Operation Pink Herring

At first I was afraid

Joel left on a business trip to China on Saturday morning. Last Saturday. One week, two days, and twelve hours ago. Not that I'm counting or anything. 

I dealt with the encroaching reality of this trip much the same as I dealt with the idea of having an actual real live baby during the end of my pregnancy: denial. Complete and total denial. Every time I did think about, Gloria Gaynor lyrics started playing in my head. Except I wasn't really sure that I would survive. All I knew for sure is that I was afraid, I was petrified. So I just stopped thinking about it. May dwindled away and I just kept telling myself we had lots of time left; he wasn't leaving until June! LALALA CAN'T SEE YOU, CALENDAR. Even the day before he left, I told my friend I'd be fine over the weekend! He wasn't leaving until Saturday afternoon! Yeah, his flight left Saturday AT noon. From Dulles. He left the house at 9am.

When it became clear that this trip was really going to happen, I told myself it would be fine because I'd just pack up Hannah and visit my mom in New Jersey. Or I'd guilt her into coming down and visiting me! Easy peasy. Pretty sure that's what parents are for. And then my mom reminded me OH HEY already booked a non-refundable three-week trip to Turkey, SEE YA WOULDN'T WANNA BE YA. (Not exactly how she put it.)

That first weekend was rough. For some reason, being alone on the weekends is infinitely harder than on weekdays for me. That makes no sense at all, because for me weekends and weekdays without Joel are pretty much indistinguishable. But still, I have this sense on weekdays that I'm playing hooky, getting to do whatever baby-friendly things I want while everyone else is at work. On weekends, all I can think about is how Joel should be home but he's not and he's not coming home and I'm all by myself forever and there are NO BREAKS EVER.

Saturday was OK. Sunday was lonely. We have a pretty great system worked out wherein Joel wakes up with Hannah and she plays downstairs while he eats breakfast and gets ready for work. In the meantime, I sleep until 8:30am, when Joel gets in the shower and heads to work. At 9 I put Hannah down for a nap and eat a leisurely breakfast. I don't really go on duty until 10 or so, when she wakes up. (Please don't hate me, this is after months and months of getting up approximately 50 times a night.) Do you know how much longer the day feels when you start at 6 instead of 10? MUCH, MUCH LONGER. And for every minute you wake up before 6am, the day feels an additional six years longer. Unfortunately Hannah decided that 5:15am was a great time to wake up on Sunday. By 8am I was so desperate to see another human being that I went to the farmer's market and just wandered around, even though we didn't need anything and I didn't have any cash to buy anything even if we did. 

But then, approximately three decades later, Monday came! And by the next weekend I'd gotten into a pretty good solo parenting groove. We had a playdate on Saturday, and even with no plans on Sunday, that sense of crushing despair didn't creep up on me even once. And now, here we are: less than twenty-four hours from Joel's return and I'm feeling like, you know what? That went pretty quick. It actually wasn't so bad. Except for the unholy five-oh-something wakeups every day. Would it be wrong to give Joel the early shift the day after he returns? He'll be so jetlagged anyway, what's one pre-dawn wakeup on top of a twenty hour flight?

The brilliant thing about the timing of this trip is that I am no longer the least bit anxious about taking the munchkin to Vermont on Friday. Before this business trip I was biting all my nails off just THINKING about taking a baby on a plane. Now? Pshaw. Two adults entertaining one baby on two one-hour flights with a short layover in between? That almost sounds easier than trying to wrangle a diaper bag, an umbrella, and an angry baby who had to get up an hour eary from her nap to make it to her nine month checkup through the pouring rain by myself. Which is how I spent my afternoon, FYI. Seven adults and one baby crammed into a three bedroom house for five days? That's six other people who are so excited about meeting Hannah they'll be happy to play with her at five fifteen in the goddamn morning. 

 

 

Crossing the Delaware

I remember feeling utterly panicked in the dark days (let's be honest, dark weeks) after Hannah was born when I realized that one day I was probably going to have to go to the grocery store with her. By myself. This seemed like an impossible, horrific task -- where do you put the carseat while you're shopping? If you put it in the basket of the cart then there's no space for groceries, and if you bring the stroller frame instead you're restricted to what fits in the mesh basket underneath and even if you completely ignore the printed warnings saying not to ever put more than five pounds of cargo in the basket (which clearly we do ignore because are you freaking kidding me), not much fits in there. It's not really possible to push a stroller AND a grocery cart at the same time, though you can sure believe I tried. I thought about taking Newborn Hannah out of the carseat and carrying her in the sling or the Ergo while we were in the store, but what if she was sleeping in the carseat when it was time to take her out? What if she was sleeping in the Ergo when it was time to put her back in the car? What if she started crying and then I started crying and fuck this, I'll just wait until Joel is home on the weekends and we can all go then. And that is what I did for a long while.

Eventually I did get up the nerve to leave the house with Newborn Hannah by myself, and it wasn't even that terrible. It helped a lot that I saw a lady at Walmart who had her carseat perched on top of the purse-holder/child seat part of of the grocery cart and immediately began copying that little trick; though it looks a bit precarious it is quite sturdy if you get the car seat's hooks in correctly over wire of the grocery cart. Then not only can the baby see you the whole time, you have all the space in the main basket free! Genius. I was very happy with this arrangement. Even though Joel mentioned multiple times that he didn't think it was 100% safe, blahbittyblahblah YOU TRY SHOPPING WITH A BABY BY YOURSELF OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA LEAVE ME ALONE.

Also, for a long time the grocery store was her favorite place to take naps. Because, you know, bright florescent lights and blaring elevator music = bedtime. This is the picture I wanted to send to every asshole who instructed me to "sleep when the baby sleeps!" ORLY, should I lie down right here in the ziploc bag aisle and take a snooze or do you think the freezer section would be better?

But as it is with all things baby, just when you get really comfortable with something, the baby decides HEY YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK I'LL CHANGE EVERYTHING. Plus, in this case, the baby got so heavy that lugging her fifteen pounds of chub plus the sixteen pound carseat became a task to dread in and of itself. Then my friend mentioned that she had started letting her baby sit in the grocery cart when they went to the store. BOOM. Another problem with a very simple solution that I never in a million years would have come up with myself. Hannah loved riding around in that cart, showing off her new sitting up skills to every person whose attention she could grab.

YAY COOL RANCH DORITOS R ON SALE AWESOMEZ

(And of course, Joel let me know that I was again being unsafe because in these photos I didn't have her buckled in with the safety belt which IN MY DEFENSE that cart didn't have and how was I supposed to know there was a vital safety feature missing from the cart I grabbed?)

And now, the little missus has learned to stand up. And guess where she wants to stand up? In the grocery cart. I had her at Target today and she was hell bent on standing up and riding around, safety belt be damned. In desperation, I put her in the main basket of the cart in hopes she'd become distracted from her favorite game, Let's Jump Out of Containment Devices and Try to Break Our Heads, and start playing her second-favorite game, Pull Random Things Out of Momma's Purse and Eat Them. But no, that did not sound like fun. Not nearly enough potential for skull breaking. She immediately reached up and grabbed the rim of the cart and pulled herself to a stand. And you know what? I let her ride around the store like that, like a tiny little Washington Crossing the Delaware (except I don't see the sides of the boat coming up to Mr. Washington's nose) (nor do I see him bopping around with joy and trying to reach out and grab the pants of passersby).

