my long-lost daughter...

so much to say, so little time

oh, hi.

Goodbye, Summer of 2009. It's now September. How the HELL did that happen?!

Remember me? The person who apparently forgot she had a blog? Well, I'm back! I fell out of blogging (both posting and following) in the few weeks leading up to the bar, and after the bar, I just mentally disconnected from the blogging world all together. It's been just in the last week or so that I've made a conscious effort to start catching up with some of my favorites on Google Reader, and I'm happy to say that I am fully in love with the blogosphere again. Instead of looking at my "unread" count (which has been "1000+" for as long as I can remember) and cringing, I'm actually looking forward to new posts again. So now that the inspiration is back, I figure it's a perfect time to get back in the habit of posting.

So what's been going on with me? The bar is over, praise the Lord, except it's not really over because it will be another sixteen days until the results come out, and until I know once and for all whether I passed or not, it's still something that's hanging over my head. I hate to possibly jinx myself, but I think I passed. The test was hard, very hard, but it's about what I expected, and I have yet to talk to a fellow test taker who thought it was easy - a good sign since it's graded on a curve. It's entirely possible that I failed, but I really think I did enough to squeeze by. We'll see...please keep your fingers crossed for me. The notion of possibly having to take it again (while MOTHERING AN INFANT) is a nightmare way too horrid to even contemplate.

This pregnancy is in full swing. I just have to LAUGH when I look at the last thing I posted here, that pathetic excuse for a belly pic. Oh how naive I was, thinking that I was "showing." I've got a big, round, full-blown belly now. And - how ironic is this? - I have NOT been keeping up with weekly belly pictures. That's right...after religiously photographing myself every Wednesday for the first trimester and a half or so, when I had nothing to show for it, I completely abandoned the practice when I actually had changes going on that would have been super cool to capture on film. I have pictures that have been taken at various family events and with friends, but no honest-to-goodness, pose in front of the mirror, belly pic self photography. It's just something that fell by the wayside in the last manic weeks preparing for the bar, and I haven't picked it back up again. I also haven't written in my pregnancy journal since week 17 (BEFORE WE KNEW SHE WAS A GIRL! holy crap...). I'm a bad mom.

Where I've slacked in pregnancy documentation, I've more than made up for in mentally nesting. Emma Alexis's nursery is an obsession of mine. The topic deserves an entire post of it's own (which will be of epic proportion in length). As it stands, at six and a half months into the pregnancy, we have yet to purchase a single piece of furniture or any kind of decor for the room. Right now it's just an empty room that we painted light yellow...not as pale a shade of yellow as I wanted, and not as bold of a yellow as Gaby wanted. So it's a compromise. But I am happy with the results. It's cheery yet subtle. Between that, and our brand new Elfa closets (thanks, Mom!) in both the nursery and our bedroom, it's been just enough to make me feel like we've gotten a start on things, but not enough to make me feel like we've even started to make a dent in all that we need to do.

I am in a major holding pattern right now, anxious to see some progress, but also terrified to commit to anything. I've been dreaming of my first child's nursery for as long as I can remember, and I can't believe how little time I have left to actually make these decisions and start putting it all together. I have these grand visions in my mind and I'm really scared that I won't be able to live up to my own expectations for what I want her room to look like. But the clock is ticking, decisions must be made, and things must be bought...so definitely expect several posts on the topic in the coming weeks.

What else? Baby shower is coming up, October 17th, and my feelings on it are very similar to my feelings on the nursery...I know I need to get on the ball and start planning it but I am in this weird place where I keep telling myself that I have plenty of time before I need to make any real decisions when in reality I have not a lot of time at all.

My little Emma seems to be perfectly healthy so far, thank God, and she's a real fireball. I can't believe that just 2 months ago, I couldn't even feel her and she wasn't even big enough to make my stomach stick out. Now I feel her rolling around and jabbing me CONSTANTLY, and she's making me look like I'm smuggling a basketball under my shirt. We have an ultrasound this coming Wednesday, our first since the big ultrasound we had on July 7th, and I can't wait to see my little girl again. Gaby is doing great, just as much in nesting mode as I am, and desperately impatient to meet his little girl. My puppies (who I just realized I have barely posted enough about on this blog considering what a huge part of my life they are), are gorgeous and adorable as always...I can't believe Shula will be 3 in October and Stella will be 2 in November. They're still very young, but getting older every day, and yet they somehow haven't stopped being my "pups." I don't think I'll EVER see them as adult dogs.

