Pregnancy update – 22 weeks
Soooo, I can honestly say that I LOVE being pregnant. If it weren’t for the minor back pain and the twice daily injections (damn blood-clotting disorder), I could stay pregnant forever! I feel great, I’m sleeping well, I love feeling FBB kick and move around (some kicks have been strong enough for David to feel now too!). I am a sacred vessel. Knowing and feeling that FBB is in there is really amazing, comforting, and empowering. Of course I’m also excited for him to come out, but I feel very complete with him in there.
14 weeks 22 weeks
My cravings have definitely subsided. While I still like beef, and am turned-off by chicken – the life-or-death need to eat beef is mostly gone. At my last check-up, I found out that I had gained 6 pounds during the previous month (doc said that it is normal to have gained a lot in that month because there was so much development…but still!). That was the month that I ate at least one hearty-beefy meal every day! So, it is a good thing that those cravings have settled down. Now I’m focusing on eating tons of fruits and veggies and drinking lots of water. Except for the Paris trip (come on, I couldn’t skip out on sweets on vacay), I’m trying to avoid sweets and soda, since FBB can now taste what I’m eating and he can possibly develop a liking to what I consume. He is now bigger than a coconut, can suck his thumb, and has developed most major organs and systems – he mostly just needs to grow. Grow baby, grow!
I’m about to start working on his room. I have a painter coming next week and need to start ordering furniture. Can you believe there is not a single children/baby furniture store in all of Boulder? And there are only an unimpressive few in Denver – I guess the only options are online/catalog furniture stores, or am I missing something?
I have had to give up tennis 😦 It was just too much impact on my joints with all my softened cartilage and tendons. So, I’m sticking to my routine of doggie walks and small hikes, personal trainer sessions, and prenatal yoga. Hopefully that will keep me from becoming a beached whale in the next few months!
David has been really cute about FBB lately. How lucky am I to already know that he is a great dad? Marrying a man with kids does have it’s perks, I suppose! He has also been really supportive and a great comfort when I have my crazy preggo mood swings and crying outbursts. And the babymoon trip to Paris earned him some major daddy-points too!
Now that we are certain that FB is a boy, we are working on baby names. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment. We could use some help!
8 weeks 16 weeks 20 weeks
So, that is the latest on me and FBB!
Babymoon in Paris
I have the most thoughtful husband EVER! For my birthday, David surprised me with a babymoon trip to Paris. We left for a week in Paris in the end of January. He had planned it out perfectly so that we’d go before I got too big and uncomfortable. Genius.
We stayed at the Relais Christine in the 6th district http://www.relais-christine.com/ based on the referral by the Paris expert, Amy Batchelor. It was wonderful. A small, boutique hotel in a prime location. Just out the door we were surrounded by narrow Parisian alleys full of brasseries, patisseries, creperies, chocolatiers, shops, pubs — anything you could possibly want! We were also very centrally located to all the sites, walking distance to the Louvre, Champs Elysees, many museums, Notre Dame, and many beautiful parts of Paris.
Just a little street outside of our hotel
The first day we went with a small tour group to Versailles. I loved it. It was amazing to see the size and extravagance of the palace and get an idea of how the royalty of that time lived. My favorite part was the bedchamber of Marie Antoinette. Just being in the room where she lived and delivered her 3 children was definitely amazing.
We also had several fun days of exploring the city by foot. We did a night-time city tour by boat to see Paris light up, hiked up the Arc de Triomphe (close to 300 stairs, not bad for 21 weeks pregnant), browsed the Champs Elysees, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower (holy shit that was higher than I thought!), explored the ‘Napolean in Egypt’ exhibit at the Institute of Arabs, hunted down the best creperies and chocolatiers, wandered through Notre Dame, and toured the Louvre. We got in at least 2.5 hours of walking each day as our daily exercise (gotta earn those crepes and sugar waffles!). I came down with a pretty brutal cold on our second to last night there, so our last day of museum exploration had to be sacrificed. So, we didn’t make it to the Musee d’Orsay or the Georges Pompidou, which we would have liked to see. But, I didn’t want to overdue it with FBB – I was defintely tiring more easily (with about a 12 pound weight gain, it’s like I’m carrying around a bowling ball all day) and being out in the cold every day caught up with me. I think we covered a lot of ground and we experienced all of the main sites that we had wanted to check out!
