Reed Stewart Tuel

Some women dream about their wedding day from childhood. They picture the dress, the venue, the guests, the flowers, and the food all down to the last detail.

Their weddings dreams were my baby names. This gave me the false sense of calm going into baby name “negotiations”. I thought it would be a fun and exciting process… boy was I wrong. We quickly agreed on a girl’s name, but the boys name proved to be more difficult. Too bad we have no need for a girls name, yet.

Going into our vacation last week we were determined to settle on a name for our little jumping bean. After a couple days relaxing on the beach, Reed Stewart Tuel won out. Not only do I love the name, but it also honors both of our families. Reed is my mom’s maiden name and Stewart is Matt’s dads middle name.

How did Matt come around? He said the name Reed was growing on him and it sounded better than all the other names I had thrown out there ;) Strange enough, when I got home and checked my email, the name genie (a website that sends a name suggestion every day) had send an email on July 1st for Reid Robert. It was fate.

Our Mexican Jumping Bean has officially been upgraded to Reed Stewart - aka baby Reed.

Belly Business - 20 Weeks - Half Way There!

How far along: 20 weeks
Size of the baby: Length of a Banana (10.5 oz and 10 inches from head to heal)

Total weight gain/loss: I’ve been on the road all week (on a train from NY to CT now), so I haven’t had a chance to weigh myself. Plus we leave for San Diego/Cabo in two days, and I don’t want to see my new weight before I spend a week in a bikini.   
Maternity Clothes: Finally ordered some!! I’m still in my regular clothes, but I took all of the shopping advice I’ve received and made a couple bulk purchases online. Figured I should get some new clothes anyway for the trip, might as well be maternity. Or at least clothes I can wear during maternity. Only one problem… I don’t think they are going to get here in time… opps

Cravings: My cravings have really settled down. Back to normal eating habits and eating schedule. I think that is a good thing, but Matt told me I need to eat more to make sure his boy is big and strong. I think his exact words were “now that we are having a boy, you need to start eating more to fatten him up. I want a big strong baby boy.”

Symptoms: Nothing major. I really can’t complain. It has been an easy pregnancy so far. Let’s hope it keeps up!

Movement: Finally!!! This morning while I was waiting on a flight out of Dayton, OH I felt a kick!! Or punch. Then a couple more. Later, while I was in the NY office we were in the conference room and I had my hand on my stomach and felt it both from the inside and outside. It was amazing. It also has me wondering though. How do you go from nothing at all, to feeling him multiple times in the day. They were really strong “kicks” that seem to protrude right out of my stomach. Could it be something else? I have no idea what, but I am just super excited to feel him!

Gender predictions: No need to guess, it's a boy

Top Name: Still no movement on the name. Matt really can’t think of a single name that he loves. Although going through a name list the other day, these were a couple he wanted to think about: Conor, Shane and Galvin. Although just writing Galvin made me dislike it. Scratch that one off the list.

Let's be honest, my belly doesn't look that different from week to week. So I'll get some pics up from our trip this upcoming week and post those when we get back!

Wall Decals

My sister-in-law, Alex, introduced me to the newest design craze of wall decals just a few months back when decorating for Olivia’s nursery. Olivia’s room is precious with white birch trees set against a dark blue wall with white and yellow accents. I was inspired to go out and find my own design for our little jumping beans room.

I have recently felt like the internet is my enemy. It has way too much information and way too many choices. That is a whole blog in itself. Either way, I finally found one I loved on Etsy.com, but it was sold out. Just my luck. I searched the internet until I found a similar pattern on Amazon and went ahead and ordered it.

It only took a couple days to make it by mail and I was so excited to open up my new package. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I still liked the design but the color was blah (aka jet black other than the leaves) and it seemed kind of small. So I got creative. Matt was in Chicago this weekend with his brother and a couple of friends from home, so I had plenty of down time to work on my new project.

I still used the leaves from the wall decal I purchased, but the rest I hand painted. I think it turned out great!

Stage 1

Finished Product (although thinking of adding either another little boy swinging or a little girl)

Our dresser with changing topper from Pottery Barn Kids came in this past week as well. I’ll get better pictures up later, but the nursery is really coming along.

From 2 to 1

We finally did it! We traded in both of our cars for one.

It was such a hard decision. My car was paid off, but it also had 120,000 miles and was a hybrid. At this point if anything had broken it would have cost a fortune to fix. Matt’s car was a lease and limited on miles, so we couldn’t depend on just his car. Plus we purchased the Audi in Texas when we didn’t have to worry about all wheel drive, so it didn’t handle well in the snow and ice. But I don’t drive anymore. I travel for work most of the week and when I am not traveling I work from home. One week a month I work out of the Boston office, but I can easily catch a ride with a co-worker or take the T (subway). Other than work and weekend trips, we walk to everything.

