You asked for it...

Well, many of you have been asking for the pics of my belly and so here we are.  Given the fact that, as mentioned earlier, I am growing larger by the second, I decided to embrace the spread (as much as one can embrace something that large) and incorporated it into my Halloween costume that I used for work today.  The only problem I had with this costume was that I was having immense difficulty trying to see if the eyes, etc. were positioned correctly because they were held on with velcro and many children took great joy in plucking the eyes off of my jack-o-lantern, so repositioning was interesting as both pieces of the velcro came off with each pluck.



As you can see from the picture at the right, my stomach sticks way out past my boobs.  Wait.  I guess that's not a totally new thing for me, but at least now I have a reason for my stomach to stick farther out.  Wait.  Forget I said that.  That could be embarrassing. 

And, with this final picture on the left, you see me holding up the bottom of the squatters current digs.  That is a position I have become quite familiar with for a couple of reasons.  First, while my abdominal muscles (as pathetic as they are) are working to keep this high rise up near the boob region, gravity has other thoughts.  In order to address that, my maternity pants, the ones that fit anyway, have the big tummy panel that goes all the way up, again, to my boobs.  I swear, I could make those things into body suits if I pulled hard enough.  Of course, it might trigger a significant case of camel toe (I'm not explaining that one.  If you don't know what I mean, look it up), but it's quite an entertaining visual.  No, I will not be posting pictures of me attempting to make this into a body suit.  Secondly, I often put may hands in that position, because I am pretty sure that my squatter, during the construction process of putting on the addition to my uterus, has rented a jack hammer and is furiously working to knock out that portion of my body.  A couple of times, I actually thought the work was going to knock me off my feet and, no, Sandy, the baby has not yet kicked me in the crotch, although I can hardly wait for that to happen.  I think I would enjoy that about as much as being audited.

Objects in mirror are larger than they appear

Ok, so all along I have been thinking that I am having a boy.  First of all, I just have a feeling it's a boy...I don't know why.  Then, I have been feeling as if I am carrying all in my belly region and that there hasn't been much "spread".  Now, I think that lends credence to the fact that it could be a boy because I have always heard that boys carry largely like a basketball and you can't really tell from looking at the mother from behind if she's pregnant or not because her fat doesn't spread all around her body.  Up until this week, I was feeling like I was all belly because my face hasn't really changed, my rings fit the same, and my body seemed to be mostly the same except for the mini me in me belly.  Now, if you noticed, in that last sentence, I said "up until this week".  Let me tell you why.  I had bought some maternity pants about 2 months ago for work and I hadn't yet gotten the last two pairs hemmed, but I was needing them done, so I asked Nicole to finish them.  So, I tried them on and, when I put on the first pair, it felt strangely tight around my ass region.  I went in to where Nicole was sitting and I said, "these feel really tight!"  I would like to say that her reply was reassuring and made me feel better, but it went more like this.  She saw me and her face contorted a bit and she said, "huh".  "Huh?" I replied.  She asked me to turn around (which I did) and again she went, "huh".  I spun around and she said, "Try bending over".  "Why?  Because you want to see if they're going to rip when I bend over?!?!"  At that point, I would like to say that she said something more supportive, but she kind of chuckled at me and didn't really say anything, but dind't really stop laughing either until I started crying.  Yes, I said I started crying.  DAMN HORMONES!!!  At this point, she said she would fix them, but, folks, the only way she can fix them is if she shaves about 6 inches OFF MY ASS!!!  So that experience had me look at things in a different light.  I began to realize that maybe there is a little more fat on my body (especially my back side) than I was willing to admit.

