36 Weeks, 5 Days and Counting …

Have you ever felt that things were strangely quiet in your life – and that something was brewing that may just change everything? Well, here I am thinking to myself something crazy and wonderful is about to happen to us and, “Oh my, what did we get ourselves into?”

Let me start from the beginning, who is B3? B3 stands for: “Baby Boy Bardy.” The original nickname for B3 was, “Peanut Bardy” but Dieter did not like calling our future offspring a “peanut” and decided that his name would be B3 during my pregnancy. It sort of has a nice ring to it – like “007.” 

Then the next question that we have been getting is, “Why aren’t you guys posting things on Facebook about the pregnancy?”

Well, there are quite a few reasons – some of which I will not get into, but let me post the two most important ones. I hope that everyone will understand and look to this blog for the latest and greatest updates as we get close to B3’s arrival onto Planet Earth. 

1.       Social Media is Very Public.

Part of what I do is Digital Marketing. I have a lot of connections on Facebook that are professional and Dieter does too. This is a very intimate experience for us and we want to share our more private experiences with the people that we are closest to. It’s awkward enough when someone you have not seen for 20 years (and you will never see again) wishes you “Happy Birthday”. It’s a whole other ballgame if something serious happens to B3 or me during the pregnancy or labor and then I need to explain that to a bunch of acquaintances and professional colleagues.

2 .  We Have Not Told Everyone Yet.

My father calls this “need to know” basis. I have a lot of great friends that I have lost touch with over the years. Between my back and forth moves across the United States and my 7 states (well 6.5 if you count the Bay Area vs. Orange County) I have lost regular touch with some of those people along the way. That does not mean that I care about them any less – and maybe it’s the Generation X’er in me, but I remember the olden days when you would pick up the phone and tell people important news – or see them in person if possible. I just don’t like finding out important life events over Facebook, it seems like you really have lost touch with someone at that point. Dieter feels the same way on his end…

Phew, now I got all of that out of the way. Thank you for humoring me! So, now to what’s going on with us. 

We had a quiet but really sweet Thanksgiving and stayed in Chicago this year. We had seven total people (including Dieter and I.) The fun part is that we were able to share the holiday with our close friends from Italy and from the United Kingdom. And with the icing on the cake – Dieter’s mom was here too! Usually it’s my parents’ holiday since Christmas is such a big event on Dieter’s side. That means we get to travel with several million of our closest friends… It is nice to go to Orange County, CA this time of year since it is still mostly warm there and I get to feel the glorious California sun. Not to mention see my close family and my close friends. But at 36 weeks of pregnancy it is too late for me to be flying!

Dieter worked on the nursery and it looks adorable so far! I feel spoiled, Dieter’s mom Hilda is making some fabulous curtains and pillows out of some really fun fabrics that we found last weekend at Joann Fabrics. Then my Mom and Dad spoiled us and sent us a sleigh crib in a pretty espresso brown with a nice organic mattress (made out of soybeans!) I will post a big reveal in a couple weeks once we have things more set up … but I am so jazzed about how it looks. Dieter did an amazing job painting it and I am bursting at the seams with ideas between the cool painting work Dieter did and the rich, bold colors that we found for the curtains and pillows.

Now that question that everyone asks – but I do not know how to answer it – “How am I feeling?” Well the first thing I jokingly say is, “Very Pregnant.” I am sure no one enjoys my snarky humor that I only seem to amuse myself with – and I think that it is so sweet that people are asking. I just don’t know what to say because no one wants to hear about how tired and achy I am at this point. I am actually overall pretty good considering I am three weeks away from my due date – but it’s still hard to sleep at this point and it’s a bit uncomfortable.

I have 3 weeks left at work – which is crazy for me. I have so much to do in the process of transitioning my job and I want to leave things wrapped up in a nice bow. It is just also the end of our fiscal year and we have all of these important programs that trump me being able to focus on the longer term. My boss has been extremely supportive and I am off until the beginning of April if I don’t go out early. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that B3 lets Mommy get that closure – and does not come until his due date of Dec. 17^th. (He seems happy where he is but who knows what he is up to!)

October 27, 2012 - My Cousin Kristin and a Side View of B3!

That’s the high level, “Reader’s Digest” version of what’s going on right now. Dieter will be our guest blogger when B3 arrives and we will send everyone a note linking to this blog and we will add pictures. I just wanted to start the ball rolling and I will post a couple more times over the weekends when I am working – and start to post more when I am out on maternity leave (starting on 12/17 unless B3 decides otherwise!)

Much love to all of you and I hope that you had a fantastic holiday weekend!

Warmest,

Jen