Our Son

It's hard to believe that I'm nearly 22 weeks pregnant! So much has changed just in the past week or so.

For one, there is no mistaking me being pregnant with having a little too much Taco Bell. It seems just in the past week I have grown a basketball from my abdomen (or what is left of it!) Despite still dealing with morning sickness (I was hoping this would end two or three months ago?) my midwife is very happy with my steady weight gain and the baby's weight as well.

So, we are having a son! That was a lot to process. While neither of us are at all disappointed (we both are completely ecstatic!) I cannot help but look at the baby girl clothes and wish that baby boy clothes were cuter. Seriously, most of them are so blasé.

One of the biggest changes about finally knowing the sex of our child, is that he is no longer an "it"! AND he has a name. We had picked out the name Dmitri Aleksandr a long time before we ever thought we'd be having a child. And yes, I am aware that its "missing" a few letters. Transliteration from Russian to English can be very complex, and I prefer to stick with the closest transliteration possible, which looks a little bit more unusual in English than it does in Russian (well, haha, at least to me. It might look pretty strange to most people in Russian. In Cyrillic its written Дмитрий Александр). But since it shouldn't effect people's ability to pronounce his name correctly, I don't see the necessity of "anglicizing" it.

It's amazing how much he moves around. I can tell when things bother him, like certain noises or me sitting in a certain position. He's very active- yikes. And naturally he has his days and nights all confused. He was moving an unusual amount at 6 AM this morning, slept a lot of the day, and has been kicking away through this entire blog post! = ) He hates my Russian Cinema class, and squirms for a solid 3 hours during it - the loud classical music doesn't calm him evidently.

The ultrasound showed that he weighed about 12 oz. He is already head down, though that can change quite a bit at this point and won't be more of an issue until 32 weeks and as I get closer to delivery. Everything appears to be developing normally and functioning as it should be.

We are starting to make decisions about the details surrounding labor and birth. I never thought I'd be reading books entitled "Active Birth" and "The Breastfeeding Book"... and its actually pretty interesting! Not quite a Palahniuk pick-me-up, I have to admit, but once you start researching the medical set up for pregnancy and birth its amazing where some of these ideas originated and how many unneccesary procedures and tests doctors like to run! This is not to say that they don't benefit a few or that they are worthless, but its a judgement call that we as parents are having to make quite frequently. It's difficult!

Anyways, we have a busy week of midterms ahead, but we are looking forward to having most of David's family in Athens Friday evening to celebrate six birthdays in his family! Hopefully it will be fun and stress-free!

Hope all of you are well and having a wonderful last few days of winter (please let the cold be over soon!)
With love,
Caroline