16 Week Bump Update

My sister just shared a bump update about her pregnancy on her blog, so I thought I'd join in to! (By the way, how exciting is it that my sister and I get to be pregnant together? She's 17 weeks and I'm 15. And one of our mutual best friends, Melissa, is pregnant too! She's right in between us I think! She's on her third, as is my sister, and I'm on my second.)

16 Weeks Pregnant

Size of the Baby: Apparently the size of an avocado this week, 4 1/2 inches long and 3 1/2 oz. 

Symptoms: I still feel pretty sick. I had started to feel better, but I may also have gotten a little sick (Norah had a flu the last couple days). Yesterday we had to pull the car over so I could be sick. Not fun. I was NOT this sick with Norah, so I can't help wondering if it's a boy this time? I guess there's no way of knowing just yet. However, I am a lot better than the beginning, and I do have a bit more energy. I still try to take a nap if possible, but if I don't get one in I'm ok.

Cravings: To be honest, my cravings this time around are more like "negative cravings." There's so many foods that make me feel sick to just think of them. I hate when fast food commercials come on TV or when we drive past the MANY fast food restaurants in our new town. Unfortunately, I'm now living in the South where fast food is about our only option (at least in the smaller towns). How I miss the healthier options available in Cape Town and Vermont! I'm feeling well enough most of the time to be cooking at home now, though, and that helps a lot. It's not to say I don't get that craving for a burger occasionally, but I think the over abundance of them here just has put me off. :( Things that always help my nausea are sour things like tangerines or oranges, popsicles, and tart apples. I do the cereal thing a lot too. And bagels. Aaah. Panera Bread is a bit far away but whenever I can get bagels, I do. Love them. Love carbs. ;)

Something you miss: Having energy, especially to keep up with Norah and have more quality time with Andy. By the end of the day when he gets home, I'm just so tired, and I feel bad about that. Good thing he's so understanding and helpful. I also miss feeling normal about food, and just not feeling nauseous all the time!

Milestones: Not sure. I've been showing for quite a while. However, I don't think I'm feeling the baby too clearly yet. Hoping to soon!

Weight Gain: 5 pounds.

Looking Forward To: finding out the sex on December 1! Pretty cool that it's the day after my sister finds out what she's having. I can't wait! I can't wait to become more personally attached knowing who my baby is, especially since we'll be able to decide on a name. Also, my doctor's office only does one ultrasound (boo) so this will be the first time we'll get to see our baby!

Having a Baby!

Tomorrow I am going to be a mom at last! At 41 weeks, 1 day, I am going in to be induced (unless of course Norah decides to come on her own tonight!) We are so thankful, relieved, excited, and just cannot wait to meet our little girl!

My husband will be updating here as well as on Facebook as much as he is able. Next time I write...expect pictures of Norah!

Waiting...

We are still here! I look at my countdown on the side of my blog, and it says -5 days till due date! How sad is that?! No I know I am not the first woman to go late. Yes I know many other women went one or even two weeks late. I was just really hoping I would be an exception. :) Oh well, I guess that is not to be!

If we do not go into labor on our own before then, the doctor will induce me Friday the 25th. Tomorrow (the 22nd) I go in for a non-stress test on baby Norah, to ensure she is doing well still. It doesnt really matter if the mom has broken out into a rash all over her body, or if she has constant back and stomach pain and pressure, or if she is emotionally at the end of her rope...no, that wont make them induce. I guess they think you have gone this far, what is another week?

But as frustrated as I am, I do just want my baby to be healthy. I guess it is ok I have to go through all this, as long as she is born healthy and thriving. I guess pregnancy is about learning to wait, learning to cherish, and learning to sacrifice for your child. I know any day now, I will be looking at her beautiful face and I will forget about the pain of pregnancy, labor, and waiting.

39 and 40 Weeks

37 Weeks

32 Weeks

29 weeks, 5 days

I am 29 weeks, 7 days today; here are some shots of me this past week:

American Idol Follow-Up

So...I had to continue my previous thoughts on one of my all-time favorite shows. :) (Why is it so addicting?) So my vote was for Kris Allen, ever since he sang, "Ain't No Sunshine" several weeks ago. I was really happy with the final two. Yes I liked Danny but I knew Adam deserved most to be in the finals, and of course I wanted Kris there too. I don't really know what I feel about Kris winning, however. I'm glad, because he was my personal favorite. I know I'll like a whole CD of his style of music, whereas I might only listen to Adam's once in a while (and not the whole thing). Definitely not lullaby-for-Norah type singing, if you know what I mean! But I felt sort of bad that Adam didn't win. I mean, even though he wasn't my favorite, he was pretty incredible! Anyway, I'm happy for Kris, and Adam will have great success with or without American Idol. At least the show got both of their names out there.

Ok, so since I wrote about this earlier, I felt I had an obligation to follow up. So there you go!

And a side note, Norah has been kicking A LOT! If I sit really still, we can even see my stomach move as she kicks or punches or whatever she is doing in there! It's so awesome. I am so glad for these milestones I've been waiting for (to look pregnant, not just like I have a beer belly, to know her sex, and feel her move) to finally be coming. It's such a miracle! I'm doing a lot of baby equipment research and reading on parenting. I'll have to write a post on that one of these days...

23 Weeks

This is what my husband is up to. He fractured a bone in his ankle playing soccer this past winter, and here are the results. Poor guy!

