pregnant

Adventures with Baby H- Part 5, Pregnancy Brain or Andrea Brain?

There have been many moments in my life that people refer to as “Andrea Moments”. At our wedding my maid of honor and Sam’s best man both mentioned Andrea Moments in their speeches. I had always heard of pregnancy brain and the forgetfulness that comes with the territory. Since I’ve been pregnant we have had a hard time deciphering if these moments are pregnancy brain or just the way my brain works.

Here’s a few examples to brighten your day:

*Sam plays on a softball team once a week and I like to make sure I take my own water. It gives me something to keep me occupied for the hour that the game lasts. Plus, the concession stand at Rice Field just isn’t like it was when we were kids so I get irritated if I have to contribute. (Side note, and you will only get this if you spent your summers at Miamisburg’s baseball diamonds: I tried to buy 100 red fish and as I held out my dollar the lady kindly informed “that’s not how they do things anymore”. Poor children have to spend their whole post game dollar on one small package of the same candy? Everything’s not a penny anymore? Such a let down.)  Anyway– One particular Monday I left my water in the car so I decided to walk back and get it. As I got closer to my car I realized the real bathrooms (not porta-potty’s) were only a few more steps. Being pregnant you have to take bathroom opportunities when you get them. On my way back to my car I decided I should get a piece of gum while I’m there. I was five steps away from my seat back at the diamond before I realized I went to the bathroom, got myself some gum but did not get my water. Fail.

*I decided to start our registry online instead of actually going into the store. My sister in laws were over so it was nice to have some input from moms who had been through the registering process. When it came time to register for a monitor I was a little confused by all the different options. I mean it’s as if they can do anything but actually put your screaming baby back to sleep. As we were looking at one particular monitor I told everyone I understood what the video option did, what the movement option did but was confused on the sound option. …Out of all the Andrea Moments, I think this is one that scared my husband the most.

*When sending my brother and his family off to Germany I tried to give them some advice.-

“You guys be careful not to get caught up in all the World Cup madness I’m seeing on the news.”

“We won’t since it’s in Brazil.”

“Yes, yes. You should be just fine.”

*One morning I was texting with Sam talking about baby things. I asked his opinion on registering at Target, along with Babies R Us, since they have more decorations for the nursery. Here’s the outcome:

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I think I literally laughed out loud at this one for a good five minutes.

*Have you ever felt like your bladder was going to bust if you had gotten to the bathroom one second later? I have. Have you ever been so relieved that you made it without peeing your pants that you sit down, start to have yourself a little dance party to suddenly realize your drawers are still on? I have. Have you ever laughed hysterically at yourself in the bathroom stall then immediately run out to tell at least 3 co-workers what just happened? I’ve done that, too.

After sharing one of these with a few friends, my dear friend Brittany (who thinks quite similar to the way I do) informed me that the scary part of all of this is that it’s very possible the “baby brain” won’t go away. A plus of having these moments while pregnant is people just accepting the pregnancy brain excuse. I get even more excited when others blame it on the pregnancy before I can get it out. Little do some of you know…it’s just the way my life rolls. I have had these moments for years but it’s nice to have an excuse now.

If you haven’t gotten a chuckle out of at least one of these then you need to have yourself a beverage, some coffee or do some yoga. Whatever you need to do to relax a little. 🙂

Adventures with Baby H- Part 3, Pregnant Teacher

I’ve had fun being pregnant thus far. I’m 18 weeks and I’m one of the lucky ones who hasn’t gotten sick, I can still wear all of my clothes (some pants just have to be left unbuttoned), and I’m feeling great. When I was far enough along to tell my students I was pregnant, I was a little nervous. They are 7th/8th graders and let’s be real..they know where babies come from. I’m also one of five teachers at my school pregnant so I wasn’t quite sure of the response I was going to get. My co-teacher let us get off topic one day in math to announce to the kids I was pregnant with this picture.

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Their faces and reactions were priceless. Teaching and being pregnant is even more fun than just being pregnant…I get to share the experience with 13 and 14 year old innocence. Over the last several weeks I’ve had many conversations with quite interested students. I hope you can get a little chuckle out of at least one.

I hadn’t been in class for nearly two weeks because of our lovely state testing. I had small groups I had to test outside the classroom.
Girl: “Mrs. Haddix! You are changing!”
Me: “Yes, I sure am. There’s definitely a baby in there.”
Girl: “It’s so fast! Last week you looked like this (sucks her stomach in real far). This week you look like this (pushes her stomach out as far as it can go).”
–Thank you, honey, for your honesty.

