ooops is it thursday already?

forgot to do my wednesday update. i am officially 24 weeks. pj celebrated by making her mom sleep on the couch in order to get one more hour of shut-eye. mama's back is hurting but there was a shocking amount of energy today for her...

ahhhh, waking up at 4:30 instead of 3:30 is a blessing. i am accepting all blessings this week.


wish me luck, tomorrow i tell my students who will travel to Australia in April and who will not...and the parents with their fiery horns will unleash their fury upon me. and i will cover pj with my arms and shrink into the closest corner behind my desks. and here is my religion teacher moment for you:

Lord, grant me the serenity throughout my day tomorrow that i will need to make it through the weekend of endless hate-emails. Let the parents of my rejected students bite pillows rather than turn their abuse towards me. Be with me as i share the news with my students, giving me the numbing power to deflect all their anger towards satan. For thine is the kingdom and power and the glory...from thy bounty through christ our lord amen.

jesus, don't let them hurt me.

playing with balls.

remember when you were a little girl, and you thought it was funny to tuck sports balls in your shirt to pretend you had a pregnant belly...

well my soccer ball is real and its kicking on its own...i am 24 weeks tomorrow. the description of a belly at this stage in the "game" is that it's the size of a soccer ball.

very weird how i have come full circle. atleast when i was young and pretending, i didn't have to put a rubber band in my button hole to keep my pants up.

finally...she's as corny as her mama

so...i'm just about 24 weeks. which according to the baby:food ratio puts PJ at about the length of an ear of corn or just over 1 foot. now if you know me at all you know how much i love corn. and while she won't be able to have it for awhile, i suspect that PJ will love it just as much as i do...

i can see her now, chomping down and attacking the ear in the same sweet way that i do. and i promise to not make fun of her, even though i have suffered for years while enjoying this delightful non-nutricious starch on a stick.

to all those of you who thought you were so funny by ripping on me as i ate corn, you can just forget about making fun of PJ...cause you'll have to face her mama, with an ear in her hand waiting to strike back.

here's to corn. the greatest gift we stole from the indians, besides land.

two heartbeats...

ha..by two i meant, my daughter's and my own.

yesterday at my appt. the midwife asked how things were...i told her how much this baby loves to move. and when she went for the heartbeat...she believed me.

"whoa, she sure is!" as p.j. kept kicking or punching the ultrasound wand. it took forever, but then finally, i heard this huge loud beating noise.

and since it didn't sound normal and completely offbeat - i asked in concern "what is that"

my midwife explained that it was mine and my daughter's beating right on top of each other. so i got to listen to hers and mine...loud and out of sync.

i hope that is not a sign of things to come. i would hope that this child is more ballet than football, more dancing than sitting, more laughter than boredom,

but no matter what, she will be an individual. i can guarantee that.

but just in case, i think i will hook the headphones up to the belly to make sure she has great taste in music, and a good beat to dance to in there.

so i am 23 weeks, measuring perfectly, and of course, gaining weight. grrrrrrr.

i have a good recipe for spaghetti squash...

well, apparently pj is approximately the size of a spaghetti squash...which weirds me out entirely since i thoroughly enjoy the vegetable. unlike the week where she was an avocado.

and she is in squish' squashin' around in there, keeping me up with her tossing and turning. she especially likes to bounce around while i am teaching.
while i would like to think that means she already loves school...my thought is that she hears me talking, and laughing loudly and is responding to all the noises the kids make.

so we will see. i think she will be like her mama and prefer the social aspect rather than the academics.

we are 22 weeks today. and if she is on schedule, her baby lips are becoming more pronounced, her wrinkled skin is covered in fine hair, and she looks more like a newborn baby than her former skeletal self. she even has tooth buds. anything that ends in 'bud' is pretty darn cute.

10 more weeks til the next ultrasound. and yes, the countdown has begun.

ah yes, and a mother at school today said to me "boy, you sure are popping out!"

i still can't decipher whether that means, "boy, you are huge" OR "boy, how exciting!"

i am pulling the latter, even though it feels like the former every time. especially on a day where i had to rubberband my pants together cause there was no way i could button them.

geeez.

