The classes

One of the women in my neighbourhood actually said that she was thinking of hiring a nanny and asked me if I would want to go in with her and split the cost. Her baby is due in March, but her mom is moving in with them until September, so we'd need care at the same time. She was saying we could split the cost, and the nanny could rotate weekly between our houses. I thought it was a good idea, but because we're only going to be in this house until December, we said no.
We've begun our pre-natal classes; we've only had one so far, and we both felt like it was pretty pointless! Both Andrew and I have been reading the books, and the teacher didn't really go over anything that we didn't already know. We're hoping the later classes will be more helpful, though.

Prenatal Series Classes – A series of four prenatal classes titled "A Special Time" will help make your pregnancy, labor and delivery joyful and healthy, while preparing you to care for your new baby. We recommend taking prenatal courses as early in your pregnancy as possible, since much of the information impacts the entire nine months of your pregnancy.

Classes are held every Monday night at 8 p.m. in the Richard H. Rich Auditorium in the 77 Building at Piedmont Hospital. (Classes are not held during the month of December, on any major holiday falling on Monday, or on the fifth Monday of any month.)

Each series includes four sessions on the following topics:

Session 1: A Time for Changes

• Your emotional changes
• Changes in your body
• Sexuality during pregnancy
• How the baby develops

Session 2: A Time for Care

• Information on maintaining a healthy diet
• Considerations for a safe pregnancy (including exercise, drugs, environmental exposures, etc.)

Session 3: A Time for Birth

• The signs of labor
• Anesthesia options and the hows and whys of medication
• The delivery: A film on childbirth and Cesarean delivery

Session 4: A Time for Baby

• The healthy baby
• Nursing your baby
• Deciding about circumcision
• Caring for your newborn

So I think that Classes 3 and 4 will be very helpful, but Class 1 was useless, and Class 2 probably will be, too. Also, I've signed up to take a Prenatal Toning, Fitness and Yoga class from March through May.

We’ve also signed up to take the breastfeeding class in June, which I now hear is useless. That really stinks, because ours is supposed to be a full Saturday (9am-5pm!!!!).

The congestion feels like the worst cold I’ve ever had -- I can't breathe through my nose at all. It's really just in the nose and head. Last night, I got in bed at 8:30 and made myself stay awake until 9:30, when I could take it no more. I woke up at 6:30 and was so glad to have actually slept through the night this time. This morning, some of the girls here at work told me to stop drinking milk until I clear up. I have never heard this before, but they said that milk and dairy products create mucous; well, I drink a gallon of skim milk every TWO days!!! I'm going to lay off it for the next week and see if that helps.

I keep hearing that not having morning sickness or nausea means I'm having a boy.

The unbearable congestion

I feel absolutely clueless! I'm almost right at 16 weeks right now. He or she is the size of avocado!

The daycare situation is still coming along. At least we have plenty of options, some close to home and others closer to work. Our commute from home to work is only 10-15 minutes, though, so neither option will be bad at all. My firm partners with a daycare in Midtown and not only pays half the tuition, but also keeps a space reserved for us. So we already know, if all else fails, we have a space there. We just liked the one by our house better. I'm actually going to view one more, today, too. When A started looking into it, he found out that PwC will pay for part of it, too, no matter where we go. These are things they don't normally tell you about unless you specifically ask!

On another note, the pregnancy congestion is KILLING me. Apparently the mucous membranes of the nose start to swell from all the pregnancy hormones circulating in the body, and the stuffiness may only get worse as the pregnancy progresses! I swear to heaven if mine gets any worse my nose might actually fall off. I was up at 4am holding my head over a steamy sink to see if that helped (it didn't). I tried sleeping with a steamy rag over my face (no help there, either). The only decongestant we pregnant ladies are allowed to take is Pseudoephedrine, but I tried that, and it didn't work for me. I'm drinking hot water with lemon, honey and ginger, doing the saline nasal sinus cavity rinse (which really grosses me out), eating chicken noodle soup (for dinner last night and I have more for lunch today) and plenty fruits for extra vitamin C. I even tried sleeping propped up and ended up sleeping with a box of Kleenex last night, literally had my arm around the darn thing! It's a good think A is traveling this week, because I'd have kept him up all night (I think the dogs were annoyed with me)!

I tried calling my doctor about it, but the nurse just told me to call my regular doctor and offered no more help when I told her that I didn't have one, yet, because we just moved here. I asked Miriam about it, and some people here at work, but everything they suggest is stuff I've already tried. It didn't start until this week, right around the exact same time I got the email update from the What to Expect website with the subject line "Feeling Stuffy? Nasal Congestion at 16 Weeks Pregnant". Lovely.

At least I never had morning sickness.

The hot summer

Our due date is July 24th, and though I am so happy about the pregnancy, being pregnant during a steamy Southern summer is not something I ever wanted to do! I keep telling myself that at least the pregnancy's not interfering with football season at all! Plus, summer clothes are much more flattering to a big ole tummy than bulky winter things! I'm thinking of making Andrew buy a kiddy pool and putting it on the back deck so that I can lounge in that on the weekends!

Andrew doesn't want to know the sex of the baby, but I do. Since we're in a rental house right now and won't be doing a nursery until we buy our own house, I told him that if we're EVER not going to find out, it needs to be for this one. Plus, it makes sense to not find out for the first because then it forces you (and everyone else who buys you stuff) to get all gender-neutral stuff at first, which can then be used for later children. The suspense is just killing me, though!

Unfortunately, I discovered that I have no maternity leave! I haven't been here long enough to qualify for the Family Act, so I'm just praying that when the time comes, I won't get fired! My boss is super nice and seems willing to work with me on it, and Andrew gets three weeks paternity leave that he'll take when I have to go back to work. I just keep thinking that if we hadn't had to move back, I'd have had three to six months paid leave in London and job security for a full year if I didn't wanted to take extra unpaid leave!

We’ve had to start looking into daycares now, and apparently we’re on the slow side! Some of Andrew’s coworkers told us they started calling daycares before they called to schedule their first doctor appointment! Here in Atlanta, the waiting lists are mega-long. We have one place secured through my work, but we weren’t blown away by it, so we're desperately trying to get in with one at a Methodist Church that's less than a block away from our house, and in the mean time I'm interviewing and touring others every week. It's crazy competitive!

A good book I found is Getting ready for baby: The ultimate organizer for the mom-to-be. It's full of checklists covering everything from trimester to trimester to baby proofing the house to healthcare, shopping, etc, etc, etc. It's been a lifesaver for me so far. It even has a checklist of questions to ask when going on tours of daycare centers and forms to keep track of what you're borrowing from whom and who gave you what at baby showers. Apparently, you're supposed to buy all the big purchases, like furniture, strollers, car seats, now in the second trimester. It's all so overwhelming!