Sweet Baby Shower Swag!

First baby shower!!

The Marquette Law School ladies who hang out with Shawn decided to throw me a shower before school started. It was really sweet! (Thanks again Breanne!!)

I was actually kind of nervous, which may seem odd. The shower was thrown for me and another fabulous wife (Anna) of one of the guys they hang out with. I think I had convinced myself that I was just going to her shower since going to one thrown for me was so foreign to me.

It's a great group of girls who I am happy to permit my husband to spend time with ;)
We played the game with clothespins where the word "baby" is forbidden. Every time you say the word, the first person to notice gets to take your clothespin. Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the shower wins. I was the very first one to lose my clothes pin. That's ok with me, because I just like talking about my baby!!

We also had a race to see who could feed their partner a jar of baby food faster. I ate the peaches, which I felt was appropriate. Candy bars melted in diapers is also always a classic, and I got 'em all!

It was really sweet of them to throw me the shower! It's exciting to start getting more baby stuff, and have my belly keep popping out! It's all becoming so real so quickly! "Ready or not, mom, here I come!!"

I wouldn't say I'm truly "ready", but I don't think any first mom ever is, so bring it on, kid!

Baby Bump:: 20 (and a half) Weeks!

It's a BABY!

Week 20: My Baby is a Carrot

I have an application on my iPad which tracks my pregnancy. Each week it tells me a few interesting facts about my baby's development. I have quite enjoyed learning what my baby is up to 20,000 leagues under the sea. Each week it makes a point to describe to me the approximate size of my baby. Often comparisons to fruit and or vegetables are used. I will list each week's size description below for your entertainment. I have found them at least mildly amusing and I hope you do too.

Week 5: an appleseed
Week 6: a pea
Week 7: a blueberry
Week 8: a jelly bean
Week 9: a grape
Week 10: an olive
Week 11: a fig
Week 12: a key lime
Week 13: "3 inches"
Week 14: a small lemon
Week 15: an avocado
Week 16: a lemon
Week 17: an apple
Week 18: a pear
Week 19: a softball
Week 20: a carrot
Week 21: "a miniature version of a fully developed person"
Week 22: "11 inches"
Week 23: a mango
Week 24: "12 inches"
Week 25: a squash
Week 26: a large zucchini
Week 27: "2 pounds"
Week 28: "2 and a half pounds"
Week 29: a cabbage
Week 30: an eggplant
Week 31: a small melon
Week 32: "17 inches"
Week 33: "4 pounds"
Week 34: a small pumpkin
Week 35: "5 and a half pounds"
Week 36: a bowling ball
Week 37: "19 inches"
Week 38: "7 pounds, 20 inches"
Week 39: a small watermelon
Week 40: "7-9 pounds"

I am not making any of this up, I promise. What's your favorite week? :)

Half Cooked Catalyst

My little life changer is at mile 13 in this gestational marathon. I am 20 weeks tomorrow!

If you're curious what Teebs has been up to for the last 4 months, it has recently become quite clear: Mastering Martial Arts. My child, who will most likely come into this world looking quite a bit like Yoda (but hopefully less green), will also have his mad fighting skills. Whether he/she has truly tapped into the Force, only time will tell.

We were having an altogether delightful time celebrating Christmas in Mankato this past week. I was tucking my nieces Rylee and Olivia into bed and reading them both a bible story when WHAM BAM I felt a roundhouse kick about half way between my belly button and my hip from INSIDE MY BODY! Chuck Norris better watch out! I had to stop the story and tell them. It was pretty fantastic sharing the moment with them.

Shawn has also been able to feel baby, which is also exciting. Three times in a row Shawn told the baby to kick his hand, and baby dutifully obliged each time. I think Peanut was showing off a little for Dad, already eager for that approval.

I am also finally starting to show a baby bump rather than a cross between a big lunch and an affinity for keg parties. Hallelujah.

I hope to start posting baby bump pictures soon! We also have our ultrasound on Thursday! Eek! So, more details soon!

