Guest Post - How the Times have Changed

As a soon-to-be-grandma I am very proud and excited for my Nicky. Recently visiting her and watching her makes me reminisce about my pregnancies. Seeing as how women have been giving birth to babies for a heck of a long time, you would not think much has changed in 30 years. But here are a few I  have noticed.

1. The Pregnancy Test
The pregnancy tests are so much easier today! All Nicky had to do was pee on a stick. The ones I took long ago had about 20 steps and you had to look for a circle at the bottom of a tube. If it was disturbed in the least, you had to start all over with a whole new kit. Expensive and double UGH!!!!



2. Pregnancy Math
30 years when someone asked how far along you were the response was a guess "Oh about 4 1/2 months". Now Nicky has an app on her phone that tells her she is ____weeks and ____days pregnant and counts down how many days until the due date. It also tells her the size of the baby in comparison to fruit. I doubt she is looking forward to those pineapple days.

3. Food 
I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted (that was on days I could actually get food in my mouth). Today these young ladies can not have a grocery list of foods that were just fine before, including several different types of cheese like brie, goat, or feta (listeria), hot dogs or lunchmeat (nitrates),  buffet food (listeria) hamburgers with any undercooked meat and the absolute worst.... a nice juicy STEAK!! (e-coli). No wonder Ponderosa went out of business.

4. Beware the BPA and other chemicals
I could use and microwave plastic dishes and containers, clean my oven with oven cleaner, or spray insecticide without cause to worry.

5. Maternity Clothing
We went clothes shopping at Destination Motherhood when I was visiting Nicky and I was pleasantly surprised by the maternity clothing. Today there are way more types of maternity clothes to choose from. She picked out a lot of cute things and some of them were even on sale. When I was pregnant all of the maternity tops had the same style and it was like I had to shop at Tents-R-Us.

6. Baby Showers
Our baby showers were BORING. For some reason having the men around makes them more fun. Also I think the shirt I got Ben was pretty cute.


7. A long, long wait
30 years ago we had to wait the whole long 9 months (or more!) to see what our babies looked like and you found out the sex when you gave birth. (No gender reveal cakes for me.) Now you can get an ultrasound anytime you want and see what that precious little critter looks like, pictures to take home and a DVD too. This is way cool, but I think the 3-D version is just a little creepy.


8. Rules for Sleeping?
I could sleep however I wanted (If I could lay down to begin with). Now Nicky is supposed to lay on the left side every night.

9. Sweet Dreams are Made of These
We did not have a snoogle pillow to sleep with. But it looks super comfy and I am ordering myself one even though I am not pregnant!!!!


10. Bottle vs Boob
Nobody made a real big fuss over breast feeding as formula feeding was typical. Dr Patterson mentioned breast feeding to me once and never again after the look of sheer horror came over my face the first time he mentioned it. Now there is a whole "breast is best" campaign and the doctors want you to at least try breast feeding first. Many hospitals won't even give you free formula anymore. All I can say is thank you Similac for being around!

Looking over the list it seems like a lot of change in just 30 years. I wonder how different things will be when I become a great-grandmother?

Ultrasound photos!

Ultrasound photos are pretty much one of the coolest things you get during pregnancy, and having one elective ultrasound I really understand how people justify paying for one out of pocket later in the pregnancy. 20ish weeks is a long time to go without seeing your little one again. An ultrasound is also one of the things that you can show friends and family without things being too weird. Other things like stretch marks, hernias are not so good for showing off. I also know that generally it is hard to tell what you are looking at so I tried to label things so everyone could tell exactly what is what. These are some of the better photos I have from the ultrasound we did to find out the baby bunny's gender at about 17.5 weeks.

This is a nice profile shot where I've labeled the back of the head, the nose and mouth area, and the spine. I'm pretty sure this shot was taken when the baby was eating so he was opening and closing his mouth a lot. 

This picture is of the other end and is looking up from underneath. If it helps you can imagine you sat the baby on a photocopier and made a copy and are looking out at the picture that came out of the copier. The photo shows both legs, an umbilical cord, and boy bits. If you look closely near the arrow, you can even see the balls. This picture is one of the ones I got as proof of the gender.

The last photo is similar to the first where is it a profile of the baby, but he is turned a little so you can see his ribs and even an eyelid, though it is still fused shut for the time being. This picture is a little creepier, as he seems to  have a very large smile.

Guest Post - Bunny in the Attic

The pastel bunny you see was Ben's when he was a baby. This lonely rabbit has been living in our attic for almost 30 years (!) and has no mouth or nose because they had been attached in an unsafe way for a baby, so I had to remove them. Nevertheless, he was one of Ben's favorite animals and I couldn't part with him. 

Now maybe he'll have a new life with a new baby, a real thrill for Joe and me. Don't think, though, that more animals aren't waiting their turn both in the attic and elsewhere, depending upon Bunny's interests as he grows and develops his own enthusiasms.

