Christmas Torture

Quick update:
Still pregnant, still doing very well! I had my dr's appt on Thursday, where they checked my levels of amniotic fluid, blood pressure, bloodwork, and cervix, and all looked good. The baby also had a Non-Stress Test and did very well, so the short story is that we are okay and doctor thinks it is best to just keep waiting for me to go into labor---next appt is on Thursday.

Other bits of good news from the last few days:
* I FINALLY finished all of my grading, so now I really feel like the baby can come. Yay!!
* Agnish FINALLY finished (for now at least) his big project at work on Friday, so he's a bit more relaxed and ready for baby too. Yay!!
* Our OB, Dr. Hasselquist, was just named one of 2007's best OB's in Seattle according to Seattle Magazine's yearly Top Doctors Issue. Of course, we love her, and feel great that we are in such good hands. Considering that this baby was created at the best fertility clinic in Seattle, and then treated by Dr. H, he is used to only the best!

Some Holiday Spirit and Fun
We're getting very excited about the holidays, and in our warped home, this means getting ready to perform some Christmas torture. After all, isn't the holidays all about the ability to annoy and bother your family members? We want to make sure that our baby begins this tradition early.....
In that spirit, Agnish would like me to post a small poll to see what you think we should have the baby wear for his First Christmas celebration.
Here is outfit one, which I am calling "Cutie Animals" theme:



Close up of the onesie-




Close up of the reindeer (?) hat: also not pictured is a matching red and green fleece blanket.



And here is Option Two, which I deem "True Christmas Torture":


How funny is this outfit? I feel that we may be able to tease and mock our child with it for years... What do you think??

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving and to help us get ready for the baby. We had a great time, and the weather was perfect, although it was cold for my parents.
Agnish and mom cooked Thanksgiving dinner while me and Dad ate!
Here are some pictures:

Me, mommy and daddy in front of our Thanksgiving feast:


Me and Agnish in our first Thanksgiving in the new house:


Agnish and my parents:



Mom put up our Christmas decorations before dinner. Thank you mommy!



Look how nice the tree looks! And my parents are so good looking:

Look at the size of my tummy! It is really getting big.



I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

Back from our Lamaze Getaway

Hi All-
A quick note to say hi and that we are back from our Lamaze Getaway. It was very nice to meet other expectant parents, and also a very efficient way to get a lot of useful information. Agnish and I were surprised to realize how little we actually knew about the birthing process! I won't say that I feel ready for labor and delivery now, but I do think I have a better understanding of what to expect (mostly that nothing ever goes as planned, and no one has a 'normal' experience).
It was also very nice to go through all of the training in a beautiful setting, and get away from it all (no work or email for 2 days!).
I'm still feeling good, and hoping that the baby will wait another 2 weeks to show up. My parents are coming in on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, and staying through the weekend. So, I'll post some pictures of our Thanksgiving feast (if all goes well).
Until then, some more pics...
Agnish thought all the posters were funny---here's me holding one so that you can see my big ole belly:



A shadowy Agnish on the porch of our bed and breakfast, Illahee Manor:



Another funny poster that describes the stages of labor and how I'll be feeling at each one. Very much looking forward to the "transition" stage where apparently I'll be feeling pretty great.

Still here, still surviving!

Hi All-
Just another quick post to say that things are continuing to go well. I haven't posted because I can't really think of anything interesting to share. Basically, both Agnish and I have been working A LOT in this last week, trying as hard as possible to get a lot of things done before the baby comes. Personally, I need to grade 117 2-page papers, 52 6-page papers, and complete a revision on an article that is due 12/18. At home, we still need to deal with all of the changes to our insurance/benefits, get childcare/breastfeeding books, write tons of thank you notes, and (hopefully) do some Christmas shopping! Agnish has a few big accounts that have deliverables for the end of November so we just work all the time these days.
So, what are we going to do? Well, we're going away this weekend! But, it seems like a pretty necessary trip since we are going on our "lamaze getaway" which is apparently the newest trend for yuppie couples like us....basically, they supposedly teach us everything we will need to know about the birthing process, baby care and breastfeeding. And, it is supposed to force us into some rest and relaxation, and "couple time" which I guess we will not have for another 18+ years. You can read an article about the popularity of lamaze getaways here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/266455_hcenter13.html
And see the particular class we're attending here:
http://herbertholeman.com/lamazegetaway/

Some friends of ours highly recommended this class, so hopefully all the time away will be worth it!
Hopefully after this weekend I'll post some pics from our trip, along with my growing belly. And, I'll be sure to keep you posted if anything even more exciting happens! take care!

