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My (completely unresearched) theory is that he’s starting to explore the world via taste as a precursor to the whole putting everything in his mouth phase. Whatever the reason, it’s fairly hilarious.

Another fantastic discovery is his thumb, which he’s been searching for since his 20 week ultrasound. And finally he found it and got it into his mouth for a decent amount of time. This hasn’t been repeated since I caught it with these photos, but no doubt it will become a regular event very soon.

In other household news, I started back to work last week (as you can probably tell by the less frequent blog posts). We’ve also had a steady stream of visitors, which has been fantastic. It’s lovely to have Brennan meet his family, and of course to have some extra pairs of hands to help hold and change him. Love you family!

But I have the adorable little Brennan to keep me company till then! Below are some adorable pictures that Bruce took when he and Linda visited last weekend. He (Brennan, not Bruce) is plumping up nicely and even getting some little thigh rolls. At his two week appointment he had gained more than a pound since the previous week!

Dan is back at work so we are working out a routine for the baby and us to maintain our sanity. We’re actually doing really well so far, and for parents of a 3 week old are surprisingly well rested (knock on wood). Brennan has had a few fussy nights where he doesn’t want to get to sleep, but in general he is still a very, very good baby. We feel very lucky, and it’s hard to believe he’s only been here for 3 weeks!

We’ve learned so much in the past 7 days, and have completely fallen in love with our little boy. Today was his one week check up, and as we suspected he is pretty much perfect. He was 8 pounds, 3 ounces when he was born, and today he weighed in at about 8 pounds, 7 ounces. This means he’s already gained back the weight he lost after birth and then some, which completely amazed the doctor. Her exact words were, “How are you doing this?!”

Needless to say, Brennan is feeding like a champ. He had his first feed just a few minutes after he was born and hasn’t slowed down since. I’m really enjoying breastfeeding, and Dan and my mom are amazingly helpful since I’m still not super mobile after the c-section.

Speaking of c-section and recovery, I’m one week into the 2 weeks of inactivity that the doctors ordered, and each day gets a little easier. Well, easier to move around and feel like myself, but harder to limit my movements and activities. But then I do things like get exhausted by a quick trip to Target with my mom and realize I still have a long road of recovery ahead of myself.

Other news from the check up and this week: Brennan’s color is perfect, and he’s alert and even smiling from time to time. He definitely recognizes Mommy and Daddy’s faces and voices and loves sitting and playing with his Nana. We gave him his first bath a few days ago, and he really seemed to enjoy it (see photo below). Even today when he had to get weighed and measured and poked and prodded, he was super chilled out and didn’t even cry. So far we are extraordinarily lucky to have a laid back baby, which makes all of our lives much easier.

Brennan is fascinated by his hands and likes to sleep with them up by his face and above his head whenever possible. I’ve noticed his dad doing this too, so I’m thinking we may have a miniature Dan on our hands

Also high on the list of things that are improving the first few days at home with a new baby are, of course, having my mom here and our friends bringing us dinner every night for the first week we’re home. Mom has been completely amazing, cleaning, running errands and helping with Brennan to give us a break when we need to sleep. And our friends organized a dinner train for us and have been bringing by delicious meals every day that take a lot of pressure off us all. We are so blessed to have these support systems!

Well, I need to go and stare at my precious baby some more. Here’s what I’ll be looking at:

Wednesday, Sept. 7: I start having contractions before bed. Dan and I get excited and little freaked out, but decide to wait and see if they are still going on the next day before alerting anyone.

Thursday, Sept 8: Contractions continue sporadically this morning, so we call my mom and she jumps in her car and drives down here. I tell work I’m pretty much done, but manage to hang out with the girls at lunch and at happy hour, pausing occasionally for contractions. Mom arrives this evening.

