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It has arrived - the Third Trimester. I can't really believe it. I am both excited and stunned to be here. I realize I owe you a belly-picture and will try to get on it asap. (The pregnancy websites/books weren't kidding though, my belly really grows an additional 1/2 inch each week - it's a little crazy.)

I can tell the baby is starting to put a hurtin' on my body. I took Buddy (our "special" dog) on a 2 hour walk at Umstead Park yesterday. I was so proud of myself because I was going at a much quicker pace than we had gone the previous weekend . It was a gorgeous Fall day and Buddy was behaving himself nicely (for the most part). But the the back & hip aches that began last night & kept me awake until I finally took some Tylenol at 3:30 a.m. have brought me to the decision that hikes will be limited to a more reasonable time-frame from now on. I have yet to see another pregnant lady wandering through the trails of Umstead - maybe that should have been a clue to me?

In more exciting news, the nursery is officially "under construction" now! As I write this, Richard and Craig are painting the baby's room. It's really cute because I think Richie is very excited & proud to be working on his son's room. The baby's bathroom will be painted next and then an old dresser will be given a new life as a changing table. Yahoo!

And to clue you in on my current state of mind, one of the pregnancy sites for this week started with a quote that really sums it up: "Billions of people have children and figure it out. So I must be able to do it too, right? Right! Right?" Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I'm not freaking out, I swear. At least he'll have a bedroom :-)

And he shall be called...

Mack Kincaid Armstrong

Mack means "son," Kincaid means "battle leader," and Armstrong means "strong fighter." So watch out world. Also, a variation of Mack is the Native American name Machk, which means "bear." Oi vey. We may be setting ourselves up for a challenge. Kincaid is a family name on Richard's grandfather's side, so that's where the middle name comes from. Mack is just a name. And Armstrong...duh.

Richard came up with the name Mack and I immediately shot it down...after shooting down about a thousand other suggestions from him (Hamish, Abish, Thor...the list goes on). But somehow Mack started to grow on me and now it just makes sense. And I also decided that the obvious mean nicknames of Mack: Big Mac, Mac Truck, etc - are at least masculine nicknames...hopefully though little Mack (as I think of him) won't turn out to be a chunky tubster, hee hee.

I had no idea how hard it would be to pick a name for a baby until I was put in the position. It's a lot of pressure! And how are you supposed to name someone you haven't even met? But I feel pretty good about this name and unless he comes out looking like a "Julian" or something, we can't wait to meet our fighting bear son!

Pregnant Lady Crazy

I had my first "first-time-pregnancy" bothering of the doctors yesterday. I had a sharp pain in my lower-right abdomen all yesterday afternoon that was really killer. So by the time I was ready to leave work, I had worked myself into a worried-state-of-mind. Richard OK'd me to just run across the street to my midwives' office and see if someone there could see me (I can seriously walk to my provider's office in 30 seconds from my work, good for me - not so good for them). Now this is very un-Melanie-like, but I totally walked in there even though they were closed and a poor nurse who was still on site saw me. She was really really sweet, bless her heart. Took my blood pressure and temperature and told me to go home a put a hot water bottle on it and call them if it didn't feel better in a few hours. I felt pretty silly but I'm still glad I went by because I would have just come home and worried all night. The hot water bottle really did help and I feel perfectly fine today - gotta love the abdominal cramps, strains, and pains of being pregnant! I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

In other news - the Biscuit is developing all kinds of serious acrobatic moves. Now in addition to the big thumps & rampant flutterings, we have whale-like rolling somersaults that cross my entire belly. And the other day, I put my hand on my belly and felt a leg (or arm, or spine?) just hanging out below my ribs. As I poked at it, it slowly went away - I guess the Biscuit doesn't appreciate my pokes as much as I do his!

We are the Barking Spiders

Swim, bike, run has a whole new element of fun that was really lacking previously for me. This Saturday, I swam my first open water 1500m swim at the Pinehurst triathlon. My pregnant-belly began the race for our relay team that also consisted of crazy-guy Ed and his 50 lb-fright of a bike, and Lawrence's 1980's alter-ego. So the Biscuit had a water-adventure and the spectators at Pinehurst had a good chuckle.

The swim was a little foggy at first and when I got in the water with my wave, I had to ask which way we were supposed to be going:

But I made it through! After swimming a few extra meters while zig-zagging my way through the course and ping-ponging off and around the other swimmers, I feel my 30 minute swim was a decent showing for my (out-of-shape, never-swam-in-the-open-water-with-800-other-people, did-I-mention-I'm-pregnant) self.

Here's Ed, finishing the bike leg of the race (we were getting a little worried about Ed because he was gone over 1.5 hours - the chain came off 4 times and he had to readjust his bike seat; oh - and it was stuck in the big-gear so the up-hills must have been a real blast):

Ed's first words after finishing the bike, "That was stupid."

And for the crowning glory of our team (he was really the only one of us that laid down a respectable time), here's Lawrence coming down the finishing chute (that other dude doesn't know what hit him):

Here we are, the Barking Spiders, enjoying the victory of completion:

Oh, and Richard won the whole deal (he finished before our biker came back in to give you some perspective). It was a good day for us all! Richard is typically a long-course guy and this was a short-course race, so for him to win was a big deal since he was also out of his element (just like my relay team). He ran his fastest ever 10K and was running 5:57 min/miles - geez; and he tied the course bike record. This is me with the winner:

A big shout-out to Vicky for setting a new PR and to Martin for placing 2nd in his age-group, yay for our friends!!!! And special thanks to Craig and Megan for putting up with us all day and to Craig for taking these great photos during the race.

I really did enjoy my open-water swim, maybe after I'm back to my normal size (I know it's bound to happen!) I'll invest in a wet-suit and make it a habit of relay racing triathlons (since there's no way I'll be doing the whole thing myself!). I wonder if I'll still like open-water-swimming as much without the extra buoyancy provided by the baby-belly?