Stairs up the Arc de Triomphe
It was a wonderful trip. I’ve been to a lot of exotic places in the world, but Paris has always been at the top of my list and I’ve never made it there! So, it was really sweet of David to plan this trip for us and I’ll cherish the memories!
David took some videos while we were there – check em out: http://dgcohen23.posterous.com/
Pregnancy update – 18 weeks
David says I’m in the “honeymoon” phase of pregnancy, which sounds about right. I’ve been feeling great! The chiropractor has fixed my back issues, I’ve been playing tennis 1-2 times a week, I’m not quite as exhausted as I was in the first trimester, and the fact that there is a little baby in there has become much more real and exciting. All of the scary genetic testing has come back to show that FB is at no risk for Down’s Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, Spina Bifida and some other tragic genetic defects (big sigh of relief!). My belly is definitely getting bigger, and I’m starting to outgrow my regular clothes, although this belt buckle thingy has been a life saver — http://www.mybbuckles.com/shop.html, it is pretty much the only way I can wear my regular jeans anymore.
My mom and I have even started to do a little baby shopping, which is super fun and great timing with all the post-xmas sales! I’ve booked our Doula, birthing classes at the hospital, found a good prenatal yoga studio, and signed up for some prenatal personal trainer sessions at our health club. We’ve even picked out some paint color for the nursery, but will wait until the gender confirmation on 1/23 (although, I’m SURE of what gender FB is!).
Ahhh, cravings — they have gotten much stronger for sure! And basically all of my cravings now revolve around BEEF. I can’t get enough. Beef enchiladas, beef lasagna, beef chili, meatball subs, cheeseburgers, basically anything with beef, preferably ground beef. I’ve never eaten so much beef in my life. What I really want right now, is a good beef stew, but my mom needs to teach me how to make it! I hope I’m not clogging all my arteries with this beef habit (or you might even say obsession), hopefully since it is just temporary it is OK. The next strongest cravings have been for baked potatoes and BLTs with turkey bacon and then after that probably fruit. I am still making sure to eat salads and veggies, but I sure am not craving them! Poor David has got to be on beef overload because that is all I’ve been cooking or want to go out for. One afternoon I needed beef so badly that I actually got a headache that only a meatball sub could cure, for real!
I’ll get some new bump pictures up soon! Ciao for now!
Ellie, my protector
Anyone that knows me and my favorite furry girl, Ellie, knows that we are very close. She regularly follows me around the house and stays by my side. However, lately Ellie has been a little extra protective of me. I’ve heard that dogs can sense expectant women and sometimes even change their behavoir when their person is expecting. I’m thinking maybe Ellie is even more in-tune with me than I ever knew!
Here is my favorite recent Ellie story —
When the painters came to paint Andrew’s new room, David was at work and I was home alone with Ellie. Ellie always goes a little bonkers when people come in to the house, but this time she went maybe even a little extra-bonkers. My mom was going to take Molly for walk, so I asked her to stop over and take Ellie with them so Ellie could get some exercise while I was stuck at the house with the painters, and so Ellie would leave them alone. Ellie LOVES my mom and is always excited to see her and go on walks with her. Frequently when my mom is around, Ellie couldn’t care less where I am. Well, not this time. About 10 minutes after my mom came and took Ellie for a walk, they showed up back at my house. My mom explained that Ellie refused to go with her. Ellie kept turning back to look at our house and pull towards home. My mom tried to get her out of visual distance of the house, hoping Ellie would then be fine to go for a walk, but Ellie stood her ground and just wouldn’t budge. So, after my mom tried and tried to get her out for a walk, she finally gave up after less than a block and brought her back to me. We think Ellie didn’t want to leave me alone with strangers in the house. There is no other explanation. The weather was fine that day, usually she’d have loved to go. Ellie has never ever fought going on a walk before unless it was weather related.
