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Well, it was bound to happen. I just didn't think it would be this soon! Derek started day care just three weeks ago and over the weekend developed conjunctivitis, more commonly known as pink eye. Luckily we got him into urgent care and onto antibiotic eye drops before it progressed too badly. But the residual congestion, runny nose and cough is still taking a toll on the poor little guy.

Then there's mommy and daddy. This week I developed a sinus/throat infection that knocked me out with fevers, headaches, body aches, chills and a horrible sore throat. A round of antibiotics for me and I'm on the road to recovery.

Then this morning, daddy woke up with irritated eyes. He's got an appointment this afternoon to see if it's also pink eye. If it is, he'll also get antibiotics.

Total cost for this week's germ attack: $100 in doctor fees and $45 in medication.

Day care itself is costly enough. Now we are adding medical bills into our day care budget as well. But health is a mandatory expense. And we'll do everything we can to keep this family healthy!

I felt very overwhelmed when I wrote my last post -- but at least it was a start for me. I have been putting off any thoughts about day care because I didn't want to accept the fact that I will have to pay someone else to enjoy my baby all day. But the time has come. So I will chronicle our day care search on this blog in hopes of keeping things organized and clear for me, and also providing help to other parents in the same boat.

Today I took my first step toward finding day care: I entered "child care, Bakersfield, CA" into Google. I thought I was going to get a loooooooong list of places to start calling one by one. But lo and behold, one of the first entries was this:

Community Connection for Childcare

Today is my first day back at work after maternity leave. Luckily, my mother has come back to stay with us for a couple of months and watch the baby while I'm at work. Otherwise, I'd be crying my eyes out leaving him at a day care. I have been so depressed about day care, I have not even started researching local options. But since my mom can't live with us forever, now's the time to start looking. So do any of you parents out there have any day care places to recommend? How about any advice for looking for a good day care? Thanks for your help!

Derek is now three months old. I can't believe how time flies. I'm returning to work in less than three weeks! I have no idea how to prepare myself emotionally for this, so for now I'm just trying to enjoy every second with Derek.

My favorite part about being a mom is witnessing our son grow and change. Each day is full of surprises. He's now smiling, "talking," arching his back, putting weight on his feet to stand (with my help), able to entertain himself, sleeping 7-8 hours at night, playing with toys, and responding to being tickled. He stays alert on our walks on the river trail and watches me as I push the stroller. His favorite activity is getting a bath. He relaxes and sits quietly as I pour the warm water over him. Of course we then have to deal with the crying when bathtime is over. But all good things must come to an end. He also cries when he empties his bottle, so sad that it's all gone.

We have several play stations throughout the house, including the Kick 'N' Play seat with musical sensors and dangling toys and the "Jungle Gym" play mat with a rainforest canopy full of friends, music and lights. His attention span isn't too long, so we move around a lot.

The next goal is to help Derek learn to enjoy tummy time. He screams and cries when I put him on his tummy, even if he was just full of smiles seconds before. I'm at a loss for how to make it less stressful and more fun for him. I lay down with him, I prop him with the Boppy or a folded towel, I tuck his elbos under him, put my hand under his chest, and gently roll him over. I talk softly to him, sing to him, smile to him, nothing calms him down. He may skip crawling all together at this rate!

My mom is coming to stay with us for a little while when I go back to work so Derek doesn't have to go straight into daycare. This helps me feel a little better about returning to work, but I am still going to miss being a full-time mom terribly. It's going to kill me to put him in daycare ultimately. No one will care about Derek's needs or development like I do. And I hate the thought of paying someone else to enjoy my son all day. I fear missing his milestones, like when he finally enjoys tummy time or strings syllables into a "sentence" for the first time.

But for now I am just eating up every moment of my time with Derek. I love him so much!

Welcome to motherhood! It's been 10 days since our little bundle was born and I am only just now finding a few free moments to post to the blog!

Here are the stats: Derek Oliver Burger was born at 5:04 a.m. Nov. 4 (four minutes after polls opened on the east coast on election day). It certainly was a day of new hope! He came 17 days before his due date, weighed 6 lbs 12 oz and was 18.5 inches long. Labor lasted just seven hours. Not even time to even think about an epidural!

