A Little Late

She finally came on March 1st, and I'm finally posting some pictures of her first two weeks. I'll write about her birth later.
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Due Today. Probably Not Here Tomorrow.

Our little girl is technically due today. But, she's shown no indication of being interested in departing the cozy and warm confines of my belly. We're not terribly surprised. First time moms don't typically deliver early, and we also know that the doctors backed up my due date from 2/27 to 2/20 based on an ultrasound early in the pregnancy. Our doctor told us this week that they'll give her until the 28th before they'll want to induce.

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In the meantime, I've finished her blanket. First, I added a lace edge because I gave up on the cabled edge after countless attempts to follow the pattern. Unfortunately, the lace edge gathers on the corners like a fitted sheet, which is a little discouraging. I should have accounted for that and picked up twice as many stitches on the corners.

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Next, I purchased some fabric to cover the back of the blanket from City Quilter in NYC, which is where I purchased the fabric for Baby Girl's quilt. It's a wonderful fabric store, and I'm dying to take some of their classes.

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Finally, I brought the fabric back to Hoboken and went to our local sewing/crafting store, M. Avery Designs. I took a private lesson yesterday with Megan Avery herself. Together, we hand-sewed the fabric to the back and added the yarn ties to secure the fabric to the knitted blanket even more tightly. Megan is just a delightful person, and I'm definitely going to be frequenting her store for more sewing instruction in the future. I'd love to be able to sew Baby many fun things on my unused sewing machine. She suggested starting with Martha Stewart's baby kimono pattern, which I think is a definite possibility. I'm also determined to make Baby Girl's first Halloween costume with my own two hands - maybe something involving intermediate to advanced-level knitting and sewing! Your suggestions are welcome!
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Now that the blanket is finished, I'm finally able to guiltlessly pursue other projects. I made this little cocoon pea pod (Ravelry Link to Pattern) for her, which will photograph much better with her in it. It was so rewarding to start and complete this project in only a few hours! Baby blankets take so long. I honestly wondered toward the end whether I would ever finish her blanket.

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I've also started the first of several elephants that I'm planning to make for a mobile for her crib, and then let her play with once the mobile comes down. I'm a little obsessed with elephants, for some strange reason. This pattern from Jelly Bums (Ravelry Link to Pattern) includes legs that are not shown on the cover. I've also casted on Ysolda's pattern for Elijah, but he's too big for a crib mobile.

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Otherwise, the pregnancy continues to be going smoothly, and I can only hope that labor and delivery will follow the same path. The only frustration I'm beginning to experience is the seemingly unending negativity and "just you wait" comments from other parents. I've found that surrounding myself with positive people during pregnancy has been invaluable in promoting and creating the positive experience I've had. I have a team of people including a few very warm, caring friends and family members as well as some carefully chosen professionals who are providing me the love and support I need. One of these people has been our super-positive and experienced doula, Julie, who will be with us through labor and delivery. Between my loving husband, who so sweetly nurtured me through some sudden nausea I experienced last night, and just knowing that Julie will be there with us is enough for me to keep those Debbie Downers and "just you wait" comments about labor and delivery from sticking to me.

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One day at a time is all I'm tackling right now. Planning beyond that just isn't possible. So, for now I'm going back to knitting on the elephants, watching a little HGTV, and eating some tomato soup, which I'll follow with a cup of overly-sweet hot cocoa. The overly-sweet hot cocoa is super fun because it gives Baby Girl a hyper case of the wiggles, and probably is partially to blame for her super chubby cheeks that we saw during our ultrasound this week.

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Progress! Baby and Her Blanket

I completed the chart portion of the intarsia baby blanket and have started on the cabled edge. Unfortunately, that isn't going so well just yet, in spite of several attempts. I'll try a few more times, but might have to resort to another edge option.
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This is my first cable project, and as you can see, there were some serious issues that I didn't realize in time.

