Woznation

So on Monday, my boss told me to block out a few hours at lunch for ‘a little something.’  It turns out everyone came together to throw me a baby shower!!  I was so surprised!!  Everyone brought food and decorated.  They all chipped in for a gift card for me and I opened a few presents as well.  I was soooo not expecting everything, but it was so great!  Here was the spread:

Me, my boss, and administrative assistant:

Gifts and Cake:

My special chair (amongst the copier and WB Mason boxes):

Here are some candids:

It was such a fun afternoon.  The ladies at work have been so wonderful and supportive.  Most have kids of their own and they are always so encouraging.  I only have 5 or 6 weeks left of work here –  Its so crazy to think I am leaving so soon – I havent even been here a year!  I was very lucky for this position during our short stint in the Jerz.  Especially for all the great people I met while I was there!

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So I did my best to recreate a picture that was taken in early November, about a week after we found out I was pregnant.

So, yeah. 4 weeks vs. 32 weeks.  I’ve really let myself go.

I feel like I am plateau-ing in terms of ‘news’.  In the early part of pregnancy I didnt have much to share because I wasnt showing or feeling much of anything.  Then I started getting my bump and I started feeling him move and everything was new and exciting.  But now, its like – ‘Yeah, he moves ALL the time. I wish he would stop so I can go to sleep.’  and ‘Yeah, Im ginormous. I have to do a grand plie every time I need to pick something up.’  But I cant complain because everything is going great! We got the car seat today and the instruction manual is more complicated than my car’s instruction manual.  Luckily, there are appointments at the hospital where they can approve the installation of said car seat before we need to take the little guy home in it.  We have also started washing the baby clothes and buying supplies in preparation of his arrival.  We are just getting the essentials for the few weeks we are here in the Jerz and will worry about the rest when we get to Baltimore.  Its going to be a crazy last few weeks!  Less than 2 months to go!

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Lets evaluate some facts:

1) For the last 4 years, my career has been in medical reasearch

2) I have authorship on over 20 publications

3) I understand that even the strongest medical research has its limitations and that data can be misconstrued and/or misinterpreted

4) Under the IRB, pregnant women and fetus are a special class of subjects and are protected.  Thus, making it very difficult to conduct thorough research and make conclusions based off of clinical trials.

5) My doctors have seen thousands of pregnant women and delivered thousands of babies.  They have gone through medical school and have more experience than I will ever have.

So.  You would think from points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 that I would be a good judge of what constitutes as ‘knowledge’ – that I know to be skeptical of some information and I should put my trust in valued sources, especially in the context of informed decision-making for my unborn child.

Does any of this stop me from googling crazy things and running to the doctors to check out some medical issue that was posted anonymously on the internet?!  NOPE.  DOESN’T EVEN SLOW ME DOWN!

Seriously.  Being pregnant has turned me into a crazy person.  Im convinced that it is beyond impossible to be a rational human being when you are pregnant. I can not help myself from being a nervous wreck over the smallest thing.  Its exhausting.  But luckily I have a rational husband and truly amazing doctors who listen to me spout crazy things and still respond thoughtfully. *sigh* Thank you, Phil.  Thank you, doctors.

Here is another peek at our little guy from this morning:

Ultrasounds pictures of the profile are getting pretty boring, huh? But everything is looking great.  The tech even pointed out all the hair he already has!! (Cant really see it in the picture above.) Phil and I both had a lot of hair when we were born, so its not a huge surprise, but I love hearing these little things! Very small puzzle pieces of the mystery person I have inside of me. So far we know: penis and hair.  Cant wait to find out everything else about him.

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My belly is starting to become quite impressive:

Strangers arent shy about asking my due date anymore!  However, despite appearances, I guess I am measuring small?!  And my doctor told me to eat more.  I took that as a cue to eat a chocolate shake for dinner last night (probably not what she meant, but it was delicious).