Friday, Sept 9: The midwife checks me at our weekly appointment, but I’m only about 1 cm dialated although very soft. Mom and I go to lunch at the Southern Sun, and their lovely sandwiches seem to kick my contractions into high gear. We start timing them but it gets to be bed time and they aren’t too strong, so we take the midwife’s advice and go to bed.

Saturday, Sept 10: By morning the contractions have stopped again, so we mess around the house and run errands all morning and afternoon. That evening around 4pm they start up again, finally getting closer together (3-4 mins) and feeling like they are serious and strong. We pack up the bags and head to the hospital, only to find out that I am still very slightly dialated. Once again the midwife recommends going to sleep, and advises us not to stay at the hospital.

Sunday, Sept 11: Once again the contractions have died off by morning and we keep busy around the house. There’s very little action in the contraction zone, although they come and go throughout the day.

This is the pattern that we’ve maintained ever since: sporadic, irregular, and pretty mild contractions that go on throughout the day but don’t increase or accelerate. Even the full moon on Monday didn’t seem to give us the extra oomph that we need.

Yesterday Mom and I had massages, complete with work on acupressure points for me, and I followed it up with a visit to the acupuncturist to hopefully kick things up. So far that hasn’t lead to labor, but I’m holding out hope If it doesn’t work today/tonight I have another appointment for acupuncture tomorrow morning, followed by a midwife appointment where we may see if they will sweep my membranes since my due date will only be 3 days away at that point.

Generally the process has been sort of frustrating as it drags on, but I’m doing my best to stay positive and optimistic while maintaining realistic expectations about this process. It’s fantastic having Mom here to help keep me occupied, especially since I’ve stopped working. The best thing is that one way or another, this baby will be here in a relatively short amount of time

The hostesses

Jess is an event planner, so she offered to throw us a baby shower and recruited Lindsay to help out. I knew with those two in charge it would be a great day, but I was not prepared for how awesome it turned out.

First of all, they made adorable caterpillar invitations, which I understand required many hours and several bottles of wine to complete. This was the start of the general caterpillar theme, which was continued in the food and decorations.

The Friday night before the shower my mom, both grandmothers and my sister-in-law flew in from Texas to help with the preparation. It’s a good thing they did, too, because otherwise Linds and Jess might not have gotten any sleep that night.

The food in the above photo represents only a tiny fraction of the abundance that they put out. There were melon ball skewers, caprese skewers (mozarella, tomato and freshly picked basil), and cheddar and grape skewers along with veggies and dip, pulled pork sliders and grilled veggie sliders.

And of course the crowning achievement was the cupcake caterpillar that Lindsay put together – isn’t it adorable?

After a night of prep work and fun it was time for the actual party, which was just great. There were white onesies to be tie dyed and drawn on (mad props to all the artists, by the way), gifts to be opened, and of course lots of snacks to be eaten. Matt and Jess’ pulled pork will be made by quite a few people in Texas in the coming months

We were overwhelmed by all the people who came out to show us love and support. We are truly fortunate to have found such a great community of friends here in Boulder, and we can’t wait to introduce the baby to all these great people.

Of course it was also fantastic to have family there too. It was a whirlwind weekend for Ginger, my sis-in-law, and then my grandmas and mom stayed over the rest of the weekend to help wash baby clothes and setup the nursery. I’m still amazed by how much work it takes to setup a room for a person whose needs don’t extend beyond food, sleep and poop, but the room is set and ready for baby Partain’s arrival.

Again, I just have to say thanks to everyone made the effort to come out (particularly Andrea Oh who drove in straight from the airport after a massive delay in her flight home). You are all amazing friends and we are so lucky to have you!!

Note the excellent condition of the wood on the front of the awning!

A couple of weeks ago my family descended on Boulder to help us with a project that we’ve wanted to do ever since moving into our house nearly three years ago: building a new front porch. The one that came with the house was really badly constructed, even to the point of us wondering why someone would bother putting in the work to make it in the first place.

