God bless my husband.  Seriously, God bless him.  He has been amazing throughout this pregnancy, from constantly offering me foot rubs and back rubs, to bringing me water in bed once I achieve the perfect pillow placement to support my sore back and blooming belly, to just being there with me to experience all the excitement and emotion that accompanies being a parent-in-waiting. 

He lets me cry when I need to cry, and laughs at me when my nesting vibes seem to overtake my logical mind.  Like the night when he came home from work at 10:30 pm, to find that his 7-month-pregnant wife had moved their heavy antique dresser from one side of the bedroom to the other, all by herself, and all he could do was say “What did you do?”  I think he was slightly annoyed that I didn’t discuss this with him first, or that I didn’t at least wait until the weekend when he could have assisted me.  But, he just laughed and said it looked good.  After all, it just had to be done!  It was a Monday night, and suddenly, I couldn’t stand the dresser in that part of our room anymore.  Where was the bassinet going to go?  It needed to go in the exact place that the dresser occupied, so it had to move.  Never mind that we still have weeks to go until the baby comes.  I took the dresser apart, drawer by drawer, emptying everything on top of it, and then gently scooted and pushed it across our carpet to the other side of the bedroom, taking careful steps so as not to bump the sides of the fragile piece on the footboard of the bed or on the wall.  When everything was where I wanted it, then I scrubbed the molding along the carpet and gave the area where the dresser was a much needed vacuuming, and then stood back to admire my accomplishment.  Perfect!  Now the bassinet will fit there and not be crowded and the baby has the perfect place to sleep during his first weeks at home.  Although my husband was annoyed at my impatience to wait to have his help, he has now figured out there’s not a lot a man can do to stand in the way of a pregnant woman and her nesting urges.

Or, last night, I awoke at 4 am and just had to clean out the fridge. What if people bring us food after the baby is born and there is no where to put the containers?  (Hint, hint…) Now, I have never in my life had the desire to clean out the fridge, but in that moment, it was a primal desire, and almost sounded like a treat.   Now the actual task wasn’t that exciting, but checking things off my prenatal-nesting-list feels pretty wonderful.

Other middle of the night urges have been waking up in panic because I have not packed my bag for the hospital, or I’ll realize I need to finish reading something for work for a meeting that is still a week away.  Normally, I am a sound sleeper, but these days, between bathroom breaks and midnight anxiety attacks, it seems I am up every 2 hours with something important on my mind.  Maybe this is my body’s way of preparing me for the nights of interrupted sleep that soon will be my reality?

Fortunately, dad-to-be doesn’t get upset with me when I wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him I only have one more load of the baby’s laundry to do before everything is clean.  Between the midnight urges, the sudden bursts of energy to rearrange furniture, and every other mood swing or catharsis, he has supported me unconditionally, without complaining or making me feel like a crazy person.  I feel so blessed him to have his support.  How did I get this lucky?  It truly is a journey, with everyday bringing something new into our lives.  And in a weird way, I feel like this pregnancy has made us fall in love with each other all over again.  We love talking about the baby – what he will look like, what he will sound like, what our two dogs will think of him, etc.  We fantasize about taking him on walks in our neighborhood, teaching him to ski, and teaching him the appropriate time to yell at the NFL officials.  Every day of my pregnancy brings forth a new milestone in our lives, and we can only imagine the newness and wonder that await after the baby arrives.  So, hang in there with me, honey.  Soon, my pregnancy will be a distant memory and my midnight energy bursts and sudden urges to rearrange furniture will likely seem like they never happened.  But rest assured, when I’ve gotten up to nurse for the fourth time in one night, I am going to tell you all about it and you’re going to love hearing the details…

