24 Weeks: Geeky Math Nerd Edition

Greetings, loyal blog fans!

Well, maybe the universe is in a steady state or contracting (I have no idea), but the Nebiverse is clearly Expanding, as evidenced in the chart above. (Thanks to Vivian for her mad Excel-chart-to-Jpeg-via-Powerpoint Skillz! couldn't have figured it out without you ;-)). The pink line is based on Babycenter's weight gain guidelines: 2-5 lbs first trimester, and then a pound a week until the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy, for a total of 25-35 lbs. The blue line shows that I have been steadily trending upward for the last several weeks and will likely finish somewhere close to target. (OCD, yes? You all know I am rather OCD about some things.) Now that school is over I am definitely eating more often, and Madelaine is gaining weight much more quickly, too, so the rate of Expansion is likely to remain high.

Speaking of physical fitness (were we?), I've relaunched my annual summer "exercise" campaign, "exercise" being in quotes because many of you would not consider what I do to be legitimate physical exertion (going for walks in the park next door.) Tuesday night I did two trips through the park, which I think used to take me about 45 minutes but this time took closer to an hour... am I waddling now? I won't even talk to you guys about my knees and back, because there's a Secret Complaint-Free Third Trimester Initiative underway- secret because if I actually ANNOUNCE that I'm going to try to not complain about anything in the third trimester, then I would feel some sort of obligation to stick with it, and we all know that won't happen, right?

(Crap. It's not a secret anymore, is it?) Anyway.

In other seat-grippingly-exciting Pregnancy News:

1) Nate felt the baby Kick for the first time! Last Thursday! (or was it Friday...?) I was sitting on the patio and she was moving a lot so I came inside and held Nate's hand on my belly for a minute, and then he got this strange look on his face and said "Was that gas...?" and I said, "No, honey, it's the Baby kicking! :-D" and then he was all Weirded out. There has not yet been a repeat performance.

2) Babycenter.com wants you to know that my uterus is now the size of a soccer ball! And:
"Your baby's growing steadily, gaining about a quarter of a pound since last week, when she was just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long, that makes a pretty lean figure, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon put on more baby fat. Your baby's skin is thin, translucent, and wrinkled, her brain is growing rapidly, and her taste buds are developing. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" and cells that produce surfactant, a substance that helps the air sacs inflate easily."

3) I realized recently that our obstetrician gave us this huge stack of paperwork sometime at the beginning of this pregnancy gig, some of which is stuff that requires Action on our part, in the form of insurance things to fill out and so forth. We are supposed to preregister at the hospital, including going for an hour-long meeting with a nurse at week 34, and take a tour of the birth center, and maybe go to a Breastfeeding class? Is a breastfeeding class worth it? Would I get more out of just reading the user manual that comes with the newborn? Newborns DO come with user manuals, right? Anyway, I guess eventually I should try to get my act together and wake up to the fact that WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS IN 13-17 weeks!! That's not much time! We need to, um...?

There was more stuff I was going to say in this post but since I've been writing it for three days now, time to post and then just start a new one. Time for some coffee, too. (This one's for you, Alysia. ;-))

I love you all.
Neb