The Growing Baby - Week 23

Week 27!

For those of you keeping score at home, we just crossed the threshold into Week 27 - which means we're more or less headed into the final trimester. Yippee!!!!! Pauline is due on March 26 - a day which seems a million miles away.

We had a check-up this morning. Pauline slept through it, but was kind enough to turn as needed so Dr. Buescher could measure her. She remains right in the middle of the growth chart, happily adding centimeters every week. Our next appointment should be fun - I'll be doing the glucose challenge test to check for gestational diabetes. This means I have to fast before my appointment - this should be a shock for both Speck and me, since we're both firm believers in breakfast - and then go in and have my blood sugar tested before drinking a sugar solution. They'll then draw blood at 1 hour and 2 hours after I drink the glop, to see how I'm processing the sugar. (Sorry for boring those of you who've been through this before!) I'd love to see an ultrasound from about half an hour after I drink the glop - it would be fun to watch the baby's first real sugar-high.

---

In other news, we took a whirlwind trip last weekend to visit Caroline, Antoine, and Caroline's parents in France. Since we had days left on our Eurail passes, and I can't fly right now, we took the train. We left Berlin last Thursday after work, took a high-speed train to Karlsruhe, changed there for a night train to Paris, changed stations in Paris to get the TGV (French high-speed train) to Dijon, and then a local train to Beaune, right in the heart of Burgundy. We got in around 11 AM on Friday to Beaune - a very long trip! But since the sleeper car we were supposed to have to Paris was out of order, we hadn't gotten much sleep on the trip. So Beaune was less about sightseeing and more about finding places out of the cold to sit and warm up. We did make it to the Hospices; we also had a lovely lunch with incredible wines by the glass (where else in the world could you find a Chassagne-Montrachet by the glass?) Pauline and Tim both experienced their first-ever escargot as I indulged this particular craving. Caroline and her dad - and Antoine - came to pick us up, and we had a foggy overland trip from there to Autun, to Caro's parents' house. It was so wonderful to see her parents again! We spent Saturday alternating between exploring the sites in Autun and lapsing into food comas from Caro's mom Marie's wonderful cooking. (This included a second helping of escargots, which Pauline seems to really like; goose, the first time Tim or I had ever had it; a variety of delicious French cheese; baguettes, of course!; and seared Charolais beef that was unbelievably fresh.) We had to leave Sunday morning, and Caro's dad Roland was kind enough to take us out to the train station in Dijon. It was too short, and too much time on the trains!, but it was great to see the Vuillemins, catch up on the family news, and - as always - see Caroline and Antoine again. One of the best things about this tour in Europe has been that we've gotten to see Caro and Antoine so much. Tim took some great pictures, so we can prove to Pauline once she's old enough to recognize it that we did travel with her - before she was born, anyway! Sheesh, she's been to Paris - twice, technically; Rome; here and there in Germany; and to Burgundy.

By popular demand...

Because some of you have asked us for it, the most recent photo of Ruth Anne's growing belly. This is from today, the last day of Week 25:

Joyous Thanksmas!

One of the many, many things that Tim and I share is a love of Thanksgiving dinner. (Pumpkin pie is his favorite birthday treat.) We also love to entertain, especially at the holidays. We've learned, though, that planning a big Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving isn't necessarily the best way to go.

Last year we skipped Thanksgiving entirely - we'd planned a trip to southwest Germany, but had to cancel because I got the flu - but celebrated a very memorable "Thanksmas" in Ohio on our eastbound return trip from Connie's wedding in Los Angeles. I'm not sure if it was Jim, Amy, or Becca that came up with the name for the occasion, but it sure fit.

So this year, we decided to host a Thanksmas dinner. (The table was decorated for Thanksgiving, the rest of the house for Christmas, and Tim put out our plush turkey with a Santa hat on just for Thanksmas.) Although many of the friends we'd invited had to cancel, we had a lovely evening - and a deeeeeelicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish... our table was literally overflowing with yummy goodness, even before we brought out the pies! We tried some new recipes and were thrilled with the results - good notes for my holiday journal. (Must track down the gravy recipe I used...) We're now feasting on leftovers, parceling some out to friends who couldn't join us, freezing what we can to enjoy again over Christmas weekend, and generally trying to empty the fridge before we leave for a long weekend in France.

It seems that Pauline is inheriting this Thanksgiving enjoyment from us. She was quite active as I bustled around the kitchen, but did let me rest when it was time for Tim to cook and me to put my feet up. She also seemed to prefer the small glass of wine I had with dinner to the sparkling grape juice I had as an aperitif. (Jim, this is definitely your niece. Whatever else she's done to my taste buds, we both enjoyed the '98 Meursault tremendously...)

This was also a good warm-up for our weekend trip to visit Antoine, Caroline, and her parents in Burgundy. I can't wait to see the Vuillemins, but I know I'm going to need to find excuses to walk or romp with Antoine to burn off the calories from Caro's mother's incredible cooking. And the yummy French bread... and cheese... yay!