“So, what are you going to do when your pants don’t fit anymore?”

“Do you have super powers now that you’re pregnant?” –I totally went with this question! Yes, sir. I sure do!

“Stop jumping around! You have a baby in there now.”

This is my favorite conversation so far:
Boy: “What’s the difference between your baby momma and your baby’s mom?”
*I had to pause for a few to make sure I responded properly.
Me: “Well, if Sam (I talk about him often and there’s been several times my kids have wanted to call him during the school day) introduced me as his baby momma I wouldn’t be happy.”
Boy: “Ok. I would say baby momma and you’d say your baby’s mom.”
–I just nodded as he walked off confidently with full understanding of the two terms.

Girl: “When do you find out what you’re having?”
Me: “May 29th.”
*They all get excited.
My co-teacher: “She’s not going to tell you what she’s having.”
*They all get angry.
Me: “Nope, I’ll just have to run into you some time this summer.”
Girl: (serious as can be because she has a genius idea) “Ok, you need to go grocery shopping in July.”
–Don’t worry, dear. This pregnant lady will definitely do lots of grocery shopping at some point during the month of July.

Girl: “I told my mom you were pregnant and she told me some tricks that helped her when I was little. You have to keep the baby around loud things all the time when they are little. If you do that, it will always be able to fall asleep in loud places.”
Me: “Perfect! You and I both know I have the loud thing under control.”
*All she responded with was a big smile and a laugh.

The boys aren’t as chatty about the pregnancy as much as the girls but they show their interest in other ways. Boys who aren’t always the most thoughtful are opening doors for me, I drop something on the ground and they are the first to pick it up. When I first told one of my boys he wouldn’t leave my side. It was like he instantly decided to become my protector at school. The 8th graders could talk about me being pregnant for days. Luckily I’m in a science classroom with an experienced teacher who doesn’t mind to answer any question the kids throw at us.

You think all teenagers are loud, obnoxious and rude? Come spend a day with me at my middle school and you’ll change your mind.

Adventures with Baby H- Part 2, My Wish

Warning: This is going to be a sappy, mushy post. Those pregnancy hormones must be kicking in. Also, we have not found out Baby H’s gender yet but for the sake of my sanity, in this post baby is going to be referred to as he.

In the last couple months Sam and I have attended/been part of several milestone events for people in our life. Funerals, weddings, wedding showers, hearing my niece say one of her first words, friends buying a house and I’m sure more I can’t quite remember (thank you pregnancy brain). I have found myself fighting back tears at many of these events. It’s quite an amazing feeling to be growing a human. At Sam’s great aunts funeral I found myself hoping he would live a life as joyful and memorable as her. That there would be people who loved him and wanted to share stories and memories with him. At a wedding we went to last night I couldn’t hold back the tears when I looked at Sam, tears rolling down, during the mother/son dance and said “I’m going to have to do this some day.” His response was, “I might have to, too.” Lordy, these are things you (or maybe it was just us) don’t think about when you have the conversation with your significant other about having kids. Of course we have thought about the school events, sporting events, or family outings but literally every single part of our lives is going to have a whole new meaning once baby arrives. And we just simply cannot wait. I hope Baby H has people in his life who will guide him, create adventures with him, teach him a thing or two and just show him how it feels to be one of the luckiest people on Earth.

I hope he understands it’s okay to keep things simple like our grandparents. They have showed us a little hard work will take you a long way. I hope he has the dedication to all things like my dad (Sam, not so secretly, hopes he has the athletic ability of my dad). I hope he has the strength of my mom when life doesn’t go his way. I hope he has the love of the outdoors and the ability to take care of others like Sam’s mom. I hope he has the sense of humor and ability to make people laugh like Sam’s dad. I hope he has the sense of service like my brother. I hope he has the want to make things right like Sam’s brother. I hope he has the ability to cook like his aunt (unless some crazy miracle happens and I suddenly enjoy cooking, he won’t get that from me).

I hope he has people he calls family even though they are not blood related. The people he may start to explain the relationship, “My parent’s best friends of 30 years, daughter’s…” but then just decides to say “My family, you probably won’t get it.” instead because it’s easier.  I hope he has cousins he is excited to  talk to when life shows him new adventures, even though they may be scattered across the country.

