Mama Mades

This is a pair of booties that I made for our little bean. They were the second pair of booties I ever made. I didn't have the guage figured out well and they are teeny tiny. Both fit pretty much in the palm of my hand, so I suppose they will probably only fit the bean for the first week or two, but I don't mind. His little toes will need to stay warm.



I learned to make hats last winter and these are from then. Two are small, and one is slightly bigger. Having a baby in Canada in January, I imagine he'll be wearing hats a lot.



I don't know where I got the idea to make a sock monkey hat, but onceit was in my head it was too cute to ignore, so I adapted my basic hat pattern, adding a pom-pom and ear flaps. Jen wants me to add on monkey ears, so I still have to do that. The thumbless mittens I made up. I think it'll look very cute when he's wearing a plain white onesie and these handmades. Be on the lookout for pictures. ;)



Leftover sock monkey wool got make into a larger sized hat and some booties.



More leftover wool into a stripey hat. I like stripes.



Finally some matching mama-baby hats. I made the big hat for myself last spring and had just enough left over for a baby hat. We'll look cute on our walks together.

Merry Christmas

This year Christmas will be a little different for us, since we can't travel to the States to visit Jen's family.


Like usual, we will go to my mom's later today for Christmas Eve and celebrate with my family there. This year we will spend the night. We've been invited to my cousins' house for dinner on Christmas Day and will see them, my Aunt and Uncle and my Nana there. Boxing day Jen's parents will drive up to spend a couple of days with us. So far we have no plans for New Year's Eve, and hope to keep it relatively quiet. It should be a nice holiday week. I'm looking forward to some low-key time with Jen and our family.

Every year that we've lived together, Jen and I have added a Santa to our collection. Here they all are, the most recent one is at the bottom.









Hope everyone enjoys their holidays. Best wishes for the new year.

Ultrasound Update

Our secondary midwife called again yesterday (our primary midwife is on holiday through the end of the month). She wanted to let us know that she's referring us to the "high risk" ultrasound clinic. Not exactly reassuring, but she did go on to explain that the technicians there are allowed to discuss results as they see them, so we won't have to wait and wonder how the bean is doing. I told her that we are getting anxious about having so many ultrasounds, but she indicated that they wouldn't recommend them unless they thought they were necessary and said we could talk about the risks involved at our appointment on Monday. Their concern is IUGR -Intrauterine Growth Restriction and that the baby is SGA -Small for Gestational Age. I'm still not sure another ultrasound is the right thing to do, but if we didn't do it and then there were a big problem that could have been detected I know I would regret it. *Sigh.* Jen seems a lot bigger this week, so my hope is that they'll do the fundal height measurement and say we don't need to have another ultrasound, although my feeling is that even if she is measuring bigger, they'll still send us for the ultrasound. I guess we'll see on Monday.

Movement

Just a short video I took last night of the baby moving around... watch for him around 30 seconds in and then again right near the end. He's pretty active, especially in the evenings when Jen is relaxing on the couch. (And after she's had some jellybeans! ;) )

New Favourite Website!

Jen and I have been having a somewhat difficult time coming up with a short list of names. There's one name that we've been leaning heavily towards, a few that we both like a lot, and then some others that either I like or she likes, but we don't agree on. We aren't going to make any final decisions until we meet our little guy, but we do want to have a list of maybe 5 names or so that we would strongly consider. We tend to always look at the same few names... that is, until yesterday when I found this awesome website called Nymbler. You type in your favourite names and it throws back suggestions on other names you might like. Then, when you click on the name it tells you it's origin, meaning, rank in terms of popularity, etc. SO COOL!

Ultrasound Results

So, we went to the ultrasound clinic again on Tuesday so that they could check on the size of the bean. He's still measuring small. Actually, he went from being in the 20th percentile at our previous appointment, to being in the 15th percentile at this one. Because of that, they did a biophysical profile measuring things like muscle tone, movement, breathing movements, the amount of amniotic fluid, and umbilical artery flow. All those results came back fine, but they still indicated that they want us to come back for another ultrasound in two weeks. We're not thrilled with having to go in for so many ultrasounds. We're sort of debating whether we want to do any more actually. Hopefully Jen and baby have a bit of a growth spurt over the next few weeks and it becomes a non-issue.

