Some updates

So updates on things...

1. The bats are gone! Some guys came today and chased them out, then tacked up some mesh so they can't get back in. Yeah!!! No more squeaking, no more screeching, and no more poo.

2. The baby is doing well :) Little Baker certainly is a mover and shaker these days, and growing. My tummy keeps getting bigger and bigger, which is a fun and eye opening experience. Thankfully, Chris still things I look good despite the growth. We're 22 weeks now...only 16-18 to go.

3. My sister is going to be our doula. For those who think doula sounds like some kind of new coffee drink, it is in fact a birth coach. There's lots of reading and training involved, and its something she's wanted to do for awhile, and now she has a great excuse. I'm so excited to have her as part of our delivery, too.

4. The crib I bought several weeks ago is in the process of being refinished, on our front porch. I'm in the middle of sanding the thing down so that I can paint over the old finish. Its going from a light, honey colored to a dark, antiqued brown that should look AWESOME! Once that's done, the big items for the nursery are all taken care of. Cannot wait for the "little" things to fill it up.

5. We've finalized our boy/girl names for baby Baker, but we're not telling! That's Chris's idea, but I'll go with it. He went with us not finding out the sex, so I'll keep the names a secret for him. I will say that the first names both start with the same letter, and the middle names start with the same sound...and the names are pretty long. Poor thing is going to have trouble fitting his/her name in the boxes for standardized testing, just like I did. Katherine Marie Carringer is LONG! Katie Baker is much more manageable. I love the names we've settled on and can't wait to see which one works.

That's all I have time for now...work tomorrow and its getting late. I'll update more soon.

Hope everyone else has great things happening in their lives too!

Our Attic

When we first moved in our house in May, Chris noticed some "messes" in the attic but didn't think much of it since we didn't live in the attic and wouldn't need it for anything big. Then came the scratching and squeaking, which we tried to ignore, but it got to a point where we had to investigate. What we found was a small family of bats nesting in the corner of our attic, happily oblivious to the fact that they totally grossed us out. Of course, we let our landlord know and he brought us "bomber" to get rid of them, which didn't work at all. They are still up there, living, squeaking, pooping.

After a few more attempts via phone to get our landlord to do something, I gave up. I mean, they are in the attic, not in the living space in our house, and they don't bother us too bad. I guess we can have some sort of symbiosis with these creatures, as long as they stay THERE and not HERE, in my living room.

Then I got pregnant, and we needed some storage space. How about the attic? Oh, but the bats...

THE BATS! I'd kind of forgotten about them, until now. Now we will have a baby in the house. Now we need to put stuff up in the attic. Now I have a compromised immune system and don't want hystoplasmosis. Now I'm wondering if bat poop carries toxoplasmosis (I checked, and don't think so). But STILL!

So I called our landlord last night, asking him to return my call to discuss this ever present though sometimes unnoticed problem of bats in our attic. I'm done with "bombing" them...I want a professional in here to get rid of the bats and clean up after them, safely. If he refuses, then I'll ask to be let out of our lease so we can (gulp) move again. If he refuses again, then I'll threaten court.

Mama Katie isn't messing around any more.

Things you never thought you'd think...during pregnancy.

Pregnancy makes you a little crazy. At least, its made me crazy. Anyone else? I have these thoughts and internal dialogues that, when I stop to consider them, are truly strange and unique to pregnancy. For example...

1. At Kroger..."is it worse to puke in the baking aisle or in the meat cooler?"

2. At the doctor..."Oh good, there's a heart beat. So I haven't killed this baby yet."

3. Driving..."What if that driver suddenly swerves. Its not just me who's dead on the side of the road."

4. At the gym..."I bet these people are wondering why I look bigger every time I come here. Most everyone else usually start to shrink after several months of exercise."

5. On the couch..."I wonder if its bad to lay with my computer on my tummy. Does it emit dangerous gamma rays that could cause damage?"

6. At work..."Can my patient tell I'm pregnant in these scrubs, or does she think I just had one too many pies over the holidays?"

7. Everywhere..."If I don't eat something soon I'm going to kill someone." Also..."Where is my water. I need it, right now, now, now, now."

8. In Japan..."How do I tell a Japanese doctor that I have a raging yeast infection and am 19 weeks pregnant? Will my dad have to be my interpreter? Oh God, help me, this could be awful."