She is such an amazing animal. I love my little Ellie-dog.
Unwrapping…..or um, unveiling Andrew’s new room!
With a baby on the way, we were going to have to do some room shuffling to accommodate FB. This is a delicate matter, as we did not want to make either kid feel shafted for the new baby, especially since they live here part-time and FB will be here full-time. We always want them to feel that this is as much their home as any of us full-timers. The decision was pretty obvious that FB should get Andrew’s room. It is the biggest, and with FB being a full-timer, it seems reasonable for it to get more space to house more clothes and what not – AND with Andrew being the oldest it makes the most sense for him to move down stairs while the younger kids stay on the second floor with us. So, how were we going to tell this to Andrew – yikes!
We decided to make a big event out of it. Andrew got to pick a new paint color (luckily green is his current favorite color, so it was easy to find a great green that was still in-keeping with the feel of the house) for his new room and we took him to pick out some new furniture! He thought this was all pretty cool and he’s been excited about it. All last week, I was getting the room painted, the playroom furniture moved-out, the cool new Andrew furniture moved-in, as well as moving all of his stuff from old room to new room. I wrapped the door to look like a giant present, got him all new desk accessories and reading lamps and such, got some new family pictures framed, and we set-up a TV for video games too! It was a busy week. When the kids came over last night, we had it ready to go! We hoped Andrew would like his new room as much as we did, it is really cool! Check out the pics. It is hard to tell, but under the loft, there is a giant smooshy chair (the toy plane is sitting on it) and a reading lamp – so it is kinda like a fort under there where he can read or play video games.
I think it was a successful transition. The kids played in there all night and Andrew was really excited about the move!
Baby wants to eat!
So far most of my cravings have been for food that I haven’t eaten in 15 or so years….here are a few:
Poptarts (I actually was craving the cinnamon/brown sugar without icing, but that no longer exists, so the one with icing had to do)
TCBY vanilla frogurt and reesey cups Shiver (we had to find a TCBY in Longmont to satisfy this one, it couldn’t be another brand of frogurt, you see)
Grapenuts cereal
Kraft Mac & Cheese
Rice pudding
Bon bon cookies (my mom’s homemade recipe with hershey kisses inside, yum!)
Baked potatoes (ok, it hasn’t been 15 years, but it has been at least 5 years since I had one)
Some not-so-nostalgic cravings
Beef, beef, beef – can’t get enough
Pickles – yes, the pregnancy stereo-typical craving – it’s true!
BLT’s (turkey bacon for me, I don’t eat pig)
Gingerale
Pineapple juice
Chocolate covered gummy bears
The only food so far that I usually love but now has been turning me off is chicken…weird!
Anyhoo, just thought some of that was funny. Some of it is obviously serving a purpose, like the beef and grapenuts for iron since I’m anemic, and some for vitamin C and calcium, but some are just totally random.
I love to record some of the funny things the kids say. So here are some recent funnies!
Delaney and her “chothers”
When we went out to dinner not too long ago and the kids were deciding who would sit with who, Delaney said “we’ll sit with each other and you can sit with your chother”. The “chothers” have come out a couple other times too, but that was the best one. Maybe you had to be there, but I think it is really cute.
Baby-talk — The kids’ mom just had a baby a couple of months ago, so it has sparked some funny baby conversations. A good one from each kid (at this point, I was pregnant already, but the kids didn’t know yet)…
Andrew
We were talking about how our families are connected and how he could potentially have a sibling from his mom and a sibling from his dad that would not even be related to each other – how strange, right? Well, this is how the rest of the conversation went:
Andrew: “well, at least I don’t have to worry about you and dad having a baby.”
Jil: “what would make you say that??”
Andrew: “well, because only MOMs can have babies and your just a STEP-MOM.” (said with a little “duh” kind of attitude)
Jil (trying to hold back the hysterics): “well, Andrew, what do you think your mom was before she had you? she wasn’t a mom yet and she was able to have a baby….”
Andrew: speechless with total look of bewilderment. I guess he didn’t realize that his mom had an actual life before he was born!
Delaney — Grow baby grow!