My work situation is going really well so far...knock on wood. I am currently working part time and from home (a fabulous combination, I must say) and my boss and I will reassess the situation on September 21st when I get my bar results. There's a slight chance that I will start to go into the office full time, but more likely than not I will remain on a modified schedule, working 20-30 hours a week, primarily from home, until Emma is born. Not only because of my pregnancy and the toll it would take both mentally and physically to start a demanding full time job in the 3rd trimester, but also because of issues we are currently having with office space. My boss is looking to relocate, and until he does, there isn't really room in our current office for me to be there full time. The new office will likely be up and running early in 2010, meaning that my boss will be more than ready to welcome me as a full time associate in March, approximately 12 weeks after Emma's birth, which is the length of time I've decided to take off to be with her. The thought both terrifies me and excites me. I've been looking into daycares in the last month and I have so much to say on the whole topic of what we'll do with her when I go back to work that it's definitely going to need it's own post.

So there you have it. That's what I've been up to and what's on my mind. I don't think I have any readers that I'm not already close to because either a) you are my friend or b) you are a fellow poster on a message board I frequent. So chances are that most people reading this didn't really need that long, drawn-out update :) But it still made me feel better to share, and I think it's a great way to get the ball rolling again. Please feel free to call me out if I slack on the blogging again...I really want to stay current.

18 weeks and a few days pregnant...

Sorry about the weird expression on my face. Clearly I haven't mastered the art of self-photography and smiling like a normal person at the same time.

She's a GIRL! :)

Emma was so well-behaved today...not shy at all! She gave us a great money shot, and the tech is absolutely positive that she is 100% girl. Gaby and I are over the moon :) We can't wait to tell her grandparents tonight.

Dear Baby,

Today versus tomorrow...

Today, you're just "the baby" or "the little boo boo." Tomorrow, you will have a name. Today, you have three beige outfits. Tomorrow, you will have a lot more outfits that mom and dad will buy you, in either pink or blue. Today, the 2nd bedroom in our condo is still called "the office." Tomorrow, it will be "________'s room." Today, we ask Shula and Stella whether they are excited to have a little brother or sister. Tomorrow, we'll be able to be more specific. Tomorrow I'll finally be putting a long while of daydreaming and online browsing about what your nursery will look like, what clothes I will buy for you, and what sort of birth announcement we'll pick out into action (not all at once, of course), because tomorrow, we'll know whether you're a BOY or a GIRL!

This is, of course, contingent on the fact that you cooperate during the ultrasound and show us the goods. Tomorrow is not the day for modesty or shyness. I'm serious. Your dad is even more excited and anxious than I am, and I can't promise that you won't be grounded for life if you play coy. We will never tell you this again, but we actually WANT you to spread your legs and show it all off tomorrow ;)

I first started to really believe in you when I had my first ultrasound and saw the flicker of your heartbeat. Before then, the 4 or 5 positive pregnancy tests I took really didn't mean much. But then I actually saw the little blob that will become your body, and that flicker that meant you had your own beating heart, and I finally believed that you actually existed. Since then, I've continued to believe in you...but I still don't feel that I know you. You haven't really let me feel you move yet (although I think I may have felt a little kick today, though it may have been just a muscle twitch), and all I know so far is that you've been very, very quiet and have kept a very low profile. You haven't made me feel sick at all, and the few symptoms I have had have been very subtle.

I know I still have a long way to go before I really "know" you. I know that even when I give birth to you and lay eyes my eyes on you for the first time, I still won't really "know" you. Getting to know you, on different levels, will take anywhere from a few days, weeks, or months (to "get used" to you), to an entire lifetime (to really understand who you are). But, at least by tomorrow, I am hoping that the process of getting to know you can finally begin. I've been told by some fellow pregnant women who are several weeks ahead of me that the next few weeks should be very exciting, and I am SO happy about that. Calling you by your name, feeling you move inside of me, watching my belly continue to grow, getting started on your nursery, and buying you a few gender-specific outfits or toys are all things that will make you even more real to me and that will make me love you even more than I do right now.

Everyone, including your dad and I, think that you're a boy. A lot of people have asked me what I would prefer, and I've been honest, especially when they say "But what do you REALLY want?" Before getting pregnant, I always thought that the "I don't care as long as it's healthy" answer was such a cop out. Then I got pregnant, and I understood - in those first few weeks and months when everything is still so cautious and the risk of loss is so high, you just want your baby to stick around and be healthy with no regard as to what gender you want. But then as the pregnancy gets further along and you become more confident, you start to daydream about what it would be like to have a boy or a girl, and I think for a lot of people, including your dad and I, a slight preference emerges. I'm not going to tell you what our slight preference is, because honestly, it doesn't matter. We really, really, really, really, really want to have BOTH a boy and a girl at some point in our lives. We want the experience and the honor of raising kids of BOTH the genders. So whichever one you are, it's okay...you're lucky in being the firstborn in that sense. All the pressure is going to be on your younger siblings to fill in the gap of the missing gender. Believe me, I'll tell you this from personal experience - it's not easy being the firstborn (especially if you end up being the firstborn AND a girl). So you take the bonuses where they come, and one of those bonuses is that despite any slight preference your parents may have, they will be completely and utterly thrilled out of their minds to find out your gender, whether you are a boy or a girl.

