Skip to main content

Week 17 update

Last night Rachael and I decided on a Natural Birth center in Chantilly for baby delivery. She's been immersed in baby books and documentaries since we found out she was pregnant and I know that she's been wanting to find a great natural birth center. I could tell from watching her last night that she can see herself having the baby there and that she's getting very excited about all this - unfortunately we still have 20 long weeks to go.

We've decided to schedule an ultrasound for 2 weeks from now to hopefully determine what gender the baby will be. Rachael's been going back and forth for some time now on what it'll be ... some days she feels its going to be a girl, but recently it's gone back more towards boy. Basically... we won't know until the ultrasound.

Rachael's belly is definitely starting to show; you can tell that she's actually pregnant now and not putting on a little extra weight for the upcoming winter. She's been starting to get a bit uncomfortable moving around and especially going up and down the stairs into the apartment; I know she's looking forward to moving to our ground floor apartment in Reston next month. We'll be in walk / bike distance of work and day care for Rachael, which will hopefully make her transition back to work much easier for her after her time off for the baby.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shannons

Out at lunch with my wonderful family As always, I feel I need to add a disclaimer here about how busy I've been and apologize to myself - and whoever ends up reading this - about not keeping up with this blog.  It was easier with just Joe because my time home meant mostly quiet during his frequent naps and plenty of time to gather thoughts to put down, where now I feel I can barely keep up with sleep and other basic functions of life. Hectic life aside, I couldn't be happier with where I am right now as father.  Joe is at a wonderful age where he always wants to help us and be affectionate with Nora and we have started playing sports together rather than just hanging around the house.  He's really started taking an interest in baseball and soccer, and whenever I have the chance I try to at least kick the ball around the house a bit if I can't take him outside.  I'm hoping that once things settle down we can really spend some time together and work on some soc...

Nora Caroline

Nora at 2 weeks old Nora Caroline Shannon was born on May 4th at 545pm.  She weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.  It's been quite the few months since my last post for our whole family and, while I constantly regret not being able to get here and write down my thoughts, when I look back I understand that we've been running on fumes for months.  Rachael and I both just finished our respective undergrad degrees and I spent a month doing 60-hour weeks to try to bank some money to tide us over while Rachel isn't getting a full salary for maternity leave. Rachael had the birth experience she wanted with Nora and I couldn't be happier for her.  She delivered at a midwife practice on King Street on Old Town Alexandria in a bedroom, not in a hospital hooked up to all the monitors we dealt with for Joe.  She was able to labor on her own and go for a walk with me around town early on and did a lot of her heavy labor standing or on all fours in bed. ...

Happy 2016

Nora and Joe under the Christmas tree We finally got through 2015, which was a pretty long and painful year for us personally.  We've been dealing with housing issues, which are looking to finally come to an end when we move for the 3rd time in a year at the end of this month.  We also dealt with some deaths in the family and me working a significant amount of overtime, which ended with the turnover to 2016, and we're looking forward to some stability here now that I'll be home soon.  We're moving into a new townhouse in a few weeks that is just a mile or so down the road from my work.  The hope is that I'll be home a lot more being so close to work and that I'll finally get some good exercise in every day since I'll be able to walk. This weekend we're going on a much-needed vacation-a Caribbean cruise that I can't wait to take the kids on.  Joe's old enough to enjoy the on-board kids activities and understand some of the outdoor excursions...