Getting Into Our Summer Routine

The last week has been pretty uneventful in the grand scheme of things. We had a nice Memorial Day weekend which was very relaxing and exactly what we needed after all the excitement the previous weekend. I made it to the half way point in my abbreviated May session class, and B has started the dreaded bar prep classes. He is actually really cute, watching the videos, taking the tests, and pacing around the house as he tries to learn all of the information for the exam. He has prep class in the morning and then studies at the library and meets me at home a little after 5 for dinner which is great - just like normal grown-ups! The only problem is I have class two evenings a week for a few more weeks and have started needing to stay late at work or take work home to get things ready for summer programs but we do get to enjoy a few evenings together each week during the craziness!

Besides getting into our new, post law school routine, we did have a doctor's appointment yesterday and selected a pediatrician last weekend. Amoeba is growing nicely, has moved out of her breach position!, and still has a nice strong heartbeat. I passed my glucose test so no gestational diabetes for us! Amoeba is almost 3 pounds and we sill start seeing the midwife every two weeks now instead of every four as we get closer to delivery. I do need to take some iron supplements since my iron counts are a little low (they pretty much always have been unless I have just consumed a big ol' steak) but otherwise things look good!

Last Saturday we visited a pediatrician office right near our house on recommendation of a friend who had her baby in early March. They do Saturday information sessions for new parents every few weeks so we sat in a room with very pregnant women and listened to the pediatrician talk about leaving the hospital, sleep, breastfeeding, vaccinations, when you need to take the baby to the doctor, etc. It was mostly stuff we knew, but it was nice to hear a doctor say these things. The office is nice with separate sick and well entrances and waiting rooms and like 10 doctors (although you always get to see the same one except for emergencies). They also have Saturday hours for sick kids. We liked that they won't let kids stay in the practice if the parents refuse vaccinations and that they highly recommended breastfeeding babies. They also seem really personable and flexible so between that and everything they said and the fact that it is literally less than 2 miles from our house, we are excited to use them. We were a little surprised with the idiocy of some of the parents-to-be in the room (coming 30 minutes late, letting cell phones ring, asking the same questions repeatedly) particularly since most of them were less than 4 weeks out from having their babies, but they were somewhat entertaining and made us feel like maybe we wouldn't be the most clueless new parents out there.

Coming up in the next few weeks are our tour of the birthing center at the hospital, our childbirth class, and my breastfeeding class. After that it is pretty much just finishing up the nursery with some fun wall decorations and washing all of baby Amoeba's clothes and getting the car seats checked and we will be as ready as we can be for the little one's arrival!

Amoeba's Shower and B's BBQ

The day after graduation, we were lucky to have a shower thrown by our moms and my bestest friend Catherine. Since we only see Bryan's family once a year or so, this was the best time to celebrate the impending arrival of our little one. So we got up early, made sure the house was in good shape for more guests, finished up some cooking, and before we knew it, the first guests were arriving.

In true Mom Hayhoe fashion, there was an excessive amount of food - and it was all amazing! My personal favorite was the homemade chicken BBQ, followed by the famous Hollywood ice cream sandwich cake and mom's special caramel brownies. But everything was great! We got to play with friends and family, played a cute little baby animal game, and then opened gifts for what seemed like forever. Baby Amoeba sure is lucky to have so much love already! Amoeba got a car seat and stroller base, a pack and play, a 3-in-1 bouncer, rocker, swing, lots of cute clothes, a diaper pail, nursery bedding, and all sorts of other goodies. In addition, everyone brought a book for us to read to Amoeba, and they each were signed by the giver with a little message on why they selected that particular book. Very cute! I don't think we need to take Moeb's to the library for the first few years of her life since we now have our own library upstairs in the guest bedroom!

My cousin Joe (a world-famous photographer :) ) also took a ton of pictures at the shower. The great majority of them are of our dog, Maddie, who the camera apparently loves, or our friend's nine month old, but we are hopeful he got a few good shots of us as well! We'll post a pic or two from the shower taken by the professional once we get them!

Bryan had to leave around 3 to take his dad, brother, sister-in-law, and neice to the airport, and we took that opportunity to change things up...all the baby shower stuff came down, gifts went upstairs, and the Congratulations Graduate! banner, cake, and BBQ foods all came out. It was quite funny to witness the transition. So we continued partying for a bit - this time in honor of B's law school accomplishments. Since it had been a long day already this only went on until about 7 or so, but it gave us plenty of time to catch up with friends and eat some more great food!