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We had a beautiful shower hosted by my sister with lots of helps from my mom and mother-in-law!  It was an open-house at my parents new place and we had so many friends stop by to say hi.  We are so appreciative of all the support we have received from everyone as we prepare for the arrival of our little woz!

Lots of good food and the cutest decorations ever!

Annakate came from Nashville!!!

Phil had friends come, too!  My dad stocked some beer for the male crowd and Im happy to report they all survived their first baby shower.  Thanks for coming boys!!!  Proud Grandparents-to-be:

Lots of cute clothes, books, toys, and gear.  We are so thankful for all the wonderful gifts and it was so good seeing so many family and friends.  Its so crazy to think that the next time we are in Bloomington we will have a baby with us!!

Thank you Wendy, Mom and Char for a beautiful afternoon and Thanks to everyone who came by.  We feel like we are slowly but surely getting prepared for this little guy’s arrival.  We would be very lost without everyone’s love and support!!

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Sorry for the lack of posts, its been very busy around here. We have begun online apartment hunting in Baltimore and I officially put in my resignation at work since I will not be coming back after maternity leave.  As Phil alluded to in his job posting – since we are now moving in July, we will not be utilizing the original nursery plan.  That room now looks like this:

Im going to try to take down the mural and reuse it in our new place, but we’ll see how well it travels.  We also really like a space/solar system theme .  So maybe we’ll go in a whole new direction.  Right now it looks like the baby will enjoy a ‘moving boxes’ theme for the first 3 weeks of life.

Speaking of baby, we got another sneak peek of him on Friday:

Hes estimated at 1 lb, 15 oz, which puts him in the 65 percentile [still no name, we’re working on it.]  and everything is looking great.  Im approaching the 3rd trimester and feeling wonderful.  Phil and I are gearing up for the 12 hour drive back to Indiana this Friday!!  Wendy will be in town from California and is hosting a shower for us at my parents brand new house!  The brothers are heading down as well.  Its pretty rare to get the whole Watkins clan in the same place at the same time, so Im really pumped.

Here I am enjoying a popsicle that Barney thinks is for him:

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So its only been 2 weeks since I have last posted a picture, but I definitely did some poppin’ – as my yoga girls put it.

It may or may not have something to do with this:

7 boxes of girl scout cookies.  They were selling them at Lowes today as we were leaving.  and Phil goes up to the table and asks for ‘1 of everything except whatever that berry one is on the end’.  The girls were in a frenzy, we were their biggest purchase of the day so far.

This is actually my biggest concern:

Do you see the line that I have added?!  My belly has officially broken the niplar plane.  It protrudes past my chest.  I was going to title this post ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ but, dear god, I hope there is a point of return.  In that same vien, my toes are officially on notice.  I can still see them but I know its only a matter of time.

Baby (no name yet!) is definitely kicking a lot harder these days.  He catches me off guard at work – I honestly jump a little sometimes when he does it! But its very cool.

Ok – thats all for now.  I’m off to eat some cookies.

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These arent nearly as exciting as the tree mural, but Im still pretty proud of them.  We have 96′ and 46′ windows in the spare room.  And it is very hard to find curtains at that length, let alone at a decent price.  Plus I wanted them to match the green from the tree.  I couldnt find anything close at the lengths I needed, so I figured Id make them.

I started with some green fabric:

Then measured my length and seams.

I am using suspension rods to hang these.  So really all I needed to do was fold in all the sides and stitch them up, leaving one side with at least a 1 to 2 inch fold over to insert the rod.  Im a little embarrassed to say that I sewed all these by hand.  It would have taken like 2 seconds for anyone with a sewing machine.  But I was super bored with Phil gone, so it provided me with some mindless activity and fulfilled my nesting urges.

But in the end, no matter what the method, we now have new curtains of the appropriate length that match the leaves on my tree mural.  Win. Win. Win.

The color looks different depending on the time of day and flash I was using.  But I am really happy with how they turned out (though Barney does not look amused in the last few photos).  Ill probably use some white ribbon to tie them back during the day.  Only a few more things to decide before we finalize the nursery!

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