38 Week Update from Baby Center

How your baby's growing: Your baby has really plumped up. He weighs about 6.8 pounds and he's over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). He has a firm grasp, which you'll soon be able to test when you hold his hand for the first time! His organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.

Wondering what color your baby's eyes will be? You may not be able to tell right away. If he's born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. If he's born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time he's 9 months old. That's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after he's born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. (Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.)

Most Improved!!!

After putting my parents to work, the nursery is officially the most improved room in the house! I love going in there and just hanging out. I can't wait to have a little person to go in and visit as I am now just visiting an empty room. I sit in the glider and just day dream about our little man. I have all the excitement of "what will he look like? what personality will he have?" and also filled with the anxiety like "will I be a good enough mother? will labor be as bad as I expect?". Mostly I just can't wait to meet him! More photos can be found here.

Truly now a soccer mom...

The Lexus has a car seat in it now.

I finally installed the infant car seat base. It was actually quite easy once I figured it out. We have an appointment with the fire department tomorrow morning to "check my work" and make sure we are all set. Having said that, I think this is pretty fool proof and did it right. (Famous last words, right?!?!) Well, we'll find out tomorrow.

I also installed a rear view mirror so I can watch our little man as I drive. How cute is this!

Leap Year Baby

...pretty sure, given we're just a few minutes from Feb 29th, that Monday will not be a Leap Year baby.

Monday, Mom and Dad are doing great - basically just waiting now for big show. We're getting our heads around the fact that any day now we could be panting and pacing, sweating and swearing, grinning and groaning...

We've been so busy as late with marking off the final items from the to do list. Our family and friends have been a great source of help and encouragement. Thank you all for the emails, calls, gifts and time. We hope you have more in you as we will likely hit each of you up for some bit of advice in the next few weeks.

Sleep patterns - getting into the rhythm

It's become very clear to me that my sleep patterns have totally changed, and I just need to go with it. I can't sleep through the night any longer at all! After I have to pee for the 3rd or 4th time, I am usually awake. OR, I am awake from about 3 - 5... Monday's River Dance Hour. That basically means that I slog through the day - except now I get to nap!

I still feel guilty about taking a nap on a Tuesday while Tim is at the office, but I am getting over the mental barrier of napping and am embracing it. It does shorten my day somewhat, but makes me far more productive while I am awake.

I am still doing laundry, making lasagna (baby brain has made this an epic task), doing thank you notes, and napping! Though far from accomplishing what I used to do in a day, I am 10 days shy of my due date and giving myself a little leeway - the world will be there tomorrow for me to conquer it tomorrow.

Gravity

Gravity hasn't always been my friend. I have had trouble staying on my feet, walking downstairs, and basic navigation of this world from a vertical position (read: totally klutzy!), I have a new found respect and appreciation for this universal force.

It seems that our little Monday is dropping. What were once serious kicks to my rib cage are mere dalliances to my belly. I noticed it at 3:00 am 2 nights ago. I kept tickling his feet, and he kept moving them around, but he never once kicked my ribs. Both my dad and Tim think that my figure has adjusted accordingly. Dropping is a great sign as he is getting ready to make himself known.

I have another doctor's appointment on Monday. Hopefully I will get some information back from them on how I am progressing -- and hopefully it will be that he indeed will soon be here. I am anxious to meet our little man.

37 Week Update from Baby Center

How your baby's growing: Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

First Maternity Leave Nap

I have just woken up from my first Maternity Leave nap!

My parents arrived on Friday night and we have been sprinting ever since to get things ready for Monday and enjoying a little leisure time. We've already:

1. Hosted a dinner party (not related to Monday, but fun none-the-less)
2. Attended a fabulous shower in San Francisco hosted by Mom's friends for me
3. Had drinks with Aunt Jean
4. Had lunch with Aunt Patsy
5. Purchased the last of the infant necessities online and at babies r us
6. Been to Home Depot twice
7. Done about 12 loads of laundry
8. Mostly finished up the nursery - we're hanging window valences now and will pick up sheers on Thursday

After not much deliberation this afternoon, we decided a nap was in the works. I started out with my book and woke up an hour later having read not much more than a page. I do like naps, and have a feeling that before our little man arrives, I'll be trying to schedule some more!!!

So Long For Now!!

I am wrapping up my final day in the office today before I go out on Maternity leave.