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It was also my first intarsia project, which proved to be a quite challenging technique on this project as well. All in all, I'm disappointed by the mistakes but am overally just happy to have completed the chart portion. Once the blocking and edging are complete, I plan to sew on a fabric backing to cover the countless strands that hang from the back. I've considered knitting another blanket to attach to the back, but I'm not sure that's a realistic option, since Baby Girl is due in less than a month.

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Our still-unnamed baby girl is growing quite well, and consequently, I'm expanding too. During this morning's ultrasound, they estimated her weight at 6 pounds and 9 ounces, where three weeks ago, they estimated her at 4 pounds and 10 ounces. The sweet ultrasound tech stopped my husband who was speculating on her birth weight by saying, "Oh Dad, don't do the math." I would have hugged her had I not been covered in blue goo.

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We also saw this morning that she has hair, which came as a relief to me since I've had excessive hiccups and heartburn since the beginning of the pregnancy, which "they" say can indicate that the baby is going to have lots of hair. I've been hoping for something to come from all the hiccuping and heartburn. Honestly, though, those are really my only complaints. I feel fantastic and still often forget that I'm even pregnant, though that's become less often these past few weeks as she has been growing so much (and so have I!).

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Mother in Training

I took a quilting class yesterday and made my first quilt. It's far from perfect, but I love the fabric. So girly! ...and hopelessly matchy-matchy!

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Here is the back - the rabbits are a bit out of focus. I'm struggling to focus with the lens I currently have for the camera, and my manual focus on this particular photo left much to be desired.

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.I'm still chugging along with my knitted blanket, but I just realized that I need to rip out the last section that I worked. I must have completely spaced out not to have noticed sooner that I flipped the last section upside down on the blanket. Even a 5-year old knows "V" doesn't come after "C" and "D" doesn't come after "U". I'm quite good at making negative progress on projects. Ugh! At least I can look to the quilt now as a finished object.

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In my other attempts to train and become a good mother, I'm baking (cooking?) my first ham right now. I read somewhere once that "good mothers" have casseroles and soups in the freezer for when baby comes home, so I'm testing a few casseroles and soups over the next three months to find some suitable for freezing. The ham will be used in a variety of these. I had no idea cooking a ham was such a process, but I feel like a good mother for doing it, and that's the important thing right now. A false sense of assurance in my ability to mother is still a sense of assurance, so I'm going with what I have for now, even if it comes from recalling a 1950s Good Housekeeping article.


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Pink or Blue?

It's a girl!
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Baby on the Way

I'm quite excited to announce that I'm pregnant and due in late February 2010. My in-laws were in town for the Labor Day weekend, and my mother-in-law couldn't help herself from buying this precious little sleeper with frogs on it. It's the first baby item we have gotten, and we really don't even have a place to put it yet, so it sits on my dresser reminding me of two things (1) there's a real, honest to goodness baby in my belly and (2) I have a tremendous amount of work to do to prepare our apartment for a baby - starting with finding somewhere to store this one newborn-sized sleeper.

The realization that there is a baby in my belly still hasn't quite resonated with me, though it's beginning to. From what I've read, I could start feeling him/her (we'll find out gender, hopefully, at our October 4th appointment) moving in the next two weeks. But, I also had a little scare last week that illustrated to me that I'm not just responsible for me anymore, but for a little baby also.

The scare occurred while I was walking to lunch and started experiencing pain in my abdomen and back. First, willing to dismiss it as a familiar pain I've felt many times before, I then realized that it wasn't a pain I should be feeling these days and that it could indicate something was quite wrong with the baby. Instantly, I felt panic and regret for all of the housework (including moving furniture) I'd done to prepare the apartment for our first real house guests since we moved here in July '08. Seeing blood when I retreated to the bathroom only sent the panic into overdrive. "What have I done?!"

Several hours and an emergency ultrasound visit later, I was calmed to learn that baby was absolutely fine, but I also learned that I was diagnosed with Placenta Previa, and I was sent home with instructions to avoid any "strenuous" activity and "heavy" lifting, which included carrying groceries and running. Pressing the nurse for activities I could do, I only received more limitations. Swimming isn't even an option. I'm just to wait for clearance until my next doctor visit on September 29th, which will be followed by an ultrasound visit on October 4th. Hopefully, baby will have moved up (which the nurses and doctors fully expect, and science indicates is probable), and I will be cleared to participate in my normal activities again.