9. In front of the mirror..."So this is what its like to look like Pamela Anderson, from the neck down and waist up."

10. On Craigslist..."I wonder if anyone is selling breast pumps?"

11. In the bathroom..."Bran muffins are the shizzle."

12. In the kitchen..."What does the baby want for dinner?"

13. All the time..."What I wouldn't do for some wine and sushi." Then I opt for juice and toast. So not the same.

14. In the mornings..."I wonder if I'll ever stop gagging while brushing my teeth. Maybe one day it'll be normal again."

15. On the computer while registering at Target..."Why does baby bedding cost more than all my linens combined? I could buy an incredible bike (used) for that price. Or get that tooth crowned...or pay for this kid's first year at UNC."

There's some of my weird pregnancy thoughts. Feel free to add to the list.

Why nice people make my day

When you are pregnant and tired and nauseated, patience can run short. I'm not always the most patient, tolerant person anyway, but this new "condition" I find myself in makes things even worse. I'm have a harder time tolerating whining or people being slow and dragging their feet. It grates me even more when someone talks on and on and on about not a whole lot and I have to sit there taking it. I hate it when people make snarky, sarcastic comments that I know are kind of supposed to be funny but have a grain of truth within them. UUHHH! It drives me crazy. I don't like that my patience is so thin, and I don't like that its hard to be pleasant sometimes.

But I've found some brightness is my sea of impatience--a remedy to a shorter fuse.

Nice people.

Its amazing how freaking nice some people are. They are WAY nicer than me. Running into other people's niceness definitely makes me want to do better, be sweeter, and give more. It picks me up when I'm feeling grouchy. It makes me want to hug someone.

Let me recount some of the especially nice experiences that have happened recently.

1. Candace, my nurse friend at work, stood in for me during an epidural one morning at 5am after a long night shift, which means she did all the hard work while I just sat down. Thank you Candace!

2. My old friend Megan saw me in Target and immediately said congratulations on the baby and "I hope you feel better soon". She knew I was pregnant and sick b/c she saw it on facebook and remembered. So thoughtful!

3. While I was sick the last few weeks, scores of people texted me or facebooked me or messaged me with get well wishes. When you've laid in the same spot all day for 5 days, unable to breath out of both nostrils simultaneously and totally depressed after watching 2 seasons of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, those notes mean a lot.

4. My husband told me to get a massage. That's awesome. I'm going tomorrow morning. The anticipation alone relaxes me.

5. Sweet Lisa called me tonight, just to talk, on our way home from work. I love that.

6. My mom is giving me her rocking chair when the baby comes. It was the same one she used when I was born.

7. My former maternity clinical instructor hugged me today with such excitement when she saw my burgeoning belly. She's a midwife. She likes bellies.

8. A friend, who tends to be fairly private and guarded, opened up to me about some hard stuff she's going through. That's the kind of talking I like to listen to.

9. A coworker is bringing me prenatal yoga DVDs.

10. A friend from church gave me a huge bag full of maternity clothes. Yeah!!! Now I just have to grow into them.

11. My patient last week loved my haircut. Sometimes that's what a girl needs to hear.

12. Even though I'm getting bigger (and badder), Chris still thinks I'm pretty and tells me so very often.

13. My dad told me he's proud of me. It about made me cry.


Those are just the cake toppers to a laundry list of niceness oozing around me, and hopefully rubbing off. I need help, and I'm so thankful for friends who are more sweet and more patient than I am. Hopefully, one day, when I'm less hormonal and less exhausted, I'll be able to get back to my old self. Maybe it'll be second trimester? I sure hope so, as does everyone else around me too! I'll keep ya'll posted :)

What's happening during my 1st trimester

With only a few weeks left until I get to my 2nd trimester, I thought I'd give a quick recap of the last 11 weeks.

We'll start with physical changes. Where to begin...let's see.

Well, my waist has definitely expanded, which I knew would happened but am a little bummed it happened so quickly. It might because I had to eat pretty much all day to keep from puking for a few weeks. And a few times I ate an entire thing of hummus in one sitting, sometimes with my finger or a spoon when I ran out of crackers. It was just so good. As I ate it, I kept thinking of my friend Laurie once saying, "I could like, bathe in hummus." She was pregnant when she said that. Now I totally get what she meant.

My chest has dramatically increased, which I think explains the ever increasing numbers on the scale. My bras hardly fit and I keep "bumping" things accidentally with these things. A girl at work commented, "You will have to get used to your new body habitus," which means get used to growing because it won't stop for awhile. She said that after I totally boobed her in the locker room. We both had a good laugh over it. I'm hoping that my changing chest size will help off-set my growing waistline and booty.

I haven't gotten acne too bad, which some women complain about, but that's never been a big issue, even in high school. Thankfully something is staying the same.

