Still Pregnant!

Well, little Miss Emily is taking her sweet time! We've been trying all the tricks in the book. I've eaten the eggplant parm, walked my butt off around the neighborhood, and ruined my stomach with some of the spiciest food I've ever eaten, but she's being stubborn. We've googled and googled, and asked friends for their input on ways to get labor started. I even had poor Fouad massaging pressure points on my feet that are supposed to start contractions. That just made me sleepy, and I had a great nap!

Well, tomorrow is the day! We'll get a call from the hospital sometime tomorrow afternoon and they will let us know when to head over to check in so that they can induce labor. The dogs are at my parents' house, and we're finishing up some last minute things like laundry tonight. Hopefully we'll have a baby by the end of the weekend! We're so excited!!!

An official update...

Tomorrow is Emily's due date, and we had a doctor's appointment today to check for any progress. Just like the last two weeks, Emily is just not ready yet. We did get to see her on an ultrasound, and they estimate she is measuring about 7 pounds 7 ounces. Everything looked good to wait for her arrival naturally, except that my blood pressure is a little high. I have another appointment tomorrow to check some labs and blood work, but if everything looks good they will wait to induce on Saturday night. If my blood pressure is still high, they may induce tomorrow. So, if nothing else, she'll be here by Sunday or Monday at latest! We're so excited!!!

We're also going to be going to Scalini's sometime this week to get the eggplant parmigiana. If you're not familiar with the legend of Scalini's eggplant parm, make sure you check it out here.

Mother's Day / Father's Day

Fouad and I did a mini-celebration for Mother's Day and Father's Day this year. For "Mommy-to-be" Day, Fouad surprised me with a morning at The Dinner A'Fare. What a great gift! We finally had time to go this weekend, and we spent about an hour an a half preparing twelve meals that go directly into our freezer. This was perfect for us with Emily coming soon! We'll be able to have the meals ready to go in the freezer when we need something quick. Great job Foo :-)

Here's a pic of me and Emily getting ready to prepare our meals:

For "Daddy-to-be" Day, I took Fouad out to dinner at Fogo de Chao. It was delicious, and Fouad is still drooling over it. I'm sure I'll have to take him back soon.

Showers galore!

Now that I've had a relaxing long weekend, I can catch you all up on a few things here on the blog. The first of which is long overdue. I've been so lucky to have friends, family, and coworkers to throw some fabulous showers for Emily! Here are the highlights:

First, my sorority sisters Anne, Katie, and Mary threw an adorable garden theme shower in May. They paid so much attention to every last detail - it was amazing! As I mentioned in the post about Emily's nursery, they made the beautiful wooden letters hanging over her crib, as well as the adorable growth chart on her wall. They're so crafty!  Here's a picture of their awesome food display - complete with chocolate fountain - yum!

Next, some of my coworkers at Access threw a shower for both me and Heidi, who was due only 3 weeks ahead of me. Heidi and I have worked closely together for the past 4 years, so it has been so fun to share these last months of pregnancy together. Here we are opening a few gifts:

In June, Fouad's cousins Amy and Nina and sister Nadine threw a shower for family and friends at Nina's house in Lawrenceville. We had such a fun time - even Fouad stuck around to help :-) We had so much fun playing games and talking!

Fouad and I are so lucky to have such amazing friends and family! Thanks to everyone for all the fun!

Who wants some watermelon?

Yes, that's right. Emily's now the size of a watermelon, so you can guess how I'm feeling right about now...HUGE!

Maternity Photo Shoot

The new picture on our blog is courtesy of our friend Laura at Chikadeez Photography. A few weeks ago, we met Laura out at McDaniel Farm Park in Duluth and had a blast taking pictures with her. You can read all about it on her blog. We had so much fun with her! She's so creative and laid back, and it really shows in her amazing work. The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Make sure to contact Laura if you are looking for a talented photographer in the Atlanta area.

Emily's Nursery

We've been working hard to get everything ready for little Emily's arrival. One of our most favorite projects has definitely been the nursery. We knew before I was even pregnant that the walls would be a neutral green color to allow us to easily decorate for a girl or boy. By just adding a few pink girly things, this room has become our favorite in the house :-)

Here's some pictures of our progress so far:

I love this wall decal that we got from Etsy.com and the adorable wooden letters were a gift from Mary, Anne, and Katie at our baby shower.

View towards her closet and the cute growth chart that Anne made!

Changing table and "Sugar & Spice" wall decal from Etsy.com

3D Ultrasound

We had our 3D ultrasound today and it was great! Emily had her foot in her face for all of it, but we still have some pretty cute pictures. Here's one of our favorites:

 

It looks like she has a little smile on her face! You can see the whole ultrasound video here for the next two weeks. Just go to the guest login and type in my email address. It's a little long, but it's worth it. She has the cutest little cheeks!

Here's another one, I couldn't resist:

A different view...

Here's the view from the top! I have to lean over to see my feet these days...

Grand Canyon

Fouad and I took a little weekend getaway to the Grand Canyon in March. We were looking for an easy weekend trip to take before Emily gets here (and before my travel schedule gets crazy in April & May) and this was perfect! We flew into Phoenix and drove up through the beautiful red rocks of Sedona:

Then we were off to the Grand Canyon!

