Because there is never another appropriate time to let your husband Sharpie your belly!

Apparently I'm carrying "large" (typical)...which means we are probably looking at a 6 pound full term baby and 30 pounds of fat and fluid (OK mostly fat, let's be honest here).

Caye Cankle

Immediately after the celebration of my last birthday sans child, we hopped on a plane to Caye Caulker, Belize. Being that I was 6 1/2 months pregnant and the incredible swelling woman, I was not in the least prepared for what flying would do to my extremities. I had heard the rumors but decided to find out first hand how bad it would be for me. Yes, everyone's bodies are different. Mine goes like this:
Five foot 2 inches (on my left foot, 5'1 on my right).
All legs, no torso. Literally, there is a 6 inch differential between my hip bone and chest.
A double D wide foot...normally.
Short fingers and small hands.

Take these dimensions and place them 35,000 feet in the air in a pressure and oxygen controlled environment and you get a strange looking and even stranger feeling girl. Put that pregnant, swelling girl upright in travel for 10 hours, and it just ain't pretty. I am very angry with myself that I did not take pictures of what my body looked like when we touched down in Central American Paradise. I can tell you however, that I could barely bend my fingers to sign in to the hotel. Clarky aptly changed the name of our trip from Caye Caulker to Caye Cankle. God bless this man for even finding me remotely attractive after that flight. I guess it is just a little sign of the wonderful swelling to come. I have decide instead to post "nice" pics of our last trip as 2 and save you from the disgustingness I call my hands and feet.

I think my belly circumference may have outmeasured his!


Not to toot my own horn...but does it get any cuter than this???

My favorite new hobby is watching the little thing kick the crap out of me and seeing my tummy contort. For the record, I am not naked in this photo contrary to popular belief...

Cherish this picture as you will never again see my stomach in the flesh exposed in a bathing suit. Never, never again.


The boat was pretty bumpy. It was a possibility that I would deliver early on a fishing boat in Central America without a clinic in sight. Would have been scary but totally a Classic Clark move. Thankfully, we made it back to the mainland...

My 34th birthday...26 weeks.

Baby Jesus

Anyone who knows me, knows my obsession with Christmas. I love it, I dream it, I sing it, I eat, drink, and breathe it. The only one who despises my obsession with Christmas is the ceramic baby Jesus. For years I have been hiding the Baby Jesus in various places and have even held him hostage before. He has lived hung deep inside the Christmas tree. He has topped cream cheese dips, ridden all the barnyard animals, gotten dizzy riding the carousel for hours on end, rode an Olivia Newton John record on the wrong setting, and has even been wrapped up and given as a present to my mom, who happens to be the rightful guardian. I thoroughly enjoy the creative places and positions in which I have placed him over the years. People know to hide their Baby Jesus' when they know I am coming over. Yes, it is that bad. This year, however, something was wrong. I had no desire to remove the Baby Jesus from his cozy manger. My friend Tara told me now that I am pregnant, I should leave the Baby Jesus alone this year. Weird...my thoughts exactly. What has happened to me? Why am I no longer thrilled being yelled at by my mom to "return the damn Baby Jesus NOW Joanna!!!"? Has my maternal instinct finally kicked in and I am suddenly protective of a ceramic token? All I can do is wait and see what next year brings. In the meantime, I will not post pictures of the Baby Jesus in the bathtub, in the flour container, or smoking a cigarette. I will, however, post pictures of my growing Baby Clarky instead. If you are disappointed, contact me and I can send you the file entitled "Baby Jesus is Bored in His Manger".

This was taken an hour before Baby Clarky's first (our 3rd) P Street Wacky Santa Hat White Elephant Midtown Pub Crawl. Last year I got kicked out of a bar for slapping customers with a ham steak at the last stop at 2am. This year, I got a burrito at the 3rd bar at 10 pm and was in bed shortly after.


Christmas Eve...22 weeks prego...

Where's Waldo?

Pregnant couples eagerly await the appointment where they are able to find out the sex of their baby. For us, we eagerly awaited the appointment where we could continuously bombard the sonogram reader to NOT reveal the definition of baby's private parts. We mainly greeted this 5 month appointment with anticipation of seeing the baby in utero a few times larger than the last ultrasound. Since this is the last ultrasound the Dr. office gives us unless there are problems (God forbid), we could not wait to see the baby in detail! Was he sucking his thumb? Was she covering her eyes? Was he leaning over slightly to let a gas bubble escape? Was she sneaking a smoke thinking mom would not find out? Was he planning his escape from the hospital to avoid a life of insanity in the Clark household? No telling what this little renegade was up to but we were about to catch him or her in the act. Or not. As this was mainly an appointment for the technician to get measurements and make sure baby Clark was on track to have a normal sized head, it should have only taken 25 minutes or so. Not with us. Here is how this experience transpired in a nutshell.

