So…
A lot happens in a day.
We went to our third childbirth class last night at Cedars. Saw what a Caesarean section looked like (definitely gonna opt out of that unless medically necessary) and took our second tour of the Maternity Ward. It was actually pretty fun and educational. (Didn’t get to see any babies, though.) 🙁
I’m reading a lot more about the labor, what happens, how it progresses and what my role is supposed to be.
I know you can’t prepare for anything, but I just hope that I am prepared enough.
I cannot wait until we can see Lil’ Dubs for the first time (in color.)
Oh, and I think we found our Glider (for the price we wanted, too).
Will update on that tomorrow (hopefully) after everything is finalized.
Thanks to Lauren for suggesting that I do a running diary.
(Congrats Lola! You made our blog. I know you’ve been dreaming of this. And you also became a tag. You’d better start doing funny stuff so I can use it.)
So I wasn’t able to count the 49 days of the Omer (I made it to 34), but I think I can do better for Dubs.
Not much to update on last night.
We finally decided on the glider we are going to get. Now it’s a matter of IF the chair will get here in time.
Europe is on vacation for three weeks (How come we didn’t adopt that!), and so all production has slowed and could push back our chair delivery.
One option is to buy our chair from the L.A. Rocking Chair store (www.larockingchair.com). If you buy a chair from them and it doesn’t arrive before the baby does, they give you a loaner chair. Never heard of that, but we might take them up on it.
Wow!
We hit the 50 day mark yesterday. Today is 7 weeks until the due date.
Things are moving very fast now.
We built assembled the crib last night (not as hard as I thought).
(no pic yet…will post soon)
We also went out and purchased room decorations.
(also no pic yet…..)
Dubs’ room is starting to come together nicely.
We still have much to do, but I am very excited about all of it.
We’ll post pics as soon as we get them uploaded.
Forgot to add a picture of Dubs @ 32 weeks. Cute, right!?!?!
It’s official…we are having a baby! We have been keeping things relatively under wraps…but now that we are safely out of the first trimester, we are thrilled to announce the good news.
As of today, Lil Dubs (as we have been affectionately calling him/her) is 12 weeks and 6 days and everything is going great so far.
We had our first real appointment with Dr. Serden when Lil Dubs was only 8 weeks – we got our first glimpse and saw the heart beat. What an amazing moment. Even though we were considered very “low risk”, we decided to wait to go public with our news until our 12 week appointment. It was at this visit that we got our very first “real” picture of the baby and heard the heartbeat. We were sent to a neighboring office where the “nuchal translucency” test was completed (where they measure the fluid in the baby’s neck for signs of abnormalities) and were told by the Dr. that we have a very cute fetus. I bet she says that to everyone…though I have to admit…this little guy/girl is already looking adorable. I was shocked at how fully formed the baby is – even at this early stage. You can clearly see some of his/her features – cute little nose and lips!
Overall, I would have to say that I have been feeling pretty good – though I do have serious bouts of nausea nearly every day – which started at about 7 weeks and have yet to subside! At first, I didn’t mind the sickness – it was the only thing that really made me “feel” pregnant. Now that its been going on for well over a month, I am definitely ready for my stomach to settle down. I have also noticed that I am ready for bed at 8:30pm – and have to struggle to stay awake after that point. I tried giving in one night but that didn’t work out too well for me either – I was up at 3 in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. There is also the constant need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night…a new phenomenon for me.
I’ve been told that you don’t really start showing until 14 or 15 weeks…but I think I’m already starting to form a baby bump…or maybe I’m just looking fat! Either way, I’ve noticed that my regular pants don’t fit me properly – and the pair of maternity pants I bought is the most comfortable piece of clothing I own. I have a couple of events coming up for which I’ll need some nice dresses – but its kind of hard to anticipate what I’ll look like or fit into in a month or two months from now!
We’ve finally made a decision! We’re going to Aruba for our honeymoon.
Found a great deal on the flight and Ash had some points that made our hotel stay pretty much free!
I have posted a couple of pics below; I am REALLY excited. The place looks great; the beach looks great; everything looks great!
I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!
It’s been just over two weeks since the wedding…hard to believe that we are really married! Life is just starting to get back to normal, and our apartment is finally starting to look more like a home and less like a storage house.
For all of you reading that were at the wedding, we hope you enjoyed yourselves. We certainly had an amazing time – the entire wedding weekend was just perfect and everything we hoped it would be. Of course, there are a few things I would have done differently in retrospect…allot more time for pictures, make sure that the hotel would honor a late checkout, arrange for our meals to be packed up at the end of the night so that we might actually get to try the delicious dinner. Don’t worry, we didn’t go to bed hungry – the caterer picked us up some Kosher Subway meals…not exactly the wedding night meal we had envisioned! Though for everything that didn’t go quite according to plan, something else turned out better than we had expected…all in all…everything worked out great. We can’t wait to start posting pictures and video!
In other news, we received our marriage certificate in the mail today, so I guess it’s official! Now comes the fun part of changing my name…I never thought I’d be attached to “Berger” – but part of me is having a hard time giving it up. Not that “Woodall” isn’t a great last name…it’s just going to take some getting to used to realizing that when someone says “Mrs. Woodall”, they are talking about me!
We are fastly approaching the big day! Under ten days to go! Sunday will be just a week left! You could say that it’s all starting to hit me now (not in a bad way).
We’ve done a lot in the past few weeks. Finalized the program, purchased our wedding bands, bought the kippahs, picked up our marriage license — just to name a few.
Benchers should arrive this weekend and the printed programs will be ready on Monday. Not too much to do after that. Finalize seating, prepare the out-of-towner baskets, print out schedules for Shabbos, and finalize the wedding day schedule are about all I can think of. (I’m sure Ash can think of about 50 more things.)
Ash has been awesome in all of this. I don’t know how she does it. She’s been relatively calm (even though I have seen her stress level rise recently) through the whole process. I wasn’t expecting but was preparing for a bride-zilla. She has been nothing of the sort.
We both have a short week next week (only working Monday and Tuesday), but I’m quite certain that the real stress will start to happen then.
My family arrives on Wednesday/Thursday, so that will be nice for me. (Can’t wait to see Olivia!) I’m going to TRY and relax as much as possible on Wednesday and Thursday (don’t know if I will be able to though) and I’m going to try and hit the gym those days, too (to relieve whatever stress may be building up). Dad will be with me, so that will be nice. I’m shipping mom to the Berger’s to help Rachelle and Ash with the final preparations (sorry mom, someone’s got to bite the bullet).
I’ll try to post more as the day approaches (hopefully it will be easier to do so with time off). In the meantime, I leave you with the video/song that has been lodged in my brain ever since we hit the 10 day mark.
As Ash said below, we’re at one month (read: DEFCON 2). The good news is that I am pretty comfortable in where we are. Almost everything is under wraps. The order for Benchers was placed earlier this week and I placed the Kippot order just this morning. We are still finalizing the program but should have that done early next week. The remaining items are all pretty small/under control. I am very glad that we only had a 4 month engagement. I can’t imagine being under this much stress for a whole year. Can’t wait to see everyone next month!
Jeff
PS – Oh, and I suggest fasting the morning of the wedding. Not for any ceremonial/halachic reason, just because the appetizers at the schmorg are awesome. You’ll need the room.
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