The most interesting thing about being pregnant the second time around is how the pregnancy takes a back seat to the rest of your life.  When I was pregnant with my first child, Alyssa, I think I spent pretty much every waking hour thinking about or preparing for her arrival.  While driving to work, I would play classical music, because they (the infamous they) say that playing classical music in utero will help get your child into Harvard, or some such nonsense. I would talk to Alyssa all the time because I wanted her to be familiar with the sound of my voice, even though she would probably recognize my voice because I talk all day long.  I registered the minute I found out we were having a girl, and I enlisted my sister (a mother of three) to help with the process.  I made sure I only ate pasteurized cheese, turned my nose up at anything with caffeine and I exercised more than I had prior to my pregnancy.  I did my Kegel exercises religiously, because after watching the c-section video, I wanted to do everything I could for a vaginal delivery.  We read books on what to expect, how to soothe a cranky baby and the 411 on babies.  My husband and I toured the hospital, pre-registered and took the birthing classes and baby safety classes by the beginning of the third trimester.  To say I was consumed by babies and becoming a mother was an understatement.  It was a great time of my life and I was so happy that we were going to become a family of three.  Preparing for Alyssa helped me to feel bonded to her and I felt like I already knew her, or at least a part of her, before she was born.

I am due with my second child on January 8, 2010.  I think I actually said to my husband the other day, I just need to get through the holidays first and then I can think about preparing for the baby.  If you do the math that means I have one week to prepare for baby girl number two’s arrival.  For the record, my husband just laughed and shook his head at me.  At the beginning of this pregnancy, I would actually forget I was pregnant.  My morning sickness would occur at night, so I was able to function normally during the day.  I would go to Starbucks and order that latte without even thinking of getting a decaf.  It wasn’t until about 2/3rds of the way through the latte that I realized - hey, I’m pregnant.  Luckily, I’m not a caffeine addict, so it wasn’t a daily occurance and my doctor said limited caffeine intake shouldn’t affect the baby.  I took that advice as license to continue getting those lattes and iced coffees.  Forget about playing classical music in the car, because I’m listening to Disney tunes with Alyssa.  Working out is a luxury.  I try to exercise every other day, but I pretty much fail at that every week because I don’t or won’t work out in the mornings and I get home at 7:30 p.m. from work.  I haven’t even thought about doing a Kegel exercise until I started writing this post.  I think the only thing I do for this pregnancy on a regular basis is forward the weekly baby development emails to my husband.

I would also forget to tell people I was pregnant.  I am 28 weeks into this pregnancy, and I finally just finished telling all of my friends.  If you saw me, there’s no way to deny I’m pregnant, but for those who I don’t see on a regular basis or the facebook friends, I just haven’t made a big announcement.  However, the last person I told, who is a child psychologist and very wise, said to me, “This pregnancy is part of your life instead of all of your life.”  Prior to this conversation, I felt guilty, because I wasn’t bonding with the baby the way I did with Alyssa.  They were the magic words I needed to hear.  I am so excited to have another baby, but I realized that having a two year-old, trying to spend quality time with the hubby and working full time does not leave a lot of time for daydreaming about the delivery or the perfect nursery.  Additionally, because we’re having another girl, I feel much more prepared this time.  For some reason, I continue to believe all we need are some diapers and wipes, and we’ll be good to go.  My thoughts are directed elsewhere - I have a child who needs me to focus on her, and I am consumed with planning Alyssa’s third birthday party.  So, I’ve decided that after Alyssa’s party, I will focus on baby number two.  That is until I start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What did pregnant women do before the internet?  Though sometimes I think there is TOO much information on the web, and that sometimes, a neurotic pregnant girl can drive herself mad researching anything from cribs, to car seats and cramps, when maybe instead she should be taking a walk or reading a book…Most of the time, I think the information highway is a gift from the heavens.

Several weeks ago, I started having a horrible side ache in my right side.  My husband and I were at our dear friends’ house for dinner and it was a Saturday night.  The last thing I wanted to do was moan and groan to our friends about my sharp, debilitating pains, so I just tried to tough it out, knowing we’d be heading home soon.

