Wednesday, May 30, 2007

20 weeks today

Halfway there! Woohoo! That's all for today.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Karfluki Fest Pictures



As many of you have requested to see pictures of the Daddy-to-be, here are two pictures taken on May 5, 2007 at the Karfluki Fest (James' band Tempest's festival). Also, apologies for the annoying reduced loading of the site - apparently, I should have been compressing all photos before posting them to the blog and this is what is clogging it up. What the heck is compressing? Why doesn't anyone teach you these things in school?! James is going to help me out and go back and compress and re-save each picture on the blog but this will take some time. In the meantime, your patience (and comments) are appreciated!

Friday, May 25, 2007

Teaser blog

Just wanted to let you all know that I am done with exams!!! Also, I went to the doctor today and all is well in the world. CrockBaby's heartbeat is strong and loud, the doctor was amazed at my round, growth-spurted bump, and my health is in tip-top condition. I have experienced cramping and really bad back pain this week so the doctor checked me over extra carefully. The verdict? Just growing pains since the bump has tripled in size since she last saw me. The results from CrockBaby's last screening (for cystic fibrosis and other medical conditions) came back at extremely low risk. And my blood pressure is back to my usual low number of 90/60 so I can rest easy again. ;) Less than 3 weeks until our gender-determining ultrasound...

More blog fun to come in a couple days.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Almost half way there!!!


18w5d pregnant


James likes the glamour shots with no flash


18w5d, 9 pounds, 100+ servings of beef, 8 jars of pickles, 20 gallons of milk, 300 restless nights, 60 headaches, 18 nauseous mornings, 5,000,000 smiles, 100,000,000,000 minutes of daydreaming, 300 cuddles with James, and over 500,000 trips to the restroom*

*all numbers except the first 2 are estimated by a very hormonal woman

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Baby Clothes Part 1


Presenting...the long awaited pictures of newbie clothes! While we're on the topic of baby clothes, I should mention I can't stand pink, frilly, obviously girly clothes for baby girls or clothes for little boys that say things like "Tough Guy" or "Daddy's Little Muscle Man" on them. I am into gender neutral (yet oh-so-hip of course) baby clothes. See below for the winners so far...



From my best British friend Sam(antha) - a Strawberry bib from a boutique in London (Strawberry significance: James stalked me at the Strawberry Music Festival in California 7 years ago)



A wee yellow tee from Grandma Darby...



And matching circus pants from a boutique in Berkeley!



Cousin Ro will love the tigers! Grrrrr!



The hip Oakland Grandma also bought CrockBaby a box of 7 different colored sets of mock-Converse All Star baby booties - perfect for dancing at Daddy's gigs



Baby onesies - purchased by CrockMama on Ebay



Future rock guitarist/groupie depending on which parent CrockBaby takes after


Daddy's political ranting mixed with Mommy's American slang



This is about as pink and frilly as I'll get - and even this is pushing it. Grandma Darby insisted I purchase this when we went shopping - I relented because it was a strawberry.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

CrockBaby Punch Line: No Pictures For You

ARGH!!!!! I just took a whole bunch of pictures of all the cute little baby clothes we have been given/bought so far. The camera works great now (thanks for the drawer full of dead batteries, babe.) Guess what? I can't find the cord to plug the camera into the computer and download the pictures!!! And we all know James was the last one to use the camera. See what I have to live with? It gets better...when I called him on his cell to see if he knew where it was, I heard his cell phone ring. I found his cell phone on top of the refrigerator (???!!!), but unfortunately, no camera cord was with it. So, yet again, NO PICTURES FOR YOU. This is becoming the punch line of the blog and not a very good one, I know. I asked my grandmother if she likes reading our blog and she said "When there are pictures." She can't be the only one who feels the same way, so please accept my apologies. I'll throttle James when he gets home tonight. He better not lose CrockBaby under a pile of dirty clothes or guitar magazines when he's born (even if he does, he's going to be the best dad ever).

I have been extremely busy with work and school (and James' festival last week-end). I have final exams next week so this will probably be my last post until Memorial Day week-end (that's the week-end of May 26-27 for you Brits). I can not believe I am almost done with the semester. I don't know how I did it all. I am looking forward to having a bit more free time this summer to start nesting and prepping for our wee one. Still no movement from the little pea, strange considering he is huge! My belly seems to have doubled in size yet again since last week. It is also hard as a melon. CrockBaby is now 18 weeks, 5.59 inches from crown to rump and 6.70 ounces - check out this chart for Brit-friendly measurements as well. I keep staring at my 6 inch ruler and cradling it (James thinks this is extremely strange). I can't believe my baby is already so big, or long anyway (longer if one were to straighten his legs out!) It's amazing I have this huge thing inside me and still haven't felt it move (particularly because we know CrockBaby is a gymnast). I have to remind myself that he still weighs next to nothing as he has not developed body fat yet. I am told I should feel him move any day now though. I have felt an occasional vague fluttering in my stomach area but it could be gas! Until I feel definite movement, I am going to say I have not felt him move.

Anyway, I need to go get some studying done as I had to work at the accounting firm today (and tomorrow). I promise to start posting regularly again in about 10 days. If we can find the camera cord over the next few days, I'll at least spare 10 minutes of study time to post the pictures of the tiny baby clothes for you.

Hope you all are great! Stay well. xxoo

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Finally, some pics




So, I managed to sort out the technical problem with our camera (Kelly had taken batteries from the collection of used ones I was saving for.....um....) Anyway, here's K's stomach and, despite living in the land of super-sized donuts and soda, it is now bigger than mine (thanks Sam). She still has a long way to go but people are now offering her their seat on the train so she doesn't look simply overweight anymore.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Baby Boom

There must be something in the air at the moment:

My friend and roommate from Manchester, Sam Dungey has just become a father for the first time. Claire gave birth to 7lb 2oz girl, Sophie, at the weekend.

Kath and Sean from Equation will have their hands full with twins later this summer.

I heard this week from James Hanlon (a great friend of mine since secondary school) that his wife, Sarah, is pregnant. When we're in the UK next I'll help him find the bloke responsible. I'm particularly gratified by the fact that Kelly and I beat their due date by 2 weeks. We're in the lead but I wouldn't put it past him to induce labour to beat us so all bets are still on.

It's either something in the air or, more likely, I've reached an age where clocks are ticking pretty loudly for my peers. And I thought I'd bought myself some extra time by marrying young! Anyway, congratulations to all these other parents-to-be; we're looking forward to swapping advice, pictures and anecdotes in the coming years.

Heartbeats and broken cameras

We heard the heartbeat yesterday. It was very anticlimactic after all our high-tech ultrasounds. I wanted a fifth ultrasound but they're making us wait until June 14th now. How mean - everyone else gets 5 ultrasounds by the 16th week, right? Still, of course it was lovely to hear CrockBaby's strong heartbeat. Everything went well in the check-up although my blood pressure has increased a little. Apparently it is nothing to worry about because my BP is normally so low (90/60). It is now 100/62. As there was no accompanying protein in my urine, I am not worried (honest, no hypochondria this time!) but I can't help but wonder why my BP has increased. I learned in my Human Anatomy course that blood pressure almost always decreases during pregnancy and increases in blood pressure can indicate preeclampsia.

Still no pictures as camera is still broken. James has been crazy busy since returning from tour on Monday and so have I. We're off to his band's festival on Friday so you'll most likely have to wait until next week for pictures. It's amazing I have been able to find time to post to this blog at all so I don't want to hear any whining from any of you, understand?