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!