First

So I've become recently obsessed with another blog by Amalah. I never thought much about blogging, nor was I really into it, but since I've started reading her blog and her Advice Smackdown on Alphamom.com and read about other mom bloggers, it sounded like a good way to help remember the early days of Charlie and our marriage before we get too far down the road to remember the little things. Little things like how I was 12 weeks pregnant when we PCS moved to Fort Benning, Georgia and not actually being able to do anything was harder than the move itself. Or how Joe felt her kick at 19 weeks BEFORE I even felt her sloshing around in there. I was beyond super jealous. And now I feel her ALL the time, and he hasn't since, so its kind of like sweet justice :) Oh, and how Heather felt her kick at 22 weeks and nearly jumped out of her skin. We spent the first 15 minutes chasing her around my belly so she could feel her, and then when she finally did it was crazy! And I want proof that I felt like pure crap until 20 weeks, so when we decide we want to have another baby, we have a reality check beyond that babies are so cute and squishy haha It probably won't be a deterrent at all, but then I can go back and read this and remember that I had the best intentions. And hopefully this will be a nice way for our families to feel apart of the pregnancy since they're all in North Carolina. This is the first baby for everything! The first borns on both sides married each other, Charlie is the first child for us, the first grandchild for them, the first great grandchild for our grandparents, my brothers will be uncles, the first great cousin? How does that work exactly? I am super close with my cousins, and they'll be Charlie's cousins, but what is the technical term? Not that it matters or will make a difference, but I'm still curious. Joe's super close with his paternal cousins, and I seem to mesh well with them also, but they're all in California so that sucks. I have a feeling that this little girl is going to bring all kinds of family chaos to our world. Good chaos, but chaos.
I have some fears about having this baby. Some are logistical, some are emotional, some are irrational. I'm a naturally territorial person. Not in a bad way, just in a "don't assume you know where things go or how I like things to be done" kind of way. I'm very type A about some things, and I'm just terrified that nobody is going to take me seriously once she's here. Joe's mom happened to take the week off that Charlie's due before we even knew her due date, which was a pretty funny coincidence. But I'm not sure how I feel about people being here immediately after she's born. I of course want my mom and sister here, but that's b/c she's my mommy and she knows everything. She did successfully give birth to 5 of us :) And I adore Joe's mom, I got incredibly lucky in the mother in law department. But I still don't feel confident in my abilities to be able to tell her what I want, or what I think, or what I may not want her to do, without coming across has harsh or hateful. I'm working on having confidence in that area, but it's a slow process. She also happens to be type A like me, which my psycho control freak self sometimes gets freaked out by. So my biggest fear for Charlie's arrival is getting frustrated. Its easy to tell my mom that I'm not interested in whatever she's "selling", but his mom or our grandmas?  Ugh, just thinking about it stresses me out. I know these fears are pretty irrational, his mother would never do anything intentional to step on my toes, but I'm still worried. Being a first time mom is stressful all by itself. The whole world feels the need to tell me how to do things, or how things were done when they had kids, and yadda yadda yadda. While I appreciate everyone's experience, and realize I have none of my own beyond helping raise siblings and lots of babysitting, but OMG I don't care sometimes. These are strangers I'm talking about by the way ;) Unless I specifically ask for your 2 cents, please don't just give it to me. I especially don't want to hear how you were sick the entire pregnancy, how you had complications, how your epidural wore off, or any other horror story you want to share. Tell me your happy stories!! You aren't helping my neurosis by telling me every bad thing that could possibly happen. Tell me how it was cake after your epidural, like my friend Stacy did, or tell me that the nursing staff was supportive of your breastfeeding choice and didn't continuously force formula on you, or how your baby was just too delicious and perfect for their own good. I want those stories. All negative Nancy's, feel free to keep quiet :) Ok so this kind of turned into a rant, my bad. That was not my intention. Happy posts for now on, mostly.

So for some baby updates! She officially owns more clothing than both her parents. Joe was concerned about all the pink, but then I had to explain to him that she won't actually look like a girl until she's like 6 or 7 months old, so the pink is necessary. Her having a boy nickname won't help, so we need all the pink we can get haha She has a bassinet to sleep in, but that is the extent of her furniture so far. Its a beautiful bassinet that we got from Stacy's friend Liz, which was so nice. I was having a hard tome finding one I liked. It will be nice to have something in our room for her to sleep in those first few nights of night nursing. I know co-sleeping is common, and the benefits are huge, but I just don't want to share our bed with her. I feel like I will need that small separation. She has some stuffed animals from various people. Joe's grandmother gave her a lamb, and that meant a lot to me. The dog my preschool class gave me when we moved will be hers, and Keech ate the bear his Aunt Libby gave us. So she's officially a part of the family now that Keech has eaten something of hers. Circle of life I guess. We've started stock piling diapers early so we won't have to stress as much over it when she's actually here. Hmmm.... what else do we have? Oh bibs. We have some bibs. That's it. So far, we are totally unprepared for this baby. We've still got 17 weeks so hopefully we can get it together by then :) According to the ultrasound we had, she's 4 ounces and something like 7 inches long. I don't remember the length, we were more concerned about her head size. Everyone knows I am terrified to have to have a c-section. I want to avoid one at all costs. So we were concerned she was going to have a giant head like her daddy, but the tech said she is normal in size everywhere. Nothing's too big, nothing's too small, its all just normal. Hopefully it'll stay that way. You hear that Charlie? No giant growth spurts!

So until the next doctors appointment, I'll just keep updates with how we're doing and what I'm feeling Charlie do. She's an active little baby so far, so we'll see if she stays that way once she's here. December can't come soon enough :)