Plans are funny things.

We had a plan to finish all the construction projects in the house by the end of November. We had a plan to acquire all the remaining baby goods over the Thanksgiving weekend. We had bought some new maternity clothes and planned to take pre-baby Sean+April photos in early December. It turns out that the baby and my body had other plans.

On Sunday November 18th, after an intense four hour labor, Maya Renée Woods was born at 7:18 in the morning. She was about a month ahead of her due date, weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and was 19 inches long.

Once the initial shock of Maya showing up early wore off and the worry over potential preterm issues was put to rest, we settled into learning how to properly care for her. Like any new parents, we have a ridiculous amount to learn, but so far we’ve managed to keep her happy and well. And of course, we are completely taken with her. We couldn’t be more pleased that we get to enjoy her for an extra month.

The only real issue we’ve encountered with Maya is jaundice. She had to stay an extra day in the hospital receiving phototherapy treatment to try and clear some of the excess bilirubin from her body. At her first visit to the pediatrician, her bilirubin levels were again high, so we rented a light blanket and started her back on phototherapy. As of this past Monday morning, her values were down. Unless something changes, it seems like the jaundice is something we can put behind us.

Maya the Glowworm – Wrapped in her phototherapy blanket

Sean has wanted to take pictures, but we’ve both been pretty busy (and sleep deprived) trying to catch up with our early baby. For now, here are the photos that were taken at the hospital when Maya was one day old. (Aunt Darci has also taken a very cute series of photos, which we’ll post once we are able.)

Last weekend, my parents hauled all the loot from our baby shower down from Missouri to Texas. While they were here, we drove down to San Antonio and wandered around the Spanish Missions for a while. The day was beautiful and the pace was leisurely. Since it was so close to Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, I couldn’t resist wearing my skeleton shirt. I love it, but I often can’t find a good occasion to wear it.

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, TX – October 27th, 32-33 weeks

An update on “the diabetus” … my blood sugar so far has been pretty easy to control. I have only had to make dietary changes and monitor my blood sugar. In fact, since my glucose levels have been solid, I don’t even have to monitor quite as tightly as I had initially (meaning I prick my finger twice a day instead of five times a day). We’ve been repeatedly assured that this is still considered a low risk pregnancy and that if things stay the way they are, our treatment during pregnancy, labor, and delivery will remain unchanged.

Greetings from Austin – October 6, 29-30 weeks

We’ve been really fortunate. Given my age, I was a little worried about how I would handle pregnancy. Really and truly, it hasn’t been that bad. There’s some heartburn and fatigue, but generally, I feel fine. At 20 weeks our ultrasound looked good, and the baby has been active, routinely nudging at me off and on throughout the day. At every appointment, my stats have been consistently good. All that to say that we’ve gotten really used to the idea that I was going to have a nice, uncomplicated pregnancy. This past week, we were introduced to our first complication.

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. (Please read more here if you’re interested.) I didn’t even see this one coming. My diet is generally good, and while my exercising has been a bit inconsistent, it’s not been bad. My weight prior to pregnancy was normal, and my gain so far has been good. Prior to this, my blood sugars have always been decidedly normal. I went into the glucose tolerance test believing it was a formality. I had borderline numbers on the 1-hour test, so I took the 3-hour test. I didn’t fail by much, but fail I did.

The good news is that hopefully I can control it with diet and exercise, and we’ll go back to enjoying an otherwise uncomplicated pregnancy. I’m told that if I can keep my blood sugar within acceptable levels, there’s no reason for us to change how we manage the rest of the pregnancy or labor and delivery. If I can keep my blood sugar in line, the baby should be healthy and normally sized when she’s born. Also, it’s most likely that this will go away once I’m not pregnant anymore.

I have decided not to go into the bad news, because most of it shouldn’t be relevant. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to keep this under control and that everyone will come out healthy and happy at the end. If nothing else, this will force us to be a little more aware of how we’re composing meals and what the ramifications of our lazy takeout nights are.

My step-mother Carol pointed out recently that I hadn’t posted pictures in a while. I have a few “belly pictures” from the last month or so. Yesterday, we decided to take this show on the road. We went to a place in Austin called Graffiti Park and took a few photos. Plus, as seen above, we couldn’t resist taking a photo in front of the “Greetings from Austin” painting that graces all the tourist literature.

August 20, 22-23 weeks

September 9, 25-26 weeks

Graffiti Park – October 6, 29-30 weeks

Graffiti Park – October 6th, 29-30 weeks

It should come as no surprise to anyone that knows us that food is an important part of our lives. I love to cook, and we both love to eat. It would make me happy if we could raise a kid who was willing to eat lots of different things and also understood that not all her food comes in pre-packaged, highly processed form. In an effort to educate myself on how that might be accomplished, I recently read French Kids Eat Everything, by Karen Le Billon.