Speaking of your parents, here we are, exactly two years ago tomorrow:
This was taken at around 2:30 am at the end of a very, very, very long day and night - the best day and night of our lives so far - at our wedding. I know there will only be a few incredibly special moments in our lifetimes where your dad will stop and look at me that way. One was that night, 2 years ago tomorrow, after he made me his wife, and I hope there will be another one when I make him your father.

If you had told me on July 7, 2007, that I would spend the majority of 2009 pregnant and that on July 7, 2009, in addition to celebrating our two year wedding anniversary, we would also be finding out the sex of our first child, I wouldn't have believed you. See, we really weren't expecting you to come around so quickly, and I'll be perfectly honest and tell you that this was the source of a lot of anxiety for me in the beginning of my pregnancy with you. I felt hugely unprepared because you really didn't fit into the seemingly perfect timeline that I had created for myself. Don't get me wrong - we wanted you VERY badly, and if nothing else was at issue but our emotions, we would have made you a honeymoon baby. But you'll learn in life that sometimes, you create expectations of what is ideal, and then you make plans based on those ideals and try to stick to those plans as much as possible, because you think that if you don't, things won't work out the way you want them to. There are about a million cliches that I could use to express my next thought, but it basically comes down to the idea that sometimes life doesn't care about your plans, and the things that you think are happening out of order or in the wrong place in time end up being the best things that could ever happen to you. Now, I truly believe and understand that your timing couldn't have been more perfect, and I see little things like this (finding out your sex on our anniversary) as signs that everything is just as it should be.

So, little stranger. I know this has been a mouthful (you'll have to get used to that...to call me "wordy" or "long-winded" would be the understatement of the century...I don't think I've ever said or written anything short in my life). But I hope that it sheds some light on where we are right at this moment. Our relationship will be something that changes and grows constantly from the second that you're born, so I want to do my best to capture the different stages of it the best I can, so that we can all remember. Time goes by way too quickly, so you can never be too careful in keeping your memories intact for the future.

I LOVE YOU! I can't wait to meet you.

Love,
Mama

ladies and gentlemen,

I'm pregnant. And it's getting harder and harder to hide it (not that I want to hide it). I've had a major growth spurt in the last few days and it looks like I've finally "popped." Which makes sense, since the baby (now the size of an onion) is also having a major growth spurt - from last week (16 weeks) to a few weeks from now (20 weeks), he or she will have doubled in size. I didn't really look very pregnant this weekend, and then on Monday I thought I noticed that I looked a little bigger, and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the gym today, I had to do a double take. There are less and less outfits that really hide it. Now almost anything I wear - even a somewhat loose t-shirt - reveals the belly. I'm also starting to get a few twinges of round ligament pain and the skin on my lower belly feels really tight and stretched out (I slather myself with an almond oil/lemon oil/vitamin E blend every night). My belly button is getting shallower and wider (gross), and I'm up 8 lbs. so far, which is right on track for the average weight gain of 25-30 lbs. for the whole pregnancy. I was one of the lucky few who didn't have any morning sickness during the 1st trimester, so unlike some of my family members and friends, I didn't start off my pregnancy losing weight. I'm hoping I'll end up gaining less than the average, but who knows. I'm not going to stress it. I'm going to trust that my body will do what it needs to do to give me a healthy baby and I don't want to question that. Hopefully it cooperates when I am ready to whip it back into shape ;)

please excuse my disgustingly streaky mirror - i tried to cleaned it with a Windex wipe right before taking the picture, but clearly pregnancy has made me blind to grime and i missed all the mess

17 weeks (about 4.5 months) pregnant

I still haven't felt any movement, which I'm dying to feel already, but that could happen anywhere from any day now to several more weeks. The big gender reveal is next week and words can't describe how excited Gaby and I are to find out what the little munchkin is :)

I've had a bit of a mini-meltdown the last few days regarding the bar. As of last week I was feeling really confident, but on Monday it hit me like a ton of bricks how close the exam is and how much I still have left to learn by then. I want to know who thought it was a good idea to force law school graduates to take a test that is basically the equivalent of squeezing 16 law school finals into a two day period, just so that we can have the right to use the degree that we've spent the last 3 years of our lives busting our asses for. It feels so unfair.