The roof was just tarred, no shingles or anything, and it bowed in the middle so all the water would pool there. Eventually the water begin seeping behind the piece of wood on the front of the awning so that whenever it would rain or snow would melt we would have water falling all down the front of the awning instead of draining off.

To add to this whole problem, the top of the porch was covered in nothing but plywood and astroturf. This meant that all the water that dripped from the defective awning would then be soaked up into these substandard materials, slowly rotting them both.

In a word, the porch was a wreck. I’m completely surprised it lasted through as many winters as it did.

But, being the awesome people that they are, my family gave up a week of vacation to come and help us build a new one.

First we had our friend Andy, who is a contractor, come out and remove the old crappy porch (see above photo). This turned out to be great news for my brother, who is deathly afraid of wasps, but bad news for Andy and his team because our porch was home to no less than six wasp nests.

The good news from the demolition was that although some components (plywood, astroturf, front of awning) were destroyed,

Demo is complete

the foundations of both the main porch and the awning we almost like new. This meant we wouldn’t have to devote time, energy and money into redoing those and could instead just basically recover the existing frame.

So the family arrived on a Monday evening and we set to work on Tuesday morning. The work crew consisted of Dan, my dad (Ken), my grandfather (Bill) and my brother (Brad), supplemented with help from me, my mom (Cindy) and my grandmother (Sherry). My family is VERY handy, and I was continually in awe of how quickly and easily they tackled the project. Mad props to you all.

You can see from the photos what a dramatic improvement there was over the course of the week, and we even had time to add some lovely flower pots to the finished product.

Now when it rains we don’t have to dodge little waterfalls coming down the front of our awning, nor are there treacherous puddles in fraying astroturf to contend with. Thank you everyone for coming to our aid! The new porch is fantastic and we love it!

Phase 1: New Awning is Installed

Phase 2: New Cover for Porch

Phase 3: Flowers, Numbers, Light - the Finishing Touches!

The main culprit is the heat, which has been over 90 degrees for many days in a row now. Having been cold blooded for most of my life, it’s been hard for me to adjust to sweating while going up and down our stairs or walking to the car. The 1.5 block walk to church (at 8:45am) on Sunday was ridiculously hot for me, even though it probably wasn’t above 80 at that point.

Those of you in Texas are most certainly rolling your eyes right now, and I’ll admit I sound like a wuss compared to pregos enduring 105 or 110 degrees somewhere else, but this is my blog and I can complain a bit if I like

Also adding to the fun of the last 9 weeks is baby Partain, who has discovered that it’s highly entertaining to kick mom in the same spot over and over and over again. I’ve actually said “Ow!” out loud several times out of surprise and pain. I admit I wasn’t expecting this onslaught — what did the left side of my belly button ever do to the baby?

And of course the wee one is not so wee anymore, meaning his/her movements seem to distort my whole belly and make for some highly uncomfortable times while s/he readjusts.

Speaking of adjustments, last week at our midwife appointment they demonstrated how I can impact the baby’s position in these last few weeks of the pregnancy by how I sit (!!), so I’ve been trying to have excellent posture to avoid a posterior presentation. It turns out reclining with your feet up (the preferred position of pregnant ladies the world over) may encourage the baby’s back to swing around the wrong way. It’s good to know so I can prevent it from happening, but I do miss lounging with propped up feet.

I had no idea that this was even possible, and I certainly want to do everything I can to make labor faster and easier, so I’m spending a lot of time on my fitness ball and sitting up nice and straight while I work.

At the end of the week we’ll be hitting the 8 month mark, which I can hardly believe. I’m definitely getting ready to meet the baby that has wreaked havoc on my body for the past 32 weeks, and to start on the road to getting that body back into shape! Just 61 days to go!

Check out those baggy eyes! Can you tell sleep is getting challenging?