It was a good eye-opener for me, and I'm going to try to spend the next few weeks reading some of the books I've accumulated and planning a make-shift nursery for our apartment. We're expecting to move when our lease is up in June, so baby will only be in this apartment for a couple of months. Any big plans for a nursery will come once we find a new home next summer.

A Positive Movie Motivator

I went to see Julie & Julia this evening with my husband, and while he didn't love it, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was clean, sweet, and positive, which is what I'm looking for in life right now. So, with the idea of a blog topic central to the movie, I began to wonder what blog topic I could explore that would have such a positive impact on my outlook and still somehow contribute something uplifting to the blogosphere. So, I reflected on some of my recent thoughts and discoveries.

Lately, I've been a bit overwhelmed with the negativity flooding every medium in the world today. Locally, living in Hoboken hasn't been very uplifting lately either, what with our mayor being ousted due to a political scandal, today's tragedy on the Hudson River, not to mention the generally negative outlook that many outspoken New Yorkers have on countless social and political issues. Even Buddy Valastro, manager of Carlo's Bakery and Hoboken's local TV reality series star of Cake Boss on TLC, can't sweeten the local perspective. I've even tried to reduce my evening television watching to Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune, just to avoid the news and graphic crime shows.

So, with the desire to do and say something positive both virtually and in real life, I've decided to spend the rest of 2009 blogging about uplifting events - big or small - going on around me everyday. It's a shame that I don't see them more often, or pay closer attention. But, by intentionally setting out each day to discover joy and happiness and by closing each day by sharing my discoveries with you, perhaps we will both have a brighter outlook on our lives.

Today's Positive Moment:
Re-discovering, through Juile & Julia, the desire to be happy and uplifting in what I say to myself and others.

What about you? What's making you happy today?
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My Nephew with Elephante

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It's not often I get to take a picture of something I've made with the person who I made it for. This makes up for all of those times!
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New Project: Charity Knitting

I've been slowly working on coordinating a group on Ravelry that provides an opportunity for knitters to make and donate items to cat-focused charity organizations. I know that I would adopt absolutely every stray animal I found if I had unlimited resources, and I have many friends who would do the same, particularly for cats. So, for those who admirably take on the challenge of caring for cats without homes, I felt that my friends and I would jump at the chance to help them if we just knew who they were and what they needed.

So, I set up a group on Ravelry that is a semi-swap/semi-charity group. We've had one small, but successful swap, and I've gotten a fabulous graphic designer from Ravelry's Design Donors group to create a badge and banner for the group.

A list of charities is constantly growing as members of the group share them.

We'll have regular swaps, during which we can work in groups or individually to complete a project to donate to a charity at the end of the swap. I made a blanket during the last swap and sent it to a New York state knitter who was active in her local SPCA. I'm really hoping to get a substantial enough list of charities together that each member can find one local to him/her. That way, we can establish a relationship with our local charities and maybe get involved in other ways.

Let me know if you know of any to add to our list!


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Homesick

In a blog that I follow fairly regularly, Shona of Lala Dex Press recently mentioned that she is homesick for LA, and I too haven't been home to Texas for quite some time, so her feelings resonated with me. Shona wrote that watching the Lakers in the playoffs has been helping stave off some of her emotions.

What helps me is the combined mention of small towns, truck driving, heart break, among others. Hearing about them warms my heart so much that my neck turns red. That's what happened during tonight's CBS special honoring George Strait as the country music artist of the decade. All of these topics were mentioned as well as a few others like Ocean Front Property, a song, admittedly, I didn't understand until I was 18 and left the heartland and saw the ocean for the first time.



I'm fortunate that I can keep the feeling going when I watch Walk the Line on CBS this Friday evening. It just happens to be my favorite movie, and I think my husband must think it's called Again! because that's what he says every time I watch it.