Into the New Year at 24 Weeks

Happy 2009 everyone!

Well to be honest, we entered the New Year at 23 weeks, but I reached 24 weeks yesterday, so that's what you get to hear about!

But let's start with the 'New Years' part of the title...

We rang in the New Year with Brent's parents, Diane and Elliott, with a parent and daughter-in-law trip to the Cabrillo Monument on Point Loma (a peninsula on the north side of downtown San Diego with a commanding view of the city, surrounding mountains and the ocean... and on the 31st, a good view of the smog blanket that also encompasses the city from time to time - yuck), a trip to see Brent and his office at IRC, a Vietnamese lunch beside B's office, and then the big highlight - a decadent four course meal at the Prado, a fancy restaurant in one of Balboa Park's historic buildings.

The next day we went on a road trip to the Anza Borrego desert, 2.5hrs north-east of San Diego. The scenery was spectacular both on the way there (through mountains with snow, down into the desert canyon) and in the desert. For some reason I thought it was going to be freezing in a desert in the winter, but instead we were stripping off as many layers as possible and cursing our lack of sunscreen. We hiked just over 3 miles in to a palm grove oasis and back, over boulders and through streams, even catching a glimpse of the elusive and rare mountain goats.

We topped off the journey with a stop at Ali Baba, a very ornate (e.g. silver and lace trimmed fabric billowing from the ceiling), authentic Iraqi restaurant in El Cajon, where IRC settles the vast majority of its Iraqi clients (in El Cajon, not the restaurant, though we think many families would prefer to camp out there for a constant taste and feel of home). The next morning, however, we had to bid a sad farewell to Diane and Elliott as they flew back to Vermont. Luckily we'll be seeing them again in Maui (their Christmas present to Gavin, Grace, Brent and I) at the end of February!

As you would expect, the advent of 2009 brought with it a lot of contemplation about what the year ahead will bring. The blessed relief of a new and hopefully fabulous President of the US, further insecurity for the unemployed masses (such as yours truly) in this hideous economy, hopefully a further increase in the growing recognition that Mother Earth is not doing just peachy-keen while we plug on with industry and consumption as usual (and that therefore we should modify our industries and consumption asap), and for us personally, the monumental change of bringing a new life into the world.

Population worries aside, it's been nice to learn that we're not the only ones going through this crazy transition either! A girl I went to high school with, Annie Vallance, is expecting twin girls any day now; one of the women Brent and I worked with in Uganda, Jodie Scott, (who has also transplanted down to the US and is finishing her Chiropractic degree out east) is expecting in late February or March, and I just found out that a good friend from university, Jenn Radford, is due this summer! And I'm sure that before 2009 is out we'll have a few more friends to add to that list :-)

As for our little one, she's doing well, making the most of her last weeks with space to move around in, and growing like the most delicious of mouldy cheeses. According to the baby websites her home (aka my uterus) is now the size of a soccer ball! So here's the weekly breakdown:

Week: 24, 111 days to go till DD

Jen's belly size: 39.5 inches (For the rest of the world that's 100 cm!)

Baby's size: 8.5 inches (21.5cm) crown to rump, and she weighs between 1.2-1.5 lbs. Their analogy for this week is...an ear of corn?

This week's pregnancy complaint: Now that my belly is definitely a belly, sleeping is becoming a bit more awkward and my lower back gets sore after sitting in bad chairs. There's a few others, but I'll leave it at that ;-) All in all, I'm still feeling good.

This week's highlight: Our little lady likes to hang out low so it's hard for me to see the bottom of my belly where I feel her most, but during prenatal yoga last night she was doing some stretching (maybe even jumping jacks) of her own and I could swear that I felt my shirt moving. I will have to get Brent to watch sometime to see if her movements are now visible through my belly. Yes, it sounds a little 'Alien'-ish but for her parents it's pretty exciting!

This week's fun fact: In just one week the baby's survival rate has jumped from 25-35% to 50%! But when you look at all that's still developing in her - her eyelids aren't open yet, her skin is still translucent and wrinkly from a lack of fat, and her lungs are only developing slowly at this stage, you can see why it's important to keep babies on the inside for as long as possible.

Other things that we've been up to this week:

1) Creating an alternative gift registry. This is a wonderful invention that allows couples an alternative to the big store registries. It allows us to put on our own versions of gifts (e.g. second-hand baby clothes or 2 nights of babysitting) instead of always having to link to new and purchasable gifts. Stay tuned, you'll be able to see what the heck I'm talking about soon!

2) Choosing a birthing class. We had signed up for a basic class at the UCSD medical center where I'll be giving birth, but have since chosen to do a longer and more in-depth course offered at the Best Start Birth Center. We were choosing between doing hypnobirthing (using visualization as a natural relaxant and pain coping tool) or Birthing From Within (which incorporates a philosophy of birth as a rite of passage rather than a medical event. Lots of art, crafts, talking about feelings and all that good stuff) as having a natural birth is becoming pretty important to me (provided everything goes well of course) and I would like some concrete skills to help me cope with the pain. I just got off the phone with the BFW instructor so I think that is the one we'll do.

I also wanted to say that my trip to Victoria has been postponed (due to rising airfares to go sooner), but not cancelled. I am planning on booking my flight on Thursday so I will have dates for all of you there in my next post - yay!

That's all for now. I have two final short assignments to finish for my contract at the IPJ (that supposedly ended back in November) which I'm determined to have done by Friday!

Until soon,

Jen, Brent and our corn on the cob (does anyone have anything better to suggest? Please?)