Rough Night

Sarah had probably one of her roughest nights as a pregnant woman last night.  Heartburn is one of those things they tell you about, but I assume pregnancy is different for everyone.  Last night Sarah woke up about 1am to a very unsettling acidic “experience”.  She tried a few different sleeping positions, but ultimately got up and went into the living room.

I came out a few seconds later to find her crying in a chair in our living room.  The baby class instructor told us just last week that many of the pregnant women in class would spend many nights in a recliner.  Well, we don’t have a recliner, so now what?

Sarah took a couple of Tums and ate some crackers and came back to bed.  We positioned no less than 6 pillows behind her and made our own recliner.  It must of worked, because she fell asleep.

Baby Classes

Well, now we are baby experts.  We have completed our first of four Baby Classes by Babyou.  The instructor is pretty good.  She has been a Registered Nurse for 20 years and is a mother of two.  I feel both are very important credentials.

Class meets every Tuesday from 7pm to 9pm at the hospital.  We were supposed to bring 2 pillows (1 for her and 1 for me) and a blanket.  Guess they want to show us how we got in this situation.  Sarah and I planned our arrival to get there about 5-10 minutes early.  We pulled into the parking lot and see another couple with pillows walking to the door.  Since neither of us really know where we are going, we hop out and follow them to the main entrance.  By the time we reach the front doors we’ve lost them…  We are greeted with another woman and her entourage on their way out.

The woman’s friend asks “Are you staying tonight?  Because they told us to go home!”  We answer “No.  We are just here for a class.”

As we walk down the hall, Sarah asks me if she looks like she is ready to deliver.

Sarah and I make it to class and discover there are 7 other pregnant women and 6 other partners.  The woman sitting next to me is alone.  As class starts we discover that we are not in the “normal” classroom and there isn’t enough room for the full-on breathing section and we don’t need our pillows or blankets.

What did I learn in baby school today?

• 10 centimeters is way bigger than it sounds!
• Breathing is harder than you think.
• Most new parents are as clueless as we are.
• We still don’t know anything…

My Baby has a Heart!

Sarah and I went to the doctors office again today for the first sonogram.  Sarah thinks we only got the appointment because she acted very worried at the doctors visit yesterday, but I think we may have gotten one anyway.  The technician did know that Sarah was worried, so maybe I’m wrong.

At the visit we discovered that our baby isn’t quite as far along as we thought.  Only 6 1/2 weeks.  That puts the new date on April 10th.

Mark your calendars now…

Baby Burton is .6 cm long and has a heartbeat of 124 beats per minute.  Right on track.

Kevin Nealon… a Super Dad?

I went to a techy trade show a few months ago and one of the presents was DadLabs. DadLabs is a company based here in Austin that produces videos on various dad subjects such as pregnancy, fatherhood, childcare, wifes and so on. Here is recent video they produced with Kevin Nealon.

Bouncing Baby Blueberry

If you have never read one of the What To Expect When You’re Expecting books, then you may not be familiar with how they compare your baby to various pieces of fruit. It makes sense, because most fruits have a fairly defined size, but week after week it gets a little weird and kind of makes me a little hungry. According the book, on week 7 Baby Burton is the size of a blueberry.

What other fruits can we look forward to?

• Week 8 we can expect a raspberry
• Week 9 we are looking at a green olive
• Week 10 is a prune
• Week 12 we have a plum
• Week 13 there is a peach sized baby

Yummie!

I remember a dream Karen, Sarah’s mother, told us she had while she was pregnant with Sarah. She dreamt that she had a little baby potato. The potato had little fuzzy hair, eyes and mouth. Kinda like Mr. Potato head I guess. She must have had the dream around week 19 or 20…

A blog is born!

I don’t really know how to start this, so I am just going to start writing and see what happens…

This is the true first Baby Burton Blog post.  I plan to “go back in time” and post everything that has happened the past week on (or close to) the day each occurred.

As you may have figured out, I am the proud Dad to be of Baby Burton!!! I learned this news about 1 week ago and it has consumed nearly all of my thoughts since.  I suppose I wanted to start this blog for several reasons:

1. I am just so excited and wanted to express it
2. A way to feel like I am contributing (Sarah, you deliver the baby and don’t worry about the blog, I have it under control.)
3. Something to look back on and say “ahhh” down the road

I don’t expect anyone to find this or the blog to gain any subscribers, but if you do, please leave a comment!

Footsies

Ducky outfit with footies

We have just purchased our first Baby thing… a tiny little white onesy covered in duckies with footies. Did I spell onesy, duckies or footies right? I see a whole new vocabulary opening up for me.

After the fiasco at Babys-R-Us, we thought we would try again at a less scary shop, Carter’s. Carter’s is located in the outlet mall in Round Rock, so it isn’t too far away. The only time I have ever been in the store was to look for baby shower gifts or baby birthday gifts. The store mostly has clothes which is both good and bad when you are trying to buy something for a baby that is 6 months from being born.

The good:

• No big ticket items like car seats to scare you away
• Close to home

The bad:

• Most of the clothing fashioned for either a boy or a girl and it is much to early to know that.
• Smaller sized store with less selection

After much deliberation, we finally went the yellow ducky outfit with footies. It was on the girl’s side of the store, but I think yellow ducky footies can be manly…

Car Seats Can Be Very Upsetting

We are so excited after finally telling someone about Baby Burton, so we decide to go to a baby store to have a look around. We have several stores to choose from in the area. We quickly narrow it down to three:

1. Target - very close, but just not baby specific enough
2. Carter’s – a bit further, but they really only have clothes
3. Babies-R-Us – furthest away, Baby Mecca

Calling Mike’s parents in Colorado with the news

Posted by Marilyn Burton:  Mike asked me to write on his blog to tell about when he told us the news:  I received a call from Mike on August 1st asking when we would be coming to Texas next.  I told him that we would come for Christmas and asked if we could stay with them.  I mentioned that although Jonathan and Lacey were better located between everyone and had a back yard for the dogs, we didn’t want to kick Jonny out of his bed since Mike and Sarah had an unoccupied guest room.  Mike answered, “At least until April.”    Then he told me that Sarah was pregnant and the baby is due in April.  Roy was out fishing as usual, and I could hardly wait for him to come home to tell him the news.  I kept looking out of the window and when his car finally drove up, it was all I could do to keep from running outside to give him the news.  As he came in, I waited for him to put his things away so I could have his undivided attention.  Finally, I told him the news. Needless to say, he was as excited as I was!!

Mom and Dad… Guess What.

Okay, so it looks like we are 5-6 weeks along. This is way too early to start announcing our news from the hill tops, right? We have decided to wait until the customary 12 week mark to let everyone know about ‘Baby’. Well, we have to tell someone! Okay… just our parents. Maybe our brothers, Travis, Jon, and Joseph, too, but that’s it!

Now we have to decide who gets the news first. This is a big deal! Luckily, both of our parents are very understanding about this and my mom had taken her name of the running some time back to avoid any hurt feelings. Now we know who we tell first, but how? We decide to invite Sarah’s parents, Joe and Karen, to lunch the next day. Sarah makes the call and we invite them to one of our favorite restaurants, The German Restaurant in Walburg. They have no idea of what is about to happen!