Baby Shower!

Last night we attended the baby shower that my colleagues Mina and Vandra organized on behalf of our department. We had such a good time, and were overwhelmed by everyone's love, support, and generosity.
So, here are some pics from the shower:

We arrived to Mina's very cool house to see that it had been all decked out with baby decorations:


Our wonderful hosts, Vandra (middle) and Mina (right):



And, we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw this huge Pack and Play overflowing with presents for the baby!


Boy was it fun to open all of the presents. Better than Christmas!


Here's a general party shot, looks like everyone had a good time.

Agnish soon realized how much trouble he was in when it was time to disassemble the Pack-N-Play. Let's see...how many PhD's will it take to take down a Pack-N-Play?

Luckily, Morela (our newest hire, and mother of a 13 month old) comes to Agnish's rescue! Later I heard him trying to convince her to move in with us...

Some party guests: Zoe (colleague and mother of 10-month old twins), Mina, me, Agnish and Morela

We couldn't believe how much yummy food Mina got for us!

And, of course, the all-important "Diaper Cake" --no baby shower is complete without one! I think ours is especially cute.

Some cutie pie guests that showed us what we have to look forward to---

Tiago DaCunha (16 month old son of Marcus in the Marketing Department) and Mia Bigley (2.5 year old daughter of Greg in my department). They met and instantly fell in love. Mia was definitely the aggressor...

But, I think Tiago got pretty into her by the end of the party too!


We had such a wonderful time, and now our house is overflowing with baby stuff!

Thanks again to Mina and Vandra for hosting such a great party.

5 weeks to go!

Hi all-
Well, I can't believe I only have 5 weeks or so to go! Things have been pretty good, but I am getting increasingly huge. Last week of teaching, but the list of things to do gets longer and longer...
We had a great weekend, went to a Halloween party at a colleague's house, where I was dressed as Lucy Ricardo and Agnish was Ricky Ricardo. We would have posted some pics, but my red hair wig was getting very itchy, and all of the kids at the party absconded with Agnish's bongo drums so our illusion came down pretty quickly.
But, in the spirit of upcoming Halloween, here are some pics of Spike, our jack-o-lantern (and my ever growing belly, spooky)!!

Happy Halloween to everybody!

Week 33 Update

Hi everyone,
As I promised many of you guys, I'm going to try to start blogging more often now, since the big day is coming up quickly... 6 more weeks until the due date!
We had a pretty busy week, both Agnish and I are still getting slammed at work. I have 2 more weeks of teaching--yay! Pregnancy related highlights of this week:
--Birth Tour on Wednesday night--We took a tour of our birthing center, which went really well. Agnish and I were both pleasantly surprised at how nice it was, and how organized the whole place seems to be. We found out all of the little practicalities I hadn't been thinking of (like where will we park? What will Agnish eat?)--and the rooms are really nice. Group Health (my hospital) is very nice because the rooms are very large, each with hardwood floors and nice views of the city. Assuming all goes well, all 3 of us will stay in the same room, there is a bed for me with all of the necessary medical equipment, a pull out bed for Agnish, and the baby will room in with us. The rooms are all stocked with really fancy bathtubs for birthing (if we want to use it), TV/DVD, CD players, refrigerators, room service, and all sorts of nice ameneties. Agnish was also happy to see that the entire place has wireless Internet access, so he'll be able to email all of you guys ASAP! (but we can't use cell phones). Seeing the rooms definitely makes everything more immediate and real.
--Car Seat Installed--we spent 3+ hours on Saturday morning getting the baby's car seat installed and checked by licensed car safety experts. What a complicated process, I had no idea! We waited in line for about 1.5 hours, and then it took us about 1.5 hours to actually get everything checked out okay. We had bought a new seat, the Maxi Cosi, and we had a hand-me-down Chicco from Kevin (my big brother). Turns out the Maxi Cosi is not compatible in the middle seat of my Toyota Highlander, so the experts thought we would be better off and safest using the Chicco in my car. So, now we've decided to return the Maxi Cosi---turns out big brother is always right! Thanks KK! Seriously, though, I couldn't believe how thorough these people were, and how complicated it was. Thank goodness that Agnish was there and has the process down now, as I was completely lost after 5 minutes with all of the little things you're supposed to remember. So, now we're driving around with the car seat in the car, which makes us feel even more like parents to be!

