Sometimes I have these moments were I see a cute little baby and suddenly I’m not moving and realize… omg… we’re going to have one of those. Near me, in my arms, blinking, breathing, wiggling… pooping, crying, drooling… but here.

I had one of these realizations smack dab in the middle of dinner out with Adam the other night.

I had been craving simple chicken Pad Thai. Nothing fancy, just some Pad Thai. That noodley, nutty, chickeny goodness. Mmm… oh so anyway, was craving it. So off we went to Thai Spice. Since it was a Sunday evening, the place was not too busy so it was rather quiet.

Adam and I were having a conversation – and not a rushed one or full of random gibberish of the day. It was actually a pretty good one! There was a pause in conversation, and right then I sighed and put down my fork. I looked down at my stomach and I said to Adam, “I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby.”

Adam’s eyes got big and he quickly looked around, almost in a slight panic.

“Wait — did I just pass out for 10 minutes? Did I miss a conversation? Where did this come from?”

Yeah, my train of thought gets derailed at a moment’s notice. It happens. I didn’t think it really did, but it does. That ‘pregnant brain‘ thing is REAL, YO.

So there’s a comparison of just a few of the weekly photos we’ve been taking. At first, we started out with a cheapie backdrop and doing the “same outfit” thing – but I soon got bored of that. We were mostly doing that because we were still keeping the news secret.

Now what we’re doing, and I find this much more fun, is taking photos in locations that I have something to say about. So for example, “19 Weeks” was at my birthday at San Pedro Square Market, “20 Weeks” was in Downtown San Jose’s SoFA District, in front of the awesome murals they have. We actually took some of our Save The Date photos in front of this same mural. “23 Weeks” might seem a bit drab to you – it’s our patio. But that’s the thing, it’s on the patio of the apartment we lived in the year our baby will be born. Also, I’m standing next to our plant Stan. Yes, he has a name. And he’s been alive since, 2002 I believe. There’s a lot of places on our to-do list; we have the Maker Faire coming up for example – that will be a fun one! Perhaps I’ll stand near some weird contraption that is on fire? You never know what you’ll see there.

Penny
So for the longest time, we’d call Penny “Baby”. She’s our little furbaby you know! The other day she hopped down from the coffee table (yes she walks on it and we’re horrible and let her do that) and started to walk away. Around the same time, the baby was doing some kind of aerobics so I tapped my stomach and said “Are you awake, Baby?” Well. Penny whipped her head around, meowed (with that little kitty question mark at the end of the meow), turned around and jumped back up on the coffee table and looked at me, pretty much asking “You called? What’s up?” Heh – oopsie. So now we’re trying not to call her Baby anymore, just.. for the time being at least, until we address the Baby as her name… which is still top secret!

Food
Part of me wants to say that I don’t have cravings but I guess that’s a lie. At this point in my pregnancy, I really should be able to hop on the private company jet of Ben & Jerry’s. Seriously, they need to start running new flavors by me, considering how much stock I must own by now. That said, and this goes for the endless food photos I post, the amount I eat in one sitting is still the same. Do I eat ice cream? Yes, but, it’s about 5 good spoonfuls and then I’m done. I might return to the container at a later time for another few bites, but really, that’s it for the day. I think that’s pretty good considering before the surgery I could kill a pint of ice cream in one sitting. (I was fat and really talented at making bad food choices, this should not sound shocking.) But basically I’ve moved on from grapes and now I’m on oranges as my current fruit phase. I destroyed about four mandarin oranges earlier today and as I type this I’m considering having one because it SOUNDSSOGOOD right now. Other than that, no really “weird” cravings.

Heat
It has finally hit the 80s and while I was SO EAGER to have the weather change, I’m trying not to regret those thoughts. I’m already warmer than I normally am at this time of the year. Which means, it’s only a matter of time before I set up a tent and live by the pool at our complex.

You’ll come visit me, yes?

