Week 14: Something from all of us...

From Mommy-to-Be: I survived my first week back at work! This week marked a bunch of other new milestones as well. Week 13 Baby Fingland begin to hear sounds through vibrations in it's skin, and week 14 it's liver and pancreas are hard at work, along with the growth of some hair! Hopefully it isn't true that if you eat a bunch of spicy food, your baby has more hair, because otherwise I might be giving birth to a gorilla! We also started taking belly photos. This past week I have definitely felt it stick out a little bit more, and feel some of my pants get a little tighter. Monday we had another Dr. appointment with our first big ultrasound.(See below for more info!) The Dr. said everything is looking good and that the nuchal measurement they tested this week seems healthy. The test (for Downs and other abnormalities) will be concluded in 4 weeks with another blood test. Monday I also told my students and will announce it in our school newsletter Thursday to all the rest of students I don't have right now. The "nothing sounds good to eat" syndrome is going away, and I am enjoying more of my variety of foods (and vegetables again) now. For Belly pics, click the link on the right at the top of the page that says "Belly and Baby Photos".

From Daddy-to-Be: Lately Katie and I have been discussing some nursery design ideas - paint colors, fabric patterns, furniture needs, what to buy new, what we can get cheap on Craigslist. Unfortunately though, the only thing we've really decided on is which room in the house the nursery is going to be! ...If only Katie could get me to sit down for a minute to look at the bedding options she's selected. We have discussed decorations and paint colors some, but nothing is finalized. We're going to try to keep things pretty gender neutral though (pretty pinks and/or baby blues would be too obvious a color choice for my wife's artistic eye, luckily we agree on this though). We can't wait to have our eager-to-work, soon-to-be first time grandma and grandpa Fingdog arrive for an extended Labor Day weekend to help us out with all this nursery stuff. Mom and Dad, don't forget to pack your paint shirts!

From Daddy-to-Be (cont'd): The other ongoing discussion we've been having has been whether or not we will find out the sex of the baby prior to delivery. My position has always been, yes, we will. Initially, Katie was on board with this approach, but lately she has been more on the fence about the decision. I've been saying all along, "You are either surprised the day of the delivery, or surprised 4 months earlier." But now that I find myself in this reflective state of blogging, I've come up with another analogy. Its like when you were a kid and you were presented with the option to open a gift on Christmas Eve (in the Fingland family, we always waited to open presents until Christmas morning). You'd make the same decision every time; you'd ALWAYS take the option to open the gift on Christmas Eve because you couldn't wait for the fun to begin. Why wait until February 26th to find out, when I have the option to find out sooner? I'm too excited to wait. I think I may have Katie back on my side of the fence, with the compromise being that we can be more likely to not find out the sex of the baby the next time around.

From Baby Fingland: Hello family and friends! This week was pretty exciting for me, seeing as though I'm getting taller; I am about 3.5 inches now. Mom and Dad got to see me on the big ultrasound screen Monday too. I put on quite a show for them and the ultrasound tech. I was wiggling around, and waving my right arm up and down (Mom thinks I'm already raising my hand to be a good student!). It was a little hard for the US tech to get her photos that she needed, so after about 15minutes I finally calmed down, crossed my feet at the ankles, and relaxed for a bit. Check out my self portraits below:
Look for more photos in the Belly and Baby Photos Link!

Week 13: Tribute to Jack Handy

For those who know me well, you know already that I'm a neurotic planner. So you will be just as shocked as I am when I tell you that lately I've been in a "Baby Daze". I haven't made any lists yet, haven't really had many practical decisions on what needs to be done by February, or moved any furniture in the soon to be nursery. Maybe this baby already has Bryan's laid back personality! We have, however, had a wonderful collection of "deep thoughts" that are so ridiculously random I have to write them down so we remember them. And, since no "deep thought" would be complete without mentioning Jack Handy, that's where the title of this post comes from. (If you don't know who Jack Handy is, or his thoughts, you need to go here pronto: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/jack_handy/ )

Deep Thoughts, Discussions, and Decisions we've had so far:
-We might not have a crib picked out, but we have scouted out the best Baby/Kid hiking carrier packs from REI. Who needs a crib when you can sleep in a cool carrier while enjoying the mountains?

-We are both certain that we are not ever going to be the pet owners of: rats, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, etc.; even if our kids begs for one.

-While working out the other day, I was really pumped up by my running/workout playlist, as usual. This got me thinking about labor and how, since it is pretty much going to be the hardest workout I've ever done, why not have my workout music with me? Forget relaxing music, I want the music that helped me run 2+hours and pushed me up trail runs in the scorching heat! No worries though, I will have Jack Johnson on standby in case this idea fails miserably...

-ONE wonderful practical thing is that I already have a baby sitter/licensed home day care lady lined up for next school year, and hopefully the last 6 weeks of school in the Spring! She is a mom at our school and watches other teacher's children, so I am pretty excited about our rational thinking on that one and getting it accomplished!

-I have the greatest art project ever planned out for whenever Baby Fingland starts walking (even though he/she's feet are just developing still). It came to me one day and I can't wait to use it!

-We know (and most of you do too) that if it is a girl, her name will be Lucy, since I've had this name on reserve for what seems like forever! However, we had a boy's name picked out and now I keep going back and forth. So now I've begun the hunt for a backup, just in case.

-This past week while talking about maternity leave, Bryan and I realized I will be home during March Madness. Talk about timing!

Well, although there are probably many more I'm forgetting, that gives you an idea of how our first trimester thoughts went. Maybe now that we are entering the second trimester, this "renewed energy" I am supposed to have will kick our butts into list making gear. In fact, we went to Lowe's last night and got a bunch of bright colored paint swatches. See, we're getting better already...