Of course, I am well aware that this is Not Completely Safe and I'm sure it's not on Target's Official Corporate List of Approved Shopping Cart Uses either. But no one lost a limb or bashed to their head into anything, and that's more than I can say for an average hour at home nowadays. Because you know what is Not Completely Safe At All? The fact that babies want to start walking before they, you know, know how.

Standing Up Baby demands immediate walking priveliges, screw you and your gravitvy and balance and intact skulls.

Mother's Day

I cannot believe that I have been a mom for eight months.

Meaning, this monster is EIGHT MONTHS OLD.

She currently enjoys putting things in her mouth, crawling (WHAT) around the house looking for more things to put in her mouth, pulling up to a stand ( DOUBLE WHAT), and cruising around looking for tasty furniture to put in her mouth (OMFG WHAAAAAAT).

She has two teeth, in case you couldn't tell. TWO. TEETH. In her actual mouth. WHAT?

 

We had the most lovely Mother's Day, which included Joel surprising me with a 50mm/1.4 camera lens that I've been lusting after for three years (proving it pays to leave things in your Amazon Wishlist forever and ever) (also doesn't hurt to marry a pretty fantastic guy).

I also got to sleep in until 9am and awoke to the dulcet tones of ABSOLUTE SILENCE, as my baby was already taking her first nap of the day. Meaning I got to eat breakfast -- which Joel made for me -- in peace without trying to catch a tottering godzilla baby before she whacks her head on the TV stand. Again.

Later we had a picnic in the park, complete with the picnic basket we used at our wedding nearly three years (TRIPLE WHAT) ago. I gave Hannah a strawberry to try, sure it would be too tart for her highness's liking. I ended up filling her little mesh feeder thing three times and I am pretty sure that bib is never going to recover from the carnage. Babies, man. After eight months, all I know for sure is that I know nothing.

Easter schmeaster

I'm not really one to celebrate holidays in a big way; I'm generally pretty lazy and also a scrooge. Especially holidays like Easter, which don't hold any religious meaning for me and don't even buy you a day off of work.

So I'm perfectly content to enjoy a lovely Sunday that just happens to be Easter and do nothing special. Actually, that's not true, I made these homemade Reese's eggs for Joel. That's Easter-y! And I took a two and a half hour nap and then ate two of said Reese's eggs for "breakfast" at 1pm. That's the best way to celebrate ANY holiday, if you ask me.

But I did not procure any sort of Easter basket or colored eggs or fake grass or anything. (Though if I had remembered that the fake grass stuff is supposedly a severe choking hazard for cats, I would have gone out and bought a bag, that is how annoying Sir Yowls-a-Lot has been lately). Maybe when Hannah is old enough to appreciate anything other than BOTTLE BOTTLE IN MY MOUTH, but for now? Meh.

That is, until other people start posting adorable photos of their baby with the Easter bunny in the mall or with a their cute little wicker baskets filled with pastel-colored treats at home. Then I'm like, GODAMNIT I should have taken my child for adorable Easter photos! Now when she looks back in her baby book she's going to wonder why there is no precious photo for Baby's First Easter. (Actually, she is going to wonder why she doesn't have a baby book because I rule at being a mom.)

And that, my friends, is how you end up having a living room photo shoot with a cranky baby who is pretty much ready to go to bed right now, except NO BED FOR YOU! There are precious first Easter memories to be made because Mommy is having a minor guilt attack!

Luckily Joel's coworker gave us an enormous bag of baby clothes, including this dress, or our Official Easter Photo Shoot would have featured Hannah wearing a too-small gender-neutral onesie from Target. To date I have purchased her exactly one outfit and now it's kind of a game I'm playing with myself to see how long I can go before I have to break down and buy her clothes. Every time I am juuust about to drive to Ye Olde Target and buy a value pack of onesies, someone asks if we want a giant bag of clothes and I say YES PLEASE because I am cheap.

So... what exactly am I supposed to do here? Hold this stuffed bunny by the ears out of the camera's view?

SHAKE THE BUNNY!

...not shake the bunny? AM CONFUSED. Also have you noticed the lighting kinda sucks in here?

 AM NOW BORED.

HEY I CAN KINDA CRAWL NOW WANNA TAKE MY PICTURE AS I TRY TO LURCH RIGHT OFF THE COUCH?

Daddy? Why is Mommy's disembodied arm shoving this bunny at me?

I needed to go to bed approximately fifteen minutes ago, FYI.

JUST ONE MORE BAM JUST LIKE THE MALL PORTRAIT STUDIO ASSUMING MALL PORTRAIT PHOTOS ARE KINDA BLURRY AND HAVE FESTIVE EASTER BICYCLES IN THE BACKGROUND SHUT UP.

An entire life in half a year

By some feat of wizardry, this has happened:

Hannah turned six months old on Sunday. It's been so warm the past few days that it reminded me of summer last year, when I was waddling my way from work to yoga. It seems like a lifetime ago. For Hannah, it was an entire lifetime ago. Six months. I can't believe it.

I feel like I have settled into life as a stay-at-home mom. Don't get me wrong, every time I think I have a routine figured out and things are going along swimmingly, Hannah changes things and we need to figure it out all over again. Like, remember how she used to sleep through the night and I felt so well-rested that I felt like having another baby was totally do-able, like, why do people make such a big deal out of this sleep thing when it only lasts a few weeks? Haaaaaaaaaaa. Ha. HAHAHA. Ha.

And not only does Mrs. Baby change things up every month or so, she keeps learning new tricks. I can no longer leave her in one place and trust her to, like, REMAIN THERE. She started rolling over last month and immediately became obsessed with her new skill. Rolling, rolling, rolling! We get it, baby. You can roll over! I have sent videographic evidence to your grandmother, we all get it NOW HOLD STILL WHILE I CHANGE YOUR DAMN DIAPER. And then immediately she went from rolling to sitting up. Well, not immediately, it probably took another month. But I will tell you that one day I left a baby who most definitely could NOT sit up at home and when I came home ninety minutes later, she could. Babies, man. They are tricky bastards.

But I feel like I'm getting the hang of this gig, ever-changing as it may be. And this may be the daylight savings and warm weather talking, but I am also feeling 98% less lonely and sad. Let me tell you, I came to understand the term "desperate housewife" better than I ever wanted to during months four and five. The first three months I was just basically trying to survive.  But then things started to smooth out and... man, I got lonely. I never thought that would happen to me. I love spending time by myself! I used to take mental health days from work and happily spend them home in my pajamas doing random shit around the house! I kind of thought SAHMing was going to be kind of like one long mental health day (that is: glorious and fun with lots of me-time). Turns out, not so much. BUT! I have now successfully found several playgroups, joined a local moms' group, AND I have made one bona-fide mom-friend who I like so much that I'd even be friends with her if we didn't have babies! (Turns out, desperation lowers your friendship standards right quick. Is the person breathing? Does she have a baby? Does she speak English? Then congratulations, she's BFF material!) I no longer have to troll the park, trying to make eye contact and smile at every nice-looking lady pushing a stroller. So that's nice. And last week, after story time at the library ended, I took Hannah over to the kids section to play with the cool toys they have and look at their goldfish because I had paid $2 to park for an hour and we still had 20 minutes left, HAVE 20 MORE MINUTES OF FUN, DAMNIT. And this other lady followed me over there and started talking to me. "Do you come to this session a lot?", she asked me, and we chatted for a bit as she wrangled her twins into their double stroller. When it became clear that Hannah was in dire need of a nap, we both packed up the last of our stuff. As we exited the elevator, she said "Maybe I'll see you here next week?" and I realized OH MY GOD, she's trying to be friends with me. And I already HAVE a mom-friend. What am I going to do with two mom-friends? Soon I'll have a mom-friend for every day of the week! ALL UR MOM-FRIENDS ARE BELONG TO ME.

