Spokane Baby Shower

On April 18th I was surrounded by friends and family. What a great feeling of support and love! I never thought a baby shower could be so fun! Yes there was some quality girl bonding time and even a few tears from mommy as she opened sentimental

gifts. Not to mention lots of laughing as mommy tried to figure out how to use such new and foreign concepts. Some seemed mommy proof rather than child proof. Point is it was a great time had. Thanks to all of you who showed or sent your thoughts to us. I am working on writing the thank-you notes on some cards that my sister in law made (she makes and sells them if you are ever interested) so know they will come someday in May or June.
Going green is the way to go. Judging from some of the gifts our child will already be an environmentalist, world traveler and an organic baby. We have received a good chunk of what we need and it is mostly used!!!!! So we are going to have a green baby after all!!!! I have also up-dated our wish list and taken off stuff we now have. There is still a shower in Bellingham that will happen sometime this summer.

So now we have to move so that we have room to put all the baby stuff! I am kidding (kind of). However we are planning on moving when our lease is up in June or July. Keep your fingers crosses for us, we are hoping to buy a home and working with a community land trust group. They strive to keep housing affordable for people like Tim and I. We just got confirmation yesterday that they have some grants available for us. We walked out of the office quite grateful and star struck with the possibilities that are now going to be available for us. So as you can see it will be a busy summer just before the baby is born.

As far as baby development I now have a belly that sticks out more than my breasts. I guess you really know that you are pregnant when you have strangers asking and cute little ten year old girls at the pool talking to you about being pregnant. Our child is moving around a lot now days and Tim has even been able to feel the movements with his hand. We are past the half way mark already. For some reason I thought nine months would be a long time???? We just started taking our birthing classes. We have chosen to use the Bradley Method. They focus on the natural birthing method and understanding the female body and how it is naturally equipped for childbirth. They have me doing all kinds of good exercises so that my body will be ready to help with the birthing process.


Key Notes: The most important thing is to never lie on your back!!!!! Yup it inhibits your tailbone and pelvis from moving so the baby can pass through easily plus your uterus is working against gravity instead of with it!

The other cool thing about this class is we are excited to meet other parents to be. Who also have the same hobbies and due dates as us!!!
Well that is it for now, thanks for following along with us and Happy Sweet Smelling Spring to you all. Thank goodness it is finally here!

Just a little update! 

Natalie is progressing normally with the pregnancy, as am I. By normally mean she is eating about every hour and measuring her circumference even more regularly. Furthermore, Natalie continues to take time to meditate, exercise and generally put hers and the baby’s health ahead of mine. This is all well and good, I want my wife and child to be healthy. But surprisingly, I’m getting a little tired of being forced to eat all the junk food, beer and non-organic plastic wrapped stuff that comes through our doors. Yes I’m sure you all heard that we are having a “Green Baby” but what you didn’t hear is who’s really getting the leftover untouchables. Poor Poor Me. I’m kidding of course. 

Life is good here. This month I am working many extra hours filling in for a co-worker, and am getting a new schedule with more hours starting next month. That said we are feeling very encouraged about the coming months. In the meantime I am playing a lot on my biking and gearing up for climbing season. Natalie, as you might have guessed, is soaking up lots of sun when it comes and is focusing on relaxation and health. I’m very proud of her progress in the recent months. It’s been a real treat to have her in such a healthy space these days. It’s been long time and she deserves this healthy time and something new to look forward to. In the meantime she continues to work on writing projects, is taking a writing class and will soon be teaching her second round of a Poi Fire Dancing class. 

Today we had our first and possibly our only Ultrasound. I doubt if we’ll have another. At this point we got confirmation that there is a living breathing thing in there. It has a face, a healthy heart, feet, hands, diaphragm, spine all that good stuff. So, we are encouraged and grateful for a good report. We chose not to find out the gender and the Sonagrapher did a good job of keeping it from us. We had decided that we were both kind of indifferent as to when we found out but decided to stick with our original plan to wait it out. That’s all the news for now I guess.

 

P.S. I decided to make my own baby shower list. You know things that will be important for the Father’s part of the child rearing. 

· Infant climbing shoes and harness
· Infant Bike Helmet
· Infant Bike Gloves
· Biking Body Armor new helmet (daddy breadwinner can’t be getting hurt now!)
· Doggie Saddle (I figure the kid can ride Ruby on rides with me until it’s big enough for a bike)
· Climbing Harness (daddy breadwinner can’t be getting hurt now!)
Well you get the picture! 
Love to All, 
Tim and Nat

First trimester up-date

Wow that went fast! I am already three months pregnant….when I first found out it seemed like nine months would be a long time to prepare. Now it seems like three months just flew by! I have to say that so far I have been very lucky. No morning sickness just some nausea and tiredness, which is to be expected. The only craving I had was for dried apples they seemed to help with the nausea but apple juice would create nausea. Exercise has also been key.

We have over whelmed ourselves with parenting and pregnancy books and are kinda taking a break from them right now. I also learned not to read any of them before going to sleep because it just causes crazy dreams. However I have had some really cool magical baby dreams as well. Let’s just say that I think it is going to be a girl. And no we are not going to find out the sex until the birth day.

I love looking at my stomach in the mirror and watching it change! It is just amazing to be exploring how powerful and knowing your body becomes when pregnant. I have learned not to worry about “what if’s” since I have no control over those things and since my body knows what it is doing I just simply trust.

To celebrate the end of the first trimester we went for a 12 mile round trip bike ride along the interurban trail in Bellingham that took us to Clayton Beach. We were able to enjoy some sun while staring out at the San Juan Islands and feasting on yummy food. Tim bouldered around on some rocks while I just acted like it for the camera. Food has become a necessity every two hours. So then we treated ourselves to a local burger joint that has all natural hormone free burgers! Tim got to enjoy a nice beer and I got to buy some locally made ice cream to take home! The simple things in life are where it’s at!!!

So who knows what my cravings will be this trimester. I hear this is the best one for being active. Good thing it is Spring cause I am ready to be outside more often. We will keep you posted and look at the top right of this page for info on the up and coming baby shower in April.