I've Definitely "Popped"

I've been having a coworker take pictures of my belly at the end of each month to keep track of how big my belly is getting and WHOA!!

Yes Indeed I'm Walking!

I've started walking thirty minutes during my lunch hour. I wouldn't say I've developed a pattern yet, but I'm on my way. I usually walk a mile and a half in thirty minutes, making sure I'm staying cool and hydrated before, during and afterwards. It feels really good to walk and I've noticed that since I've started, I've been able to sleep through the nights more often. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'll take it!

I need fresh towels, boiling water and something to bite down on!

For the past 3 years, ever since my friends and family have been having babies, I've been listening and learning and determining what our birth plan would be. I know that I don't want to be induced, I want to have the baby naturally - without an epidural, I don't want to be linked to monitors & IVs so I could move around freely and I don't see the point in staying in a hospital for two days after having the baby if there's no reason for me to stay. With all that, it seemed obvious that having the baby at a hospital would be more of a hindrance than a blessing.

Obviously, I'm not going to escape the hospital with the baby as soon as I have feeling in my legs, and I seriously doubt the hospital would let me go if I asked them nicely. So, I began researching alternatives to hospitals, and came across Labor of Love (http://laborluv.com/).

Labor of Love is a birthing center - a place to have the baby completely naturally with a skilled mid-wife and assistant present to provide emotional support and medical back-up, if needed. The center has two birthing suites complete with bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchenette and a jacuzzi tub for water births. So we'll be completely free to have the baby how & when the baby & I see fit.

So, that's our plan. I have my first appointment with Labor of Love in a couple of weeks, and the following appointment will be our chance to see if it's a boy or a girl. I'll keep you all posted!

He might not want me to tell you this, but...

Last night, while we were watching TV in bed, Brian laid his head on my shoulder and began rubbing my belly. :)

Butterfingers and Potato Chips

Just as I was told, the second trimester brought upon a welcoming change to my pregnancy. Gone are the days of complete exhaustion, multiple trips to the bathroom and my morning sickness. Now I am able to stay awake until 10:00 most nights, I've eaten without worrying about how the food would taste coming back up and just been a lot happier.
(Granted, I'm still a moody little witch with a new nickname at work: "SnapDragon". I like it, it fits me.)
But now that I'm able to eat again, I'm not doing the right thing... I'm eating what I want... and I want butterfingers. I've eaten a butterfinger everyday for the last 10 days. And right behind that is potato chips - particularly the salt and vinegar, but I have yet to say "no thank you" to any chip I come across.
I'll try my best to eat healthy... next week. Right now I have a bag of chips calling out to me... and what's that? I think it's the call of a butterfinger trapped at the convenience store!

Bun in the Oven

Yesterday I began to actually "feel" pregnant. Not meaning I haven't suffered from other symptoms of pregnancy (boy have I!), but I finally felt that that there's something in my belly. All it feels like is a lump of dough: a heavy, round and prominent lump of dough that's very sensitive to pressure. Huh! Lump of dough = bun in the oven??

So, I searched the origin of the phrase "bun in the oven" and found this:
The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang notes that the word "oven" has been used to mean "vagina" or "womb" since the end of the 17th century. And the late scholar Beryl Rowland has described the expression as "a colloquial use of an ancient folk metaphor" with roots in classical times. In an article in the journal American Speech, she wrote: "The ancient gods such as Zeus were conceived as millers and their consorts as mills; the human race was the product they ground and baked, and on a terrestrial scale, man and woman performed similar functions."