Sitting up baby has no time for friends, too much sitting up to do.

Giving up the gun

Joel gently suggested that perhaps I should lay off posting about breastfeeding after my last couple of thrush posts, and I know. I know. So that's what I've been doing. By not posting at all. But now I'm back! To talk about... breastfeeding.

I had half-written several posts in my head that were going to detail our long battle against thrush. These posts all ended happily with the One Thing That Finally Worked, sort of like a Modern Girl's Guide to Beating Candida. I got myself through the really terrible days by imagining myself in the future, happily nursing my baby without a palace of pillows arranged carefully around me and a headache from gritting my teeth the whole time.

That won't be happening, because I quit breastfeeding yesterday.

SAY WUT?

Remember when I was complaining about how long breastfeeding took, and I said I hated it? That statement has been haunting me. That was when I was pain-free and everything was going fabulously. I want to go back in time and punch myself in the face. When my OB told me that I had to quit breastfeeding as soon as possible yesterday, I burst into tears. Why? Why is it such an emotional thing? As I held Hannah in my arms today and gave her a bottle, I asked myself how this was so different than nursing. (Besides, of course, the ten minutes of fighting I had to go through to get her to take the bottle. THAT'S FUN.) There's nothing but a thin t-shirt between us. She's still getting fed, and I'm not in pain. Oh, but it's so different.

SERIOUS BABY KNOWS UR NOT TAKIN BOOBS AWAY

I don't feel like this was my fault and I know for sure that I did everything (EVERYTHING) to beat it, but... I'm just heartbroken. And if my OB hadn't told me point blank that I needed to stop immediately and then called a surgery consult because she thought I needed stitches (in my nipples. Just in case that wasn't clear. Do you want me to say nipples a few more times, just to make sure my poor brother gets the mental picture?) (NIPPLES.) I'd still be trucking along, telling myself that the next thing was going to be It. The thing that finally cured me.

(I didn't get stitches. Thank you Jesus.)

In fact, I haven't quite stopped yet. I nursed Hannah yesterday because she refused the first formula I tried to give her and I had to feed her before I went to the store to get more. And then I nursed her this morning to take the edge off my rock hard boobs. And I will do so again tonight, just because I don't want to get a plugged duct or mastitis or something. And because I am possibly addicted to breastfeeding and I just cannot let go. (But I'm going to. Tomorrow!) Every time now I think "this is probably the last time." And then I cry, because, oh, I just wish things could have been different.

We tried EVERYTHING. Oral nystatin for Hannah, oral diflucan for me, diflucan for both Hannah and me, over 30 days of gentian violet, grapefruit seed extract, vinegar rinse, probiotics, yogurt, low sugar diet, sunshine, excessive laundering of everything in the house, boiling everything in the house, bleaching everything in the house. I had pretty much gotten used to washing every blanket and bib and burp cloth and outfit and towel after a single use and boiling pacifiers every day. And I could even deal with the pain, which came and went. But then, over the course of one weekend, the yeast somehow managed to eat away most of the skin on my nipples. It is easily the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life. But even that I could take, because it convinced my OB to refill my prescription and I got a matching one for Hannah and I was sure that we were finally on the right track! And so I kept going! For five more weeks.

And five weeks later, not much had changed. Instead, air moving over my boobs had become excruciating (and a key to keeping thrush at bay? Air drying after every feeding). In the meantime, the pain and stress and my constant trying to push feedings back just a few more minutes because I really just wasn't ready to go through that again caused my supply to fall way off, to the point where at Hannah's most recent checkup she'd fallen from the 5th percentile for weight right off the chart. Still, I thought we'd be OK. I started taking a shitload of fenugreek to boost my supply back up and I started feeding her every two hours on the dot. I figured we'd supplement with formula if we needed to, and I made another appointment with my OB, hoping she would increase my dose of diflucan or put me on something else or do... something.

She did do something. She took one look at my boobs and told me that I needed to stop.

When people asked me if I planned to breastfeed (and let me tell you, a LOT of people ask a pregnant lady if she's going to breastfeed, from doctors who are doing their job to strangers on the street who don't know how to mind their own damn business), I always said I was planning to try. I knew that a lot of people tried and couldn't (my own mother being one of them), and I thought that was totally understandable and OK. I always intended to try my best and accept it if things didn't work out. But apparently I am not very good at that last part. "It's OK, maybe we can try again in a few months," Joel comforted me yesterday. Noooot exactly, I explained. I think it's that finality, the knowledge that once I wean her for real that is it, no going back and trying one last thing, that is really getting to me.

I know we'll be OK. This is not the end of the world. I have a happy, healthy baby and everything is going to be fine. But you'll pardon me if I just have one more little cry about it, and then I have to go try to convince Joel that we should have another baby right now so I can have a breastfeeding do-over.

(Kidding! Mostly.)

No, YOU'RE still posting Christmas photos

My latest concern about Hannah's health (not including thrush, we'll get to that later) is that she's not getting enough sleep. She sleeps well at night (and that's all I'll say about that, because I don't want to jinx it), so I figured it was cool with me if she just wanted to stay awake all day. I mean, I kind if envied people who could put their babies down in the crib for a stretch of a few hours and, like, do other stuff. But Hannah is generally a satisfied customer these days and I like hanging out with her all day. But then I got my weekly BabyCenter email and it said that babies her age need to be getting around fifteen hours of sleep a day. Uhhhh. Yeah. Even with her excellent night-sleeping habits, Hannah is at most getting ten hours of sleep a day. And, again, I don't mind hanging out with her, but apparently this lack of sleep is stunting her brain growth and stuff (paraphrasing). So I decided that was it! We'd start making her take naps!

So the next day I swaddled her up a few hours after she woke up in the morning, rocked her a bit in the rocking chair, and BOOM. Out like a light. Amazing I thought. This napping thing is great! That was super easy!

That lasted two days. Then she decided she preferred to stay awake and grin at me for forty five minutes instead of falling asleep. Or she'd fall asleep, I'd put her down in the swing (not the crib. Dear god, not the crib. We have learned our lesson on the crib, and that lesson is that cribs are very nice decorative pieces) and fifteen minutes later I'd look over and see her wide awake, smiling at me from across the room. NO! You're supposed to be sleeping! Stop smiling at me and let your brain grow!

Now she's decided that she'll nap... as long as it's on a human body. She'll take a four-hour nap on Joel's chest in the evening. She'll snooze happily in the sling while I bulldoze around the house, trying not to whack her into anything (it's just like being pregnant again! Except even more back-breaking!). But put her down? Hell no.