Once we finished dinner, I gave the “look” to my husband and he knew it was time to say adieu.  Immediately in the car, I said “Will you do a Google search for ‘sharp pains in your right side during pregnancy?’”

Of course, being the concerned hubby he is, he said “Well, shouldn’t we just call your doctor, babe?”

“No, no,” I protested.  “I just want to see if this feeling is common during pregnancy before I bug my doctor on a Saturday night.”

Rolling his eyes at me, he acquiesced with my request, and sure enough, within a minute, he was reading to me about “round ligament pain” and describing the symptoms and the explanations, and I immediately felt at ease.  What he read was exactly what I was feeling.  Even though I was still having the pain, which felt like quick jabs to the appendix, I felt so much better knowing this is a common thing during pregnancy as your round ligaments expand to make room for the baby.

There are so many new, strange, and often uncomfortable things happening to my body during pregnancy, so it helps to know that sometimes, a quick glance on the web can help you determine when to just relax and ride it out, and when there might be something more serious occurring that would necessitate a call to the doctor.

So though I much prefer browsing my favorite online boutiques (like Twilite Moon!) when surfing the web, it’s nice to know that sometimes it can put my husband and I at ease on a Saturday night…and I am sure we’re only a few months away from Google searching the term “how to soothe a crying baby…”

Who says the romance in a marriage dies once a baby is on-the-way?  Sure, the mom-to-be is often too tired to even stay awake to watch TV at night, let alone leave the house for a hot night on the town, but there is always time for that unexpected date.  And while nights with my husband while expecting a baby might not feel like some of the nighttime adventures from our past, e.g. grabbing dinner at a hip restaurant before meeting some friends for drinks, catching a movie, or even taking a salsa dance lesson, I have found that it’s the unexpected adventures that help keep the spark alive in the marriage.  Anyone can go to a fancy restaurant for dinner or buy theatre tickets, but it takes a little creativity and an open mind to make any activity a fun-filled date.

My husband has been super supportive on the nights when I just don’t feel like cooking.  Sometimes when I get home from work around 7:30, the baby and I are so ravenous, I feel as if we could eat a whole Thanksgiving dinner for a family of 4 and still not be satisfied.  Even though I love to cook, since being pregnant, sometimes I don’t have the patience to prepare a meal after work — all I care about is eating and eating quickly. 

One particular weeknight a few weeks ago, I didn’t know what I was hungry for, but I just knew I was starved.  We drove to the closest commercial street which happens to be peppered with fast food restaurants and local dive spots alike, but still I could not decide what sounded appetizing.

Then we drove past one strip mall with various stores and restaurants, including a Pizza Hut.  Now this wasn’t one of those Pizza Huts with a drive thru that’s combined with Taco Bell.  This was a Pizza Hut that existed purely on its own, and the storefront’s main focus was pizza delivery.  We spontaneously decided, “Let’s just get pizza here.  It should be quick.” 

We parked the car in the parking lot and both got out of the car.  In my haste to leave the house in search of food, I neglected to take note of my husband’s outfit: a dress shirt, ripped blue jeans, and house-slippers.  Yes, house-slippers!  Now, that’s what I call hot date attire.  I couldn’t believe it — here we were in the middle of this crowded strip mall, me with a big pregnant belly and my husband is wearing “old man house-shoes,” as we like to call them.  Clearly the days where we both exerted effort deciding what to wear on a date were behind us.  And yes, once we leave the house to get food, it’s considered a “date.”

We ordered our meal and were told it’d be at least 15 minutes until the food was ready, so what were we to do?  We decided to wait outside in the car like two teenagers sans chaperones sitting in a parked vehicle.  Only instead of us being turned on by one another or a smooth love song on the radio, we couldn’t wait to relax in the car together and play our recent obsession — pocket Scrabble on our iPhone! 

There we sat, under the glow of the overhead parking lot lantern, stomachs growling, passing our Scrabble game back and forth, each trying to outscore the other, laughing at ourselves as other cars came in and out of the parking lot to go to the liquor store or the drug store.