So needless to say, the next 27 days are going to be intense. Gaby just found out that he won't be able to accompany me to Tampa as planned (a big work audit was scheduled for those days), so today I asked my mom to go with me, and now it turns out both my parents might come. I feel kind of like a baby for needing someone to go with me, but I really didn't want to be with people who are also taking the test, because I feel like that will just freak me out, and I also didn't want to make that drive alone and then have to fend for myself once I'm there. I can count on my mom (or parents) to make the 4 hour drive for me while I relax in the backseat, drop me off and pick me up at the testing center (versus having to worry about parking), and take me out to dinner on Tuesday night to get my mind off things.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, guys! I'll be back next week with the results of the big ultrasound :)

The Blog, The Bar & The Belly

So obviously, this blog has been abandoned for a while. It's the 2nd or 3rd time in Jenuinely Inspired's short lifespan that I have gone MIA for a week or more. I wish I had more time and mental energy to post regularly, but studying for the bar has hit me like a ton of bricks and between that and the baby, I barely have any brain cells left over to focus my attention on anything else. I lost track of the last time that my Google Reader had less than a thousand unread items on it, and today, after skimming a few of my favorites, I just clicked "mark all as read" and essentially deleted 1000+ new posts from my subscribed blogs. That's how busy I've been. I am beyond determined to take this bar exam ONCE and pass it the first time. I'm pretty confident that I can do it, but I will never forgive myself if I choke. So for the next 45 days, I'll be completely consumed with making myself as prepared as possible. This past week we were lucky enough to go on a cruise with my parents, brother, and brother's girlfriend. We had a great time, and it was amazing to spend 24/7 with Gaby with no distractions or responsibilities, but coming back home and facing how far behind I fell on my study schedule is beyond overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. It's going to be a scary week of playing catch-up.

Thinking and daydreaming about the baby is the most welcomed distraction from the bar, and it's enough to cheer me up when I'm feeling especially hopeless. I try to not let myself indulge too much, because I know myself, and I can get very easily caught up in planning. If I'm not careful, I could easily spend 2-3 hours a day browsing the Internet for baby-related things, and I just don't have time for that right now. So I just keep reminding myself that in 45 days, I'll be DONE, and I can spend all the time in the world thinking about and planning for the baby. It's going to be tough to stay focused, especially after July 7th, when we know whether it's a he or a she. But this baby deserves a mom who can focus on him or her 100% and not be worried about the next opportunity to retake and pass a stupid test. And now I'm having a major case of blogging deja vu (sp?)...I feel like I've talked about this before, and if I have, I apologize for being so boring and repetitive!

Anyway, I can't promise regular blogging until after the last week of July. I hope to find time once in a while to keep in touch, but I really don't know if I'll have the mental energy to post anything more than once every few weeks. Also - I really don't want this blog to become purely baby-related, but let's be real: that's the biggest thing going on in my life right now, and will especially be so after the exam. So while I'll try to keep posting about other fun topics, I also can't promise that 90% of the content won't be baby-related in some way.

As for the belly...it's growing! My uterus is about the size of a grapfruit now and the baby is about the size of a lemon, which is impossibly hard to believe because I really don't FEEL anything. There's a bump on my belly...but it's not the baby. The baby is still down by my underwear line. So I figure the bump I have is a combination of bloat, weight gain, and all my internal organs being slowly pushed upwards to make room for my grapefruit-sized uterus. I'm up 4 lbs. from pre-pregnancy weight the last time I checked, and I'm terrified to weigh myself after a week of eating like a mad woman on the cruise. Now that the 1st trimester nausea is gone and I can whatever I want and as much as I want, I have to be soooooo careful with my eating habits. I'm definitely back on Operation Eat Healthy starting tomorrow. I'm determined not to let my weight get out of control with this pregnancy, and unfortunately, knowing my appetite and my body structure, it's something I know could easily happen if I don't take care of myself properly.

Here are pictures from the last few weeks (note...all these pics are taken in the afternoon...in the mornings, my belly still looks relatively flat and un-pregnant, and then it grows throughout the day to look more or less like this):

11 weeks pregnant

12 weeks pregnant

13 weeks pregnant - this day, both my mom and my trainer exclaimed "Hey, you look pregnant!" when they saw me

14 weeks pregnant (in Labadee, Haitie - Royal Caribbean's private island)

I can't believe I'm already 3 1/2 months - 2nd trimester! What a great feeling. Every week that goes by is one week closer to the assurance of a healthy baby. It's a weird time because ALL of my 1st trimester symptoms are gone (except for the excessive peeing, which is ridiculously annoying), but I'm still not showing enough to really FEEL pregnant, and I'm still several weeks away from feeling any movement from the little lemon. So basically right now I feel exactly like I did before I got pregnant, which is a little unnerving. I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to hearing the baby's heartbeat on the doppler. That's seriously gotta be the best sound to a pregnant woman's ears!