The weekend was certainly exhausting, and I think we spent most of Sunday sleeping! We did put together some of the nursery goods and also ordered the crib mattress so that we could get the crib ready later in the week. Things are starting to really come together which is great because I am only 2 weeks from the start of summer program's training and CTY work craziness! Over the next month we hope to get everything else together, take our birthing class, tour the birthing center at the hospital, pack our hospital bag, and get the car seat put in our car! So much still to do, but thanks to our great family and friends and a wonderful weekend we are in great shape!

Yay! Bryan has a Law Degree!

Friday, May 15th was probably the 3rd best day in our relationship - after getting married and finding out about Amoeba, seeing Bryan graduate after the past 3 years of crazy studying fun was pretty amazing! The celebrations began Thursday night when we attended a short awards ceremony where Bryan was recognized for his contributions and leadership at the school. As "Dean Saxton," B has been a bit of an overachiever over the past 3 years with journal, moot court, clubs, peer advisors, and basically being the student affairs department's poster child! Bryan wasn't that excited about the award but the rest of us were definitely proud!

Thursday night was great because we got to meet our new niece, Rubie Lyn, for the first time. She is beautiful, and probably the most cooperative 12 week old we have ever met. Rubie sleeps through the night, has her daily routine down pat, and doesn't object to being passed around the room like a hot potato!



Additionally, while Maddie wasn't super interested in her since she doesn't do much moving yet, she was not opposed to getting a sniff and a lick or two from our adorable dog. We are pretty sure that Amoeba won't be so cooperative in her attitude towards sleeping, eating, and generally being lovely since she has been less than cooperative inside my tummy, but only time will tell! She will, however, at least be a huge fan of our dog we are sure!

Friday morning Bryan's mom, dad, Carl, grandma, Joyce, Kevin, Tracie, and Rubie met at the law school for a great little brunch and lots of picture taking! I hit up the food, but B made me stop eating long enough to go meet and greet his adoring fans at the law school. Seriously though, I was really impressed at how many people at the school love B - from the security officers to the dean, everyone told me how nice he was, how much he contributed, and most important, how much he talked about me and Amoeba. Hopefully this was mostly good stuff!

After breakfast, we went to the Hippodrome theater for the law school hooding ceremony. After the student leader speeches (one of which could have been ripped from Reese Witherspoon's Legally Blonde talk) and a very enthusiastic speech by US Representative Elijah Cummings, we got to cheer on while Bryan and his 241 classmates got their hoods placed on them. B was excited because one of his favorite professors (and advisor of his journal) got to help put his hood on.



After the ceremony, the law students that were going to the school-wide commencement paraded down Baltimore Street to the First Mariner Arena where the actual commencement was held. A smaller group of Saxtons went to this event and they all thought it was a nice ceremony.

Friday ended with the Saxtons and Hayhoes (who arrived that afternoon) having a pizza dinner. More important, Bryan and Tracie introduced the majority of the crowd to Rita's Italian Ice. Now, if you know me and Bryan you know we are pretty excited about Rita's; Tracie ,however, thinks it is pretty much the most amazing thing on the planet! It was super yummy, but even better was seeing how enthusiastic she was about the special treat.

Friday sure was exhausting but the fun of the weekend was just about to begin. On Saturday we had our shower and BBQ to honor B! We'll post soon about those events!

A Surprise Ultrasound

Last Friday I received an unexpected phone call. Early in my pregnancy I had contacted some folks at JHU who have been working on a fetal study that some of my friends have participated in. I was told that by the time they got their act together to do the next phase of the study I would be too far along in my pregnancy so I couldn't particpate. But Friday they called me anyway, and asked if I would be willing to come in this week to do an ultrasound so they could practice the next round of their study before the participants started. Despite the craziness of this week, since it was a free chance to see little Amoeba growing, I agreed to go down to the hospital and be their guinea pig.