All in all, it was probably 20 minutes before our food was ready, although it felt like mere minutes because we were having so much fun.  We laughed at what our night had become, but also enjoyed the quiet of it being just the two of us in the car, knowing that it didn’t really matter where we were or what we were doing, just that we were doing it together made it feel like a date.

Finally, my husband had a hunch our order was ready, so his trusty house-shoes took him back to the Pizza Hut counter to collect our cuisine.  Instead of eating there in the ambient parking lot, we took our vittles back home and relaxed on the couch, eating pizza, playing Scrabble, and catching up on our DVRed television…and what started off feeling like just a normal weeknight turned into a fun and memorable “date” of sorts…what more could a pregnant girl want?  Oh, and next time we go out, he promises to wear normal shoes.

Cha-cha-cha-changes!  There are so many changes happening to my body during my pregnancy, I think I’ve lost count of all of them.  Not to mention the fact that I don’t even know what it is like to feel “normal” and not pregnant anymore.  Did I really used to be able to look straight down and see the tops of my feet? 

Of all the changes in my body, both inside and out, I think the most recent change might be one of the coolest.  In the first trimester, while I was lucky enough not to have morning sickness, I did have lots of different gurgling stomach symptoms:  gas, bloating, cramping, etc.  You name it — if at affected the stomach region, I felt like I had it.  But now the rumbling in my tummy is something all together different because it has nothing to do with my digestive track and everything to do with the little person inside me. Feeling the baby move is a truly incredible gift.

At first, I wasn’t sure if it was the baby moving, or the mac‘n cheese I had with dinner settling in.  It almost felt like a corkscrew spinning around in my abdomen, but I think as I grew bigger and the little guy had some more real estate to stretch his legs in, I started feeling his movements more clearly.  People told me when the baby moves, it would feel like a fluttering butterfly, or a popcorn kernel popping in my belly.  What it felt like to me was a gentle wrenching and twisting in my female parts — like a little fish doing a dance through a narrow coral reef.  Now, it feels like sudden bursts of excitement and I totally understand the popcorn description.  What’s even cooler, is that the movements are becoming more constant and regular throughout my daily routine.  It can be really distracting at work because all I want to do is focus on the baby when he moves, but I know I need to stay on task.

Now, as I write all of this, I realize that I am not the first woman to be awed by feeling her baby start to move.  I am one in a long line of ladies over centuries who have also experienced this milestone.  However, like so many things in life, I think you can’t always completely understand something until you experience it for yourself. 

The cherry on top of my baby-moving sundae is last night, my husband finally felt the little dude move, too!  A week ago, we went to see the topical movie “Away We Go,” starring John Krasinksi and Maya Rudolph.  The movie was stellar, and was the perfect choice for parents-to-be as the two main characters themselves are also expecting their first child and trying to decide the best place to live and raise their family, but I digress.  Throughout the movie, I felt the baby move about as I often do when I am sitting still, and my husband kept his hand on my bump for the duration and felt nothing.  Zip.  Zilch.  Not even a tiny pulse.  So last night, when he actually felt several series of movements, we were both thrilled.  It is so special for him to actually feel the baby and realize it is already a living thing, even though we haven’t actually held him or heard him cry yet.

There are so many aspects of being a mom-to-be that just don’t seem real yet, so feeling the baby move just helps it seem a tad bit more of a sure thing.  Now, I just need to realize that the crib and changing table propped up in pieces in our guest room will be a lot more useful if it is actually assembled, even if it means bidding farewell to our cozy guest room!  All in good time…one change at a time…

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The other night, baby-on-the-way and I went to a playoff basketball game.  No, this was not a Lakers game, or even a high-school game—though it was in a high-school gym.  It was a playoff game for my husband’s lawyer basketball league.  Lawyer basketball, you ask?  Yes.  Lawyer basketball.  It’s basically a league made up of different law firms from around the city where overly aggressive males release the tension from a day’s work on the basketball courts and strive to recapture their glory days.