So, that's it for now---hope everyone else is still doing well! Will post more soon...

32 Weeks: Belly Pics

Hi everyone-

I'm finally caving into everyones repeated requests to see my gruesome and growing belly! In the meantime, at least I can force you to also see our finished kitchen! I still can't believe how large I am getting, but with such a big baby, I guess I shouldn't be surprised!
Enjoy...










Not sure why I look so mad in this last one, I think Agnish got me at a funny angle--I'm really quite happy these days...promise!

Some 4D Ultrasound Pictures

Here are some pictures from our 4-D Ultrasound. Unfortunately, our stubborn boy decided to sleep with his hand over his face, so we didn't get any shots that were 100% clear. But he did move around enough to get some idea of what he looks like, and maybe a bit of his personality.

Pictures are below:





He seems to have a pig nose with large flared nostrils. He also seems to have large lips - he might be a mixture of both of us...




One of many pictures of him sleeping and resting his face on his fist...he might also get that from his parents...



Occasionally breaking sleep to wipe at his nose...



And he enjoys putting his fingers in his mouth...we also saw some action shots of him swallowing almost 1/2 of his hand...




Once again, more sleeping.

So despite his laziness we were happy to know that he seems healthy and is growing at a pretty healthy pace (especially his head, which is apparently in the 92th percentile for size). He's 4 pounds now, and could end up over 8 pounds by birth, probably just a little bit smaller than the Thanksgiving turkey we'll eat in a few weeks. Needless to say, I feel bad that Christina may have to give birth to a 9-pounder.

Thanks again to our friends Wendy and Scott!

More later...

Don't worry: No news is good news.

I thought I should do another quick post because I've gotten a few concerned emails again from friends who want to make sure everything is going okay. Sorry that I haven't been very good about posting, life is just so crazy. I'm teaching a full quarter (72 class hours) in about 7 weeks so my days have been very full of teaching, preparing to teach, and the rest of life. Teaching will end for me on November 2, and hopefully then I'll have a chance to breathe and digest.

Long story short, things are going well! I'm already at 32 weeks, so it is a scary thought that we'll be parents in less than 2 months. Almost all of the work that affects the interior of the house has been done; new windows, new furnace, kitchen is finally complete. We still need to get the new sliding glass doors installed at the end of October, and are trying to figure out whether we can get the carport converted into a garage before the baby comes (there is a huge construction boom in Seattle right now, so any good contractors are busy thru the holidays).

I'm definitely getting very big! Everyone has been requesting belly shots, and I haven't had a chance to take them and post them, but I will do that very soon. Seems like the third trimester is going very well for me, for which I am grateful. I'm not too tired, and am feeling very good physically speaking.

The other exciting news is that my colleague Scott has a wife (Wendy) who works for Phillips, medical equipment manufacturers. They gifted us with a 4D ultrasound last week and it was really fun to see the baby in 3D and in real time. Also pretty cool to visit the Phillips factory and see the machines getting manufactured on the line. Some highlights from the ultrasound:
- The baby was very stubborn, and while he jumped around all the way to the appt, as soon as we got there, he promptly fell asleep. He sleeps exactly like Agnish, with his hands tucked under his cheek and chin, so it was really hard to get a good shot of his face.
-We did wake him up briefly,and he responded by yawning and sucking on his fingers---so still no good shot of his face!
-We decided that he has my nose (piglike) and Agnish's mouth (big lips). No hair yet (which is suprising because I have a lot of heartburn, and the two are supposed to be related).
-He is already at 4 lbs, which is almost a pound more than the projected average weight! If he continues to grow at the average rate (1/2 lb a week),and he arrives on time, I'll be giving birth to an 8-9 lb baby! yikes...
-Even more scary---his head has measured in the 92 percentile--it is HUGE! Double yikes...

Other than that, things are clicking along. We've ordered the crib, changing table and glider, so they should be arriving soon. We also registered at the Right Start, so at least now we have a convenient list of things to get if the baby comes early. I'm also planning on beginning to pack the bag for the hospital in case the baby comes early....

Hope everyone else is off to a nice fall. I"ll try to post more often from now on!!