Adam and I spent a bit of the morning wandering around Overfelt Gardens Park. The last time we were there was back in 2005 (see Flickr set here) and since we live much closer to it now, I thought we’d give it another go.

One of the nice things about the park is that it’s quiet! Also it is filled with trees and green grass. Some parks we’ve been to, while they have some trees and grass, are often just patches here and there and the land is still rather “dry”.

We didn’t meander into the Chinese Gardens this time because there was a group of people doing some form of Tai-Chi exercises and we didn’t want to bother them. Plus it gives us another half of the park to explore on another day.

While the signs say there is no barbecuing allowed (no pits available), there are ample picnic tables around which prompted my grand idea of having weekend picnics now that the weather is better. Looking forward to getting out more! Plenty of shaded areas to enjoy a sandwich. (Posted a handful of photos in a new Flickr set here.)

But this is the first time I’ve started to post about it here, simply because it had been a secret for so long. I thought I’d kind of recap some of what I’ve been going through the last few months, and from here on out… there’s a lot of stuff to say! Or not a lot.. it depends.

So if you’re already sick of me talking about baby stuff (either in person or on FB) then, don’t read it. Easy peasy, right?

I began to write a bit several weeks back…

8 Weeks – January 4th:

According to various calculators available on baby-centric websites, I’m 8 weeks pregnant. Which means Baby-O is the size of a raspberry. That kind of freaks me out a little bit. Blueberries, ok, split peas and poppyseeds.. eh. But raspberry? That’s ginormous! Well, ok maybe not. But it’s a little freaky to think about.

I took a pregnancy test back in November and it was negative. Come to find out, I took it about a week too early. My “friend” still hadn’t shown up and I was getting suspicious so I decided to take another one.. and ba-da bing, Pregnant! I gotta say, it’s weird to see the little pink lines show up on that damn stick. I went to the store and bought a cheapie baby bottle and filled it with candy wrapped in pink and blue wrapping. Let me tell you, this was in the middle of Christmas/Holiday-a-palooza at the stores so finding candy NOT in red, green, or gold wrapping was quite a challenge! So I wrapped that up and decided to give Adam an early Christmas gift. He didn’t quite ‘get it’ right away (Adam, oof.) But when he did, he was very excited.

And now the waiting. Had doctors appointments to confirm pregnancy and make sure levels are going up and all that fun stuff aside, it’s been a mostly quiet few weeks.

Quiet and EXHAUSTING. I swear all I want to to do is sleep. Please? Can I just nap now? I might have just gotten up an hour ago after sleeping all night but I think a 2-hour nap will help too. No matter how much I’ve read, I had no idea I could ever be this exhausted. Even with walking and keeping active, still tired as all hell.

Then, morning sickness arrived! I kind of embrace all of these symptoms because it just means things are progressing as planned. I was curious how my morning sickness would be because of the Gastric Bypass surgery. Would it be the same? Less intense? More? The only thing I have to compare it to is what you read, other’s experiences, and everyone favorite – television and movies! (Because they’re SO REAL.)

Would I yack? Before the pregnancy, I rarely would. Only if I ate too much too fast (or drank liquid too soon after eating). TMI? Tough. So how will the “morning sickness” (and yes, it arrives whenever it wants throughout the day) feel with my smaller stomach? Well, so far it’s mostly just nausea.. queasy uneasy feelings. I sip water or hot tea and snack on crackers or nuts. It usually goes away after awhile.

Though in the last week it’s shown up more around when I’m actually eating rather than going away after eating, so that’s pretty annoying. I’ve had only a few food aversions.

When it comes to cravings, there are mixed results when learning about WHEN cravings truly show up, but I have noticed food either appeals or not to me much stronger than ever before. For example, last night for dinner I had leftover shrimp (fried – yeah not healthy, but tasty) and steamed veggies. I ate about as much as I normally can and that was that. About an hour/2 hours later I was hungry again but nothing we had at home seemed good at all. And not just in a way where I’m being picky – I like the food we have! But.. nothing was appealing AT ALL. That is until I saw someone making a sandwich on a movie we were watching. That looked tasty.. but it led me to think about those little sweet pickles you eat at picnics or on appetizer platters and that’s ALL I COULD THINK OF.