Love and random thoughts,
Bryan, Katie, and Baby Fingland

12 weeks

The 12 week mark has finally approached. 2nd trimester, here we come!

I announced the pregnancy to my school on Friday, the 13th, to an excited and nurturing staff. I've already received a cute shirt and an offering of toys. Now to just find a long term sub...

Cravings/Aversions: Fruit, and, anything SOUR! In fact, I broke down and ate some Sour Patch kids last week. Now I am vowing to eat a lemon instead in order to avoid everything artificial they put in those things. I'm still having some annoying aversions to all foods in general, where nothing sounds good. The past couple of days have been a little bit better, so I'm hoping it is fading.

Progress on Operation Nursery: I ordered some swatches from the Land of Nod for our favorite (so far) crib bedding. We will see how the colors look and if we decide on that one or not. http://www.landofnod.com/family.aspx?c=167&f=3916

Progress on the Bump: Hopefully soon I will start posting photos of the "bump". As of now all my clothes are still fitting, and it just looks like I ate too much. I bought a Bella Band so I can hopefully wear my pants as long as possible. It allows you to wear your regular pants unbuttoned and keeps them in place. It's super comfortable!

Our next Dr. appointment is Monday, August 30th. We should have new ultrasound pictures to post then! Hope you all are well,
Katie, Bryan, and the little plum

10/11 weeks

Today we had another appointment where we were able to meet with one of the doctors in the practice. We thought we were just going to ask our questions and get a quick update, but were treated to hearing the baby's heartbeat for the first time! She said that we can't always hear it this early, but she found it beating strong at 168bpm. Very cool and reassuring. We go back at the end of August to do another ultrasound and some more bloodwork/tests. They said I am 11 weeks as of tomorrow, August 6th.

So far the 1st trimester hasn't been too hard on me. Some queasiness, mostly at night, and loss of appetite. Mainly I've just been really tired and napping every day, although this week I did have some good cries over some really "upsetting" stuff...tv shows, not sleeping, having to use mozzarella on my grilled cheese. You know, really sad stuff. And Bryan thought I was crazy before...

We've also been slowly telling family and close friends still this week, but have yet to let our jobs know. That will come most likely in the next week or so. I've also added a "ticker" at the top of the blog that lets you know how big the baby is. It will update on it's own, so be sure to check back. Right now we have a little prune/lime, and it's our bed time!

Love from Colorado,
Bryan, Katie, and Baby Lime Fingland

(We also added 2 more videos below...one of Aunt Blair's reveal and the Fingland grandparents' reveal.)

Our First Doctor's Visit and Spilling the Beans

July continued to be a month of visitors, and our first Doctor's appointment was scheduled during my parents' visit. We had also just had our 2 nieces, my sister and brother-in-law, and 2 nephews out for the weekend as well. Needless to say, if I hadn't been worn out from the first stages of pregnancy, I would have been worn out from all the visiting! We planned on telling everyone after the first Dr. appointment, but some very good detectives spoiled those plans!

First, my nieces were out for a week on their own with just Bryan and I. While I was taking one of my many naps, they had played "spy", and discovered my stash of pregnancy books from the library. They were really good at keeping this secret--we didn't find out until a week or so later that they had known! Also, the night before my sister Suzanne, and brother-in-law, Gary left, Sue just asked me right out if I was pregnant. It must run in their family because both her and her daughter had scouted out the secret! They left the morning of our first appointment, July 20th, 2010.

At this appointment, we were expecting that I was 6 weeks along. We also were planned to do an ultrasound since there had been some spotting, just to make sure things were ok. The ultrasound was the first thing we got to do, and it was amazing. It turned out I was actually 8 weeks along, and there on the screen was our 1.65cm baby! I guess it is still too early to tell if it will have Fingland height, or Morrell [lack of] height. We also received news that Baby Fingland's birthday will be on *or around* February 26th, 2011. Save the date!

We also were able to see the heart beating at about 170bpm, and make horribly wrong guesses as to where the head was. (If you said 'Right', then you win!) We scheduled our next appointment and left the office with more information and brochures than we knew what to do with.

After a day of not being able to read all the information and still keeping it a secret from my parents, we decided it was time to spill the beans to them. We went out to dinner at Colterra, north of Boulder, which was a beautiful farm to table restaurant. Here is the hilarious video of how we announced the news to them:

The Beginning...June 25, 2010

Welcome to our new Baby Blog! We hope to keep our family and friends updated on the latest and greatest happenings with Baby Fingland through this blog.

Bryan and I found out that we are expecting on Friday, June 25th, 2010. We had company in town (soon to be Uncle, Brad), and were getting ready for a true Colorado adventure--a weekend in the woods backpacking and camping. Little did we know we'd start a whole new adventure that weekend also! I took the pregnancy test Friday morning, as we were leaving that afternoon. Being the planner that I am, if I was pregnant, I wanted to make sure the Dr. would be ok with me being at the altitude of the hike, just in case.

After the news at 6:30am of a positive test, Bryan and I were thrilled and of course, a little freaked out. We ended up telling Uncle Brad that night around the campfire at Piney Lake in Vail, CO. The next day, we went backpacking to Deluge Lake, which ended up being a 6 hour, extremely steep, uphill battle for me. I swear that it was the pregnancy. I would NEVER have sat down, cried, told Brad and Bryan to go without me, or got mad at Bryan and made him carry my pack if I hadn't been pregnant! Promise...

We all survived the weekend and were exhausted yet excited at what was to come.

Piney Lake. Vail, CO

Deluge Lake. Finally at the top!