The smell of stale, sticky sweat permeated the air.  The sound of rubber-soled-sneakers squealed and screeched as the players came to a halt on the shiny wooden floor.  I saw the championship banners hanging high on the wall above the bleachers, with the hand-painted “Go Wildcats” posters not far below, and I was instantly transported to another world.

Something within the sounds and smells of the high-school gym took me to a mental place I had never been before during my pregnancy.  As I watched these grown men run up and down the court, yelling “I’m open!” and “Come on, man!” with their hands in the air, I started thinking that someday, before I know it, I might be back in a gym just like this.  But instead of watching my husband and his over-worked compadres hustle and wheeze their way up and down the court, I’d be watching my own child run, and jump, and test himself against other kids.

Since the early days of my pregnancy, I have spent countless hours imagining what my baby is going to be like—what she will look like, how it will feel to hold him, what it will be like to try to teach her things—but rarely have I thought about what happens when my baby starts to grow up and becomes an actual kid.  What happens then?

As I sat in that gym, holding my pregnant belly tightly, I felt a new spirit of adventure.  For the first time, I thought that being a mother will go far beyond changing diapers and pushing a stroller.  Someday soon, several years away at least, I might be sitting in a gym watching Junior play YMCA basketball, or along the sidelines of a soccer field watching her run, or even in an auditorium watching her dance.  Having a baby means more than just having a baby, it means having an actual KID who is going to sweat and compete and test himself or herself against the world, and I’m going to get to watch.  That is pretty cool.  And if it took a bunch of chubby, sweaty lawyers with inflated perceptions of their own athletic abilities to actually make me realize the depth of experiences I might someday share with this little person inside of me, so be it. 

My husband’s team lost the game that night, but I won much more than he’ll ever know.  Let’s just hope our baby has more class and sportsmanship than the “adults” on the floor that night who got into a fight because one of them was using too much “D” under the basket.   (And no, my husband wasn’t one of them.  Thank Goodness.)

“To find out the baby’s sex or not to find out the baby’s sex”…that is the question.

We always said if we were lucky enough to get pregnant, that we’d want the gender to be a surprise at birth. It felt to my husband and me like this might be one of life’s last great surprises…and then, I got pregnant…and something changed.

I HAD to know what was inside me. I needed to know just as much as the doctors knew about my growing baby, and learning the sex before the birth is just part of the information we now can have, thanks to modern medicine.

I did feel a little guilty reneging on the deal my husband and I made, saying we’d wait and let it be a surprise. But I really did realize that the reason I was okay with it being a surprise was because I always thought we’d have a boy first. I don’t know why it is, but I just have always pictured us with a little boy. Of course, I’d love to be lucky enough to have a girl someday, too. I am very close with my own mom, and plus, I think girls take care of their moms when they get old. So yes, for purely selfish reasons, I hope I someday have a little girl, but I’ve always, always, always pictured our first baby having a weenie. So I thought, “Okay, let’s not find out the gender. Because it’s going to be a boy, anyway.”

Secretly, for the past couple of years, I have been stashing away baby boy clothing that I find on clearance sale, and my husband has already started a sizeable collection of Star Wars, Lakers, & Dodgers onesies, which I have already informed him will be “bedazzled” if indeed we find out we’re having a girl.

So now that we are about a week away from finding out the gender, I cannot contain my excitement. And of course, after all my preconceived ideas that we’d spawn a male child first, for some reason, I keep thinking this one might just be a girl. But therein lies the fun of not knowing yet — even though we are not waiting until delivery day to learn which public restroom our baby will have to use, finding out next week will be a big surprise, too!   And as I am quickly reminded by other new parent friends “Trust me, there are enough surprises that come with a new born that overshadow the surprise of which gender box they’ll check.”