I hope he has friends he stands in a circle with at a wedding and belts out songs like Jamey Johnson’s “In Color” and knows he’s not the only one that is singing the words right from the heart. I hope he has friends halfway around the world who share with him what it’s like to be a part of a different culture. I hope he has “small town America” friends that he can go visit after a rough week and enjoy the smell of cow manure and simplicity that being in a town with one or two traffic lights brings. I hope he has the friends he without a doubt knows will have his back at all hours of the day.

I hope he can sit on the patio of his own home on a sunny Sunday morning, throw a rope with his dog, hear the tv going inside the house and have a hard time understanding how he got to be so lucky.

Adventures with Baby H- Part 1

I’m back!!! I took a blogging break from the world for several weeks. I felt the only thing fun/funny and exciting going on in our lives was our news of expecting a Sam/Andrea in October. Since I wasn’t at the point of pregnancy to announce it to the world, I decided to hold off on the blog. Here are our first few weeks as a newly expectant couple. Buckle up, it’s going to be a long one…

Let me start with saying that Sam and I kept this HUGE secret to ourselves for the first 9 weeks. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops..ok maybe just tell our close friends and family…but we decided not to. Sam made a good point- he said “You can only tell your family your having your first baby once. Let’s make it memorable.” We are both the baby of the family, so this totally made sense to us. Our older brothers had hundreds of pictures taken of them as babies and we can only find a few of us, including the professional family Christmas pictures.  Perfect example of youngest child syndrome: for years my family and I would put the Christmas tree up together. Every year, never failed, I would complain about the 10 “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments my brother had and the maybe 3 I had. I’m sure one was even broken. My family had finally heard enough whining and when I was 22 years old they all bought me a “Baby’s First Christmas 1988” ornament. Well played, well played. I think I finally surpassed my brother in the baby ornament department…at the age of 22.

Ok, back on track…I like to think we are fun people. We like to enjoy happy hour on Friday, or a couple drinks with friends during the week, maybe even a little Sunday Fun-day every now and then. Before this experience I didn’t realize how much fun we really are, aka how much we go out. It is real hard to continue to answer the question of why you’re drinking water over, and over and over again. Sam and I came up with a plan, that in our eyes, was nothing short of genius and just had to work. I told everyone I was on some type of antibiotic. Of course everyone’s first question was “What’s it called?” Being able to play the ditzy, I have no idea what’s going on card so well (Let’s be real, I don’t “play” it, I “live” it), I would simply respond with an over-dramatic “Seriously? I don’t know when I wear my clothes backwards. You think I’m going to remember what meds I’m on?” The plan was nothing short of perfection for the first couple weeks. As the weeks went on, I could see the doubt in our friends’ eyes but only a couple times did I have to fend off the “YOU’RE PREGNANT!!!!!” claim.

One night when Sam and I were discussing the baby in the secrecy of our home (since this seemed to be one of the only spots we could talk about it) we started on the topic of names. Sam was throwing out off the wall names and I was shooting them down every time. It took me a while to figure out he was doing it just to get on my nerves. Once I realized that I started to laugh at the name suggestions. I think the next name he suggested was “Tony- perfect for a boy or girl” were his exact words. Disclaimer: I know several Tony/Toni’s…great people…just not the name I would like to name my child. We were still in the first 9 weeks and hadn’t told anyone yet so Tony started to stick, more as a joke. We would be out with friends and family, “Hey babe, how’s Tony?”, “Does Tony want any of my burger?”, “Did Tony like his cupcake?” Not one person ever caught on to Sam talking about Tony even with the scene I made when he would say it loud enough for all to hear. I hope Baby H enjoys this story as much as we have when he/she grows up. 🙂

Now we are ready for our first doctor appointment. Because I hadn’t told anyone at this point, I couldn’t ask anyone how the first appointment went. I was nervous as all get out but Sam was cool as a cucumber. My doctor’s office is a small little place with only a few patient rooms and a rather tiny waiting room. We walked up to the counter and the first thing the receptionist said was “CONGRATULATIONS!!”. Sam and I both looked around thinking “SHH, someone might hear you say that”. When we realized there wasn’t anyone in the office who would know us we relaxed and nicely said thank you. Her first impression of us probably wasn’t the best.  There was another man and woman in the waiting room so Sam and I had to be on our best behavior while we waited. That didn’t last long.