And here's me and Norah at 23 weeks! You can see we're both growing steadily. :)

Good article and news on our Daughter!

I saw this article in my local newspaper yesterday, and thought it was awesome. Let me know what you think!

(By the way, we're having a GIRL!!! Little Norah Grace Myers is healthy and right on target, the ultrasound indicates! She was kicking, sucking her thumb, even hit me once! Uh oh! But I can't feel her movements too much yet, hopefully in the next few weeks. It is so exciting to know what we're having and to call her by name instead of just "Baby." We got a little pink surfer-swim suit for her for next summer as our celebration, and I went garage saling to find some deals for her. It all seems so much more real now that we have her name, know its a her, and can start buying things for her, and envisioning her. I'm also so excited she'll be born close to her cousin Peyton! Peyton will be born May 29, and Norah will be just a few months younger. I hope the girls can be close like my sister and I have always been! Norah will have 2 cousins, Jaron - turning 2 on Sunday, my sister-in-law's little guy - and Peyton, my sister's baby-to-be.)

Un-Christian response from the Christians

Between 1933 and 1945, as a series of restrictive laws, brutal pogroms and mass deportations culminated in the slaughter of 6 million Jews, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.
Between 1955 and 1968, as the forces of oppression used terrorist bombings, police violence and kangaroo courts to deny African-Americans their freedom, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.
Beginning in 1980, as a mysterious and deadly new disease called AIDS began to rage through the homosexual community like an unchecked fire, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.
So who can be surprised by the new Pew report?
Specifically, it’s from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, and it surveys Americans’ attitudes on the torture of suspected terrorists. Pew found that 49 percent of the nation believes torture is at least sometimes justifiable. Slice that number by religious affiliation, though, and things get interesting. It turns out the religiously unaffiliated are the “least” likely (40 percent) to support torture, but that the more you attend church, the more likely you are to condone it. Among racial/religious groups, white evangelical Protestants were far and away the most likely (62 percent) to support inflicting pain as a tool of interrogation.
You’d think people who claim connection to a higher morality would be the ones most likely to take the lonely, principled stand. But you need only look at history to see how seldom that has been the case, how frequently my people — Christians — acquiesce to expediency and fail to look beyond the immediate. Never mind that looking beyond the immediate pretty much constitutes a Christian’s entire job description.
In the Bible it says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” What we see so often in people of faith, though, is an imperfect love that embraces fear, that lets us live contentedly in our moral comfort zones, doing spiritual busywork and clucking pieties, things that let you feel good, but never require you to put anything at risk, take a leap, make that lonely stand.
Again, there are exceptions, but they prove the rule, which is that in our smug belief that God is on our side, we often fail to ask if we are on his.
So it is often left to a few iconoclasts — Oskar Schindler, the war profiteer who rescued 1,200 Jews in Poland; James Reeb, the Unitarian Universalist minister murdered for African-American voting rights in Alabama; Princess Diana, the British royal who courted international opprobrium for simply touching a person with AIDS in Britain — to do the dangerous and moral thing while the great body of Christendom watches in silence.
Now there is this debate over the morality of torture in which putative people of faith say they can live with a little blood (someone else’s) and a little pain (also someone else’s) if it helps maintain the illusion of security (theirs), and never mind such niceties as guilt or innocence. Thus it was left to Jon Stewart, the cheerfully irreligious host of “The Daily Show,” to speak last week of the need to be willingly bound by rules of decency and civilization or else be indistinguishable from the terrorists. “I understand the impulse,” he said. “I wanted them to clone bin Laden so that we could kill one a year at half-time at the Super Bowl. ... I understand bloodlust, I understand revenge; I understand all those feelings. I also understand that this country is better than me.”
So there you have it: a statement of principle and higher morality from a late-night comic. That Christians are not lining up to say the same is glaringly ironic in light of what happened to a Middle Eastern man who was arrested by the government, imprisoned and tortured. Eventually he was even executed, though he was innocent of any crime.
His name was Jesus.
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com. Pitts will chat with readers from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. every Wednesday on www.MiamiHerald.com.

LEONARD
PITTS Jr.
The Miami Herald

19 Weeks Belly

So I finally took some more belly pictures. Please ignore my face and look at the belly! There has definitely been some growth since my 13 week post! Also, I have been feeling the baby kick a little bit! The first time it was really noticeable to me was a few days ago, during our Bible study group, as we were reading Psalm 139. Isn't that awesome? It was the best feeling to sense that subtle movement, and I wished to feel that over and over.
We find out in a little less than a week (May 1) what sex the baby is! I can't wait to see the baby on the ultrasound, and can't wait to be able to really settle on a name and start envisioning ourselves with either a little boy or girl.



And just for fun, here's my husband after he sang and played at our little friend Isa's birthday party this morning. She turned 5 and had a rock party! Think he should keep his hair blue? :)

Pregnancy Photo Shoot!

My good friend Melissa Reiner has recently discovered a love and talent she has for photography. Andy and I went to visit her, her husband, and their one-year old son this past weekend. She offered to do a 13 week pregnancy photo shoot for me. I was delighted because I haven't had an opportunity like that, and she was excited to practice. I'm going to post some of our favorite shots. Let me know what you think! She promised to come visit me again when I'm farther along and take some more!