So my new approach is to try to put her to bed earlier. This approach also worked well for the first few days, but last night I got her to sleep at the early hour of 10:15pm and as a reward, she woke up for the day at 6:30am. Instead of the normal 7:30 or 8:30. Again, I'm really not complaining. I would have murdered someone a few months ago to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. It's glorious! But the problem is that I'm out of things to do. I've already fed Hannah, eaten my own breakfast, showered, and gotten us both dressed for the day. And dried my hair. And made myself a sandwich for lunch. I half-jokingly asked Joel if I could tag along with him to work today. We wouldn't be a bother, I swear! We'd just sit quietly by his desk, listening to other adult humans talk! And then we could have our ham sandwiches together and I wouldn't be drowning in loneliness and boredom at 9am. Possibly it is time for me to find some friends. 

*************

Bored and lonely as I may get sometimes, I love this three-month age. You guys told me things would get better, and it's not that I didn't believe you. I just didn't realize how much better they would get, and how fast. Hannah is, generally speaking, just so much fun to be around. She smiles a huge grin at everything from diaper changes to seeing the cat walk by. The nightly five-hour crying jags seem to have played themselves out (THANK YOU JESUS). And most importantly, I feel about a thousand times more confident. When she cries I can figure out what the problem is and fix it, whether she's tired or hungry or just in need of a change of scenery. I look forward to outings rather than having a panic attack about the thought of leaving the house alone with the baby. And have I mentioned the sleeping? At night? And how it's the best, most glorious thing in the world? I'm no longer wishing desperately for her to hurry up and get older because I just cannot take the crying any more, for the love of god. And looking back, Hannah was an easy baby. She first slept through the night at five weeks old. And yes, she cried and cried and cried on several occasions (including one day where she cried for twenty-seven hours straight, and I am not exaggerating one bit with that figure. She only stopped to eat and to take three two-hour naps; other than that it was all crying, all the time. From 9pm one night until she finally exhausted herself at midnight the next night.), but it ended by about six weeks. Oh, how easy it to look back and say that it was only about six weeks of misery. "Only" six weeks! HAHAHAHA babies are insane. But three month old babies are so much less insane and lo, it is fantastic.

**********

But what about the thrush, you're wondering. WHAT ABOUT THE THRUSH. Surely it's a distant memory, just like the endless cryfests? Oh, how I wish. Thrush has pretty much completely ruined my breastfeeding experience. I used to think people who talked about their breastfeeding "experience" were totally lame, but now I'd kill to have any experience other than never ending laundry and pain and boobs that look so nasty that it'd made you puke if I showed you the pictures. And yes, I have pictures, because I fully plan to shove them in the face of the pediatrician who told us that we didn't have thrush and I needed to just deal with the quote-unquote discomfort because "sometimes breastfeeding hurts". Except I am going to a new pediatrician now because I was not willing to believe that giant gashes filled with something that looked like mold on your boobs was normal. So I'm not sure what the pictures are for. Maybe to show to Hannah when she turns fourteen and it's time to have the talk about Why You Don't Want to Have a Baby When You're in High School. I'd say that some day, I'll look back on this experience and appreciate how it made me stronger, but that assumes that some day I will not have thrush and after thirteen weeks I am pretty sure I'm going to die having thrush. Put it on my tombstone.

********************

And now allow me to bore you with some boring family photos. I am feeling kind of sad that I didn't send out Christmas cards this year so now you will suffer for my laziness.

Merry "Christmas"! Which we celebrated, per tradition, at my brother's house the week before real Christmas. Hannah's second trip to the Motherland (aka New Jersey)!

Cheesy family portrait from actual Christmas, which we spent at home, doing nothing and driving absolutely nowhere. Miraculously, Hannah's mouth is not wide open.

Hannah, her loot, and her kickass smile. This is why I love three months.

On Christmas Eve we went to see the lights on 34th Street, this insane block in north Baltimore that goes totally crazy with the Christmas lights. We brought the stroller. That was a mistake.

Now pretend these photos I took with my cell phone tie this post together. Later!

Quittin' time

I was supposed to go back to work today. But it's 9:30am and I'm still in my pajamas, and that's not because I overslept on my first day back (although that's totally something I would have anxiety about, and then not sleep because I was worried about oversleeping, and then be so tired that I didn't even hear the alarm in the morning). I'm not going back. I informed my office of this decision a few weeks ago, and now the day is here. The day I was supposed to go back, but did not. The day I guess it becomes really official: I'm a stay-at-home-mom now. 

I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. It's what I saw myself doing when I was a kid and I thought about the great, unknowable future. It's something Joel and I talked about and agreed on long before we were even engaged. It was the plan from the moment that we decided to try to get pregnant.

But then Hannah was born. And those first few weeks... they were awful. Really, truly awful. I feel terrible saying that, but it's the truth. I don't ever want to go through that again. Except, we want more kids, so I guess I will just hope the adjustment period is hardest with the first one. Don't tell me if that's not true. I don't want to know.

I don't know why it was so bad, exactly. Part of it is hormones. Oh, the hormones. You can know that you're feeling like shit because of hormones, but that doesn't make you feel any less shitty in the moment. And then there's the lack of sleep. As a veteran insomniac, I thought I knew a thing or two about lack of sleep. I knew nothing. I can totally understand why sleep deprivation is a method of torture. Despair sets in pretty quickly when you haven't slept for more than two hours in a row for two weeks. And then there's the permanence of it all. Well-wishers kept telling us to "treasure these moments!" and "enjoy every minute!" and all I could think was that we'd made a terrible mistake. And oh, I felt guilty for feeling like that. Raging hormones, intense sleep deprivation, and a crushing sense of guilt and despair. Plus, the crying. The endless crying. And the fact that you spend your entire day feeling like you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. Because you don't.  Yeah, I don't think "baby blues" is a strong enough term. It's right up there with "moodiness" on my list of things that need a better name.

In the midst of those brutal weeks, I also had myself a nice little life crisis. Because all my life I'd thought I wanted to stay at home with my kids and Joel and I had worked really hard for a really long time to put ourselves in a financial position where that would be possible and all of a sudden it turned out maybe I had changed my mind. In fact, I found myself fantasizing about going in to the office, where I wouldn't need to feed anyone but myself, for a few hours. Where no one would be crying for five hours straight every single day.

They were dark days, is what I'm saying. One night I was awake at 4am scrolling through my reader on my phone while Hannah was feeding and I came across this post by Sundry. I started crying (and then quickly stopped myself because I realized that I couldn't get out of bed to blow my nose with a baby attached to my boob). People had been telling us that it was going to get better, but no one had come right out and said that this infant thing just kind of sucked. Conversely, people seemed to actually MISS the newborn stage. Why? I could not figure out what there was to miss and I was terrified that something was wrong with me and I didn't love my baby enough. It was so good to read someone else say what I'd been feeling: that this whole stage kind of blew.

Spoiler alert: it got better. Gradually, but perceptibly. One afternoon about four weeks in, Joel and I took Hannah for a walk in the stroller and I told him I felt like things were getting better every day. "Don't you think things are getting better?" I asked him. "They're getting better because you're feeling better," he answered. He was exhausted and tired and worn out, but he didn't suffer like I did those first few weeks. I don't know if that's because I was the one saddled with breastfeeding, or if it was because I saw an eternity of being home alone with the baby stretching in front of me while he went back to work after a week. Maybe I had mild postpartum depression. I don't know. All I know is it got better, and I am very thankful for that.

Still, quitting my job was harder than I thought. I'd wistfully fantasized about getting pregnant so I could quit my job on a daily basis, back when I hated my job. But I didn't hate this job. I actually liked it quite a bit. I was good at it and it paid fairly well and in the current economy it felt a little bit like madness to walk away from such a good situation. 

