The Final Countdown

Jordan and I (okay, just I) saw this great web series that Whitney Port (of The Hills fame) did during her pregnancy called "I Love My Baby But I Hate My Pregnancy." Each week, she did an update about kind of a "real girl's pregnancy," with all the yucky stuff no one likes to talk about but everyone experiences. 

I haven't had as rough a time as Whitney Port, but I did love the idea of documenting a little bit of this process in an honest way because it's so special and once-in-a-lifetime. I love looking back on old photos and video, so more for Jord and me than for anything, I thought it would be fun to have some tape of these last 10 weeks. 

Here's installment one, where he and I talk about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of this process. If you've ever had kids, I'm sure you can relate to lots of this - because, let's be honest, pregnancy is all of those things.

Also, somehow we end up talking about comic books. And the time I tooted on Jordan's foot. 

Hope you enjoy this early morning, no-makeup look! (The lighting gets better, I promise.) 

Yellow, The Space Between, and Landslide are copyrighted by Rockabye Baby! and are not my property. 

An Ode to My Husband, The Dad-to-Be.

Yesterday, while the storms were rolling into Asheville and plummeting the temps to 50 degrees (heavenly!!), I sat on the porch and did a journaling exercise from a pregnancy book I intended to use from month one, but...forgot about. Oops. 

Anyway, the exercise was to list all my favorite qualities about my partner, and to think about how those qualities will translate into him being a parent. It also asked what qualities he will balance about ME, so that I can go ahead and start thinking about the things Jordan will be better at than I will/vice versa as a parent.  

So here's the excerpt from my journal yesterday. 

When teaching someone a new skill, he’s very patient. 
He is thorough (almost to a fault) and completes a task to the best of his ability.
He values excellence and craftsmanship over quantity.
He values family and moral uprightness over worldliness and wealth.
He is a dutiful son and sibling, and cares deeply for his family.
He is an incredibly loving and loyal son- and brother-in-law, and has become a part of the McAnnally family in a really special way.
He loves to learn and values information. He is always hungry for more knowledge.
He isn’t idle and loves to do things outside or in the woodshop - project-based.
He cultivates appreciation for new things (like cooking and baking).
He is SUPER intelligent and retains information at a high level.
He is kind and giving to people, animals who are vulnerable and can’t help themselves.
He is fun and silly and doesn’t take himself too seriously.
He is EXTREMELY witty and quick, and is always making people laugh.
He loves to play instruments and learn new songs.
He is proud and private about things that ought to be private.
He is very honorable and is a man of his word - if he promises something, he follows through.
He loves Jesus.

I'm jumping into into that third trimester (what?!) next week! So we're 2/3 of the day through this adventure, and it's impossible to overstate the difference having a supportive, loving partner who also has a great sense of humor (thank God) in the bucket seat has made. 

Yesterday, our crib was delivered. We've been piling furniture, books, and baby clothes we've been gifted into the soon-to-be nursery for months now, but the delivery of the crib was the thing that, for both of us, made this all start to click into focus in a new way. 

There's going to be an actual BABY in there. 

So I stood at the door of the nursery, sneakily snapping out-of-focus photos of my precious husband, taking stock of this empty (for now) crib. 

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And I know this baby doesn't know it yet, but it won the freaking lottery. I did a good job choosing a husband, but this little one just lucked into having a dad who will be...all the things. I tried to list them out just now and just started crying, so insert your own. Any good adjective, just throw it on in there. 

Kid, you've got a hell of a dad. 

(Mary Catherine reserves the right to pen another one of these cheesy posts as the pregnancy progresses. This is just how things are right now, people. Don't come to our house if you don't wanna get covered in gooey feelings, 'cause they're contagious.) 

My Baby Stole My Brain.

...and won't give it back. 

You know those Life Alert commercials? 

Mmhmm. YOU know which ones I mean. 

That is the current state of my brain. There are lots of things about pregnancy I thought people played up/were kind of myths (more on that in tomorrow's post), but one of them is "pregnancy brain." 

Yeah right, I thought, arrogantly. These chicks are just being lazy and don't want to try anymore because they're cookin' a baby. Can't blame them, but let's not act like the forgetfulness can't be helped. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, pre-pregnancy Mary Catherine. How foolish you were. You simple idiot.

