16 weeks

Had a checkup today and all is well :o) Baby squirmed for a while but we were eventually able to find it's heart rate - going strong at 157 bpm which is apparently "perfect". I'm doing fine too - BP is still good and apparently my weight gain is "reasonable" which is something I "should feel good about". I'll take it!

Spreading the news

Physically not much new this week, but we did hit some other landmarks. We officially reserved a spot for December at a day care down the street. I don't love it quite as much as this one (where we're on the wait list), but they were able to guarantee us a spot for December when I'll be heading back to work, so we took it. Day care is cut throat in Madison (one of the places I called said they'd be happy to put me on their list for their next infant spot opening in June of 2012), so it's a big relief to have a plan.

I also started FMLA paperwork at work. The exciting part there is that anytime someone searches for me on our staff directory, they now see that I'm going to be out from Sept - Dec :o)  Alex hasn't officially told work yet, but plans to soon. We did post a first "hint" on facebook last night - thought it would be fun to beat around the bush for a while before actually announcing it in that forum. 

It's COLD here in Madison today - hope you're waking up to sunshine and spring where ever you're reading this!

Play it again

Happy Friday everyone!

A general update - I'm feeling better. Not quite as sick during the day and sleeping a little better at night. It was a crazy week at work so I'm still wiped out, but I think there's hope on the horizon :o)

I left work a little early today to swing by this sale:
http://danecounty.jbfsale.com/
basically it was a 4 court gym filled with used kids stuff and maternity clothes.  I didn't really spend any time looking at the baby stuff (still feels too early for that), but I did get some maternity clothes.  I really like the idea of buying as much maternity stuff as I can used since it's got such a short lifespan.

One of my projects for this weekend is to go through my closet and actually pack up the stuff that's not going to fit until next winter so I can get a better feel for what I'll need for the next 6 moths. First order of business is some pants that fit. Wish me luck!

Sunday's still Sunday

With all the changes going on in our house (or rather with me) it's nice to fall back on some old habits. Today's turning out to be a class Sunday including the paper, some gym time and of course, cleaning. It's amazing how little we get done during the week so the scrubbing ends up being a weekend tradition.  Good thing we've got max around to help...

Let the record show that Max grabbed the bucket out of the bathroom all on his own, and it was empty which is why Alex grabbed his iPhone instead of a mop.

Summery - no ground breaking baby news, but we're still crazy dog people :o)

Don't trust the rodent

Punxsutawney Phil is a big fat liar.

Madison woke up this morning to 6 inches of heavy wet snow. So much heavy snow in fact that I had to get a ride to work with Alex since I don't have the clearance in my car to get far on un-plowed roads with 6 inches of heavy wet snow on them. And let me tell you that shoveling for an hour after yoga yesterday was not super fun, BUT despite all of it, today was still a great day.

What turned the tide? A package from Rachel!

Rachel send me a big box of her old maternity clothes including some super cute blazers which will be really helpful when I have to get dressed up for customer classes this summer. Also in the box was by far the funniest baby book I've seen so far. I've been feeling pretty down about lack of clothing options recently, so this came at the perfect time. And I got to laugh out loud reading a good book. Overall makes it a good day - thank you bunks :o)

Spreading the word

Big milestone of today: I told my team at work. I had told my team lead (read: boss) a while ago but still kept a pretty tight wrap on things. However I knew that I was running out of baggy sweaters and couldn't hide things for too much longer so I decided this week I would make it official at work. During our team meeting today in the time set aside for updates I just blurted it out. My team (all males, 25-35ish) were stunned at first, but once they picked their jaws off the floor were all very nice about congratulating me. I've got a call with HR set up for later in the week.  It's so nice to not have to keep things a secret anymore! We've got a couple more people we want to make sure we tell directly, but I know Alex is itching to make a facebook posting so we'll probably get there soon :o)

And so it begins...

New baby = new blog. Right?

Family, I'd like you to meet baby provan:

Baby my not look like much yet, but based on the way my pants are fitting, things are definitely cooking. This week's been a big week for baby - we did our first trimester screening on Thursday and figured out that we're not at an above average risk for anything serious genetically, and baby's growing like baby should. I had my normal every 4 week appt with my doc this morning and got to hear the heart rate through Doppler. Nice and strong at 160 bpm.  Overall it's been very surreal seeing things on the monitor and hearing heart rates when physically all I feel is thick around the middle and tired (ALL THE TIME).  It's a good thing I've got another two trimesters to wrap my brain around all this :o)

P.S. Right now I have the blog set to being private to those that I invite, just because it feels weird to have pictures of the inside of me up for public viewing. If you know of someone else who'd be interested in keeping tabs on things just have them send me an email and I'll add them to the list.