Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

Baby Van decided to dress up as a skeleton for Halloween.


Jackie got dressed up as well.

Monday, October 13, 2008

It Kicked Me!

While Jackie has been feeling the fluttering for weeks now, tonight I felt my first kick! And let me tell you, it feels great to be a dad! Below are pictures of our little kicker at 21 weeks, 5 days. I guess it's fitting that it kicked me. Earlier in the evening, I walked across our bedroom carpet to feel some kicking. Unfortunately, my socks collected some static electricity along the way and I shocked Jackie's belly. My first failure as a father! Sorry baby Van.




Sunday, October 5, 2008

Half Way There

This week marks the half-way point. While nausea is no longer visiting, sleepiness has moved in. If Jackie is in a sitting position for more than a few minutes, you can expect the eyes to close and a nap to begin. Then again, as I'm constantly sleeping, I only assume she is too. Regardless, we are at 20 weeks, and everything is proceeding nicely. Baby Van (not to be confused with mini van) is about the length of a banana and weighs about 10 1/2 ounces. We won't be finding out the sex until the delivery, but we could have found out during this past Friday's ultrasound. All of the results from the ultrasound were positive, so Baby Van is trucking along right on schedule. It was a little weird to know that our doctor, ultra sound tech., and our nurse knew what we were having and we didn't. However, that wonderful surprise at the end will help Jackie through that one last push.

Jackie's commented a few times regarding how she's not quite sure what to feel since her body doesn't seem to belong to her anymore. It'll only get harder as from here on out she'll gain about 1 pound per week. Now she knows how I felt in college. And every year thereafter. But that's beside the point. Anyway, we've been kicking some baby names around, but it's a good thing we still have about 20 weeks to decide. It may come down to drawing one from a hat. I won't tell her that I just wrote my favorite name down 10 times and that's all that's in the hat. How can you say no to Hermanus Barinson Van Inwegen? It just has a ring to it. I'm sure after getting his butt kicked on the playground daily, he'll have the time to reflect on how wonderful it is to have a family name.

With the 20 week ultrasound going so well, Jackie gave me the green light on the nursery. I'm pretty sure that means I can watch football for the next 19 weeks and then work 24 hours per day the last week to get things ready. Then again, the pregnancy is affecting my judgement, so it could just be the hormones. At any rate, I'm going back to sleep now. I'll check back in next week.