I'd like to offer a few pieces of anecdotal evidence that Pregnancy Brain is, in fact, a thing. For your consideration: 

1. The Pants

Jordan bought (well, I bought) some things from J Crew. In the stack, there were two pairs of shorts that he didn't care for. He asked me to exchange them for a different color pair of shorts and a pair of slacks. These items have been sitting on a stool in our bedroom for probably 8 weeks now, and I finally got around to doing it this week. 

I took said items to the store to exchange, only to realize that I couldn't remember his pant size. Like, at all. It was gone. It was nowhere in the system from when I worked there, so my trip was fruitless and I had to go home, look in his other pants, get the size, and go back in. It's a 32/32 by the way, which really means I only had to remember the one number, twice. 

That one sounds mild, does it? Could've happened to anyone, you're thinking? Stay with me. 

2. The car keys. 

I recently got a new car. If you know me personally, this is a Big Deal as I have been driving the same car since my sophomore year of college (meaning almost a decade). My car had started to really die out on me - the AC was faulty, the radio didn't work, and, in its death rattle, the starter began acting up. 

One fateful Saturday morning after I'd taught Pure Barre, I got into the car only to find that it wouldn't turn over. Jordan had to come get me, and since we'd already made plans to go look at cars the next day, we decided to leave the car where it was and get it the next day. 

When we arrived at the car, neither of us could find the keys. Where had we put them? we both wondered. We couldn't figure it out, so we went on to the dealership and made plans to deal with the lost keys later. 

The next day, I made it my personal mission to find the keys. I turned the entire house upside down. Searched through our laundry, every nook and corner, and dug through Jordan's Jeep - nothing. COMPLETE mystery.

"Did you check your pockets?" my mother asked by phone. YES, MOM, I CHECKED MY POCKETS. Come on, girl. I felt like Parker Posey in Best In Show when the hotel manager suggests she look under the bed (anyone? anyone??) for her dog's lost toy. #busybee

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So eventually, we bought another car and traded my current car in. Despite the fact that it was still in the Pure Barre parking lot. Locked. 

The only thing either of us could think of was that I'd locked the keys in the car that morning. So we called AAA. I'm sure this poor guy thought that we were about to hot wire this car given that he unlocked it and we were still unable to locate the keys and/or start the car. He drove away, but he looked dubious. 

Jordan had to go to work, so I stayed to clean out the car. Not knowing that the last time I drove the car would be the ACTUAL last time I drove the car, I'd made no effort to tidy it up. It's not important to the story, though it might be entertaining to include that inside the car, I found the following items that I did not know were there: 

  • An extra key fob (still not able to start the car, but at least we could unlock it from the outside!) 
  • A highball glass 
  • A pair of Chanel sunglasses with one of the lenses missing 
  • A full, unopened bottle of wine 
  • A legal pad full of notes I'd been looking for
  • A perfume bottle 
  • Five pairs of Pure Barre sticky socks
  • An iPod shuffle 
  • Three cigars 

You get the point. If you found those items in a car, you'd be like, "So this is an alcoholic smoker who sometimes works out? Mmkay." 

Anyway, as I was cleaning out the ruins of my life, it started to rain. I pulled on my rain jacket and put my wallet in my pocket so that I could walk to Domino's and get a pizza to stress-eat by myself and...

...touched something. Metal. And clinky. 

The keys. They were in the pocket of the raincoat I'd been wearing that morning. Which means not only am I a moron, but MY MOTHER WAS RIGHT! 

3. The pound cake

Last week, I needed to make a pound cake as a thank you gift for a weekend trip we'd recently been gifted. I thought, "This will be a snap. I've done this a billion times." I FaceTime'd my mom, started chatting, and got to work. 

I laid all the ingredients out - eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla, lemon extract, Crisco (YEP. CRISCO. Deal with it.), etc. Started creaming everything together. Talking away, blah blah blah, got it done in a jiff, put it in the oven, and sat back to wait for the house to fill with that fabulous baking smell. I cleaned up all my ingredients, wiped my counters, and congratulated myself.

But it didn't smell fabulous. It didn't smell like anything except scrambled eggs cooking. 

I looked in on the cake and saw that it was sunken. This has happened to me before - I accidentally shut our back door too hard while baking once and it collapsed - so I thought, "Eh. Whatever. We'll see." 