He is the sweetest, cutest, most perfect baby ever. (I know, every mother says that about her baby!)

Complications so far:

Short frenium made sucking difficult. Pediatrician clipped under his tongue and multiple visits with lactation consultants has helped us train him to breast feed, but it still takes four hands to help him latch correctly.

Less than adequate fluids due to the breast feeding issue elevated his bilirubin level and created a very yellow few days of jaundice. In-home phototherapy and two days of formula from the bottle brought the level back down. Of course, the bottle set us back on breastfeeding again, but we are overcoming it.

We made quite the mess with black ink when trying to do his handprints and footprints for the baby book. No advice on making this easier.

Successes so far:

Baby's first manicure included nail clipping and light filing. It's hard to clip those tiny nails, but my mom's suggestion of using the nail file worked very well.

His umbilical stump already fell off two days ago! He likes to be early for everything, it seems. Except mealtime. We usually have to wake him up to eat, and often he falls asleep at the bar. But boobs make such nice pillows!

My mom had the great idea of doing a little "autumn" photo shoot for the birth announcements. We took about 100 photos of Derek in a basket surrounded with leaves. Priceless!

I will write more as I have the time. I just wanted to get something up on this blog!

James and I went to our now weekly appointment with the OB this morning and learned that not only am I 1 cm dilated, my cervix is also 90 percent effaced. Which means I'm ripe to pop this boy out. But the doctor really surprised me when she said "The baby could be here in a week or two."

A week or two? My due date isn't until the 21st! I am supposed to work until the 14th! There's still so much to do!

Positive outcomes of an early arrival:

1) I can breath again! (The baby is really taking up a lot of space and I literally have to stand to eat if I want to breath at the same time.)

2) Our baby might be born on the same day as his cousin, who is also due in a week or two, give or take. (James' sister Julie is having a baby girl!)

3) Better chance of me being able to drink a beer while watching football on Thanksgiving. (I'll pump first, of course, so baby gets alcohol-free milk and Mommy can drink.)

4) We get to meet our son sooner!

Negative outcomes of an early arrival:

1) We aren't ready yet. But, then again, who ever is?

I'm actually quite excited to squeeze out Baby Boy. People are asking me, am I scared about anything? The truth is, not at all. Even though I've heard the horror stories -- and even watched a few on A Baby Story on TLC -- I'm not afraid of labor at all. It looks like fun to me! And my mom is staying with us, so I'm not scared about not knowing what to do. I mean, how hard is it to hold, feed, change and play with a baby? Bring it on, sonny boy!

For anyone who wants to follow along with the birth, I'll be Twittering via my cell phone from the hospital -- and passing off the phone to James when I can't text due to the whole pushing thing. Go to Twitter.com and search for the username "jenbaldwin."

As baby grows, I can definitely feel the fact he's got less room to move and groove. This week I've actually seen his feet push against my tummy (up near my ribs) and stick out. I just push them back in.

Today I've noticed that when I'm on the phone, he squirms around a lot. I wonder if he is responding to the sound of my voice? When I'm just quietly typing at my desk, he doesn't move as much.

I'm really anxious to meet this little guy, but I do also enjoy feeling him move around inside me. Even though I feel like a boxing ring sometimes, baby's movements amuse me and amaze me. Yes, I believe I will miss the squirms and pokes after he enters the world. But I am so looking forward to his smiles and giggles!

Today is Oct. 21, which means I am one month from my due date of Nov. 21. Of course, if all goes as "planned." Which I hear never does. The baby could be here sooner. Or it could be here later. I have no expectations — only that the baby will come at some point :)

Saturday night, we thought maybe he was coming early. About 10 p.m., I turned over in bed and suddenly felt a warm wetness. Was it the gush of my water breaking? No way ... couldn't be. But what else could it have been? James calmly got out the list of things to pack and started filling a small bag. I called the hospital to see if I should come in. "It sounds like your water broke. We'll see you in a few minutes," the nurse said.