Basically, they are studying the reaction of the baby to different stimuli. In the past they have played music, shaken rattles at the mom's stomach while the mom has on a blindfold and headphones, etc. This time, they are looking to monitor the baby when mom reads aloud to see how the baby reacts at 18, 24, 30, and 36 weeks to mom's voice. They also see how the baby reacts when mom discusses the positive and negative affects of pregnancy with the researchers. So when I got to the hospital, they first hooked me up to the ultrasound to take a look at our baby girl, and then got started on their research methods.

This ultrasound machine wasn't the cool 3D machine we had gotten to use before, so seeing Amoeba clearly wasn't quite as easy, but I was able to see her head tucked in there, her little fingers waving, her mouth opening and closing, and of course her big ol butt hanging out still in breach position. While I wanted them to confirm that she was definitely a girl, she continued to keep herself covered up...I still wouldn't be shocked if we have a little surpise delivery day due to the little one's uncooperative nature! The coolest part of the ultrasound was definitely seeing the four chambers of the heart beating, and then seeng her "practice breaths" as her chest rose and fell. Unfortunatley B couldn't make it into the city today with the car issues and the fact that I put him to work readying our house for the masses to descend this weekend, but since she looked pretty much the same and I gave him a full report of her healthy status I think he was ok.

They then hooked me up to fetal heart monitors and charted Amoeba's heart beat at baseline, with me reading outloud, us talking about the pregnancy, and then me reading silently. They have study participants coming in soon to do the real tests so hopefully they got the data they needed. I was just excited to get some ultrasound pictures! Leaving the hospital though, I of course realized that my "free" ultraound wouldn't in fact by free. Thinking I would avoid paying to park, I parked in the neighborhood, only to come back to a parking ticket. Yup, that 2 hour parking from 7 am - 7 pm sign didn't mean on Monday afternoon. Turns out that the teeny tiny street cleaning sign further down the street (that every single car on the street clearly didn't see) told us that Monday afternoon was a no-no. I was of course not happy, but have since rationalized it that my co-pay for an ultrasound would have been more than the ticket so am going to just suck it up and pay the fine. Gotta love Baltimore and their insane attempts to get money any way they can.

So all in all it was a good day, and great to see Amoeba looking healthy and strong. She apparently was less than thrilled with the day (particularly my pizza dinner) since I am now awake at 3 am with some serious heartburn... but these little middle of the night escpades give me a chance to bond with Maddie on the couch and get ready for those late night feedings.

We'll be sure to post soon about the big graduation, shower, and BBQ!

26 Weeks (Or Is it 24?)

We had our monthly midwife appointment today and things still look good. She has a steady heart beat of 153 which is nice and strong. I am growing just as expected but they still think Amoeba is a little on the small side so they are pushing our due date back to August 18th. I am pretty darn sure I am due earlier than that but if it makes them happy to change my due date they can change it. Amoeba will just arrive earlier than they expect. I'd like to think she is just going to be a beautiful 6 pound baby who shoots right out instead of a huge 9-10 pound monstrosity like Bryan and his big ol' brothers but I guess only time will tell! Since we haven't really been posting belly pictures, we thought we'd post one here to show people how much I have been growing.

Besides our appointment, we have just been getting the house ready for the big graduation celebration. Bryan had his last class this past week and is just 2 papers shy from being totally finished with law school. How do we celebrate? That's right, we totally reorganize our basement storage room! The Saxton's sure know how to party! It does look great though. We also have organized the rest of the house to make room for Amoeba and all her stuff so besides decorating the nursery the house is pretty much ready for the little one's arrival.

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to Bryan's good friend this week...yes, that is right, the love hate relationship with his navy blue GMC Sonoma ended on a low note when it stalled out a final time in Ellicott City this past weekend. When they wanted more money than the car was worth to fix it, we decided to do the honorable thing and put everyone out of their misery. The truck didn't have a back seat so wasn't really Amoeba appropriate anyway, but that truck has been with B for quite some time and I think he is still grieving a little. We will be doing some car shopping earlier than expected and hope to have a new ride for the Saxtons in the next week or so.

On a happier note, we got a super fun present for the baby this week. My assistant program manager at work went to the happiest place on earth (aka Disney World) last weekend to visit her brother who works in EPCOT (I am pretty sure his job is way cooler than ours) and she brought back Amoeba's first dose of fairy dust! We look forward to seeing our little one wear her gift proudly on what I am sure will be many visits to our favorite place!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!