It is not my intention to write a full review of this book. Instead, I’d like to make note of some of the things I found interesting.

In this book, Le Billon proposes 10 food rules that are meant to help raise happy, healthy eaters. Some of these seem like they might be good advice for the rest of us as well. The need to offer a variety of foods and cook whole foods as much as possible has already been on my mind.

One thing I found interesting though is that the French believe that teaching a kid how to eat is as important as teaching grammar or math. They consider it the parents’ job to ensure that their child knows how to eat properly. The parents, not the kids, are in charge of deciding what will be eaten and when, and contrary to what seems to be the norm these days, snacking is kept to a minimum or eliminated altogether. It’s okay to feel hungry between meals; it helps kids to learn to listen to their bodies, to understand when they need food and when they do not.

Early in their budding eating careers, kids are offered a variety of foods, to the point of having pureed “soups” thinned and served in their bottles. If something is pushed away a time or two, the parents simply keep offering the foods noting that the child just hasn’t tasted it enough to like it yet. They’re training their children’s palates. I personally don’t know if I will have the patience for that, but it’s an interesting notion regardless.

Offering treats as a reward or withholding food as punishment is simply not done. Eating is not to be considered an emotional affair. Meals have a logical progression: first the salad, then the main course, then the dessert. Instead of threatening to not serve dessert to convince a kid to eat his vegetables, it’s simply not possible to serve dessert till through with the main course.

Families eat together in France, and they converse at the table, generally taking their time to get through a meal. Food is not mere fuel. It is enjoyed and discussed, lingered over. Le Billon points out that it’s not just eating that the kids who share a meal with grown-ups are learning, it’s also the art of conversation, what the news of the day is, how to disagree without being offensive, how to be polite. They’re learning to enjoy the meal. Also, taking things slowly and savoring their food allows them time to realize they’re full before they’re completely, gluttonously stuffed.

I want to try some of these things out and see if we can raise our kid to be a good eater. Those who are already parents are probably laughing at me right now, and I’m sure I’ll learn the hard way that she may sometimes have a stronger will than I do. For now though, I’m going to stick with the notion that we are in charge of making sure she learns how to eat well. We’ll just see how it goes.

Sean and I have been together long enough to have known many firsts together. Of course, there are the standards: first date, first kiss, first time we met each other’s parents. Then there are the April-Sean specific things: first time we networked our computers, first time we adopted a cat, first time we cured our own bacon. And there are all those scary grown-up firsts: first real jobs, first car we had to secure a loan to pay for, first house. And again, we’re embarking on a new experience – our first kid.

For those who don’t already know, we’re having a girl. She’s due to arrive on December 19th. Neither of us had much interest in trying to time pregnancy in any particular way, and it seemed to work out ok. I’m very happy that I don’t have to deal with the third trimester unpleasantness at the same time we’re dealing with the summer in Texas unpleasantness. However, we’re both anticipating that she’ll be about 6 days late so that everyone who’s interacting with me while I’m all vulnerable and in labor will be super pissed that they’re working on Christmas.

I’m now convinced that there’s no such thing as an easy pregnancy. That said, I’ve been pretty lucky so far. Yeah, I was queasy and more tired that I’d have believed possible through the second half of the first trimester, but I never actually vomited, so it could be worse. My boobs ached something fierce until maybe a few weeks ago. I didn’t really have any heartburn till maybe around 19 weeks, and now it seems the heartburn and reflux are making up for lost time. The round ligament pain has been intermittently crappy, but that’s all to be expected. Really, the worst thing for me has been the limitations on my diet, and if that’s what I’m complaining about, it really isn’t all that bad.

As of today we’re somewhere between 22 and 23 weeks along, which means I’m solidly pregnant-looking at this point. Several of our out of town family and friends have requested pregnant-April photos, so here you go.

The blue jeans apparatus hasn’t worked in quite a while. This picture was taken on June 22nd, and I don’t think it held up much beyond that.

June 22, 14-15 weeks

Here are two photos of me in various stages of pregnancy. Apologies for the quality on the first one; it was just a quick iphone snapshot so my silly sister Rachel could see if I looked pregnant yet.

July 28, 19-20 weeks

For the second one, Sean tried a little harder. He promises to take more soon. I promise to try to be patient and let him.

I think we all know that I’m not the real show here though. Here are some of our ultrasound images. The first image is from our first appointment on May 9th where she was verified to be the right size to be at about 8 weeks gestation. The rest are from our 20 week appointment on July 31st, where we learned that all her parts are in the right places and that she’s a girl. At that appointment, they estimated that she weighed about 11 ounces, and her heart rate was about 150 bpm.

Somewhere around December, we’ll start experiencing a whole new batch of firsts. Hopefully, we’ll have the mental fortitude to document some of them here.