No way — this couldn't be happening now! We haven't even had the baby shower yet! I haven't painted the nursery! We have no diapers! No car seat! I still haven't bought a pump for the birth ball or created my birthing playlist on my iPod or bought my nursing bras. We haven't taken our breastfeeding classes yet.

So we drove to the birth center and quietly walked in. The nurse belted the fetal monitors to my abdomen. No contractions. Healthy heart beat. The nurse tested me for amniotic fluid — negative. The doctor took a peek and also tested for amniotic fluid — again negative. The baby was not coming that night. I could go home and rest easy.

Thank God. We are excited to meet our baby boy, but we aren't quite ready yet. I spent the next day prepping the walls in the baby's room to paint and we ordered the crib last night online. Still so much to do!

It feels like just yesterday when I was writing my first blog post here. And now I'm in my eighth month of pregnancy! But at the same time, it really does feel like I've been pregnant all year ... so time is both going slowly and flying by!

We've had a good September. The fair was the highlight, of course. We went three times! Once to see The Bangles, once to see all the exhibits and some motorcycle racing, and once to see Joan Jett. The total tally of foods eaten is this:

Corn dogs (2), pink lemonade, hot link, deep-fried s'more, soft serve vanilla ice cream cone, corn on the cob, onion rings, cinnamon roll with icing and nuts, pulled pork barbecue sandwich, cole slaw, funnel cake with strawberries and whipped cream, one sip of beer.

And guess what? I only gained four pounds in September! That's a pound a week, and that is right on track. I guess I have a built-in calorie burner!

Unfortunately, I experienced about a week of morning sickness again. It started with me puking in the middle of getting a facial last Saturday. (How embarrassing!) Then the next day, James had to pull over so I could puke on the side of the freeway on our way out of town to visit his family. A couple of days of Zofran put me back on track, though, and I'm feeling a lot better now.

At our OB appointment last week, the doctor heard the heartbeat below my belly button, which means the baby is head-down (the correct position for birth). We have our third childbirth class tonight, where we get to tour the birth center and see the rooms and accomodations. I also just got a prenatal yoga video, which is helping me to stretch my ligaments and strengthen my muscles for the birth.

All the invitations for the baby shower are in the mail. We finally finished registering at Babies R Us. We bought a family vehicle last night (2005 GMC Envoy) — with financing, despite the single-day worst drop in the stock market ever.

Everything seems to be coming together! I don't feel overwhelmed anymore, just excited and anxious to meet our baby boy. James is going to be a wonderful birth partner, I just know it. He is already practicing pain management with me. We held ice cubes in our hands the other night to practice breathing and meditation to handle the pain. I know contractions will be far worse than a little old ice cube, but at least we are preparing!

Just seven weeks to go ... (or five if he's early or nine if he's late ...)

I could blame the corn dog, hot link and 1/2 of a deep-fried s'more I ate at the Kern County Fair last night ...

The last time I was weighed was at my doc appointment two weeks ago. 186. Not bad. On track. Good work.

Now, according to "The book" I should be gaining a pound a week. So I decided to go down to the gym at work and weigh myself today. I was expecting about 188.

As I approached the scale, I noticed it was set to 192. "Oh Lord, please don't let me weigh 192," I said out loud. (I was alone in the room.) I stepped onto the scale and it clanged downward. Oh good. So I slide the measurer back to 190, expecting it to stay down. Nope, it raised up. "Oh my," I said. "More than 190?" I moved it to 191. It stayed up.

OK, but at 192, it clanged down. So which is it? I slowly slid the measurer up — 191 1/4. 191 1/2. 191 3/4. It slowly rose and rested at a balance.

"Lord, you are funny! You have quite the sense of humor!" So I don't weigh 192 YET - but I bet I will by tomorrow. Aye aye aye. Whatever -- it's not going to stop me from eating more corn dogs and a deep fried Snickers when I go back to the fair next week!

In other news, we are still working on our Babies R Us registry. Here are some pics of us trying out the products.