I told you our house was a fertile place to live!

So many updates to share over the past 24 hours, so prepare for a long post. If you're not up for it, here's a quick rundown.

1. The baby is fine. Heartrate at 158 (with the doppler, no ultrasound), I gained 1 pound.

2. David totaled his car. Oh Goody.

3. The noises in our attic were not mice, but rather a mommy raccoon and her babies. I told you our house was fertile--baby-making karma EVERYWHERE, even our attic.

4. We're taking a babymoon.

5. I'm 15 weeks pregnant and I feel good. McDonald's chicken mcnuggets are my friends.

So our appointment with Dr. Tucker went well. She was kind enough to wear her pink crocodile shoes again and we basically just chatted after they weighed me, took my blood pressure, found the heartbeat and I peed in a cup. We won't see Dr. Tucker until after she comes back from maternity leave, so we said our "good lucks" when we left today. I don't know why it was so different, but hearing the heartbeat made both David and I very emotional. The baby was on my left side today. How cool is that?!

So when it rains, it pours. I literally JUST had a long conversation with my Dad this week about how we would finagle getting a new car for when Baby Cute arrives. Dave's car is (was) on its last legs, but still running fine and we just put a bunch of money into it (not to mention $50 in gas). We decided to wait it out and save and seriously shop for a babymobile come August/September. That sounded great and fit into our plans.

I should know better than to make plans.

My car is in the shop after my unfortunate ice skating incident, so we're been sharing a car this week. David calls me yesterday and says, "Uh, you're going to have to get a ride home because I got into an accident and my car is DONE." It was a little rainy, Dave was a little distracted, someone stopped a little too fast on Saginaw and Dave skidded and rear-ended a Cavalier, effectively ripping off the grill of his car, smashing his hood and starting a free-flow of anti-freeze onto W. Saginaw in Lansing.

He's fine, I'm done crying about it, and let us all take a moment and thank God for my co-worker Francie. She just happens to keep a beater car in her driveway and was kind enough to take me to her house after work yesterday, give me the keys and tell me to keep it as long as we needed. What an amazing blessing! Now mind you, Francie's "beater" is nicer than a lot of the cars I drove before my Bonneville, so I am not at all put out by a 1999 Ford Explorer with a totally functional radio and 99,000 miles on it. We get my car back today, so all is well. We've decided to just be a one-car family and make it work. Worst-case scenario, Dave takes the bus to work, which is a 3-block walk from our house. Hooray for CATA (the Capital Area Transportation Authority). After we get our baby savings in place, we'll start car-saving instead of debt-paying and work a little of "Joe's Used Car Lot Magic" come end of summer/early fall.

Cute, huh? Oooooooh no!

Ok, on to babies. We heard rustling and some odd animal sounds for the past few weeks, and we were pretty sure it was mice. Most houses built in 1918 have mice, so we didn't feel that special. Well, the sounds got louder, the light in the nursery flickered every once in a while and I pretty much flipped out about it last week. (Pregnancy hormones, I'm sure) So the Critter Control guy came today, checked out our roof and found a spot in our furnace fan where a shoddy patch job with some wire had been pushed in. He poked his head up into our attic, shined his flashlight and BAM--Mommy Raccoon! So several hundred dollars later, there is a trap on our roof and once Mommy is taken care of, he will remove the babies by hand. I'm just glad there is an answer to this and I am not crazy. Hopefully we caught it early enough that there isn't too much raccoon POO in my attic. Ugh. Critter Dude says the rest of our house is sealed very well, and we should have no problems after he puts up a new device over the furnace fan.

Juliette Gordon Low is the founder of the Girl Scouts and one of my heroes. She was not easy on the eyes, but she had sass and tenacity coming out of her ears.

So while we're hemorrhaging money, we figured we would plan the babymoon we are pretty committed to taking before Baby Cute arrives. Dave's only cousin on his Dad's side is Bradley (I giggle because Dave's middle name is Milton and his cousin's name is Bradley. HA!). Bradley manages a fabulous hotel in Charleston called the Planters Inn. My "list of things to do before we have a baby" includes seeing the Juliette Gordon Lowe birthplace in Savannah and wading in the Atlantic Ocean and eating at Paula Deen's restaurant. David talked to Bradley this week and he is THRILLED about us coming to visit. This is great news, as he is also happy to have us stay with him. This makes the trip much more affordable and I already got a great deal on a rental car for Memorial Day weekend. So we're going! Right now it looks like we'll travel on Thursday, May 24, do Charleston Friday/Saturday/Sunday, head to Savannah on Sunday and stay in a lovely hotel downtown, imitate a Southern Belle and Gentleman on Monday, stay with Brad on Monday night and travel home on Tuesday. This eats up three hard-earned vacation days, but I think it will be worth it. It's something to look forward to, and the kind of adventure David and I like to take.

Oh Paula Deen, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Here are my 15-week updates. Are you still there? Whew! This is a long one.

From Baby Center:
At around 4 inches long, crown to rump, your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 ounces. He's busy inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which will help the air sacs in his lungs develop. Sweat glands are appearing, and although his eyelids are fused shut, he can sense light. If you were to shine a flashlight at your tummy, he'd most likely move away from the beam. If you're scheduled for an ultrasound in the coming weeks (most women have one between 16 and 20 weeks), you may be able to find out whether your baby's a boy or a girl !

About my pregnancy: Why do I feel so much better than I did in my first trimester? The rate of increase in the hormone thought to play a role in pregnancy-related nausea, called beta HCG, starts to taper off somewhere after the tenth week, according to Dr. Gil Gross, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis. As the levels of this pregnancy hormone plateau, nausea generally subsides and you start to feel noticeably better. Additionally, in the first few months of pregnancy, all your hormone levels are skyrocketing, which leaves many women feeling off-kilter and nauseated. Now that you're hitting the second trimester of pregnancy, those hormone levels start to stabilize, allowing you a respite of a few months before third trimester aches and complaints kick in.

From Baby Gaga:
Your nearly four-inch long gymnast is happily mobile inside your womb, and if you're really lucky, you’ll notice a point when your sneezing, coughing or laughing results in a little kick here or a poke there-- although many women don't feel anything until the 17th week or later. Although the poking and kicking isn't very charming during sleeping hours, it’s a good sign as it means your baby is actually reacting to outside events! (Yay! You’ve got yourself one active healthy baby!) Their little elbows and knees are bending more freely this week and their little legs are finally growing longer than their arms and getting them all pumped up for prenatal Richard Simmons. Many of their major organ systems are increasing in capacity—particularly that amazing tiny heart and complex circulation system, which is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood per day, and will increase to a very impressive 200 quarts per day by the end of the pregnancy. As far as hair goes, we’ve got some new scalp patterns beginning to develop on the head, although actual head hair is not yet present.