turn, baby, turn!

At our 36+ week appointment last week, we had an ultrasound to determine the baby's position and she's quite the sassy little girl already, all prepared to enter this world butt-first!  While there is still some time to turn, the doctor recommended that we schedule a c-section for a week before our due date.  Unless and until she turns, this means Aubrey will be joining us on October 17th, and mommy will bear a nice little permanent reminder of the day in the form of a tummy scar.  This means we have even less time than we thought to get everything prepared (seeing as it's our first baby, and of Cleveland lineage, we were operating under the assumption that she would be late).  Let's hope that Aubrey is just procrastinating and will turn at the last minute!  If not, however, I guess she'll have a nice, solid mid-October birthday, which we won't mind either.

My mom and sister (along with help from various great friends and family) threw me an amazing baby shower last Sunday -- the only rainy day we've had in months!  It all turned out beautifully, and Aubrey and I were spoiled beyond belief.  What a lucky girl to have so many loving family members and "aunties" surround her throughout her life!  Thank you everyone - it was such an overwhelming and awesome day.

Preparations are in full swing for the baby's arrival, with this weekend marking Jason's commitment to take all of his clothes and miscellaneous odds and ends out of the nursery (it used to be the office/Jason's closet) in order to put everything away and get it all in order so we can call the nursery "finished."  Some of the other things we're doing includes me testing out the Moby wrap to prove to Jason that it's safe and that I AM going to use it with Aubrey. I tried the holds for older babies with my niece, Georgia, who loved it, but she's too big for the newborn holds so I had to find another willing candidate to try it on:

Cooper wasn't so sure about this, but it allowed me to get a good feel for how to use the Moby wrap, and I'm really excited about it.  It will likely be 10 times easier to use without my giant pregnant belly in the way, too!  Jason is super excited about the Baby Bjorn so I think for now that will be his baby carrier and I'll focus on the wrap . . . at least that's the plan.

6-8 months = cute, fun, & novel; 9+ months = not so cute, fun, or novel

So there's this weird, annoying period of pregnancy somewhere around 4-5 months where you just feel different because you're bigger and your clothes aren't fitting right, but you don't quite look obviously pregnant.  Then there's the 6-8 month period where you are obviously pregnant, and feel pretty comfortable and finally get to wear maternity clothes and have people tell you that you're "glowing."  THEN you get to the 9th month and the honeymoon is over: there's no room left for that ever-growing baby, it's tough to sleep well, shower, get off the sofa, exercise at your usual pace, etc.

That's where I am.

Although I love being pregnant, I'm ready to stop feeling bigger and bigger each day, and ready to have my body back!  I know I'll be there soon enough, but in the meantime, I'm just trying to make it through this crazy-hot indian summer we're experiencing, and my last two weeks of work.  Then it will be time to go into full out nesting mode and [even moreso] anxiously await the arrival of our little girl!

Here I am in my last week of the ninth month of pregnancy ... 35 weeks so only 5 weeks to go!

updated photos

to make it a little more fair for the guessing game poll in our last entry, I figured I'd post some recent photos.  they were taken quickly this morning on my phone in poor lighting on the way out the door to work so please forgive me!  these are 34.5 week photos - we have 40 days to go as of today!!

 Here is the view from the left . . .

And here is the view from the right . . .

Getting pretty big!!

Guess the baby's birthday, weight, and length!

A friend of mine is having a baby and is due October 15th - only nine days before we are! - and decided not to find out the baby's gender (what self-control!) so they have an online poll going where people can guess the gender, birthday, weight, and length of their baby.  I thought this was such a great idea, that we should have a poll, too.  Although we have had several ultrasounds that all point to our baby being a girl (and if this ends up being wrong, we may have a VERY weirded out daddy!), the poll format doesn't allow us to take that guess column away so feel free to go with what we've seen, or throw a curve ball in there!  Mostly, we're looking for birthday, weight, and height guesses, and will send a prize from the baby to the person who gets the closest! 

Here is the link to the poll: http://www.expectnet.com/games/babykrochak

Good luck!!

[not too creepy] 4D ultrasound photos

Although we were a little hesitant about having a "4D ultrasound" done on Aubrey because we were worried about seeing a creepy alien-like picture of our daughter in utero, Megan & Nick did it and we wanted to have the same experience for the family with Aubrey.  Overall it was a very neat experience to see our little girl moving around on the monitor.  The technician got a few photos before Aubrey put her hand up in front of her face, and then refused to take it down.  In fact, the technician tried to push on Blaire's stomach to get Aubrey to put her hand down, which led to Aubrey opening her mouth in protest, as if saying "nooooo, leave me alone!" For the rest of the session, Aubrey had BOTH hands/arms in front of her face, and even brought her foot up there for a while -- looks like we have a flexible girl with some attitude coming our way. ;)  We got some still shots of the ultrasound, which are below.  You have to use your imagination a little bit to see what she looks like and what she will look like, but we're glad we had the ultrasound done.  The photos are very cool, and only a little creepy . . . mostly because she already looks so much like her daddy!

looking like daddy

more foreshadowing of looking like daddyI'm gonna look like my daddy!

and the fist-pumping begins

nose to knee - where does she get that flexibility?!

full-blown foot in front of the face! at least it looks like a cute foot!

baby classes (aka how not to hold a baby)

When you have a baby, not only do you have to go through all the interesting, and sometimes annoying symptoms of pregnangy, but also you have to do a ton of preparation!  Being the one pregnant, I read books and articles about what was going on with the baby and my body, but the only way I could get Jason to pay attention was to sign us up for a few baby-related classes.  We attended an over-informational birthing class, where we took a tour of the hospital, which was nice to see.  A few weeks later, we took a newborn care and breastfeeding class -- Jason now prides himself on being the best swaddler ever.  He got very close with our fake baby during the class - although he may still need some pointers on proper holding/soothing techniques! haha

jason getting very snuggly with our very naked, very fake baby

Jason seemed to know what he was doing . . . or then again, maybe not!

 

that's not a good method of soothing the baby, jason!

 

All jokes aside, Jason and I both learned a lot at all the classes . . . it's whether or not we can actually remember what we learned once the baby is here that we have yet to find out! 

my humps, my lovely lady lumps . . .

. . . check 'em ouuuuut!

This Fergie song has a whole new meaning these days, but we figured we should document Blaire's growing belly with at least a few pictures before the baby gets here. At the rate she's growing, she's going to be here before we know it!

blaire with aubrey in her belly at 28 weeks!

Although Blaire isn't super keen on having her photo taken right now (thanks to her cravings for and indulgences in ice cream), she's still proud of her growing belly because that means the krochaks will soon have a daughter to love and spoil.

2 + 1 = 3

Hi family and friends! 

As most of you know, we're having a baby -- and we've decided that it would be a good idea to share the experience through a blog.  Don't worry, this doesn't mean you're going to get a link to a birth video or anything; rather, we recognize that little ones grow up very fast, and with our family and friends scattered throughout several states, we think this is a good way to let everyone get a sneak peek into how that process is going.

xoxo,

blaire, jason, & baby