I just checked Jen's baby book and she weighed 6lbs, 10oz at birth and was 20 inches long, which is on the lower side of average. I guess it shouldn't be that unexpected that our baby might be on the smallish side too.

More Concerns

So, it's been a while since I last posted. (I won't count the one I just put up, because that was actually something I had drafted about a month ago and then kind of forgot about until just now.) Things have been busy here. We've been doing a lot of preparation for the bean's arrival and I have to say, I think we are close to being ready... or at least as ready as we're going to be!

I'm feeling a little bit anxious about his arrival. I am still overjoyed that we are having a baby and excited to meet him, but I'm concerned about how we will manage once he's here. I worried that Jen will suffer from post-partum depression and I won't know how to help her if she does. I'm also concerned that I will be overwhelmed and stressed out and possibly become depressed. I wonder if this is how many dads feel. I've never really heard any guys talk about it.

I'm planning on taking the first two weeks following the birth off of work, so that Jen and I can both be at home. I actually need to call today and see if I can take the time as parental leave (and get some money from the government) or if I will have to take it as unpaid emergency leave. Either way, I will take the time. Being a kindergarten teacher, I anticipate that I won't have the energy or patience necessary to do my job well during that transition time, but any longer than two weeks away would be too disruptive to my class.

Jen will take the 17 weeks of maternity leave, and follow with the 35 weeks of parental leave allowed by the government. (Or 33 if my two weeks count as parental leave.) I am SO glad that she will be able to take the full year. I know so many parents go back to work after just six weeks, but I can't imagine how difficult it must be for them.

Jen's mom is also going to come down for at least one week after I return to work to help out. I'm sure my mom and sister will also be around to help, but having Jen's mom here for a full week will be great.

I guess the only other news of significance is that we had a follow-up ultrasound to check on the bean's kidneys and everything came back clear. However, he was measuring in the 20th percentile, which is a little small, and Jen's belly hasn't been measuring bigger the past few appointments so yesterday our midwife said to book another ultrasound to make sure that his growth is on-target. Jen's kind of upset about it because people keep telling her how small she looks and it's really getting on her nerves. She was very slim before getting pregnant and is also long-waisted, so I think that contributes a lot to her not appearing huge, but when you compare pictures of week 4 to week 32 there is a BIG difference. The midwife said those two things in combination with the fact that the baby is already sitting very low might be why she's measuring small, so hopefully there is no reason for concern. I love seeing the bean, but I'm tired of worrying about things being wrong. Hopefully this will be the last ultrasound. We go in this afternoon.

The Other Mother

Somewhat surprisingly to me, one of the questions I haven't been asked much is what the baby is going to call us. It's been a discussion around here since before we were truly planning to have a baby. Neither of us has an ethnic background who's name for "Mom" we want to use. We could go the whole "Mommy Allie"/"Mommy Jenny" route, but how long before the "Mommy" gets dropped and the kids are just calling us by our first names? I don't really like that. I'd be okay with being Mama to Jen's Mom or Mommy... but again, I'm concerned that Mama is a name that's too babyish for an older child to call their mom. So, names are still up in the air.

On a related note, I've been reading a some books about lesbian mothers and have a few others on my bookshelf.

Two that I've read are Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-biological Lesbian Mothers Tell All and Who's Your Daddy? I thought both were good... sometimes funny, sometimes thought-provoking. Both were fairly quick reads.

Some others I'm hoping to get a look at before the bean gets here are Don't call me daddy : a lesbian mom on sperm donors, not being pregnant, and the ups and downs of being the other mother (currently on hold and the library) and Families Like Mine, Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is (on my bookshelf).

So, mommies, what do your little ones call you?