21 and sober

so...we are OFFICIALLY more than halfway there...

i mean, im a math teacher...i know that 21 weeks out of 40 is 1 week over half...i also know that 21/40 in decimal form is 0.525 which is greater than 0.5 if you are comparing them on a number line...

sorry, we are doing decimals, fractions and percents right now. it is in my head.

and according to the baby countdown that i have going with my students - we are like 132 days away from the due date.

(i don't like it in days, i will keep my percent count, and my weekly counts instead)

good sam...great hospital

so tonite greg and i went on a meet and greet with the nine midwives that are at our practice.
now of course, thanks to the many dramatic moments pj has given us, we had already met 5 of them...but it was nice to meet the others. any of them could potentially be in the delivery room with us...so its nice to put a face and a personality to a name on some paper.

the biggest thing though was the tour of the labor delivery rooms at good sam.

i will be honest, i have been hesitant, and in many ways unhappy that i am delivering there. its a confusing hospital that i know nothing about - most of its hallways are old (original to the building) and it has several unpleasant smells.

but the labor delivery rooms...they are like hotel suites. hardwood floors, soft lighting, open space, huge bathrooms with spacious showers, beautiful porcelain sinks and tiled bathrooms.

and they even have flat screens...with dvds.

i think greg will be in heaven...although i told him he was not allowed to bring American Gangster in to watch while i am in labor.

all in all it was a good night, that put even more of my fears to rest.

pj is going to be fine, and now, so will her mama when she goes to meet her for the first time.

and....scene.

so, in today's dramatic episode...mama calls her doctor and the doctor puts her on hold for an unbelievable amount of time...then forwards the call to a midwife.

the ringing of the phone after waiting for so long makes mama NERVOUS.

then, a sweet new character comes onto the phone to tell mama that the results say the screen was negative.

in exasperation, mama screams "yes, but what does that mean?" "it is supposed to be NORMAL or ABNORMAL...NOT negative or positive?"

and the calm lady says..."well, negative means they found nothing...so does that help?"

"THANK YOU!!!!!!THANK YOU JESUS" mama screamed in exaltation..suddenly becoming more religious.

and pj got new outfits from her grandma pammy, and they all went on about their day, only this time...smiles were a bit bigger and a good night's sleep would be more than just a dream.


thanks to everyone that texted, prayed, thought of us, called...etc. pj is going to be okay and i know its in part to your believing in that for us this week.

party at p.j.'s crib

so...the crib is up. daddy greg put his skills to work this morning and surprised mama and p.j. with a no-fuss set up.

mama and p.j. were so happy that they cleaned both bedrooms without complaining while dancing (on beat of course) to michael jackson.

pictures to follow soon: of the crib, of the new rug, of the gorgeous diaper bag, of the belly... i swear.

p.j. is on the move...

so in some weird way, i think p.j. is trying to calm her mama down.

all last night, p.j. kept reminding her that she was fine, and that no matter what the results are on Monday...she would definitely keep moving, and growing...

and you can believe me or not, but she kept kicking on a beat. like she was dancing.

just like her mama does.

halfway there...

and trying to stay positive.

thanks for all your prayers and positive thoughts. greg and pj and i are very lucky to have such great people in our lives.

last night we used our heartbeat monitor for the first time. it took me a few minutes, but then in a very calm and happy moment, we found pj's heartbeat. its distinctly faster than my own so i can tell the difference.

it was the first time greg had heard her.

it was really special.

and today marked twenty weeks for us. twenty weeks...i remember when 12 seemed really far off and it was all i wanted to get to because that was somehow the week that meant everything was safe. But now it feels like i am waiting for week 32 desperately to be assured that everything is safe. i am beginning to think there aren't any more SAFE weeks in my life. just one worry after another, hopefully mixed with a lot of funny moments.

but i thought today, why wish the weeks to go so fast. she is coming no matter what results come on Monday, or come on her birthday.

so thank you for your positive thoughts - they have crept into my head somehow, and i found myself laughing with my students today for the first time not thinking about how scared i am for pj.

it felt good.