ANYONE ELSE?

How many of you out there have or had leaking breasts early on in your pregnancy? Yesterday, R was taking a nap and when she woke, her breasts were leaking! Some clearish liquid came out of one and straight-up milk came out of the other. We were like, what the heck?! It wasn't much, though -- not enough to start feeding or anything like that, but still!

I hit the internet immediately, which confirmed this was normal, and R put in a call to the doctor, who also confirmed it's normal. It's not that we mind the leaky breats, but we wanted to make sure this wasn't a sign of something wrong. Apparently, some women start to produce as early as four months into pregnancy, while others don't start until after birth. R happens to be one of the early ones at not quite six months along.

As the doctor said, the bad news is that it will continue for the rest of her pregnancy and the flow could increase from the few drops she has now to something more intense. The good news is that she will be a milk factory and not have any trouble breastfeeding.

WEDNESDAY RAMBLINGS

Not much new news on the baby front. Things are going well and R's tummy is getting bigger every day, even though she's gained only around three pounds or so. She looks great!

R's been sleeping a lot and I get bored, so on Monday night I decided to start a new project. I'd been saving up some old bandanas to use for something, but never could decide what to do with them. Suddenly, it hit me -- a bandana quilt! I got out my rotary cutter, cutting mat, and went to town cutting up squares from which to quilt.

Then, last night I went to town piecing it all together. The time flew by. It certainly didn't hurt that I had all of my squares organized into the order I wanted them to go in. At any rate, here's the finished product of my quilt top:




here's a close-up

All I have left to do now is to sew the backing on and I've decided to use fleece for that. Fleece works well because it's easy to manipulate, is really soft, and it keeps me from having to worry with batting, basting, etc. I also like the casual feel of it. After I do that, I need to quilt the darn thing. I think I might machine quilt it rather than doing it by hand, but I can't quite decide.

R thinks I should give this to my niece for her 3rd birthday on September 1st and make a second one for Button using different fabric. I'm not opposed that idea, but I do love this bandana quilt, so parting ways with it might be difficult.

On the house front, our open house went really well and traffic has really picked up. We also found a house we really like that is move-in ready, so we hope ours will sell soon! Wish us luck.

One more thing -- I bought this adorable Christmas fabric, but I don't have a clue what to do with it! Any suggestions out there? Keep in mind that I'm not much of a clothes sewer (I'm a beginner) and I have only a yard of the fabric. Here it is:

MORE PHOTOS!

Here are some sonogram images from our appointment on August 14th. I would have posted them sooner, but didn't have a chance to scan them until today!

Just look at these first two -- amazing! Look at those long legs!





In this next photo, if you look closely, you can see a line/shadow running down the top of the head to the forehead. Our sonographer says this is where the bones in the top of the head are fusing together! Button's arms and folded upward and she's resting her hands behind her head. I guess she must be feeling relaxed in there!





These next two photos are traditional images (not 3-d) and I think they are so sweet. Just look at that profile! And in the second image, Button's looking right at us.





This last image confirms what we already knew -- we're definitely having a girl! (Thank heavens because we've already been buying "girly" stuff.)

WEEK 21 VIDEOS!

Because our sonographer was unable to get an adequate look at Button's spine the last time we went in, she had us come back in today for a 21-week exam. We can now officially say that Button is as healthy as can be! (Not to mention just beautiful... and I think she has R's nose!)

Since they don't seem to have the capability of saving video to disk for us, I took my digital camera (which has a video camera built in that will record only a few minutes of footage) in and recorded a few scenes.

This first scene shows Button's little face pressed right up against the screen! Linda (the sonographer) zooms in on the heart and you can hear it beating -- so exciting! I could listen to/watch this all day.



This next scene shows in detail Button's heart beating like crazy. See that flashing black hole, opening and closing? Well, that's her heart! Linda also shows us the blood flow, which is blue and orange on the screen. Check it out!

BUY OUR HOUSE!

We've had our house on the market for almost a month, with no luck and no interest. I know the market stinks right now and all of that, but we really need for this to happen. We really love the house and are selling it only because we need more room, pronto. There is a part of me that is happy that the house isn't selling and that we are sitting in it. But then there's the part of me that is aware of all the changes coming up and that part is ready to move.

We picked out a new house (Shelley, it is just like your mom's!) that we love and think would be a good house long-term. We're having an open house next weekend and I am hoping that it goes well (and that the amazing heat wave breaks a little by then)! It is hotter than hammered hell right now!

In other news, my aunt gave us an early baby shower last weekend. All I can say is that my family must be excited about the baby because we got tons of nice (and actually useful) presents. And the family christening gown and bonnet were given to us for safe keeping.

My mom has very sweetly offered for us to have a housekeeper come a few times when the baby is really small to help me out. Evidently, she is anticipating that I will be overwhelmed and she is physically unable to help. The other option is that she fears my housekeeping skills.... hehehe. Either way, I'm thrilled!

SWIMMING RIGHT ALONG

Time is swimming right along! R's now past the halfway mark of pregnancy and our doctor says everything should be "auto pilot" from here on out. And speaking of swimming, R's taking a maternity water aerobics class at our local YMCA, where we're members. Class is each Saturday at 9:30. Before she left the house, I just had to take a photo of her in the bathing suit she's wearing. How cute!

WHAT DO Y'ALL DO?

R's an educator. This year, she's split between two schools. One of the schools is the same where she worked last year and the other is new to her. As it turns out, her assigned "mentor/coach" at her new school is an older (meaning late 50's) lesbian who we sorta know because she's friends with all of the old-timer lesbians where we live (we like to call them the "lesbian mafia").

Anyhow, on Friday morning, this woman gave R a big speech about how she's not "out" and how she recommends that R not tell anyone she's gay, either. R was like, "Well, the fact that I'm visibly pregnant will make it a little difficult to avoid the questions about my life and my 'husband', etc." I mean, R can either look like an unwed floozy, or people can know she's gay and in a commited relationship. And even if R chose to remain in-the-closet, chances are that our kid will out her one day on their own -- ie, "I want my other mommy!", or something like that.

Well, R, after being bombarded with a million questions on Friday afternoon, finally came out. It went fairly well, no big deal. She happened to talk to her coach today and mentioned what happened and Friday and said that she'd outed herself. Surprisingly, the coach was pretty supportive. However, she did say one thing that was really sad to us.

R was explaing that our kid, at some point, would probably say something about her mommies or whatever. Her mentor said, "Well, it all depends on what you train them to say." We were horrified. I mean, why would we teach our child to be ashamed of us, or to lie about who we are?

So, this prompts the question -- how do y'all handle the two-mommy thing? What names do you use to designate who is who (both being called mommy can be confusing)? Do you encourage your child to refer to you as something else? etc, etc, etc... details, please.

DONOR SIBLING REGISTRY

Anyone out there signed up with the Donor Sibling Registry? If so, what's your experience been like? If you don't want to write it in comments, you can just email us at twogeorgiamommies-at-gmail-dot-com.

CURIOUS...

Of those of you who have given birth, how many of you attended childbirth classes? How long before your due date did you take the classes and what did you think?

CHECK IT OUT!

Upon request, photos of R's belly:



She is so cute, if I do say so myself! The funny thing is, she hasn't gained any weight yet. But she's really short-waisted, so the only place for the baby to go is straight out!