I'm Ready

I've been very introspective lately. Not in a bad way, but as usual just thinking about life and direction. Most of my thought has been about 2010. Specifically, January 27, 2010. Significance? My 30th birthday. Now before you start rolling your eyes and refusing to read on because you think it's going to be a pity party, listen here. I'm ready for my thirties. I really, honestly, truly am. I'm not just saying that.

I was that person. That person who spent my whole 20's worrying about the big 30. But after my 27th birthday freak-out, I've been embracing aging. And it's nice. It's a nice feeling. Not panic. Not regret. Just excitement and anticipation. I'm ready for this next chapter.

My friend, Kelli, recently posted a list of goals for her 30's. So, not to copy, well okay, TO copy, I'm writing my own. Some of them are very similar to Kelli's. Of course, that could explain the whole best friend thing.

So without further ado, my list (in no particular order).

1. Have 2 healthy babies, God-willing, by age 33/34.
2. Stop living with regrets. Put it in the past and move on. It's well past time.
3. Use my passport a minimum of 2 times. Jeff and I will make it to Italy in the next decade.
4. Time for a healthy lifestyle change. Stop using the excuse not too lose weight due to the fact that you'll just gain it back with kids. Ridiculous. And stupid. Lose the weight. And keep it off.
5. KILL the student loans and be fiscally responsible
6. Read more. I'm talking classics, non-fiction, how-to's. Educate myself.
7. Watch less TV. Jeff and I are constantly battling with tv/productivity. Cancel cable if need be.
8. Stop wishing and start becoming the person I want to be
9. Stop comparing myself to others and start living the life I want
10. Buy land
11. Define my career path and stick with my hobbies, never compromising my (or my family's) happiness
12. Always keep the goals in sight and on track
13. Embrace life and live it up.
    

and these last two I stole verbatim from Kelli:
14. Evaluate what was good and what was bad about my twenties
15. Keep my marriage on track, set goals, and keep the magic

I think this is a good list. I'm excited to start in on them. Of course #1 is already underway and set to launch within a month after my 30th birthday. I will admit, #2 and #9 are going to be a challenge for me, mentally. I'm ashamed to admit that I have these faults, but in admitting these it is a verbal recognition that I realize they exist.

Onwards and Upwards.

Update

I haven't blogged in awhile. And judging by the title of this blog, nothing much is coming to mind. I always thought I'd be one of those people who didn't want to blog all about pregnancy or their kids, or whatever, but now that I'm actually IN this position, it really is all encompassing with your life. Or maybe it's just that I don't have much going on. So it's all I've got, so take it :).

Pregnancy has gone really well up to this point. Sure, I was sick for a little bit, but nothing crazy and nothing out of the normal (well, from what I've read). My diet has not been on par and something that I really need to work on. This past week, I made a conscience effort, but I think I blew any results I may have made this weekend. We did NOT do well. However, I'm on a mission to do things right and after my doctor's appt tomorrow and depending on how much weight I've gained (because I KNOW I've gained some weight), I need to step up my game. Treadmill. Healthy eating. Just all round.

Today, Jeff and I went shopping at the maternity store. How strange that was, but I am in DESPERATE need of some loose fitting jeans and casual pants. I think if my family or friends, nay, if I see myself in my white pants one more time, I'm going to scream. Can you tell they're the only thing that are fitting well right now? So, thanks to my mother-in-law and godmother, I came out of the store with 2 pairs of jeans and 2 cargo pants. Cue "Allelulia".

This week I'll officially be out of my first trimester. The time went by fast. I guess that makes sense considering we found out we were pregnant at 5 weeks, so you've got almost half of the time already under your belt. We'll find out the sex of the baby at 18-20 weeks, so more or less in 4.5-6.5 weeks. Judging by my OCD and controlling tendencies, I thought I'd be SO IMPATIENT. But I'm really not. If we didn't find out till December, I think I'd be okay.

So there's the "update" - not too much to say!

Baby Koenig @ 11.5 Weeks

Jeff and I had another doctors appointment yesterday. This time it was voluntary. We opted to do the screening for down-syndrome and other chromosome defects. We met with a different doctor who performs all of these tests. This test is always taken between week 11 and 13 or 14. Basically there are three components to this test. They measure from crown to rear. Normal readings are 44mm to 84mm. They also measure the liquid behind the baby's head. And finally, they draw blood. The combination of all three tests provide a 90% accuracy rate.

I had heard that if I wanted to see the baby move, then a little caffeine or yogurt before I went to the appointment would do the trick. Going against every pregnancy rule in the book, I consumed about 6 oz of Diet Coke since there was no yogurt in site (I was at Jeff's office).

Let's just say, it did the trick. Boy, was that baby active. So active that we almost couldn't get a good shot. Jeff and I literraly saw the baby bounce like four times in a row. It was kind of funny. So the doctor said that I should go get my blood drawn and then we'll try once more. That did the trick.