                                                  

Having two cars was becoming more of a hassle than a necessity. We park on the street and there is street cleaning every other week. So you have to constantly worry about where the “extra” car was parked so it didn’t get towed. Is it parked correctly so that it doesn’t get ticketed. Even if you park in the right spot, there is the chance that someone get’s permits from the city for moving or something else and puts them out. If you don’t check your car every day to make sure there aren’t any permit signs out, you can get towed. Ahhh, living in the city.

So we made the decision, time to get one car that works for all of our needs and will work for life with baby. We landed on the 2011 Chevy Equinox in Mocha Steel and we couldn’t be happier with the new car!

Belly Business - 19 weeks

How far along: 19 weeks
Size of the baby: Mango (7 oz and 6 inches long)

Total weight gain/loss: 7 lbs gained - I finally pushed my weight over the dreaded 10 lb block. You know what I mean - when your weight toggles between x weight and y weight. You would be ecstatic if your weight went below a, but could never imagine if it went over b. b for some people is 120, 130, 140 etc. Well, I just pushed over my b :(  
Maternity Clothes: No maternity clothes yet, but only because I'm lazy and hate shopping. I am wearing what I can, but seriously need to do some online shopping this weekend. Especially for our San Diego/Cabo trip coming up in a week!

Cravings: Nothing in particular, but I am eating everything in sight. I seriously need to slow down and start cooking more frequently. It always seems to be harder to eat at home during the summer when you are always on the go.
Symptoms: Back Pains - I tried to get my OBGYN to "prescribe" a pregnancy chiropractor or something, but she just said I need to do some prenatal yoga.

Movement: Still waiting... Seriously... just waiting... any day now?... more waiting

Gender predictions: No need to guess, it's a boy

Top Name: I'm adding a new field. Since Matt and I can't seem to agree on a name, I thought this would be a fun field to share what our top name pick is - for the moment - it changes daily. Ryan Reed Tuel, the thought is we would call him Reed, but if he wanted to go by Ryan as he grows up he can and use Reed as a nickname.

 

It’s a boy!

What a great surprise. Of course all any parent wants is a healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes and we are no different. Boy or Girl I just feel blessed to be given the opportunity to be a mom and meet my little nugget. With that being said, I think both Matt and myself were secretly hoping for a little baby boy. But all the signs were pointing to girl: the baby has had a consistently high heart rate, I was craving fruit, I have a hard time stomaching meat, it has been an easy pregnancy and all the quizzes/tests have pointed to pink bows.

Today was the day to find out one way or another. We made it to the ultra sound office around 8:30AM, but of course they made us wait for nearly 45 minutes until the technician was ready. As she poked and prodded, she kept referencing the baby as “she”. I anxiously asked if she had seen something we hadn’t. She told me she wanted to make sure the baby was healthy before she would check the gender. MJB was squirming all over the place. Although the movement was much harder to detect now that he is bigger and took up more of the screen. Finally, she asked if we were ready to know the gender. She slowly moved the camera towards his bottom where he was sitting. She didn’t even have to confirm the sex. There was no question - MJB is a little baby BOY!

He is sitting down with legs on either side of his man parts.

I looked at Matt who was in total shock and a proud smile came over his face. He is excited to be a dad, but this was something different. All of the Tuel boys have had girls. It’s the family joke that out of four brother’s their wouldn’t be anyone to carry on the family name. Now, I’m sure there will be many more boys in the future, but for the moment Matt was basking in his ability to create a little baby boy Tuel to carry on the name.

Now it’s time to start thinking of a replacement name for MJB. This might be a tough one as we can’t seem to get on the same page with the boy names. We were set for a girl, but now it is back to the drawing board.

Belly Business - 18 weeks

How far along: 18 weeks
Size of the baby: Bell Pepper (7 oz and 5.5 inches long)

Total weight gain/loss: Weighed in at the Doctor's visit today, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I've gained 6 pounds from my first visit at 7 weeks.
Maternity Clothes: No maternity clothes yet, but I'm wearing a lot of dresses, using a rubber band at the waist and  sporting my Be Band every once in a while.
Cravings: Nothing in particular.
Symptoms: Back pains, swollen ankles and strange skin pigmentation - my skin doesn't tan as evenly as it used to. Guess I need to pay more attention when I apply my sunscreen :)
Movement: Still waiting and getting really anxious to be able to feel the little bean
Gender predictions: Until today we were 90% sure it was a girl... guess we were wrong, but that is for another entry