Maybe it was madness. I never said I wasn't crazy.

I didn't expect it to be such a hard decision, not when it wasn't really a decision at all. We'd made up our minds about this a long time ago, and maybe that's why it was difficult. I looove to second guess myself, especially under the influence of postpartum hormones and sleep deprivation. But this is what's right for our family -- and truly, that's what we are now, a family -- and trust me, I know how lucky I am to have this as an option.

And I do feel lucky. Two months ago I did not. But those of you who said it would get better were so, so right. It got better. It keeps getting better. And I can't wait.

The One Side

I'm participating in -R-'s Blog Share today. The post below was written by an anonymous blogger and does not have one single mention of boobs or yeast infections thereof.

For a full list of the blogs participating in the Blog Share, check out -R-'s list.

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The One Side:

We used to be friends. We used to talk about everything, made plans to explore our city, went out to dinner, spent weekends and empty weeknights together. We chatted through the day, had similar taste in style and books and travel dreams. Not too long ago, we were practically inseparable. Then there was this really unforgivable thing, things were said that hurt my feelings and I felt they were completely on purpose. I cancelled plans because I didn't want to be hurt again and at the back of my mind I knew that hanging out again would definitely result in my being hurt. I kept myself busy with a couple of big projects, and any time I got stuck in that awkward "what happened to us!?" conversation I blamed my business for my distance. When I starting receiving emails asking the same thing, I continued to blame my schedule and lack of time or energy. I don't know how long it will take before the hint is FINALLY taken! I don't want a friendship. I don't want to talk about it. I just want you to go away!

Only, you don't go away. I still see you all the time and now it is starting to really bother me. I think if I just ignore you it will be better.

After months of clipped conversations, a lack of even elementary friendliness, and my leaving you off invitation lists you still don't seem to get it. You are just so annoyingly persistent in this whole "why can't we be friends" thing. Get it through your head: I. Don't. Want. To. Be. Friends. Ugh. Seriously.

And Then The Other Side:

We used to be friends. We used to talk about everything, made plans to explore our city, went out to dinner, spent weekends and empty weeknights together. We chatted through the day, had similar taste in style and books and travel dreams. Not too long ago, we were practically inseparable. Then I must have done or said something that left feelings terribly hurt and irreparably bruised, and suddenly all that changed. Instead of a friendly attitude, I was met with dismissal and indifference. Instead of making plans I was left out and ignored. I initiated several conversations and sent several emails asking if there was something I had done to cause the change, to see if there was any way I could apologize and make amends. This relationship was a very important one and I hoped that something as silly as an off-handed comment or cranky week was not going to reduce it to nothing. While I was reassured that it was "nothing" and "it's not you, it's me", months went by and things only got worse, more distant, more gossiping behind my back, blatant ignoring and even a bit of what I felt to be pointed, public criticism.

At first I was heartbroken, then I was upset, now I am indifferent. Apparently, it takes me about 10 months to get over a relationship that did not have any closure for me.

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The One Side:

In most blog circles where I hang out--the type of circles that spill over into Real Life and now my blogger friends are some of my best friends and cohorts--I am known for This One Thing. I do The Thing all the time, it's talked about, laughed about, photographed, shared, etc. I could easily introduce myself as "Hi, I'm Blogger, I do The Thing." A few weeks ago another blogger shared a post that mocked The Thing. I was pretty offended, I thought she was being passive-aggressive and deliberately sharing this post to hurt my feelings. But, instead of letting it fester, I emailed her and asked her what had possessed her to share this particular post and how I felt it was a direct attack.

Her response surprised me a little, apparently I had thought that everyone knew about me and The Thing. Turns out, she had no idea. She apologized profusely, told me she had no intention of hurting my feelings and really had never connected me or my use of The Thing to this shared post that openly and blatantly mocked it.

And Then The Other Side:

A few weeks ago a snarky and sarcastic friend of mine posted about how much he hated The Thing. He went to great length to detail the history of The Thing, which he made up in hilarious fashion. I couldn't stop laughing. I immediately shared the post (before Google Reader became Google Plus and sharing things became a hassle) and went on with my day.  Later that evening I received an email from one of the most lovely bloggers I know, she was hurt and sounded offended that I had so passive-aggressively attacked her and her ubiquitous use of The Thing. I was shocked. I had never associated her with The Thing. I stay out of most of the big blogger circles, I don't go to conferences or participate in monthly blogosphere challenges and projects, I just read blogs and try to improve my own storytelling when I write. I was shocked that my sharing of what I thought was a harmless--if a bit snarky--post would incite a few giggles and nothing more. If I had ever associated this blogger with The Thing that was being mocked I would never ever have shared it. I immediately responded with an apology, I assured this blogger that I had no intention of mocking her, that I, in fact, had no idea she and The Thing were linked in bloggerdom. I appreciated her telling me where I had tromped on her toes and giving me the chance to apologize for it and make it right.

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Now, I am one half of both of those stories, and not necessarily always the better half. In writing out these two, different stories I have realized some things about myself and will be making steps to correct any bad behavior on my part. I'm not talking about "bad behavior" like throwing spit wads on the ceiling or spreading rumors or never tipping my waitress. I'm talking about perpetrating the exact passive-aggressive behavior that drives me batty. If I feel like I can complain about passive-aggressive behavior and festering of emotions, then I need to make damn sure that I am not also acting passive-aggressively on festering emotions. Touche, self, touche.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose (to thrush)

What's that? You'd like to hear more about my boobs? WELL YOU'RE IN LUCK! Because I kinda don't have much else going on.

Thrush. Still have it. It is not so painful that I can't breastfeed anymore at least. Oh, it still hurts plenty, but that's not the worst part. The worst part is the boiling of everything that touches my boobs or Hannah's mouth every single time we use them. For twenty minutes. Pacifiers. Bottles. Pump parts. Since I am still feeding every two hours or so and then pumping after each feeding, I pretty much have a witch's brew of plastic boob accessories boiling away on the stove at all times. 

Oh, and then there is the laundry. Because this thrush yeast loves to grow just about anywhere, we're only supposed to be using towels once before washing them. I don't know about you, but normally we are not single use towel people. More like... well, never you mind how often we wash our towels, alright? Because we're MORE than making up for our slovenly ways now. Shower towels, hand towels, dish towels, little hooded frog-shaped baby towels: YOU ARE ALL CONTAMINATED. Also dirty after a single use? Bras. Shirts. Pajamas. Baby blankets. Anything that comes near my boobs or Hannah's face, IN THE WASH. And, friends, that is a lot of wash.

At least we're saving a few loads of laundry a week by not using cloth diapers for a while. You can't use regular diaper cream with cloth diapers and I have no idea if this special thrush diaper cream is cloth-compatible, but I'm guessing not. And I will be damned before I let thrush ruin my preshus Fuzzibunz.

I miss you guys, too. Don't be sad. Someday we'll be together again.