1. The paperwork-There always seems to be at least one question on paperwork at doctor’s offices that I simply do not know the answer to. This time the question was “What is your race?” I know this seems like a simple question but I always, always get confused about the answer they are looking for…white, Caucasian, American, English? I never know. I asked Sam what our race is and he responded with “human”. This was laughing fit #1. Seriously? Could I have just gotten a normal answer? So then he had to go into a story of where he heard this hilarious answer to my question. A guy he used to work with put this on a form at his doctor’s office, they asked him to change it and he refused because he is of the “human race”. Fair enough, you are right, it is rather funny, especially in a quiet waiting room. So thank you, guy he used to work with for the clever response. I responded with white because I could only get human out of Sam. I’m still not sure if this is the correct answer or not.

2. The pee sample- When I turned my paperwork back into the lady at the counter she informed me they were going to need a sample of my urine and to let them know if I had to use the restroom. No problem. I sat back down for a few minutes, then told Sam I needed to use the restroom and got up. Immediately Sam nearly fell out of his chair, thinking this was the time, as he tried to get up and go with me. I laughingly told him I was just going to the restroom, no need for freaking out yet. The ladies at the desk found it rather comical. As we waited and waited Sam decided that he, too, needed to use the restroom. He was a little worried about the fact that maybe he wasn’t allowed to go to the restroom at a girl doctor. The restroom had to be labeled “girls only”. I convinced him it was ok, he just needed to ask the nice lady behind the counter before heading to the back to use the bathroom. To my surprise, as he neared the counter, he held out his hand to the receptionist and said as serious as can be,

“Do you have my cup ready for me?” I knew he was kidding but she must have missed the smirk on his face.

She stuttered over her words a bit as she responded with a “Si..sirrr..sir, we don’t need a sample from you. Only your wife.”

“Oh, ok, great! Do you mind if I use your bathroom then?”

“No, go right ahead.”

It was a good thing I had already went to the bathroom or I would have no doubt made a mess in the waiting room. Laughing fit #2. The receptionist did not enjoy our humor but I do believe she cracked a smile with this one.

3. The labor story- As we waited we looked through some magazines, of course all of them having to do with babies or motherhood. Sam came across an article that reminded him of a family friend’s story of her labor with her first child and a little fecal matter. Sam is eerily similar to the husband in the story which made the story that much funnier to us. No need to relive the entire story here but this is where laughing fit #3 comes into play. We were still in the waiting room though so we knew we had to try to keep our laughter to ourselves. Impossible. Before we knew it, Sam was crying from laughing so hard, I couldn’t breath and accidently let out a snort or sound of some sort (which then made us laugh harder) and I saw the receptionist peer only her eyes over the counter. Her eyes read, “Dang kids having kids again”. Ma’am we really are considered adults by society. Don’t you worry, our baby will be just fine. 🙂

4. The nurse- To the relief of the receptionist, we were finally called back. As the nurse was taking my blood pressure Sam was playing on the scale weighing himself. I gave him the mom talk, “Sam, seriously? Sit down.” The nurse had a bit more of a sense of humor than the receptionist and responded with they never grow up. As she was taking down my numbers she noticed our address and commented that she was our neighbor.

Us- “Oh wow, you live on Lindsey, too?”

“Yes, just up the road from you.”

“Really, what a small world! We are the second house in from the corner. Where do you live?”

“Yes, I know. I’m you’re neighbor. I live right next door to you. On the left if you’re looking at your house.”

Me (because I have never in my life seen Sam straighten up so fast)- “Crazy! Well, hello, neighbor! You’re the first to know. How’s it feel?”

She might have said something in the next few seconds but immediately Sam and I’s minds started racing. All I could think about was the bounce house that we had in our backyard last summer, the mass amounts of cars always at our house, the singing she has to hear when our windows are open, the dog barking, the ghetto lawn tractor Sam insists on driving around, I could go on. We just got lumped into her kids having kids category, too. Turns out she has probably seen worse. We had a nice conversation about our neighborhood, our dog and she left us with another option for a babysitter, her teenage daughter.

We made it through the first appointment with a little more knowledge, a little less anxiety and several new memories to add to the book. Stay tuned for the next set of adventures with Baby H. It’s going to be a fun ride. 🙂