On a less baby-related note, my work has slowed down A TON in the past month or so, leaving me with a lot more spare time during the week than I usually have. I’m trying to use the time well by doing baby prep and getting my volleyball website up to speed, but it’s very strange to have to expend so much effort to fill enough hours in the day/week.

On the other hand, the free time has proven to be a blessing in a big way because it’s giving me enough time to workout daily and get plenty of rest. As you can see from the picture both of those things are becoming more and more crucial as I’m getting bigger and bigger.

Walking and yoga are my best friends right now, and I can’t imagine how pregnant women made it through 40 weeks without regular exercise and stretching!

In other news, Dan’s softball league is winding down, and while he is doing great at 3rd base his team has yet to win a game. They do have a good time though, and they will be signing up for the right league for the fall season (they are in the competitive league this time instead of the rec league), and I’m sure they’ll bring home a lot of wins next season.

As July winds down we’ve got a night of camping planned with our friends up in Estes park, and my family is coming for a week at the end of the month to help us build a new front porch. (This is all assuming that Boulder doesn’t get washed away in the next week by the torrential downpours that we’re having every afternoon.) Lots of exciting events coming up, with the hope that I’ll be able to participate in them all with my burgeoning belly!

As of Sunday we will officially enter the third trimester, and it’s starting to feel very real and a little bit more scary (at least for those of us contemplating birth in a few weeks).

Part of the third trimester “stuff” is that we’ve started our birthing class. We chose the one recommended by our midwives, called “Magical Beginnings.” It’s based on a Deepak Chopra book, which I suppose should have tipped us off, but we were not prepared for how hippy it is.

We spend a decent part of the classes doing visualization and/or meditation exercises. These are cool, but aren’t quite what this somewhat analytic, information-driven couple was expecting. We’ve still got two more classes to go, so maybe there will be a little more practical advice and a little less guided deep breathing.

It’s interesting to see the other couples in the class too. We are the farthest away from our due date, with one couple’s due date only a few days after the class ends. I mentioned to the midwife at our last visit that my bump seems to be as big as some of these women’s who are due a month or more before me, and she said it’s because I’m so short. It really is surprising how different builds impact how women carry their babies, and I’m pretty sure short chicks get a raw deal.

Anyway, for the most part the pregnancy continues to roll along without too many issues. Dan is hard at work sanding and staining all the new furniture that we got second hand for the baby’s room, and I think it’s going to look AMAZING when it’s done. The only problem is that it’s hard to fit sanding into an already busy summer schedule, so hopefully we will have finished pieces before we have a baby.

I had my first really bad day of back pain on Tuesday and ended up spending the better part of Wednesday trying to figure out how to make it go away. After yoga, a bath and a nap I was feeling almost back to normal, and it appears that not stretching after my Monday water aerobics created some very tight muscles that were making their displeasure known. So there is a lot of yoga and stretching in my future!

This weekend we’re getting together with another couple who are due a month after us to make a huge amount of gnocchi and ravioli to freeze for after the babies come, which will be one more thing off our massive “To Do Before Baby” list. It’s great having another couple so close to our date to hang out with, although I think the guys get sick of us girls talking about nothing but pregnancy the whole time.

Finally, I’m getting one last trip to Texas in before I’m too enormous to get on a plane. I can’t wait to see the family next week, but the prospect of 100+ temperatures is not enticing. I’m sure it will be worth it to see the looks on everyone’s faces when they feel the baby kick!

Our flight out was completely uneventful, which was a blessing given the extremely tense passport situation of the day before. (For those not up on that story, the short version is Dan’s passport was expired and he had to get a new one less than 24 hours from our departure time, but it all worked out in the end).

I think the only black mark on the trip down there was the hour long line at customs. Seriously, Mexico, not the way to make a good first impression. I had been warned by my midwife that I would likely swell up like a balloon after travel, but thanks to copious amounts of water and lots of walking that didn’t happen.