Anyway, thirty minutes later, I looked in to find that the center of the cake was still completely raw. Odd I thought. I'll let it bake a little longer, I guess.

Twenty minutes later, the blackened scorch of failure wafted through the house. 

"What the HELL??" I said aloud to Tom Hanks. 

Turns out I forgot to put flour in the cake. Despite getting the flour out and setting it with the other ingredients and putting it back into the pantry with the other ingredients, it did not occur to me that I had not actually put the flour in the batter. So, I basically made custard, and then burned the custard. Then threw it away. Then went to the store and bought a cake. 

 

Friends, these are things that, despite my spazzy and oft-forgetful nature, would have NEVER HAPPENED had this baby not crawled into my brain stem, torn it in half, kidnapped my mind and held it hostage in my uterus. I can't even access normal thought anymore. I couldn't remember John Hughes' name the other day. JOHN FREAKING HUGHES, director of the 80's canon of classics such as The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. I can't remember anything about Jordan's work schedule. I asked a friend when she was due (she'd already had the baby). I asked a co-worker how her mother-in-law was doing who'd recently fallen ill (it was her father-in-law). I left the house without Tom Hanks to TAKE THE DOG TO THE PARK. 

I've surrendered to it. Whatever. This is my life now. 

"Oh, sweetie, it only gets worse," knowing moms say to me with a smile. 

That's cute, lady. Thanks for the looming reminder that I'll never be able to effectively bake/speak/interact with other humans normally again. 

Oooooo, this baby better be cute is all I'm sayin'. 

 

DNR - JTI: 17 Weeks Pregnant Edition

As always, credit for Do Not Respond - Just Take It goes to the brilliant and beautiful Mollie Erickson, whose blog can be found here. 

Dear Body, 
Hi. I'm sure you're like, "WHAT'S GOING ON MARY CATHERINE?!?!" Except really, you're not. You seem to know exactly what to do. You're gaining weight, you're growing a human being. But also, you are losing your balance and your mind and other weird stuff. I think my belly popped this morning but I can't be sure. How does one test these things? Anyway, keep up the good work and also what are you doing to me and also I'm sorry.  Do Not Respond - Just Take It. 

Dear Snoogle, 
You are a gift from the Lord. I never knew that a pregnancy body pillow could mean so much to me in such a short amount of time. We've become inseparably bonded to the point that Jordan is now jealous. Of me, to be clear - he wants his own Snoogle. Who can blame him? I work you into every conversation. See you tonight. DNR - JTI. 

Dear Friend from College, 
Sorry your wedding gift is so late.  I accidentally sent it to myself because I can't functionally think anymore. This is evidently a "thing," so I'm going to blame it on this sweet little parasite sucking the logic outta me. You'll get it, I promise. Or, if I get lazy enough, I may just keep it. I mean, it's a Le Creuset serving piece, it's pretty nice. I kinda want one. Stay tuned. DNR - JTI. 

Dear Jordan, 
God bless you. DNR - JTI. 

Dear Entire Bag of Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Chips, 
Bye! DNR - JTI. 

Dear Leg Hair, 
You and I have been locked in a battle of good and evil since I was about 12 years old. (To be clear, I'm good and you're evil and if you have a problem with that you can get your own blog). Prenatal vitamins, while helping my growing baby, also seem to have taken your side and joined the effort to ruin my life. But I won't be defeated. I will get rid of you every day until I can't see my legs anymore. STOP GROWING SO FAST OR ELSE. You've been warned. DNR - JTI. 

Dear Woman Working at Subway,
When I went in for a pizza, you looked at my belly, looked back up at me, looked at my belly again, and then asked if I was pregnant. "Yes," I said, "But that was a risky question." You said, "I was just trying to figure out if it was a boy or a girl." "Well?" I wondered. "A girl," you said, "because you're carrying low." 

FIRST OF ALL, WWaS, carrying low is not a compliment. It means you maybe didn't have a strong core before you got pregnant (or so I've read). I'm a fitness instructor, so I sure I hope I did. SECONDLY, you've got it backwards. Carrying low means you're having a boy, which is what I think I'm having, which makes you not only a bit impolite, but also wrong. You were the first person to acknowledge I looked pregnant and I am simultaneously offended by you and excited. I have a lot of feelings that don't make sense, okay? Please just make my veggie pizza and lemme get outta here before I buy that entire freaking case of cookies. 