The next experience that made me reconsider how big I may be getting was what happened with some of Nicole's students.  Now, for those of you who don't know, Nicole teaches in the same school that I work in and she teaches the funtional skills high school class.  That means that most of these kids read on like a first grade level and need things presented to them in the most concrete terms possible.  In other words, if you ask these guys what state they live in, they will probably answer something like, "Uh, Hartford?"  So, one of Nicole's students walked past me in the hall, looked at my belly with her eyes bulging, and said, "Dr. Jen, do you have a baby?"  I told her not yet, but I was growing one and she smiled and kind of just walked away.  Later that day when I went into her classroom, one of the other kids says, "Hey! A baby?"  "Yes, a baby.  Just not yet".  Then, one of Nicole's favorite kids (who often chuckles in his seat as he replays in his head the last Tom and Jerry cartoon he watched the night before) was asked if he had heard that I was goign to have a baby.  He looked at me a bit confused and said, "There's a baby in there?" and I said yes.  Then, Nicole's assistant teacher, LaShintia, asked the student what is the appropriate thing to say to someone who has just told you they are pregnant.  He looked at her completely baffled for a moment, took a second to mentally scroll through his list of polite responses, and replied, "You're welcome".  At this point, folks, I tell you I had to leave the room temporarily because I feared  may lose bladder control from laughing. 

Those interactions, as well as the fact that I keep bumping in to things, can no longer put my socks on without grunting, and can not pick anything up from the floor while sitting in a chair have all led me to believe that I may not be carrying my weight as well as I had thought.  So maybe this is a girl making herself comfy in there.  If that's the case, then I start to worry about that old wives tale of "a girl steals her mother's beauty".  Thankfully, no one has said that one to me yet...Oh wait...I forgot...someone already has.  Thanks, Fatima!  Be-atch.

It's a .................

Hello, again! It's Nicole.  We are 22 weeks!  We had a doctors appointment on Friday for another ultrasound to look at the baby's heart.  As we were walking down the hall to the ultrasound department you pass the labor and delievery.  Well we passed a new mom, well I think it was a new mom, she was being pushed towards the exit with a carseat on her lap, and as we passed the seat, Jen and I both looked in and saw this little tiny head all bundled up.  I thought I can't wait, then Jen said, "I wonder if we have to provide the hat?  Is that another thing we have to add to the list?"  It was kinda funny, typical Jen, always worring what we have to do. But then, I think that's when it hit me, in a few months that will be Jen and I.  I kinda freaked out a little bit.  This little person it going to depend on us for it's every need.  Not that I didn't know this before, but it just seemed so far off.  But now that we are over half way there, it's kind of slapped me right in the face!  There's so much to do and it's not like I can forget about it because Jen keeps telling me of all the things we need to do.  Who knew that I would be the calm one in this situation and that I'd be reassuring her that everything would be ok. 

So we go in for our ultrasound appointment and I knew from the last one that that baby would resemble a baby and not an alien and that maybe, just maybe I would be able to sneak a peek to see if it is a boy or a girl.  Before the tech could even introduce herself, Jen so RUDELY interrupted and said, "We don't want to know".  Now I'm not hormonal or anything, but I did want to slap her at that point.  Anyway, the tech avoided that area at all costs and in my head I was thinking, "Well, the doctor still has to come in and look, so I still have a chance".  So, the doctor came in and took a look at the heart, the limbs, counted all the fingers and the toes (which, by the way, 10 of each, so we're good to go) and then he said the words, "I have to check between the legs" and before I could strategically position myself away from Jen's reach, she mama slapped me right across the eyes and pretty much embedded my glasses into my skull and said, in her very loving tone, "Don't you dare, Nicole!"  So, a few different times in the appointment, the doctor told us to look away and each time he did, in came Jen's hand for another mama slap.  However, I did some pretty good maneuvering and I am happy to tell everyone it is.......................wait for it................I have no idea.  I couldn't see anything other than Jen's fingerprints on my lenses.  Sorry Julia, I did my best, but I got nothing.  So now we really do have to wait because we won't have anymore ultrasounds unless there is a problem, so we won't be seeing him until his birth day....or her birth day.................or did I see something?  Hmm.........