The resort was, in a word, perfect. They met us with cool scented towels, smoothies, and a flower for me, and then upgraded our room for free. We also discovered that our 4-night stay entitled us to a $750 credit toward spa treatments, day trips, and several items not suitable for pregos (zip line) or vegetarians (lobster dinner on the beach).

Given our restrictions we chose a short trip to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, a couples massage, and a manicure/pedicure package for me.

Our first day at the resort (Friday) we took full advantage of the opportunities for doing absolutely nothing. We slept in, had breakfast overlooking the ocean, and then snagged prime seats by the lagoon to watch the surf, read, and snorkel/swim. We stayed under our thatched awning when we weren’t in the water, as there were many, many, many walking examples of what happens when you stay out in the sun too long.

A side note: anyone who hasn’t yet read Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” go and get it now. I was laughing out loud and nearly snorting virgin pina colada out my nose all weekend while reading it.

Saturday was our excursion day, so we loaded onto a bus with 39 other vacationers and motored about 30 miles down the road to Tulum. The ruins were amazing and right on the ocean, but they were also unfortunately completely unshaded. Our tour guide did his best to talk in the shade, but it was super hot and our water ran out quickly.

After the official tour we had some time to wander around, but we just went down to the beach to frolic in the water and try to cool off. Unfortunately between the heat, the epic stairs and my increased girth we were slow getting back and almost got left behind. Important lesson: heat + walking + 5.5 months pregnant = bad.

The bus then took us to a “real Mayan market,” a.k.a. the place where they want you to buy souvenirs. Being savvy travelers who have seen this trick before, we declined.

After the forced shopping time they took us to Xpu-Ha (pronounced ish poo ha) Palace, another in the chain of 7 or so Palace Resorts that was associated with ours. It was mostly destroyed in the last hurricane (2004 I think) and rebuilt as an eco-resort.

Basically this meant animals in a zoo-like setting, no air conditioning, lengthy walks between everything and very little shade by the pool. As someone who was already overheated I didn’t really appreciate the lack of shade/AC or the walking, and I was very happy to get back to our “real” resort.

Sunday was our spa day, and we started it off with some early morning yoga. It turned out that the yoga was not in the air conditioned gym as we thought but in a hut by the ocean; this was cool because you could hear the surf while you did downward dog, but uncool because of the ridiculous humidity and sweatiness.

After yoga (and second breakfast for those of us on two-hour feedings) we headed to the spa. First stop was hydrotherapy, also known as “a room full of things pregnant women aren’t allowed to do.” Dan however thoroughly enjoyed the sauna, steam room, hot tub, and cold immersion tub before meeting up with me once more for our massage.

I admit I was skeptical about the prenatal massage capabilities of the resort, but the lady was very knowledgeable and I was very comfortable the whole time. After lunch I had my mani/pedi treatment, leaving me more relaxed and well-groomed than I have been in a very long time (especially since I can’t easily reach my feet).

Monday meant more travel, but this time not the uneventful kind. It started off with our plane having to turn around as we left Cancun because they forgot to load something that only our giant plane could carry, which turned out to be the nose piece for a smaller plane.

Then we landed in DFW only to find that inclement weather, also known as “rain,” had caused them to cancel several flights earlier that day. This meant the terminal was super crowded, and that our flight was ultimately delayed an hour and a half. All this combined with the fact that we had to leave our resort 4 hours before our flight took off (“just in case” according to the staff), and we had a very long day.

I like to think I’m a pretty good sport about this whole pregnancy thing most of the time, but I was ready to kill people with my bare hands if they came between me and food or my bed by the time we got home. Fortunately there was no need for violence.

And so, now we’re back to work and reality. For us this means all the pregnancy/baby stuff we’ve been putting off, like registering for gifts and finding a pediatrician. I’m actually excited and ready to get going (I know, it’s shocking that I want to plan and prepare!)

We didn’t do much in the way of photography, but I’ll get Dan to download what we did take and add them soon.