Nina, Ben's Mom

Diaper Art

Instead of doing a lot of the traditional games at the shower, we had a trivia game, a raffle, and I asked people to decorate or write messages on diapers while we opened gifts. Our friends went above and beyond and decorated about a fourth of a big box of newborn diapers. 

Here is a picture of some of the diapers I thought were really cool. I must admit we have some really creative friends! The learn to love bugs diaper even has a guide to flying insect antenna on the other side (not pictured).  But I think I must admit my favorite may be BEWARE: Tiny Penis Inside.

Baby Shower Gender Reveal

Sweet Baby Shower Preparations

My mom always makes chocolates for special occasions and my baby shower is a super special occasion. We spent several hours online looking to find just the right chocolate molds and containers. Mom worked on making the chocolates several days before the party and of course the weather was not cooperating but the chocolates still came out cute and I even unpacked and charged my good camera to take some photos.

These baby blocks are actually designed to hold chocolate covered double stuff oreos. As I heard someone at the party say, "oooh, there is a surprise inside!" What can I say, they are cute and delicious! And since we didn't know bunny's gender yet we tried to make an even number of pink and blue things.

If my mom spent a lot of time making candy, Nina spent as much time putting everything together and making it look nice. Here are the baby bottle party favors that every guest got. They are stuffed with chocolate covered almonds and custom m&m's that were printed for the shower. The fuzzy bunnies attached were a big hit.

These little chocolate animals were used to stuff some adorable gift bags. Sadly, I did not get a good picture of those, but I promise they came out super cute.

I'm very grateful that I have such wonderful family that was here to help prep for the party. It turns out everyone had a great time and I have my moms and sister to thank for that. More about the party and possibly a gender revealing cake next time. 

Gender Predictions

Everyone is asking if baby bunny is a boy or a girl. I don't know yet, and I have not had any strong feelings or convincing dreams either way. Oddly enough some of the ladies I know told me they "just know" or "have had a feeling" about what the baby will be. While I am okay not knowing until the gender reveal at my shower (if possible) there are a lot of "gender prediction tests" out there that will supposedly tell me early.

Now honestly there is no scientific evidence that any of these actually work but I thought it would be fun to go through some of the most common ones and see if they have similar or different results.

1. The Chinese Gender Prediction
Legend says that the gender chart is more than 700 years old and was discovered in a royal tomb. It predicts your baby's sex based on the mother's Chinese lunar age at the time of conception and the Chinese lunar month in when the baby was conceived. I used a website to calculate my numbers and got a GIRL result.

2. The Baking Soda Test
Put enough baking soda into a cup to cover the bottom, then pee into the cup. If the baking soda fizzes or foams like beer, the mothers is having a boy, if it doesn’t react, a girl. I figured I had a box of baking soda sitting around so this would be an easy test to do. The result was fizzy indicating a BOY.

3. The Wedding Ring Test
Take a wedding ring and attach it to a thread or strand of hair. Hold the dangling item over mom to be's belly while she is lying down. If the wedding ring swings in a strong circular motion, she will be having a girl. If it moves in a to and fro motion like a pendulum, she will be having a boy. There is no absence of yarn in my house, but I did need to get my wedding ring since it doesn't fit anymore. 20 seconds later I watched the ring swing back and forth suggesting a BOY.

4. Genital Tubercle Angle Theory
Based on a 12-14 week ultrasound, a profile view of the genital region is needed. A horizontal line can then be drawn along the lower portion of the spine and then another one through the genital tubercle. Based on the angle of intersection between those lines, you can determine the gender.
Boy = greater than 30 degrees. Girl = less than 10 degrees. I was lazy and didn't try to figure this out myself but showed someone else my scans and they are claiming it is a GIRL.

5. Ramzi/Skull Theory
Rumor has it that you can determine the gender of your baby based on an early ultrasound by studying the shape of their skull. Baby girls are thought to have a more rounded forehead while baby boys will look more flat or slightly slope backwards. Looking at my last scan it looks like a BOY to me.

6. Mayan Number Theory 
I've never heard of this one before. Supposedly the Mayans combine the mother's age at conception, and the year of conception. If the result is a even number, it's a girl. If the result is an odd number, a little boy is on the way. (29+ 2014= 2043) or a BOY.

7. The Heartbeat Test
If the baby's heartbeat is 140 beats-per-minute or above, it's a girl. Below 140, a boy. At my 12 week ultrasound the heartbeat was 161 leading me to say GIRL for this test.

As you can see I got a pretty even split of 3 girl results and 4 boy results, which is not super surprising since there is a 50/50 chance of predicting correctly.  Though I suppose if all of the tests pointed one way or another I might find it a little creepy.  I guess only time (and fingers crossed - my next ultrasound) will tell.