Does This Baby Make Me Look Fat?

6 weeks to go!

Himself and I had our 34 week doctor's visit yesterday and everything is still right down the perfect line. Little Alex is active and strong (so much so that I haven't slept more than two hours each night while he has a little dance party in my belly) and measuring a tad on the bigger side of normal. Which also means my baby bump is about an inch larger than usual and my weight is about five pounds higher than average. However, the good doctor assures me that the weight is all baby and I'm inclined to agree as the general public are shocked when the find out I am eight months preggers rather than the 6 months they would have guessed by my size. And many have commented that upon looking at my frame straight on from front or back, one could hardly tell I was carrying at all!

I can't say I'm terribly surprised as all the men in on both side of the family tree are taller than average and were a little on the hefty side as infants. Let's just say if I end up pushing out a ten pounder, it won't be a shock.

With D-day fast approaching, Himself and I have started shopping for all the necessities from Little Alex's care. So far, I am having mixed feelings on this activity. I thoroughly enjoy looking at all the adorable gadgets and doo-dads and furniture that fill the stores but the price tags are incredulous. Shopping for a baby on a tight budget is certainly not as much fun as it should be! However, I am finding a few resources (thank you Pintrest, Craigslist, and Freecycle) to help ease the burden. In fact, I now have a few new craft projects to work on for Alex including cloth diapers, diaper covers, and a sling baby carrier. With luck, I have enough fabric already in my stash to have a good lot of items for no cost. And let's be honest, my lovelies, who doesn't love free?

I will post up my progress as it happens both in the crafting world and Little Alexander's check-ups.

Until next time!

Don’t Judge Me

Here it is, my darlings. The ugly truth. I’m going to call myself a bad word. That’s right, a bad bad word. Now I don’t think it’s a bad word but society has claimed otherwise. If you are afraid, look away. Here we go….

I. Am. A Housewife.

There. I’ve said it. And shame on you if you sneer at the term, honestly. You may chose to work, you may have your profession that you earned and are proud of. I sincerely congratulate you for it. You (I assume) worked hard for your place in the workforce and that is to be commended. I too have spend my time in offices, and retail work, and the like. But I discovered, it was not where my heart is. I choose to stay home because it is where I feel happiest. I clean because I enjoy it. I cook because it is my passion. There is a thrill for me in the joy I see in my husband when I have a freshly made meal ready for him when he comes home from work. I have chosen to stay home and tend to my family because it is what I WANT to do.

Do I not have the right to chose this way of life as other women have the right to chose to enter the workforce? Is it not equally as unfair to EXPECT me to hold a 9-5 job simply because it is what most other women do? How is such a thing any different than a few decades ago when women were berated for leaving the home to work instead of holding the “traditional role”?

What then, becomes of us women who don’t want to do what is expected of us, but instead want to have the freedom to do what is our passion and take up that “traditional role”? We are scolded, shamed, called lazy, frowned upon, and constantly asked when we are going to buckle down and get back into the real world. What they fail to see is that THIS is our real world. This is our calling. To pretend to be happy doing anything else is just a lie. A lie we hold to keep other people happy? No thank you!

Remember also, that the choice to be a housewife is a difficult one. There are challenges to balancing career and family, of course. The plight of the working mother is plastered all over the media (along with helpful tips on how to ease the burden). There is the benefit of these burdens being offset by the ease of having a second income. Those of us who stay home and care for our households….

There is a misconceptions that women who stay home spend their day dusting here and there, perhaps folding a few bits of clothing, popping a frozen meal into an oven when Father is on his way home, and spending most of their day chatting with their girlfriends over wine and chocolates, and watching day-time TV. Oh, if only that world truly existed….. Reality is that there is a never ending stream of household chores to be done which you alone have the joy of tending to because, as the argument goes, you are home all day so what else do you have to do? There are also meals to prepare. Meals which you have to be very clever with because, with only one income, money is always tight and balancing all your food groups is a lot harder when you are feeding a full household on half the budget. There’s also other fun nuances of living on one income such as having to mend and make things that most would simply replace or purchase new, and finding ways to stretch out the life of every little thing you use because sometimes you have to pick between buying laundry detergent or milk this week.

  Perhaps that is enough ranting for today. If nothing else, take from this an appreciation for those who cast off expectations and go for what they love. It’s harder to live it than you may think.

T-minus 7 Weeks

My my has time flown! Strange to think that about eight months ago Himself and I were staring at that little blue line with a mixture of disbelief, excitement and (yes, I'll admit it) even a little trepidation.

The simple fact of the matter is that we had every intention of getting the family ball rolling in 2012, we just hadn't quite planned on it being that early. In our ideal world, we would have started trying in September, not calling up OB doctors to confirm a home test. But, life and mother nature had other plans for us and frankly, we're ok with that.

It took Himself a while to get on board the baby train to speak the truth; and I can't blame him one bit. Becoming a parent is a big responsibility. Having a person be completely dependent on you for the necessities of living for the next eighteen or more years? If that doesn't make your heart stop a little then, my friend, you are not ready for that level of commitment. The whole of my first Trimester and even well into my second, Himself was (to put it bluntly) scared out of his wits. I can't blame him, really and there was so little for him to attach to at that point. It took quite some time before my baby bump sprang up and the first six months of the pregnancy I had my head in the toilet every few hours. (Hyperemesis Gravidarum is no picnic my darlings. Even a mild case like mine which only required one trip to the emergency room....) I was tired all the time, and when I wasn't tired, I was nauseous. I couldn't work, I barely ate, and every time I moved my head even the slightest amount, the room wouldn't stop spinning.

 Himself, poor lad, couldn't understand how awful I was feeling and how impossible it was for me to not be pinned to the couch and clinging for dear life until the world stopped moving. It wasn't until (several months in to the pregnancy, mind you) my anti-nausea medication that never really fully worked and I had a particularly bad bout with vomiting that I simply could not take feeling so miserable all the time anymore and called up my doctor. I looked fine and cheerful enough but my lab results were no good. I was dehydrated, almost dangerously so, and got shipped off to the ER for fluids and a stronger medication.

This was his wake up call. For the first time he realized I wasn't simply feeling yucky and tired, but something was seriously not normal about by morning sickness routine. Thankfully, the new medication turned me human again and I was able to at least get back to a normal routine of housework. Not long after (and quite suddenly, if I do say so) my bump popped out and I finally looked the part. Himself and I got to finally see our little one via Ultrasound and that "it" was in fact, a "he." It was barely weeks later that our baby boy was making his presence known not just to me, but to Daddy as well as flutters turned into faint little kicks.

And thus came the real turning point. Once Himself saw the black and white photo of the little thing he helped create, once he felt the life twist and move and bump under his hand, he was hooked. Sure, he teared up months before hand hearing the little heartbeat, but nothing sank in and melted his heart quite like seeing and feeling the son growing inside me.

So, here we are with less than two months to go before we meet our little Alexander and we've done a full role reversal. Himself is practically dancing for joy and dreaming wonderful dreams of life with baby and I am chewing my nails to the quick with worry over every minute detail of parenthood.

Strange how that works, isn't it?