No, thrush, you've already ruined my dignity and my sanity and you will NOT have my cloth diaper collection. So we're in disposables for the time being, and oh, how I hate them. The cheapo Target ones have this chemical stink and the fancy Pampers with the color-changing wetness indicator line cost twice as much. And given my daughter's love of peeing mid-diaper change, making our average diaper's on-butt time about thirty seconds, we are trucking through packs of diapers like nobody's business. If I'd known it was going to be this long I would have gone and bought a pallet of diapers at Costco at the very beginning, but NO, I assumed we'd get treated and get better and that would be that and I didn't want to be stuck with all those extra diapers hanging around the house! I should probably go out and buy a pallet tomorrow, but I still have myself convinced that NOW we are on the brink of a breakthrough and surely another forty pack will see us through to the end of this disaster. I mean, forty diapers! That's got to last at least a month, right? (Answer: not quite.)

When we last left off, I had pried a prescription (diflucan) from my OB's unwilling hands and Hannah had her own medication (nystatin) from the pediatrician, both in oral form and diaper rash cream. I had also bought a shitload of probiotics from both Whole Foods and Amazon when it looked like the diflucan wasn't going to come through. Between the probiotics, the diflucan, and the nystatin, we were well on our way to victory. Two days after starting this multi-front assault I felt SO much better. It really was thrush! And we were really going to survive! Much celebration ensued. 

And then I got worse again. Thrush was like, oh HELL no, and stepped up the game. I got to the end of my diflucan bottle after a week and was still having shooting pain in my boobs whenever they got full. I finagled a refill out of my doctor's office, except they screwed up the dosage and I didn't realize it until after I'd already filled the prescription. So they had to give me ANOTHER prescription and now I have enough diflucan to cook up a REAL good batch of yeast infection meth. Meet me out back by the trailer if ya want some!

In the meantime, I decided to try gentian voilet. Because I like to leave no hippie home-remedy stone unturned. Plus, the internet swore that this dye was actually much more effective than nystatin because it kills the yeast on contact and penetrates mucous membranes and yadda yadda yadda. So what if it stains everything it comes in contact with bright purple, as long as it works!

Except for the part where it didn't actually work. But it sure was fun when Henry the Cat stepped in some and tracked it all over the kitchen!

The bright side, though, and I am telling myself that there is one because I just can't afford not to at this point, is that my supply issues disappeared the minute that I found out I couldn't store any milk. Thrush doesn't die in the freezer. Because why would it? That would just be too easy. So you can't bank up any milk while you're infected or you'll just get reinfected later on when you use that milk. My boobs heard that and were like HEY DID SOMEONE HERE ORDER SOME MILK HERE U GO.

Can you tell which bottle came from the days we were using the gentian voilet? Hint: it's the purple one in the middle.

I am not sure where we go from here, but I am not giving up. This is personal now, and I will not lose. I will fill the bathtub with boiling water and submerge my entire body for twenty minutes if I have to. I will wear the scratchy paper nursing pads and buy disposable diapers forty at a time and wash every towel in the house after a single use like this is the Lady MacBeth Goddamn Hotel. The forty-seven episodes of Friday Night Lights I've watched on Netflix Instant have me feeling a little bit competitive.

Thrush this

Wow. So. This entry somehow turned into an insanely long missive on... my boobs. And yeast infections in said boobs. Yes. Yum. Ever heard of thrush? I hadn't either, but let me tell you something: I now know more about getting rid of thrush than I do about killing tapeworms. Oh, you weren't planning on eating today, were you? Because guess what, my pregnancy carpal tunnel syndrome has finally cleared up and I can type again and I have many, many words for you. All of them about boob infections.

I was terrified of breastfeeding before the baby was born. (Is it weird that I still call her "the baby"? Someone on Facebook asked me jokingly -- at least I think she was joking -- if she didn't have a name. I guess that after nine months of not knowing whether Hannah was going to be a girl or a boy, "the baby" has just sort of stuck.) I heard other people talk about how hard it was and I wasn't exactly sure why it was so difficult, but then we took a breastfeeding class at the hospital and it was only slightly less terrifying than the childbirth class that landed Joel in the ER.  But when we took a breastfeeding class at the hospital and they showed pictures of a proper latch that looked like this:

(Source)

That looks... uncomfortable. Right? I was not looking forward to the whole operation.

But then Hannah was born and forty five minutes later I was shoving my boob in her mouth in a sleep-deprived haze. To my amazement, it really didn't hurt. I was completely unconvinced that there was anything actually coming out of my boobs because that still seemed kind of insane (I also couldn't believe that I'd just had a baby, despite the fact that I was holding said baby on my chest). In the days that followed, breastfeeding was hard because it was time consuming and somewhat uncomfortable and Hannah wanted to eat all. the. damn. time (turns out babies do that), and no one else could help even a little. Several times Joel asked what he could do to help me with the baby and I answered "grow a pair of boobs and feed this baby for me." But Hannah gained plenty of weight and overall the experience wasn't terrible, as I'd been expecting. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And then around the three week mark I started to get sore. By four weeks I was REALLY sore. I decided to break out the hand-me-down pump my coworker had given me and start pumping a little bit to give myself a break from nursing all the time. That helped a little on the weekends. But during the week, you can't exactly tell a hungry baby to just hang on for half an hour while you pump, wash the pump parts, and get a bottle ready. I had hoped I could bank up a little reserve and be able to feed her a bottle and then replace it right away by pumping again afterwards, but HAHAH NO. It doesn't quite work that way. No matter how much I pumped I could just not get ahead of her. She ate everything I pumped and demanded more. Sometimes I ended up pumping and then nursing her afterwards, which defeated any sort of purpose. I tried pumping more often. Every two hours on the dot I'd pump and get such measly amounts that I felt like the whole thing was a waste of time. It took me an entire week of furious pumping to save up three ounces so I could go to yoga one time. And when I got home from that class she was screaming and starving. It was horribly frustrating.

More time went on and I stopped being sore and started being in serious pain. It got to the point where I dreaded nursing. I'd feel angry when Hannah wanted to eat again ninety minutes after her last feeding, like OH MY GOD YOU JUST ATE. In my head I knew that newborns are supposed to cluster feed and this was good and normal. My boobs told my head to shut the hell up because they were tired and just wanted a goddamn break for two minutes. I winced and had to catch my breath every time she latched on. I hated feeding her. I made her stop eating when I just couldn't take any more, rather than when she was full. Hannah cried for hours every night and I wondered if she was hungry or if she was just crying because babies cry.

By the time she was six weeks old, I could not bear the thought of nursing her directly. I vowed that I would not directly breastfeed her the entire weekend, that I would pump like crazy and feed her bottles the entire weekend. Hopefully by the time Monday rolled around my boobs would have recovered sufficiently to get a fresh start.

Yeah, no. Even pumping hurt pretty bad. And no matter how often and for how long I pumped, Hannah wanted more. More, more, more. She cried for hours and hours at night and the only thing that shut her up was a bottle or a boob. She can't possibly STILL be hungry, we told each other. There is no more food to give her. I felt so anxious that I was sick to my stomach. My baby was crying and I couldn't feed her. No matter how much I pumped and fed her, it wasn't going to be enough.

Finally, I decided to call the lactation consultant at the hospital. She listened to my symptoms (we had a few great weeks of nursing and now it feels like someone is drawing a razorblade across my skin when my baby nurses, don't mind if I just cry a little on the phone here) and her first suggestion: I think you might have thrush.