I think everyone has to choose what’s right for them, and who knows? Maybe with the second one, we’ll decide to be patient and not find out until d-day. However for now, I am just giddy with excitement to find out what it is. We have already picked out our nursery bedding options, and depending on what it is, we will pull the trigger and make the purchase and then we can really get started on our dream nursery. And I really think I’ll connect with the baby more once I know all there is to know about it at this stage.

Apparently, there is a new over-the-counter test from CVS drugs that can detect the baby’s gender with an 80% accuracy rate. I just found out about this last week, otherwise, if it was earlier in the pregnancy, I just might have forked over the $35 for a chance to find out earlier…Then I realized, that’s at least 1/3 of the cost of the Burberry jacket I am saving up to buy for my baby…boy? Or baby girl? Oh who knows, either one will look smashing in it!

Plus, at this point, if I can’t even have the patience to wait one more week to find out, then at least I know I never would have been able to wait out the duration of the pregnancy to find out!

When we last communicated, I was sharing about how I was suddenly bitten by the baby bug.  Now, a month or so later I am overjoyed, shocked, and elated to share that I am, in fact, pregnant.  Can it be?  Just writing the words feels so strange and unreal. 

At what point will it feel real?  When will I really feel like a bona fide mom-to-be?  Will it be when the first visible sign of a bump starts to appear?  Or will it be the first time I feel my wee one kick, a possible sign that a mini-Beckham is growing inside of me?  (Secretly, I am hoping for a Tiger, Kobe, or A Rod because I much prefer watching golf, basketball, or baseball to soccer….but of course, that’s not up to me…)  I really want to know when it will sink in because right now all I feel is tired, hungry, and oh, did I mention exhausted? 

I am cutting myself some slack, because after all, by some miracle called life, I am making another human.  I joke with my husband sometimes when he gets home from work, “How was your day, honey?”  I tease.  “What did you do today?”

He answers with some pat answer, and I respond, “Oh, really, because I made some toes.” 

All joking aside, it really is amazing that all this is going on inside me and I have little to do with it.  Other than eating right (isn’t ice cream a grand source of calcium), exercising (online shopping can burn up to 100 calories an hour – more if you use Ebay), and trying to get as much rest as possible, I am taking a back-seat to what Mother Nature has been doing for centuries.  It’s like being on pro-creation autopilot.  I know there are a lot of maneuvers happening beneath the hood, and though I am in the driver’s seat, I may as well be asleep at the wheel because my body is just doing its thang.  You go, Mother Nature.  Let me know when I need to push or do something else strenuous…but until then, I get to be along for the ride as new changes happen everyday for my growing baby.

I have a new sense of calm and peace, and while my life is not perfect, I am making a baby and nothing can feel more significant in my life than that right now.  The fact that my husband might be sent away for 4 months for work, or the fact that one of my huge projects at my job might get pushed until the month I am due, well I can’t really worry about those things right now, can I?  Normally both of those predicaments might send me into a frenzy, but now what good is the stress going to do me? All I can do is wait until I know for sure what is happening and then deal with the situations as they arise.

But what I do try to deal with on daily basis are the new and constant changes my body is going through, like my acne-of-a-6^th grader, my expanding waist, and my uncomfortable stomach pains due to the digestion problem-of-the-day. 

So far, I have been blessed not to have bad morning sickness or any other dramatic health problem.  I realize what I have is a gift and I am intent on not taking it for granted.

The first week I knew I was expecting, I think I listened to Maxwell’s “This Woman’s Work” about three dozen times on repeat.  I needed to hear a song like that to help me focus in hopes that the reality of the situation would hit me.  But the truth is, even when my belly is so big I can’t see my own feet, or when the baby is kicking so much in my tummy I feel like it deserves to be grounded for acting with such aggression, I still feel like none of it will actually seem believable until I am in the delivery room, trying to bring this tiny baby into the world…and when I feel those contractions and hear that tiny cry, that is I imagine when it will feel so real I won’t even remember the acne, exhaustion, or feelings of some surreal creature existing inside me…it will finally feel…real.