Migraines

Tim's new computer has arrived (yay!) - but since it came with Windows Vista, his scanner doesn't work with it. (Boo.) If I can, I'll hook the scanner up to my machine tonight so I can get Pauline's latest sonograms up online tomorrow. Otherwise this may be a weekend project...

But it will depend on the state of my head. I suffer from migraines. I didn't, really, until we came to Berlin - I had the occasional one, but not very many and not very often. But here it's become a full-blown problem. The great thing is that there have been some wonderful new medications that have come out in the last 5-10 years, and these work miracles for me. I can work, I can function, I can see, I can more or less think straight, when the meds are working - and they're effective for me almost every time.

Except, of course, that they're completely off-limits during pregnancy. Now, like many women with migraines, I've noticed that my attacks are less frequent and less severe since I became pregnant. (Incentive for a large family!) But the bad news is that when I do get one, there's nothing at all to be done about it. I can take 2 Tylenol, drink a small amount of something with caffeine, and hope. Sometimes it works. Tuesday it didn't, so I spent the day at home nursing my head in a dark room. Yesterday was better; today has been another headache day, though not nearly as severe.

I am hopeful that when we leave Berlin, I'll get to leave my migraines behind. Enough is enough of this!

Birthdays, Bodysuits, Bibs, and Baby Registries

Today is Tim's birthday! This tends to be a low-key annual event, as evidenced this year by the fact that I'm at work. But there might just need to be a pumpkin pie tonight or tomorrow - one of his favorite desserts. I just wish there were more I could do to tell my wonderful husband just how terrific he is.

Now that we know that Speck is a girl, we've started to work on our baby registries. So far, we're registered at Target.com and BabiesRUs.com - both registries can be found under either of our names. These are works in progress, and reflect a few oddities about our situation:

- We won't even attempt to decorate Pauline's room here in Berlin, since we'll be moving about 3 months after she's born. Every baby website I've visited suggests that this makes us unfit parents right out of the gate, but we can't see how it makes sense to invest the time, money, and effort into setting up a nursery when she'll still be tiny when we leave. Besides, it lets us save our nesting energies for things like organizing our household effects for packout. And we don't really think our 3-month-old daughter will feel unloved just because her bassinet is in a room without pastel paint on the walls.

- We have no idea where we'll be living in the Washington area, so major items like rocking chairs, crib, etc. will have to wait until we know how large her room will be, and how much storage space we'll have in our house/apartment. Same thing for safety gates and other equipment - until we know what the layout of the house is, we can't buy these things. Happily, we get some wiggle room from the fact that by the time we're moved in and settled, Pauline will only be 4 or 5 months old, and not all that mobile (yet!)

- We are also trying to keep our baby gear, including larger toys, furniture that's nice but not strictly necessary (e.g. changing tables), etc. to a minimum, because we'll only be in Washington for a few years before we have to pack up and move all over again. And there are limits on how much stuff the State Department is willing to ship around the world for us.

- We're new at this! We have absolutely no idea how many onesies, socks, outfits, sleepers, receiving blankets, etc. we'll really need. So we haven't registered for much clothing or toys. We put a few things up just to give examples; otherwise we trust to the taste and experience of those who might be shopping, and hope to get some things to cover us for various sizes/ages. (We also have no idea how many diapers we'll need, but feel safe in assuming the answer to that question is "LOTS!")

- Because some online merchants (Target can be bad this way) don't like to ship to APO addresses, we've put our "diplomatic pouch" address on some of the websites. Our APO address is the best one, but if you can't ship something there, you can also send to the Dulles, VA address which you should find online. I've found that for clothes and small things, it doesn't matter much one way or the other, but for larger items, you may need to use the Dulles, VA address.

And most important of all: We'd be delighted to help the environment and your closet/attic/storage space by using hand-me-down items! We love the idea of getting good use out of things like clothes, which is hard for babies to do on their own.

Exciting news!!!!

Our ultrasound appointment on Thursday went perfectly. The specialist was able to do all the measurements he needed to do - Speck's growing well, and is on average in the 65-70th percentile for growth based on gestational age. There are a few exceptions, most notably the femur bones, which seem to be more like 90th percentile. (Long legs? Can this really be my baby?) But best of all, we were able to get a definite call on the baby's gender:

It's a girl!!!!!!!!

Speck, aka Pauline Elizabeth, was very active during her ultrasound, moving her arms around and at one point sucking on her big toe. (Remember when you were flexible enough to do that?) We got some wonderful sonograms, which we'll post as soon as we can - we've been having some computer problems at home. But the important thing is that she's healthy and growing well. The specialist did an echocardiogram, which turned up absolutely clear. Liver, kidneys, lungs - all are developing normally, as are the physical structures of her brain. In short, as far as medical science can tell us, we're expecting a very healthy baby.

We decided on Pauline Elizabeth for her name. Pauline is for my mother's godmother, Pauline Hansen, who was like a grandmother to me and who was a very special person in my life. Elizabeth is for Tim's mom. We can't think of two women we would want to honor more, or two better namesakes for our little one.

Our next regular appointment will be Thursday - Thanksgiving. (It's not a holiday in Germany, so it's a great time to take care of some errands, including this one.) We have so very much to be thankful for this year.