When we came back, the baby was still moving, but finally bounced into a good position where we could get a good measurements of everything. Fortunately, our baby's growth is right on track at 48mm. The liquid behind the head was also measured and checked out.

Here's two of the latest sonograms. I labeled them so that you can tell what is what. These were fainter than our last appointment.

The one above cracks me up. Looks like baby is on back with all limbs in the air.

Simon's Cat

Even if your not a cat person, I think you might find the humor in these videos. Simon's Cat is a series of animation videos on YouTube. I'm not sure when I discovered them, sometime at my last job. My co-worker and I used to get a HUGE kick out of them as we are both cat owners.

Considering it's summer right now, and the flies are abundant, I felt that their latest video was extremely accurate to our situation. Take the time to watch all the videos. They are hilarious.

Timeline

I would love to keep my peeps updated with shots of my 'belly' progression over the course of the next seven months, but I'll be damned if I'm going to publish shots of THIS particular belly on here. That six-pack I'd been hoping to sculpt throughout my entire 20's never made an appearance....

It's a Good Start

I had my first paid photo shoot today. I was nervous, but excited. How can you possibly shoot a bad picture in downtown San Antonio? There's just too many rich colors and textures to use. My friend Meghan's brother, Michael, and his fiance Quyen (pronounced Quinn) were in town from Houston and asked if I'd be interested. Heck YES! <---that was my answer. So, after lunch at Mi Tierra's (my first experience), we decided to do the pictures at El Mercado instead of heading down to the riverwalk itself.

I had a really good time and Michael and Quyen were a lot of fun to work with. They had some great ideas on where to shoot too. I need to work on my list of 'poses'. I've only got so many I can think of.

Here's a sample. But the rest, as usual, can be viewed on my Flickr site.

All Signs Point To....

I don't have much to say. To be honest, I just wanted to scooch (that's a word, you know...) the werewolf pic a little bit further down on my page. Lame reason to post, but at least I'm honest.

Update on pregnancy? Overall, I don't have much to complain about. Sure, I get the queasy feeling, but in comparison to some (like my poor friend, Saretta) I'm not experiencing the round-the-clock sickness that alot of people have to deal with.

Which leads me to another topic: Old Wives Tales. You know what I'm talking about, right? To be perfectly honest with you, I totally forgot about these and pregnancy, but boy how people do love to remind me of them.

For instance, I heard that the faster the heartbeat, you'll have a girl. When we went to the doctor, we got the first heartbeat at 171, and she took it once more and it was 158. So she averaged it out at 165. Apparently, according to the 'wives' that means we are having a girl. Though, a friend of mine told me her son's heartrate was higher than her daughters.

The sickness issue is another thing. I've had people tell me the sicker you are, then you're having a boy. Well, as you can see, I've not been that sick, so does this sign point to girl, again?

The Chinese Conception Calendar (yet ANOTHER one of these infamous predictors) tells me I'm having a boy, but I was discussing this with my friend and the calendar was wrong for her.

My genetics points to boy. On my dad's side of the family, there have been three generations (including the current) in which the birth pattern has been a solid girl, boy, girl, boy, girl... well you get the point. My cousin had a girl at the end of 2008, so next up we are due for a boy.

As you can see, we've got arrows pointing in both directions. It's still too early to tell. I'm thinking it will be at least another 7-8 weeks before we'll find out. Should be interesting. Will I be the one to mess up the family pattern? Oh the pressure!

Don't Close Your Eyes

For the past month, I've been having some craaaaaazy dreams. I mean outlandish, crazy, and just plain weird. Seems like 1/2 of them are nightmares, 1/4 of them are just wacky and maybe the rest are normal. There may be one night out of two weeks when I don't dream.

One dream the other night consisted of an argument with an old boss. In reality, he called me the other day, and I've been hesitant to call him back. Let's just say this dream did not bode well for him and has caused me to hesitate calling him back even more!

Another dream last night consisted of a high school stadium, but the track was a pool and there were dolphins in it. You know at Sea World where the trainers have the animal come up behind them and push them while half their body is out of water? Well a dolphin did that to me last night. Then, I got out of the water, came up to the stadium where Jeff was with my parents. Opened my bag to get my dry clothes and inside was Shushu (my cat). Don't worry, apparently it was perfectly fine (in the dream) because we travel with her often. You don't have to say it. I know this was just wierd.

Several weeks ago I had a nightmare in which all the men of my family were dying or had died. It was awful. Jeff was gone. *shivers*

What makes this worse is that I'm a super deep sleeper. It's hard for me to wake out of sleep, so I typically end up staying in this nightmare until morning comes. I hate that! I wish I could just WAKE UP.

To say the least, I've had trouble closing my eyes. I don't want to have nightmares every night. Its awful. I'm also scared that my childhood nightmares of werewolves my start coming out too. I'm sure me posting this picture doesn't help things either.

A quick google search regarding pregnancy and nightmares gave me some answers. Apparently I'm not alone. That's good to know. However, the thought of 7 more months of vivid nightmares doesn't exactly sound exciting for me. *sigh*