At bedtime, D and I were snuggling on the reading couch doing stories, and she mentioned something about her new baby brother, Joey. I asked her if she missed Joey, or if it was nice to be at our house and have a break from the new baby for a couple of nights. She told me that she missed the baby and wanted us to get one at our house. Here is how the conversation went:
Jil: “Delaney, how would we get a baby at our house?”
Delaney: “you just grow one in your belly!”
Jil: “how would I grow a baby in my belly?”
Delaney reaches to my belly, gives it a pat and a kiss and says “you just say ‘grow baby grow’ and then you get a baby in your belly!”
If she only knew there was already one growing in there! It was really sweet. We thought when we finally told the kids that we are having a baby, that she might think her “grow baby grow” tactic really worked!
Telling the kids about FB
On Thanksgiving weekend, we told the kids that we are having a baby, and it will be here in June. Being that they just got a new baby at their mom’s house, this announcement was no big deal to them. However, Andrew was able to muster up a reason to be excited about the new baby —
Andrew: “that means I’ll get to eat birthday cake TWICE in my birthday month from now on!!” (his bday is June 27)
I love my step-kids. They add so much to our life — and lots of laughs, that is for sure!!!
And Baby Makes 6!
My blog has been down, so I know this is a little late, but aren’t all of my blogs at least little late?
David, Andrew, Delaney, Ellie-dog, and I are excited to announce that that FBC is on it’s way! FBC = Future Baby Cohen! Due June 16, 2009. So, a lot of blog posts are going to be pregnancy related, kind of as a journal for myself and tips for my not-yet-pregnant friends 🙂
It was really hard to keep it a secret until the 3 month mark, but now I’m almost 4 months along and very excited to let everyone know!
Italy Trip – May 2008
So, I’m also way late on blogging about the Italy trip. So, here is the quick-tour of our Italian getaway!
Most important thing to know about the trip – we love GELATO! We ate it every day!
First stop Positano with Brad and Amy. We stayed at La Sirenuse – OMG, sooo nice – but not too nice to wear pajamas to breakfast.
The weather was great, we ate lots of good food and drank lots of fabulous vino (especially at La Donna away from the touristy area). Luckily we countered the food/vino with lots of tennis so we wouldn’t gain 20 lbs!
David and I did a day tour to Pompeii. The ruins were fascinating (that is Mt. Vesuvius in the back-drop) and there were lots of phallic symbols lasting thousands of years! ….’THIS WAY TO WHORE HOUSE’.
After Pompeii, we went to the cute town of Ravello. In Ravello we accidentally got drunk at lunch with Mamma Mia at a hole-in-the-wall-authentic-family-operated-deeelish restaurant and toured the Belvedere Gardens.
Back in Positano we got in some water time and visited the grottos. Brad and Amy didn’t join us as Brad would rather do anything than go on a boat. He was probably off running up a hill somewhere training for a marathon!
Off to northern Italy by train (note to self: next time fly!) to meet up with Jeff and Judy on their honeymoon – YES, they spent a week of their honeymoon with the four of us – crazy bastards! We finally make it to Milano and then a wet, cold welcome to Lake Como where it rained and rained and then rained a little more! Our villa was cute with great views and luckily we had good company and again, lots of vino! The sun finally came out to reveal the surrounding beauty and Judy cooked us a nice dinner to enjoy on the terrace!
When the rain started up again, we had to entertain ourselves…
We did venture out in the rain and decided to make the most of it!
There was a break in the rain here and there when we were able to get out and see the towns of Leno and Bellagio.
After being cold and wet for about 4 days straight, we had to cut our losses. Jeff, Judy, David and I decided to head back to Milano, thinking that if it is going to be rainy, it would be better to be in a city with more indoor things to do…and TAXIS. Amy and Brad had had enough and headed home to Boulder.
So, for the rest of us – off to Milano. We toured the main Cathedral (the biggest gothic cathedral in the world, I think), shopped, and enjoyed some very nice meals together for a couple of days before heading home!
All in all, even with the crappy rain in Lake Como, it was a great trip and we had a fantastic time with Brad, Amy, Jeff, and Judy!
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