1. They made me drink 2 bottles of water an hour before the appt. and NOT USE THE RESTROOM. This is plain torture for a pregnant lady as I have to use the bathroom at least every 20 minutes even when not drinking fluids. Mean...flat out evil.

2. They lay you and your full bladder down on the table in the dimly lit room and proceed to show you your full bladder in HD on a giant flat screen. Still not allowed to pee.

3. They measure your bladder and uterus and whatever it is you have in there. Still...not allowed to pee.

4. I cry out in desperation. She caves and lets me go.

5. As I return, she begins the measurements and I tell the technician I have to go again. She zooms in on my bladder again and yep, she says, it is filling up quite quickly. Like some people on live TV, the bladder is not something anyone needs to see on HD.

6. Two trips down and the business can begin. BUT, our bratty fetus decided not to cooperate. The views we got...spine curved, face down. Then, bottom of foot...facing the camera. Followed by gymnast style contortion. No cute "to go" pics for us. Damn.

7. Although we were highly annoyed that we couldn't see our future show us a profile or at least give us the bird, the technician was entertained. Now I am OK with being the butt of jokes and all but when she slaps and shakes my tummy like Chuck Liddell to see if it would dislodge the baby and change it's position, I start to wonder.

8. End result. Technician: 1 Clarkys: 0

She ends up with all the measurements she needs which to us looked like measuring blobs of plasma or Molly's excrement.
We end up with 8 pictures of Where's Waldo. I have included the VERY best one to show exactly how we were duped. At least we know the baby has at least one foot.

The technician did say it was a good thing we didn't want to find out the sex as she couldn't tell anyway. An hour and 45 minutes later, that is.

I never thought I could love the bottom of a foot so much.

Do you see it???

Some people love em'...some people hate em'. I was one that hated them until they became mine. Now they are all interesting to me... Sonogram photos. I have a hard time making sense of the fact that a tadpole looking tail toting amphibian is turning into a little "us" so here is the next set of Baby Clark in the womb shots. These photos were taken at exactly 3 months. Amazing that they are fully formed by that time and the rest is basically growing at an exponential rate.

I'll start with an easy one. Little one sucks it's thumb. If you can't see this one, I would see an optometrist...stat!

I call this one...darling profile atop a little Clarky belly. Isn't the resemblance uncanny?

I call this one...KMU...kick my uterus. I think the baby has legs like my mom. That's a compliment mom...

We have the big 5 month fetal assessment sonogram this Wednesday so hold on to your belt loops people as a new set of these black and whites are on their way. Curb your enthusiam, would ya???

Put Away the Tape Measure!

Many of you have been asking for monthly belly shots. It was a grand idea and I have been keeping monthly photos. Until, that is, our new 9 dollar camera decided to clear an entire 512 SD card. Not happy. Not happy at all. For those of you who know and love me, or just know me for that matter, I am not comfortable showing my stomach to anyone for any reason. I am going to take this pregnancy as an excuse to let go of such resistance and shoot the midsection with reckless abandon. Unfortunately, I only have the below pictures that survived the disk destruction as they were saved to my desktop before the demise of the rest. The below photos were taken at 14 weeks, so about 3 1/2 months. Being that this Wednesday marks week 21, I will have much "larger" photos to post very soon...

For those of you who didn't show until your 5th or 6th month or have friends who still have a 6 pack at 25 weeks (I know some too), I am sorry I'm not your girl! I'm five one for god's sakes with a 2 inch torso (I DO have very long legs though for my height if I do say so myself). I bloat when I eat too many saltine crackers. This pregnancy will show every added day, every pound, every tortilla. If I can face it, so can you. The invasion on my little stature will shock even highly trained professionals. I now look at the end of my 5th month as if I may give birth in a month or two. I'll prove it to you when I post more pics this week. I will also NOT be one of those girls who doesn't look pregnant "from the back". You often hear the infamous, "You can't even tell she's pregnant from the back". HA! I can not guarantee a lot of things in life, but I CAN guarantee that no one, and I mean NO ONE will say that about me. I have come to terms with it and I'm going to be OK, so please don't patronize me. I will not hold your honesty against you.