I had no idea what thrush was. I had pretty much convinced myself that this was just how breastfeeding was, and this was why everyone said it was hard. She assured me that so much pain, especially after three pain-free weeks was very much not normal and told me to call the pediatrician's office and request prescriptions for both Hannah and me, emphasizing how important it was for us to both be treated simultaneously. And that is how I found myself having this conversation with the scheduler at our pediatrician office:

Scheduler: You'd like to make an appointment for... thrash?

Me: No, thrush. With a "u". T-H-R-U-S-H.

Scheduler: I'm sorry, did you say "thrush"?

Me: Yes, thrush.

Scheduler: I... don't know what that is.

Me: It's a yeast infection. In your nipple.

The pediatrician couldn't get us in (unsurprising, as it was a Friday afternoon), but after hearing the symptoms -- which I got to describe in embarrassing detail to the male scheduler, she was happy to call the prescription for Hannah into the pharmacy without seeing her. I'd have to call my own OB, though, for my own prescription.

Frantically, I called the OB's office, which was closing in half an hour. I got their answering machine and left a message with all the details, hoping they'd get it and call it in before everyone left for the day. I called again five minutes before they closed and left a slightly more desperate message about how I wasn't trying ot be annoying but I was in a lot of pain and I really couldn't wait until Monday and no I'm not crying YOU'RE CRYING. And then I cried because I knew they'd already closed up shop for the weekend and I was stuck until Monday.

BUT! THEN! The receptionist called me back, fifteen minutes after closing time. I explained the situation again to that scheduler (who either knew exactly what thrush was or didn't care enough to ask) and she said she'd pass the message along to the doctor and they'd call my prescription in to the pharmacy. I felt the weight lift from my chest for the first time days. It felt like there might actually be a solution to this problem. It's hard for me to convey the level of anxiety that I was feeling over feeding the baby, but it was all-consuming. It's a strange and heavy responsibility to be solely charged with sustaining another human being. It's amazing and it's stifling at the same time when it's going well. When it's not going well... it's horrible. I felt like my body was refusing to function correctly, like I was failing at my most basic and important responsibility. And I felt completely helpless. And I felt like it was never going to get better.  

So obviously I handled it very well when the OB nurse called me back and informed me that they didn't treat mothers for thrush. Just treat the baby, she said. I explained that the baby wasn't even having any symptoms but I was in an incredible amount of pain and I didn't see how treating her was going to help that. Plus, the pediatrician and the lactation consultant (along with every reputable source on the internet) had both emphasized that it was imperative that Hannah and I be treated simultaneously. "Yeah, that's what pediatricians and lactation consultants think," she said. That's a direct quote. Like I was telling her the opinions of my psychic adviser and my cat, not a well-regarded fellow physician and the lactation consultant at HER OWN HOSPITAL. I argued with her for a few minutes and got nowhere.

I hung up the phone and cried. I cried a lot. At the time all I could see was an interminable weekend stretching before me, filled with pain and hours of hungry babies wailing and staring longingly at the unopened tin of formula. (Let me pause to say what should be unnecessary, but in this world od mommy guilt and breastfeeding nazis is not: i have nothing against formula. I was exclusively formula fed and I think I turned out OK. My reluctance to dive into that tin of formula is because I have worked so hard to build up my milk supply and I knew that if I had an alternative to the incredibly painful nursing and pumping, it would just be too easy to give up breastfeeding altogether.) I was convinced that I had thrush and was going to have it forever because the stupid doctor wouldn't treat me. At the same time, I was convinced it wad not thrush and this was just how breastfeeding wad going to be forever. Both possibilities were utter doomsday scenarios, because that's what a chronic lack of sleep does to me.

So I did the logical thing and sent a series of increasingly desperate text messages to my friend Sarah, who is a doctor. Beware, all ye considering medical school, for it shall doom you to a lifetime of hypochondriac friends asking for medical advice about their possibly infected boobs. And tapeworms.  Because OH YES I was convinced I had caught that tapeworm from my goddamn dirty cats rubbing their goddamn dirty butts on my pillows and desperate times call for desperate measures. However, I did NOT text her a picture of my poor, sore nipples. Which is what Joel thought I did. God, even I have standards. And also I couldn't figure out how to get a good picture because my phone camera sucks.

I spent the entire weekend feeling sick to my stomach. I resolved that I would only pump again and not nurse at all, and it was horrible. Every two hours I'd sit upstairs with my stupid pump and eek out a few measly ounces. And by "a few", I mean "one". Maybe one and half. Which was about half of what Hannah would have liked to eat. I left a tearful message for the lactation consultant on Saturday night, hoping she worked on the weekends. She did not.

On Monday morning I called the pediatrician's office first thing in the morning and made an appointment to bring Hannah in that afternoon, hoping that I could convince her to write me my prescriptions as well. An hour after I made that appointment, the lactation consultant called me back. She offered to call my OB's office for me and speak to a doctor in the practice that had worked with her on thrush before. An hour after that, I had my prescription.

The whole experience has been absolutely maddening. The lactation consultant told me to call the OB back and ask for another week's refill if my symptoms hadn't completely cleared up within a week. When I did just that, the doctor on duty refused to give me a refill and made me feel like a drug-seeking addict. I mean, if this stuff is supposed to be getting me high, it's doing a crap job. All I want is for it to not feel like someone is hacking my boobs to pieces with a rusty razor when my baby nurses, and this lady is making it seem like I'm cooking up some sort of yeast infection breastfeeding meth in my trailer. 

The moral of this story is that I'm getting really tired of typing, thrush is a fantastic pain in the ass, and from now on I am only seeing the one doctor in my OB practice that I saw today, the one who apologized that I'd had to come all the way into the office with a baby in tow to get a refill that could have been done over the phone and wrote me a prescription without making me feel like a crack addict. The end.

This post has taken me a month to write

I've been trying hard to think of what I want to say about how life has changed, what our days are like now. I've been trying even harder to find the time to sit down at the computer and type. People told me that I wasn't going to have any time to get things done once the baby was born and I just didn't believe them. I mean, if you're going to be sitting home and taking care of a baby is your only job and that baby sleeps sixteen to eighteen hours a day... seems like you'd have a lot of time to do stuff around the house in there.

Yeah, not exactly. First of all, whoever said that babies sleep sixteen to eighteen hours a day was on crack. My baby does not sleep that much. And she is a GREAT sleeper. (I can say this now. Four weeks ago I would have laughed so hard and then kicked you in the face if you'd said that to me.) But she does not sleep eighteen hours a day. She is "sleeping" right now, and by that I mean she's sitting in her baby papasan chair grunting her head off, about to wake up any second. And when she wakes up, she's going to want to eat. Even though she just ate thirty minutes ago. Before she eats, though, we're going to need to change her diaper because I am pretty sure this level of warthog noise is leading up to a massive diaper deposit. And then her eating is going to take another thirty minutes. Then maybe -- MAYBE -- she'll take a real nap. And then maybe I can get some lunch for myself. And by lunch I mean a homemade milkshake consisting of generic cookies and cream ice cream and one percent milk mixed together in a coffee mug and shoveled into my mouth while standing next to the fridge.

I have not used an actual computer in weeks. All of my internetting is done on my phone. One-handed, while breastfeeding the baby with the other hand. Usually in the middle of the night. I used to hate the touchscreen keyboard (the reason I got the phone I have is because it has a full slideout keyboard), but I'm learning to love it because I can use it with one hand. I have written pages and pages of emails with my thumb at 4am.