My energy is starting to return, and even as I lay here with a terrible cold, I think I might have more energy this week that I did last week. Its been tough to feel so exhausted all the time, but supposedly that changes with the 2nd trimester.

Finally, the nausea is also starting to wain and my appetite is returning. Salad and cereal are finally sounding delicious instead of repulsive. Now, a few things sound good when I'm hungry, not just one thing. I still crave orange juice, and in fact, I'm waiting for Chris to get home from the store so I can have a glass. Man, that sounds so good.

Emotionally, I'm much more sensitive than before, if you can believe it. While I've also been pretty quick to cry, its about 10X what it used to me. Since being sick the past few days, I've had some time to catch up on upcoming movies on iMovie Trailers, and only cried at like, half of them. I cried during a movie trailor! Good grief. I can barely tell stories from work b/c they bring me to tears. My friend Jena Marie asked me why we weren't finding out the sex of our baby, and I cried recounting the moments when my patients who didn't know had their baby and discovered who and what it was. By the way, that's why we aren't finding out--b/c those are the best moments of my job, hands down. I want that. I cry thinking about our baby--who he or she will be, what they will love, how they will laugh...how Chris will be a wonderful father and teach our little one so much of living and loving and laughing, and shooting guns. Even now I'm tearing up. So we'll move along...

Spiritually, I'm learning more and more of being in God's presence and of prayer for life and endurance and for this new thing springing up within me. Never before have I been so afraid and curious and excited. When I'm afraid, He is faithful to remind me that He is good and near and knows. Though I'm not Catholic, I'm finding a weird peace in thinking of Mary, as she did this. She got bigger and felt tired and probably had weird food cravings, and possibly found satisfaction in hummus as well. Thankfully I don't have to ride a donkey during my 3rd trimester or give birth in a barn. I'm finding a new appreciation for the other mothers in scripture--I get their longing for a baby and also their excitement. I get why they dedicated their children to the service of God. I hope and pray our child will be as Hannah's little Samuel who heard God's voice and served Him faithfully. I'm knowing more of God's goodness in how my sweet husband has supported me and loved me despite my exhaustion and queasiness. He is so patient and kind and gracious and an example of God's grace to me.

So that's that for now. Things are moving along as they should. Our parents are asking about names and colors and showers, which is so fun. And honestly, that's what this should be. It should be fun. Its emotional and difficult and amazing--and fun.

So I peed on a stick and...

Yes, its official...we're having a baby! My eggo is preggo. There's a bun in the oven. A pea in the pod. I'm 100% knocked up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me tell you the whole story, for those who are interested.

Many of you know that I've had baby fever for almost a year now, which was the answer to many of my sweet husband's prayers as I wasn't so gung ho to have kids when we got married. The Lord definitely changed my heart, pretty rapidly, and gave me an intense desire to procreate.

Due to my contract at UNC, we wanted to "schedule" a baby around the time that contract was drawing to an end to allow some flexibility with work as a new mom. With my contract set to end in Sept of 2010, we figured on 3 months or so of trying, which meant getting pregnant in November or December and delivering in Aug or September next year. It was all planned so perfectly.

Little did we know that it would take far less than 3 months to get pregnant. In fact, by all calculations, it took about 3 weeks. Fertile Myrtle over here.

I knew pretty much right away that I was pregnant. I could just tell. I felt weird. By weird, I mean...well, weird. Chris thought I was just having hysterical pregnancy symptoms because I wanted a baby so bad, and we'd been watching Glee and that's what happened to Mrs. Schuster, but I kept saying, "I'm not like that crazy mean lady. I really think I'm pregnant!"

Man I love when I'm right.

So for a week, I peed on a stick every day, watching and waiting for that line to show up. For a few days, it remained blank or showed up as "not pregnant". Ugh! It was awful.

Then one day, a FAINT line appeared...I mean, I could just barely see it. But there was something. Chris didn't get excited yet. He wasn't convinced. I decided to try again in three days, but couldn't bear the suspense so I did a test every day up to day 3, when a pretty good solid line finally appeared to announce, PREGNANT! He finally believed me :) I wasn't hysterical!

That was 7 weeks ago, and now I'm 9 weeks along with a confirmed heartbeat by ultrasound. Everything looks good so far.






Unfortunately, I'm in the throws of early pregnancy and when I say throws, I mean throws. Nausea like I didn't know was possible, complete exhaustion to the point of pulling over and sleeping in my car, and a changing body that's freaking me out. So far, God is good and I haven't puked in public, which is one of my biggest fears. I have, however, fallen behind in housework, so pray for Chris as he has to pick up my slack and deal with me moping around feeling gross all the time.

