish the Christmas shopping I wasn’t able to do online. And just to be home, sleeping in my own bed – wonderfulness. Oh! I’ll have more than one night to wrap presents and do 6 weeks worth of laundry too. All good things.
So yeah, those post cards. Think anyone would notice if they have a Virginia postmark? I have a 5 hour layover in the New Delhi airport. I wonder if I can find a place to mail them from there….
Man, I wish I would have had this hotel in New Delhi.
The hallway I am staying in all rooms for women traveling alone – which is nice. You have to have a key to even get into my hallway, and there’s a female guard outside the door to the hallway. The bathroom has things like nail polish remover, facial toner (this scares me a little), pumice stones, and a pink comb. It’s very girly.
It’s obviously very safe – which is fantastic – plus the room is bigger. I have a little couch and a coffee table. The bed is super comfortable. I can’t wait until Saturday when I get to sleep in.
Maybe Saturday you’ll get your Taj post too…..maybe. It’s way better for me to be halfway around the world and posting about things I found in the bathroom, don’t you think?
Right now though, it’s almost 9 pm and I think I’m going to do my ironing for tomorrow and go read in that big comfy bed.
Well, I haven’t been great about updating this while I’ve been here. Okay, I’ve been really bad about updating. To be fair, I’ve also been really busy. My boss sent two people here to do a four person (or more job). So as a result I’ve been a very busy bee. We’ve been working a lot of long days and a lot of weekends too – lucky me.
It doesn’t look like I’m in for a break when I get to Hyderabad either. I’m going to be really busy while I’m there. Thankfully, exactly two weeks from right now I will be on a plane home!!! The good thing is that working so hard has really made the time pass quickly – so that’s a plus.
Anyway, in case you’re wondering what the weather is like here. Here’s the current report:
I think the forecast has called for “smoke” each day I’ve been here – not fog, mist, or haze – but smoke. Here is the view from my window right now, see that smoke in the background.
You probably don’t want to know what causes it. I’ll probably tell you anyway. It’s caused by the dung fires that people burn to keep warm and cook their food. Yup, dung fires. Awesome.
And as proof that Dave and I really did go to the Taj Mahal, here we are in front of it.
Eventually I will have the time/engery to write the full story up and include more photos. I promise.
Dave just left for the airport to head home.
I’ve still got another 20 days here.
Ugh.