Dear The Baby,
Please feel free to kick at me anytime. I really loved that. It was like you were saying, "HEY UP THERE! I'M IN HERE!" And it was magical and the best ever. You've gone radio silent for a few days, which I respect, because you're not trying to be an attention hog. You're makin' me wait. I like your style, but I also miss you, so...you know. Maybe just give me one whenever you feel like it. Love you. DNR - JTI. 

Telling Our Families

My dad has a phrase that he uses: "cheapening the moment." He it rolls out whenever my mom or I would pull a camera out at a sweet moment. 

Well, pops, I gotta say - I'm so thankful I cheapened the hell out of these moments. ;) Otherwise, we'd never get to watch these videos! 

I wanted to share the videos because they were such a fun part of our first pregnancy. Jordan and I are both the oldest children in our families, so this baby is not only the first grandchild on both sides, but the first great-grandchild for all of my grandparents (Jordan's grandmother already has plenty!). Telling our folks was a big deal.

It was really important to us to wait until we could see our families in person, since this was going to be such big news (and a total surprise - we hadn't told anyone that we were trying, including my mother, which was torturous). Because of that, we had to wait a few weeks (again, torture!!) to tell Jordan's parents, and almost a month to tell mine. 

We decided to come up with a cute plan to tell everyone, so since we were going to Jordan's family's house for Easter this year, I dreamed up a little scheme. 

I'd seen this idea a long time ago (blowing eggs, that is), so I thought it would be cute to blow out some eggs (which I posted on the blog!) and fill them with a little secret message inside. I then dyed the eggs with fingernail polish to give them a fun texture and color - also a little coded message using pink and blue!  

I rolled the messages up super tight and stuffed them into the holes at the bottom of the eggs. When we went to the Scotts' house, we waited until everyone had arrived, and said we had a little gift for everybody. 

Fun fact: Ryan, Jordan's younger brother, had literally JUST said, "This eggo is preggo!" about one of their pets (who is also pregnant - go figure). Of course, he happened to choose the egg that was filled with the "This eggo is preggo" note, so when you hear him say, "I just said that!" that's why. That's also why it took everyone so long to catch on, except Kaitlyn, who figured it out immediately. It took Jordan asking his dad, "What does yours say?" for everyone else to catch on. Hysterical and so perfect. 

Also, sorry in advance for the HORRIBLE videography in all of these videos. And the fact that this video turns sideways My bad. 

 

When it came to my family, we had to wait an extra grueling TWO WEEKS! My brother, Parker, is in a band that was playing in Birmingham, which was a rare treat for our family to all reunite. My parents live in Tulsa, we're in Asheville, and Parker is in Nashville, so it's really special when we all get together outside of holidays. 

My parents, Jordan, and I had planned to have dinner at our favorite Birmingham restaurant, Highlands Bar and Grill. Oddly, our family has celebrated lots of occasions there - birthdays, anniversaries - so it was fitting that this was the place we'd chosen to tell them. My aunt Dana, Mom's sister, lives in town, so I used her as a mole to help us execute our plan. 

I e-mailed her a picture of our very first sonogram (the kind that pretty much just looks like a spot) and had her take it to the restaurant to put into the wine list that our waiter would give my dad. I knew that they'd open the list and figure it out, and since Highlands is so special to our family, it seemed like the perfect moment. 

My heart was POUNDING as we stood at the bar (I had to fake a headache and order just a water, but no one caught on) waiting for our table. As soon as we sat down, the waiter handed my dad the wine list. It was too quick for me to tape it, so I missed his reaction, which was to close the list immediately and look at Jordan, saying, "Not really." Jordan confirmed that it was, indeed, true, but my mom and I were totally involved in our own conversation and she missed this completely. 

Being the smooth operator that he is, he passed my mother the menu, and you can hear the rest. Again, sorry for the blurriness - it clear up eventually! 

JOY JOY JOY JOY!!! 

Every time I watch that video, I find something new to love: Jordan saying, "Nine times nominated!" when my mom starts crying, the last time I was able to fit into those white jeans for a while...hehe! 

There you have it!! Such joyful, precious, totally surreal moments. We are blessed to have four sweet grandparents-to-be that have been super involved, supportive, and thrilled every step of the way along with us. This little canary (size approximation for this week) is one lucky babe. 

Happy Wednesday!