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We've Registered!
On the ultrasound front, we may have found a place in Indy that just does ultrasounds for pregnant women and gives them a video and everything. I called last week, but I got an answering machine and they haven't returned my call yet. That doesn't bode well. But if it doesn't come through, I'll deal. I'm coping better this week with not knowing Duckie's sex just yet...I think I've finally become used to (or resigned to) the idea, so it's not eating away at me as much. Still, if I can find a way, I'll jump at it!
Well, this weekend was the surprise party for Erin's 21st. It's so nice to finally be able to write about it! I've been wanting to mention it for weeks, but I know she reads this sometimes, and wouldn't that have been an ironic way to ruin the surprise? :) Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I was surprised at how little it bothered me that everyone around me was drinking. Sure, I wanted a beer, too, but it really didn't seem like a big deal. Marty actually had me rub the keg pump on my belly at one point so the baby could start getting used to it now! In fact, lots of people were rubbing my belly, too! I actually thought it was fun I know a lot of pregnant women get irritated by it, and maybe I will by the end, but right now I actually like it.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure Erin had a good time too...apparently she and some of her friends were up until 4 in the morning! :) Nate and I had conked out long before then. But everything was really great. Several family members were there - Marty and Angela, Abby, Aunt Barb, Aunt Cindy, Sheri, Nanny (if I forgot anyone in this list, please forgive my pregnant brain!) - as well as many of Erin's high school and college friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in ages, and some of whom I'd never met before. I'd venture to say a good time was had by all. :)
On Saturday, when most people went downtown to the Taste of Chicago, Nate and I registered. It was a lot of fun, but it was insanely exhausting! Most people spread the registering process out over at least a couple of days if not more, but we had to get it done on Saturday. In the end, it only took 3 hours, but 3 hours on your feet can feel much longer when you're pregnant. :) Anyway, I made the best of it by every half an hour or so "testing" a new glider rocker and ottoman. :) I think the hardest decision was what bedding to go with. We decided last week that we would not register for Prickly Pear and Friends because it was just too darned expensive. It just doesn't seem worth it to spend that much money on bedding that is going to get spit up on and puked on and whatever other fun things Duckie can find to do to it. But that meant we were going in to Babies R Us with no idea of what we wanted. I'd say we spent close to an hour just making that decision. In the end, we decided on one of the Lennon bedding designs. I was torn between that one and a couple of others, but Nate really seemed to love that one and he doesn't usually express that strong of an opinion about things like bedding, so we decided to go with the Lennon bedding. If you want to see it, as well as most of the other items on our registry, go to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/registry/20BBIU1NK1N96 - if that link doesn't work, just go to www.babiesrus.com and search for my name or Nate's in the registry section.
The other big news from our trip to BRU is that we bought our crib and dresser. Well, actually Mom and Dad paid for the dresser, their very generous gift to us and Duckie, but we put the order in while we were there. It turns out the dresser was in stock - we even got to check it out to make sure there were no flaws - but the crib had to be ordered. However, because the dresser is preassembled (we're loving that), it was too big to fit in our car, so Mom will just pick it up in the Mountaineer or the Navigator at the same time she gets the crib in a couple of weeks and then bring it down to us the next weekend. I'm so excited to get both of them into our home and start getting them ready for Duckie's arrival!
Well, I think that pretty much covers everything from the past few days. I'll try to update more frequently this week, but it may be next week before I get back on a regular daily or every other daily schedule. Adios!
(Whaddaya know? This entry is actually short enough that I'll probably be able to fit more onto the page, instead of just having a single entry on the page!!)
Halfway There!!
Well, it's been a whole week again since I've written an update. Sorry to all my loyal readers (what are there now - 2 of you?). :) My very dear college friend, Cheryl, came to visit from Wednesday night through Sunday. We had so much fun!! We stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning every night, just chatting. On the 4th, we had a BBQ for a bunch of my grad school friends so Cheryl could meet them. We had a lot of fun. We made chicken and burgers on the grill, and then once we were all done eating, we headed to Merrifield Park in Mishawaka to watch the fireworks. They were nice, but nothing to write home about. :)
Friday, however, was the most fun day. Cheryl worked at a maternity store for five years until she graduated college and got a better job. But she is the QUEEN of maternity clothes...she knows it all! I guess at her old store, Dan Howard (which has now been bought by the ubiquitous Motherhood Maternity), they really trained you, so she knows all the tricks about how to tell what will get you through the pregnancy and what won't. (Motherhood employees get virtually no training from what one of the employees at one store told us after picking Cheryl's brain for her best advice.) So early Friday morning, we hit the road to Chicago (I'd pretty much already combed through the only two places I can buy plus-sized maternity clothes in South Bend) and tried on lots of stuff at two Motherhood stores and the maternity section at the Sears in Woodfield Mall (even Chicago doesn't have much of a selection of plus-sized maternity - don't get me started on that subject!). I had been particularly looking forward to Sears because I think their quality is FAR better than Motherhood's (their stuff shrinks even if it never sees a second in the dryer), so I was pretty disappointed to find that, even at Woodfield, the selection was abysmally small. Still, with some careful searching, the two of us found lots of great stuff. In fact, although I will probably buy at least a couple more things between now and November just because it's always nice to get something new to wear, I could technically get through the rest of my pregnancy without buying another thread of clothing! I'm even set to TA in the fall, when I have to dress up a bit more. We got a pair of AWESOME black pants (I'm wearing them now!), a black skirt, an adorable pair of blue plaid capris, a denim shirt, a very bright but very cute pink, orange, and white button down shirt, a gray and black long sleeved cotton dress, and several more things I'm forgetting (I'm going to try to post pictures of everything later). It's so nice to have all of it. Now when I get dressed in the morning, I feel so much more pulled together than I have for the past couple of months. And, best of all, Sears was having a great sale, so I got all that stuff for a little under $150. (Cheryl did buy one of the outfits as a present to me - thanks Cheryl! You know I love it!) I don't think I've spent more than $100 or $150 so far on maternity clothes, and I feel like I've got a full wardrobe, so I think I've done darn good. :)
Anyway, we came home from Chicago on Friday evening, and Saturday we hit Notre Dame. We took Cheryl to the Grotto and the Basillica. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take her into the Basillica because there was a wedding in progress, but we got lots of nice pictures out at the Grotto. It was a beautiful, not too hot, sunny day. That evening, we all went out to dinner and then had dessert at the Chocolate Cafe, a restaurant run by the South Bend Chocolate Company. They have the most amazing cheesecake there, and even though I'm really not supposed to, I splurged and had a piece. Yummy! Gestational diabetes, be damned! :)
Well, that's about it. Cheryl went home yesterday and now I'm here on campus trying to make up for all the time I lost by being a slug since summer vacation started. Yet here I am, writing in my journal. I'm doing a marvelous job, aren't I? :)