Happy New Year from all 3 of us!!

I GOT PUPS FOR CHRISTMAS!

Here you're imagining adorable little four legged bundles of furry joy terrorizing our place.

You're thinking to yourself, really Jes? Do you really think that this is the best choice considering the time and effort necessary for this kind of undertaking, not to speak of the financial responsibility. With a baby on the way and your current work schedule this really isn't the best time for a new pet, none the less multiple.

Isn't Shawn more of a cat person anyway?

Is this one of those rash pregnancy decisions resulting from flared hormones and increased stress?

I can even think of a few friends in Milwaukee who would love to take the little guys off my hands once I come to my senses!

 

Before you get too carried away, just calm down a minute. No one is getting a new puppy.

This "rash" decision was no decision at all, and I would be quite opposed to the undertaking had I say in the matter. And we're not talking about bundles of joy terrorizing my place, but oh they are terrorizing.

 

I have "Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP)"- shortened to PUPs in the medical community.

 

Apparently I have a relatively severe case. Essentially I have what look, feel, and act like a few hundred mosquito bites from my neck down to my ankles. Usually they start at your stretch marks (none of which I have yet) and spread around the belly. In some cases they affect just about the entire body (except the face). Well, they're all over. Sorry for the "TMI" factor there.

Fortunately, this condition in no way affects the baby. Completely harmless. I had wondered though, considering the hundreds of mosquito bite looking bumps, if I would be soon blogging my own version of The Metamorphosis, and become the new modern and maternal Kafka. Can you imagine birthing a 9 pound mosquito? Can you imagine nursing it?? Someone asked me this morning if I would love it as much. I would try really, really hard. 

I would, though, be instantly famous I'm sure. Take that Octo-mom. Bring it on Duggars. Forget the anxiety surrounding Shawn getting a job right away or how soon I would have go back to work. We'd be on every week right after Teen Mom 2! 

Anyway, no need to worry about that! I wouldn't want to bring my baby up in that kind of spotlight anyway. Maybe a heat lamp, though. I don't know much about raising mosquitoes.

In summary, all is fine. Mom is just a bit inconvenienced. Baby has a healthy heartbeat, and I'm even starting to show! 

We hope you are all enjoying your holiday season, and hope to see you soon!!! 

Great Responsibility (Warning-- Serious Post)

Today I feel a great sense sense of responsibility in preparing this child inside of me for the world outside of me.

I'm not so concerned with the scraped knees, bruised elbows, and bonked heads. Those are things that life will teach itself. Physical pain is by in large bearable.

I'm a bit concerned about the broken hearts, betrayed friendships, and shattered dreams. Life is full of deep and inevitable hurt. I hope that I can teach my child at least a little bit about life's unavoidable disappointments and how to cope. I will want them to know that it's okay to be sad and to look to loved ones for support. They also have to understand, though, that life will keep moving with a tough love that will not adjust itself for the sake of our recuperation.

What concerns me the most, above the inevitable hospital visits and the depth and frequency of wounded hearts, is my own child's responsibility in the world. He or she will have an often misunderstood duty to place the needs of others before his or her own. He or she is commanded to hate the sin, but to love the sinner. He or she has a purpose in the world, not to be self serving, but to serve others in love, to carry their burdens, and to love their enemies. How can I teach a child what I am constantly struggling to learn myself?

When I think about how early they will be able to walk or talk, how soon I can potty train them, or whether they will know their colors before the others kids their age I find myself (at least for now) altogether unconcerned.

On the other hand, just thinking about the daily battle with the sinful nature that this little life inside of me will face is at times almost overwhelming. I know full well the regularity with which my child will miss the mark. My child will be just as guilty as I am and it's devastating.

Thank goodness for the words of Romans 8.

Life Through the Spirit

 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
 5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

 12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Present Suffering and Future Glory

 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors

 31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
   “For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.



I can't really explain my comfort any better than that. I guess we'll be alright after all.