Baby!

As many of you may already know, we are expecting our first child in August.  Kelsey’s due date is August 6th.  We have had our first two appointments, including our first ultrasound.  Four of the ultrasound pictures are at the bottom of this post.  To answer many questions we have been receiving in one place:

  • No, we are not going to find out the sex of the child before it is born.  There are few surprises in life, so we’re going to hang on to this one.  We are going to be doing the nursery in orange with green highlights, so much of the clothes we will be buying will be in the orange and green area.
  • Yes, we are going to be using cloth diapers, many of which will be sewn by Kelsey.  My sewing skills aren’t as good, so I will be on diaper washing duty, which will likely be a daily task for the first few months.
  • We are working on names, and don’t plan on releasing them into the wild.  Rest assured, we will be shouting the news of the sex and name of the baby from the digital rooftops very shortly after she or he is born.

Kelsey is now in her fifteenth week, and is progressing nicely.  She has been hungry often, feeling sick often, and sleeping a lot.  These symptoms are decreasing with time, however.  We have been spending our weekends looking at baby gear (moreso than before we conceived).

We also bought a new car in preparation for having a new member of our family.  We got a Mazda5, which is a sort of mini-minivan.  It has six seats, and the rear seats fold flat for storage.  It will allow us to store 45 cubic feet of stuff behind the second row of seats.  What that translates into is we can go camping, rafting, snowboarding, to the beach, etc. with a baby.  When we did these things in the Jetta, we needed to utilize the entire trunk and the entire backseat.  We kept the Jetta, though, because we really need two cars, especially with me commuting four days a week down to Troy for school.

When the baby arrives, Kelsey will be taking some time off, and I will still be on summer break for a while.  I’m currently weighing my options in terms of whether I will be taking classes, hopefully some of them via Skype from home, or taking paternity leave for a semester and working on my dissertation proposal while taking care of our baby.  Kels will be going back to work in probably mid-September, so I will be the primary caregiver through the end of January of 2011.

I think that’s all the news for now.  We will try to be better about posting updates here.

An ultrasound picture showing the head and body at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture showing the head and body at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the hand at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the hand at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the arm and jaw at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the arm and jaw at 11 weeks.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the legs and feet at 11 weeks. Since the baby develops from the head down, the legs and feet are less developed than the arms and hands.
An ultrasound picture highlighting the legs and feet at 11 weeks. Since the baby develops from the head down, the legs and feet are less developed than the arms and hands.

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