I keep hearing it gets better, and today was a small glimpse into that as I felt OK for a few hours and actually got excited about food. Yeah! So we're 9 weeks down, hopefully about 30 to go.

For you praying people out there, we would love if you could pray for a happy, healthy little one and some wisdom for two very inexperienced parents. Thankfully we had great examples growing up and lots of friends to offer advice and hopefully some babysitting as well.

Finally, for those of you who were wondering, our plan so far is to not find out the sex, not tell the final name decisions, and have a natural labor and delivery at UNC, where I work.

So that's that. We're very excited about this new chapter in our lives and very thankful for what's to come.

And then a giant katydid landed on my face...

Oh the joys of camping. The friends, the fire, the food, the foliage...and the bugs.

This past weekend, we packed up 2 cars with 3 tents, 6 chairs, and 1 baby and headed out to Hanging Rock State Park for an overnighter in the woods. "We" were the Bakers, the Dagleys, and the Sius...they had the baby.

Our campsite was so pretty, and our venture up to Hanging Rock was spectacular. The leaves were changing and bright. The hike wasn't too crowded, and the view from the top--there weren't words. Storms were supposed to be rolling in, and the sky was a mixture of dark clouds and shimmering sun rays stealing through. Seriously beautiful stuff.

We got back to camp, and Ed started up the fire. He had that sucker blazing within minutes and we lazed around eating hobo packets and roasting marshmallows for smores. Katherine had the great idea of sticking pieces of chocolate in the melted marshmallows once it was on the cracker so it melted too. Oh buddy that was good.

Things were going well up to that point. The rain hadn't started falling, Caleb wasn't crying (he's the baby), and we were all loving camping. Then I noticed a little tap on my leg and saw a huge katydid just hanging out on my pants. When I say huge, I mean several inches long and fat and green--like a giant leaf with legs that flies erratically, and apparently liked my pants. I swiped it off gently, laughing at my new "friend". Then it came back, right back on my leg. Now, it was dark, and the only light we had was from the fire and our head lamps. However, when I felt that tap again, I knew that big old katydid. Just like before, I knocked him off, this time a little aggravated. Stupid bug, stay off my pants.

Not 2 minutes later did that giant bug return. This time, however, he didn't stake out ground on my pants. Instead, that sucker landed right on my face, just by my mouth. Holy crapoly. I could feel its feet gripping onto my skin. I could hear its big green leafy wings vibrating as it landed. Had I stuck out my tongue, I could have tasted it. Thankfully sticking out my tongue is not my general reaction to a huge bug on my face. No, my reaction is to emit a small shriek and do whatever it takes to get the bug off my face and on to somewhere else.

And that's what happened.

Oddly enough, the "somewhere else" was my pants, again. What in the world was happening? Why did this bug love me so?

I had just about had it with the bugs. No more laughing. No more gentle swipes off myself. No more Mrs. Nice-to-the-bugs-lady. Instead of flicking the thing off, this time I was much more diabolical.

I grabbed the bug by its tail and threw it, forcefully, into the blazing fire. And I watched it burn.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I spotted another one, making its way to my pants, or possibly my face, so I preemptively struck, grabbing its tail and slamming it into the fire as well.

By the end of the night, 4 katydids met their fate in the fire at our campsite. Not one more landed on me.

I thought I was in the clear.

But alas, this is not the end of my camping saga.

In the middle of the night, safe and snug in my tent with Chris by my side, I felt something on my leg. Katydid? Could there be a 5th one that made it into my tent? I grabbed whatever it was a flung it towards the door of our tent, that was solidly zipped shut, but there was no way I was holding on to that thing. Quickly finding a headlamp, I searched the area and found the culprit. Not a katydid this time. Possibly even more gross and definitely bigger. There, crawling around in our tent, was a giant centipede, probably 3 inches long. That is what was on my leg. That is what I flung at the tent door. That is what I ultimately threw with all my strength out the tent door and into the great wide open. Eeeeewwwww.

Of course, having woke up in the middle of the night, now I had to pee, and it was raining outside. After much debate, I ran outside quickly and popped a squat in the middle of the woods, praying for no bugs to attack me during this vulnerable time. God heard my prayers, and even stopped the rain.

I snuggled back in the tent with Chris, but only before thoroughly searching the sleeping bag for any new additions. Thankfully we were in the clear, and I slept a little more.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful...but I still can't believe a katydid landed on my face.