9 Weeks – January 11th:

Baby is now considered a “fetus”! Wow.. getting more “real” every day!

Food. It’s on my mind a lot.. here’s a little list of some items making their way into my tummy:

• Green seedless grapes. OH the delicious crunch! But they must be chilled. I’ve always loved ‘em, but right now I could eat gobs and gobs of them.

• Sweet gherkin pickles. I haven’t had these for years and so they really earn the title of being the first thing I have officially craved. I bought two jars of them and proceeded to do a little dance with one of the jars in the kitchen. Then I ate about 5 in a row.

• Flan. Ok I think this one is because we had some awhile back from Chavez Supermarket and I thought it was pretty tasty. So when Adam ran to the store for enchilada fixin’s, I told him to bring back two containers. Yes, two. Bring on the caramel goodness! This craving won’t last long, it’s a random one for sure. (Edit: Yeah, it didn’t last long. Maybe one more purchase since then!)

10/11 Weeks – January 15-23rd:

Baby is REAL!

We went to our first doctor’s appointment and had an ultrasound.

There is little Baby-O (which what I’m already assessing as a big head – thanks, Adam.) It was a pretty surreal moment. At one point you could see a little bit of the pixels fluttering – it was the baby’s heart. A whole heart! Right there! Beating away… so amazing.

13 Weeks – February 6th:

We went in for our next scan – this one where they check the spine, neck, etc for anything abnormal. This one was way more detailed. This photo focused on the upper part of the body. You can see the baby lying on it’s back, left side of the photo is the head/face. There’s a face in my belly! And arms! and legs! SO WEIRD.

We began to tell people – starting with our parents and close friends. We gave it a good three weeks of running around trying to meet up or call as many people as we could. Then, we let it out on Facebook because, frankly, that’s the next place right?

FREEDOM! It’s nice to be “out” with the news – I can just talk freely about it and let my tummy hang out a bit (depends what I wear right now.)

18 Weeks – March 12th:

Today was a big day! We were to find out if Baby-O was going to be a girl or boy. All this time I’d been leaning toward boy, Adam was thinking girl.

So here we are, in the car on the way to the doctor’s office:

Pardon Adam’s look of insanity. Not sure what to do with that boy sometimes.

So we’re at the appointment and the ultrasound technologist begins swooshing the wand around and capturing images of different parts of the baby. Gotta measure everything out. Then it’s time – did we want to know – yup! So it took awhile, but after some maneuvering the tech guy pointed out parts that he described as female and pointed out what wasn’t there in the view he could find. He said he was 95% sure, it’s a GIRL!

95%? Thanks dude, now I’m going to stress over that 5%. (Well, I will try not to.)

Here’s a picture of our baby girl, in a funny on-her-tummy position. I think it’s pretty cool you can totally see her spine in detail.

So the first thing we did — we hit up Frost Cupcake Factory in Campbell. I’d been wanting to try their cupcakes so this seemed like an appropriate time to do so. While enjoying our cupcakes I noticed the store had some merchandise with a cupcake on it – and what did they have? A cute little pink onesie! So, while it’s not the FIRST baby purchase we’ve made, it’s certainly the first baby-girl themed purchase.

19 Weeks – March 23rd:

At 19 weeks I celebrated my 33rd birthday! Not much in terms of baby-talk, but mostly I kept thinking I was feeling more of this “fluttering” movement everyone talks about. I still hadn’t felt anything too specific just yet. So for my birthday, friends gathered at my favorite spot in downtown San Jose, the San Pedro Square Market, for some lunch and cake. It was a lot of fun, exactly what I was hoping it would be. Laid back, nice weather, great food and conversations. That was Saturday, on my actual birthday (Sunday) – we spent the day with my parents, hanging out and having lunch. By the end of Sunday I was pretty beat so I was lying down on the couch. Then, I felt something. Something a bit stronger than specific fluttering movements. I felt a little bit but decided to wait for another time that it might be more direct. And sure enough, Monday morning at work, BAM! Baby Girl let me know she was there. Best birthday gift ever! Tuesday night, I’m again, lounging on the couch and she started up again, so I called Adam over and he was able to feel two little punches as well. Such an amazing moment!