Fouad got me a Flip video camera for our anniversary, and this was our first chance to try it out. Enjoy my video of Fouad at the Grand Canyon here :-)

Bumpin!

Check out this baby bump - whoa mama!

Blog update coming soon...

I promise! I've been busy at work, Foo has been busy at work, we've both been traveling with work, and we managed to squeeze in a little weekend getaway last weekend. I've got lots to update, and I will soon!!!

PS ~ Emily (yes, that's her name in case you haven't already heard...) is already the size of an EGGPLANT! Way to go Em! Obviously, this means I also need to upload some baby bump pics. Coming soon!!!

Sugar and spice, and everything nice...

We're so excited about our little girl! We had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday, and little miss Jomaa was being very stubborn, but the tech finally confirmed that we were having a girl. Fouad and I couldn't be more thrilled. Poor Fouad is outnumbered (especially when you include our two girl dogs), but I don't think he'd have it any other way :-)

Baby girl is doing great, very healthy and growing just as she should. We have a busy couple of months coming up with lots of travel at work - let's hope she's up for it!

February 25th

That will be the date we will find out if Baby J is a boy or girl! Only three more weeks!

Boy or Girl?

So we still have a few weeks left until find out the gender of Baby J, and we're dying to know either way! We've been looking at lots of things online to predict the sex - and some of them are pretty funny!



Here are the old wives tales and other indicators we've seen so far:

• Cravings - I have been craving sour things (pickles, lemonade, etc) and many say that means it will be a boy. Some say that craving citrus (hello lemons!) means you're having a girl.


• Chinese Gender Predictor - According to this chart at TheBump.com, I will be having a boy.


• I've had two dreams so far that the baby is a girl, no boy dreams so far. Some of the old wives tales indicate that if you dream of one gender, you will have the opposite.


• My skin has started to break out (lovely) - which indicates a girl according to old wives tales.


• Extreme nausea means you're having a girl - I wouldn't say that it was extreme...so we'll go for boy on this one.


• If you're more clumsy than normal - expect a boy. What's normal? I'm pretty clumsy!


• Dangle a chain with a charm on the end over your palm (some say belly). If it swings side to side, it's a boy; in a circle it's a girl. It was sort of a side-to-side circle...girl?

So what do you think? Vote in the poll to the right - it will be fun to see what the consensus is!

I have great coworkers!

Look what was waiting for me in my office this morning! I have some reading to do, and I'm excited! :-)

An avocado?!?!?!

Holy guacamole! Baby J is already the size of an AVOCADO! Speaking of which...guacamole sounds really delicious. Mexican food for dinner anyone?

Telling the Families

Since this was the first baby that either of our families have had this generation, we wanted to make telling everyone a big deal. We were going to spend half of Thanksgiving with her family and half with mine, and everyone was going to be there, so we decided that would be the right time to tell everyone the news.

Amanda came up with a really good way to tell both of our families. Before we went to see Amanda's parents, we Skyped my mom and dad in Lebanon. After chatting for awhile, we casually asked them what they were doing on July 13 next year, and then told them the news. After a look of shock, my mom said "For serious!?! For honest?!?!" Silly foreigners...

Then, we went to Amanda's house. We had told them we were bringing the cake for Amanda's grandmother's 90th birthday. When we got there, we had 2 cakes and we told them they gave us an extra one for some reason. On top of the 2nd cake, we had them write, "A little surprise will be here on July 13, 2010" (They actually wrote 2013, and had to change it when we picked it up. Really, Publix? Really?) Her parents were really excited and told everyone that came over, even people that we'd never met before!

After Amanda's house, we went over to my cousin Nina's house. We waited until after dinner to tell everyone. We told everyone that we wanted to get a picture of all of the cousins together and that Amanda was going to take the picture. She practically had to fight people that kept telling her to get in the picture, and let them take the picture instead. Actually, instead of a picture, she took a video and at that second we told them the news. Watch the video below a couple times and each time watch a different person's reaction (Mohamad's great, Nadine too). Enjoy!

Funny things people say...

So, now that we've officially told the world that I'm pregnant, it's funny that everyone has advice or comments on EVERYTHING. Everyone has been really excited and happy for us, but it's crazy that everyone now monitors what I eat and drink, if I'm exercising or sleeping enough, how stressed I am, etc.

I had a piece of chocolate the other day and a coworker asked if I am watching what I eat, if I was craving chocolate, and did I know that chocolate has caffeine and I need to watch my caffeine intake. It's cute that everyone is so concerned - but holy cow!

I have also heard almost everyone's birth stories - even from some of the men telling me about their wives. Nothing has freaked me out too much yet - but it's hilarious and adorable that everyone is so willing to share. I'm sure this is just the beginning...

My favorite comment so far..."This is none of my business...but was this a surprise?"

It's official - my contraception methods are now everyone's business. Yippee.

We're having a baby!

Little baby Jomaa will be here around July 13, 2010. We could not be more excited!!!

I'm only 13 weeks along, so we don't know the gender yet and we won't find out until week 20 (what a looong time to wait!). We'll keep you posted...

In the meantime, you can follow along here to find out everything about how "Baby J" is doing and how the parents-to-be are coping, along with the size of our little guy or girl with the tool to the right. Can you believe he/she is already the size of a peach?