Our organization uses a very strict process for projects that makes you answer specific questions at specific check in points. Though the following may not make sense for anyone who doesn't speak Intuit, the following was my leave email out to my team:

Subject: PEP Define Tollgate: Monday Reeth

Background:
I am currently 9 months pregnant with our first born and beginning maternity leave at the end of the day today.

Problem statement:
My husband Tim and I need to develop a “go-to-life” strategy for the upcoming launch.

What we’re solving for:
Primary Goal: Have a healthy and happy baby boy and raise him to be a thoughtful and productive member of society. (No pressure there.)
Secondary Goal: A little sleep along the way for me and Tim would be nice.

DACI:
Driver: Lina Reeth
Approver: “Monday” Reeth
Contributors: Tim Reeth, the proverbial “village”

Project Investment Size:
Large – these guys can get expensive quickly!

Projected Date of Next Tollgate:
March 10 – our son’s due date!!

I anticipate that our lives will quickly turn into chaos, but we are truly embracing a Launch and Learn mentality. In fact, the mindset of Rapid Learning and Change has well prepared me for this next step. Can you truly say it better than “Be open to change based on learning”?

I will be in touch as we hit critical milestones and keep you in the loop. In the meantime, if you need to get in touch with me, don’t hesitate to email me at lina_chickering@yahoo.com. Though I can far from promise an immediate response, I am sure a little intellectual stimulation and adult interaction could do me some good.

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As I finish filing documents to the server and cleaning off the top of my desk, it is certainly with mixed emotions that I leave this place. I am thrilled to have the time off of work to prepare for Monday, but it means that from here on out, I am totally out of my comfort zone. I am not an expert in what lays ahead, I can only hope that Tim and I navigate our unchartered water smoothly.

Quite the weekend!!

By the time I arrived home (and exhausted!!!) on Friday night. The crib had arrived and I was optimistic and gleeful about setting it up. By the time Tim arrive home from work of Friday night, I was in a meltdown. I have just been so tired and moving so fast and trying to do so much, that I just wilted and set on sobbing it out. Once we got through that, I got a better night sleep which left me bright eyed and ready to go into Saturday morning.

We spent the morning doing all those really unglamorous errands for items that I will need to go into the hospital and once I return home. Things like nipple cream, tucks medicated pads, maxi pads, and boatloads of diapers for our little one. I tell ya - that is an easy way to spend a lot of money on items that don't provide much delight! We rewarded ourselves with a job well done at a nice outdoor setting restaurant in Redwood City - the day was hot and gorgeous and just what we needed to lift ourselves up and into Babies R Us where we picked up our glider.

When we got home around 3:30 in the afternoon, we relaxed before the big assemblies. The relaxing actually wore me out, and I napped from 4:30 - 6 while Tim assembled the chair. After I woke up, we got take out chinese and set to work on the crib. It was amazing day to start it with a completely empty nursery and end it with a crib and a chair/ottoman. We finally finished up the crib around 10 and set off to bed.

On Sunday, Mom and Dad Reeth came over first thing. We all had breakfast together before Debbie and I headed off to a shower hosted by my Mommy-mentor Beth in Pleasanton and the boys went off to play. The girls spent the better part of the day chatting and giggling about babies and life. Joely, up from Texas for the event, even took some ghastly photos of me!!! If I ever get them, and I get over the shock, I will post them up here. There is nothing quite like having your picture taken when you are 36 weeks pregnant...

When we got home, the boys were back. By the time I had come downstairs from changing into comfy clothes, there was another entire pile of wrapped presents on the floor in front of Tim with another chair next to him!!

Apparently, Debbie's family back east had a surprise shower for us at the end of January. Surprise! We weren't even invited!! But they did all get together as a family, and take pictures of on another as they bought our bedding set at our online registry. They sent it all to Debbie who wrapped it up for us. We then spent the rest of the afternoon putting together the nursery. We are still missing a couple of items, like the mattress which is on it's way, and the changing pad which I will pick up once I am on leave, but Monday's room is starting to look like a room for a small child -- which relieves me greatly and further gets me excited!!!

We are both so grateful for the outpouring of generosity from our friends and family. The surprise shower was certainly a surprise for us - but all the gifts, advice, and love has been an truly amazing thing - it really is amazing how a child can bring people together!!