20 Weeks – March 31st (TODAY!):

Feeling more movement in the last few days and kind of getting an idea of when she’s up and about – naturally it’s when I haven’t been moving for awhile, but she tends to get active between 8am and 11am, and then sometime late in the evening is when I feel the most movement. Yesterday morning she was kicky so I decided to watch my stomach. I was able to SEE a kick (punch, whatever kind of movement it is.) That was pretty freaky as well.

I realize, our girl is going to ask one day what it was like for me while she was pregnant and so far words like “weird” and “freaky” are the my most commonly used terms. I guess I should say fluffier things like “amazing” and “magical”?

And as I’m writing this, she’s awake and kicky. Thankfully I’m home because I can lift up my pants and watch my stomach bump around. I don’t think doing this in public would be appropriate behavior, no?

So that’s my update.. now I will just do some individual posts as events or moment happen along the way! Glad to feel all caught up now.

San Jose recently placed a ban on plastic bags at all stores (not including flower or produce plastic bags) and it’s caused a little… frustration.

My frustration is not trying to remember to bring one of the bazillion canvas bags we own – it might be an extra step to remember and if we don’t then we’re happy to pay the $.10 for a paper bag (they’re useful at times) but obviously we’d like to remember the canvas bags and avoid paying extra.

No, my frustration is with the lack of organization this new ban has shed a light on.

For example I was at Target the other day and had brought in two canvas bags for my anticipated purchase (which by the way is a whole ‘nother topic) and stood in line at the cash register.

This line took at least twice as long as it used to. I watched as the person ahead of me, buying possibly what was their standard weekly or half-month supply of food and toiletries. The cashier had to use Target-branded canvas bags for the goods. She pulled a bag open and proceeded to fill it, however, having to re-adjust the bag a few times to make sure it stayed open. This is where the timing is all off.

See, with the plastic bags (and similar at grocery stores) they were always hinged on metal rods letting the cashier or bagger partially open the bag and put the items in swiftly and easily.

Well yes, these Target-branded canvas bags were on a metal stand too, but the cashier was not leaving half the bag on it to use it as support. That’s problem number one.

The second problem – everyone is bringing in different sized bags. So if there was a metal structure for support, it’d have to be different sizes. Which could easily be developed… but until then, the different sizes still cause delays. If you go to Trader Joe’s there’s a wall of bags to choose from, all ranging in sizes and material structure. Which is great for aesthetic or reasons like keeping food colder longer (insulated); but not for counter-space/filling fast and efficiently.

Granted, this is not a problem for everyone. There are more deft cashiers/baggers that seem to have a grasp on eye-hand coordination and organizational skills. To those of you, I salute you! You will make this process much more streamlined.

And because I love to go off on tangents… this reminds me of another topic.

Bagging groceries.

When did the art of bagging groceries fall by the wayside? I remember back in the day I had heard about COMPETITIONS for grocery baggers. There was a method for not only quick packing but appropriately using the space and taking consideration for the items that go into the bags.

Hopefully everyone knows you don’t put a bag of flour on top of a carton of eggs and if you have soda or heavy bottles, double-bag. (Speaking of course, about plastic bags.)

There are so many times I’ve had to rearrange the items in bags AT THE COUNTER because the bagger could care less what they were doing.

Please don’t smoosh my tomatoes. Take some care with these items!

Do managers not train for things like this anymore? Do the cashier/baggers pass the bagging test (if there were such a thing) and then stop caring beyond that? Le sigh.

First world problems, am I right?