The days are getting longer

Can anyone else see it? Spring is coming!!! And for us, spring means our own little spring chick (reeth). Last night I drove to see a pediatrician and noticed that the sun hadn't set by 5:00 and was setting here around 5:30 or a bit later. We've been so buried under rain, that we haven't seen the sun in a while, but it's there, and it's coming back into our hemisphere!

Though the Vernal Equinox isn't until 3/20 (or 3/21 depending on your time zone), I have always thought of our little man as a spring time baby. It seems like everything is getting ready for Monday's arrival: my body, our house, the weather...

Nesting? Or Panicking?

Really, it's hard to tell...

This weekend was very much a nesting weekend. I was "determined" to clean out Monday's room from being the move-storage room that it has been, to actually being a place we could bring a person home to. And while everything is cleaned out, if Monday comes home tomorrow, he'll be sleeping on the floor...clean as it may be.

We have a couple of showers coming up and gifts en route that include such critical items as the crib and stroller, but I am still feeling a little behind the 8 ball....or maybe in front of the 8 ball as it is rapidly bearing down on me headed for the corner pocket.

Monday is fully baked in 12 days. And while I can't wait for our little man to be here, I don't have the home ready enough to feel comfortable. I guess that is why we have weekends and California SDI (which allows me 4 weeks paid prior to the due date)!!! I am really looking forward to being allowed to stop thinking about Intuit and start really focusing on Monday.

That wasn't there yesterday...

Getting used to the extending belly is awkward. Neither Tim or I have perfected life navigating around the Monday Bump in my belly. Here are a couple of examples to highlight the issues:

1. Tim has walked past me hitting Monday on the way by twice in the last 4 days.
2. I have opened the restroom stall door directly into Monday as I was attempting to leave.
3. Narrow parking spaces often require me to re-park as I can no longer squeeze between the door and the car.
4. I don't generally give myself enough room through doorways.

If anyone thinks me completely ridiculous, I challenge you to strap a basketball onto your stomach overnight and not have any issues with basic daily tasks!!! (Especially on limited sleep!)

35 Week Update from Baby Center

How your baby's growing: Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that he's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew). Because it's so snug in your womb, he isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight. He will spend the next few weeks putting on weight at the rate of about an ounce a day.

Big Growth Spurt

Apparently the last several weeks that Monday is inside of me are his biggest. This is no surprise to anyone that has been through this, but is a little alarming to me. As such, he has taken particular interest in "addressing" my right-ribcage with prolonged battering and attention. He has also discovered that if he pushed just so with his head, that he can get my tendons to stretch out even more.

Thursday night's sleep was the worst in a while. I woke up with a stabbing pain around my left hip-flexer. I knew enough to know it wasn't labor so I wasn't worried. But was awake for several hours before the tylenol, a heating pad, and sheer exhaustion allowed me back to sleep. We had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning (awfully timely, I thought.., and Monday is doing great!) where the doctor just looked at me and said "yep, that's pretty much normal". The only "advice" I could gather, was simply just to suck it up and deal.

This stretching and growing left me aching the better part of the weekend. Tim tries to remind me that my pains are our little man trying to grow so he can get here faster. I value these reminders.

I am now on the weekly doctor appointment regimen. This takes place the last month of pregnancy to determine progress (if any) towards labor. Our little man will be here before we know it!!

I Got Got - Tales from the office shower

I was hoping to have some photos of a particularly red-faced, but last Thursday afternoon, colleagues from the office successfully threw a surprise shower for me. And by surprise and successful, I mean, whoa-nelly.

I was having a transition meeting with Kristy, my manager. About 45 minutes into it, we were almost finished going through a document and she decided that the learning from it was incredibly relevant to a brainstorm going on with another group of people taking place at the same time. "would you mind if we stopped up there for a bit and shared your learning?" Right. So I blindly walked into a room of 25 people all yelling surprise and staring at me.

I think my blush persisted for about minutes. I was actually so flushed that my feet themselves were even blushing. Seriously. My feet were beet-red!

I am so grateful to the people that pulled it together. It was truly flattering that people would go to the effort to do it, and that so many people came. Becke, my old manager from the Quicken days even came down from Berkeley. Kristy even tried to have Tim there to surprise me. If I do get a hold of the photos from the iPhone, I will try to make them available here... unless I look way to horrified and horrible to show them in public. :)