Speaking of breastfeeding, it sucks. No pun intended. If it wasn't 1) universally recognized as the best thing for babies and 2) free, I'd be at Costco right now buying a pallet of formula. My boobs are sore. I'm tired of having an infant attached to me for 30-40 minutes a pop, 8-12 times a day. I know some people find the experience to be wonderful and bonding and whatever, but I do not. I kind of hate it. I am counting the days until we can introduce solid foods and I'll be able to leave the house for more than half an hour without worrying that my baby is at home screaming because she's hungry. It's going to be pretty damn nice when I don't have to furiously pump for an entire week just so I can get enough milk stored to go to a ninety minute yoga class on the weekend.

Speaking of yoga, I finally got up the nerve to email my instructor and see if I needed to make up the two days that I missed because Mrs. Baby couldn't hold out until her due date. And the verdict is: I do not! I am so, so relieved. I would have totally understood if she said I did have to make up those days (although technically I should only have had to make up one day, since we were allowed one excused absence). I knew the rules when I enrolled in the course and I knew I was cutting it ridiculously close to my due date. But I am so happy. I got filled in on what I missed and now I just need to do the take-home final exam and write a paper and I'll be officially certified. And I'll get right on those, as soon as it doesn't take me a month to write a blog post any more.  

Speaking of... other things as they come into my head:

• Life without cable. We finally manned up and and quit Comcast about a week after Hannah was born. I was prepared for it to fully and totally suck and make me hate my life (more than I hated life that week already, but that's another looong post that I am not fully prepared to write). But it turns out, life without cable is not that bad! Mostly because I have discovered Friday Night Lights on Netflix Instant. We're either watching our cable shows live on the channels we still get for free (which really blows after years of being able to pause, rewind, fast forward, and watch shows whenever we damn well pleased) (it blows a little extra when your baby likes to cry from 7:30-10:30pm most days so you can't hear anything anyone on TV is saying) or watching them on Hulu Plus. I thought Hulu Plus was going to be the savoir of our no-cable heathen lives, but I'm really not impressed at all.  Half the shows I want to watch are restricted to web viewing only, which is why I have stopped watching Project Runway and Jersey Shore. At night when Joel is home we watch shows online, but during the day... not going to happen. I can barely manage to get the computer turned on, let alone hook it up to the TV and do whatever else I need to do to get that system working. But I can't really say my life is any less rich without ProRun and Snooki in it. Overall, life without cable isn't half as bad as I thought it would be.
• Our house. I hate it. It's been too small for us for years, but now with an extra person and that extra person's STUFF I feel downright claustrophobic. And trust me, we don't even have that much baby stuff. We just don't have space for it. But even so, now if I want to go for a walk with the baby, I need to 1) go upstairs and fetch the carseat, 2) move the aforementioned papasan chair, the only place besides my chest that she will consent to sleep, onto the couch, 3) scoot the stroller base out of the corner and try to navigate it in the two feet of space between the coffee table and the TV without knocking anything over, 4) carry the stroller base down the steps outside our front door, 5) leave the door open so I can make sure no one steals the stroller base, 6) carry the carseat and baby outside and attach to the stroller, 7) shut the door and try to lock it while the baby screams from the stroller. Getting back inside is just as much fun. Almost as much fun as carrying that baby papasan chair down two flights of stairs when we migrate from the bedroom to the living room every morning. I. hate. this. house. I hate every last stair and narrow, dark hallway and all the closets that don't exist.
• As much of a pain in the ass as I just made getting the stroller out of the house sound like, I've become quite adept at getting the whole process done pretty quickly. The first time I took Hannah for a walk around the neighborhood by myself I felt like there should have been a prize waiting for me at home. I took the baby outside! BY MYSELF! (It sound ridiculous, doesn't it? I know. The me from two months ago is laughing too.) And then the week after, I took the baby to Target by myself. IN THE CAR. Again, no prize was waiting for me when I got home. Two weeks after that, I decided I was such a pro I could take Hannah on a 200-mile car ride for a two and a half day tour of the motherland. And it was fine! Yet, again, no prize basket awaited when I returned home unscathed. I'd like a word with whoever is in charge of prizes in this town.

Aaaaaand she's awake. Talk to you guys in a month.

So we had a baby

We had a busy two weekends leading up to the baby's due date. Over Labor Day we had a friend's wedding in New York, and the weekend after that I had my last weekend of yoga teacher training. If we could just make it through those two weekends, everything would be perfect. Oh, and Joel really wanted for the baby not to be born on September 11th, just because it would be kind of a bummer to share your birthday with so much sadness. So if we could just make it to Monday, September 12, everything would be really perfect. That gave us a one-day cushion between my actual due date of September 13. Totally doable, right?

I had a prenatal appointment the day before we left for the wedding in New York and everything looked good. Cervix closed, etc etc. (Let me take this moment to warn you that I lost any sense of modesty I ever had fifteen minutes after we arrived at the hospital, when I puked all over myself while wearing an open-backed hospital gown. There's going to be a lot of talk of and bodily fluids and other assorted TMI in this entry.) The doctor gave me the go-ahead to attend the wedding, with the warning that of course there was really no way to predict when I'd go into labor now that I was past 38 weeks. But if worst came to worst, we'd deliver in New York. We brought our hospital bag and car seat (in our rental car, since guess what WE STILL DIDN'T HAVE OUR CAR BACK) (and in fact we STILL DON'T HAVE IT five weeks later, but who's counting) and a copy of my medical records with us just in case. As we got on 95 and started the 4-hour drive, I hoped against hope that this wasn't the dumbest idea we'd ever had.

We had a lovely weekend away, knowing it would be our last as a twosome. The wedding was great and I did not go into labor. On the way home, I thanked my lucky stars that everything had worked out. We went and saw two movies while we were in New York (again, knowing it would be the last time we'd be able to do that without a babysitter) and for some reason, sitting in a movie theater makes me have contractions. Both times I thought, oh shit what were we thinking driving four hours away from home nine days before my due date? But we made it back to Baltimore and would not be leaving the vicinity again until after the baby was born. I still really, really wanted to be able to finish my yoga weekend, but I was just relieved we'd made it home without having to speed down 95 while I was having contractions, peeling into the hospital parking lot like some kind of bad rom-com. Everything else would just be icing on the cake, I told myself.

*****

The next week I could feel things start to change. I couldn't really describe it, I just felt like things were different. One morning I realized that I could get out of bed without feeling the little baby foot lodged quite so far in my right lung and I realized, huh. This must be that "lightening" thing people talk about. But I also just felt like things were happening. Despite everyone telling me that first babies are always late and I should be prepared to go to 41 weeks, I felt like the baby was coming. I had another prenatal appointment that Friday and suddenly I was 2-3cm dilated and 80% effaced. I started shaking when the doctor told me. I was fully expecting another report that everything was closed up tight and they'd see me next week, even though my due date was four days away. This was really going to happen, I realized. Just hold out for 48 more hours, I pleaded with the baby. I was allowed to miss one day of the yoga training without penalty, which I'd saved up to use on Sunday if needed. All I needed to do was make it through Saturday at 8:30pm and I would have officially fulfilled my attendance requirement.

I decided that that day would be my last day of work. Previously I'd been planning to potentially come in the next week if the baby hadn't arrived and I still felt OK. But I figured now that if I was lucky enough to make it through the weekend, that would be plenty. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't really need to go into labor at work. I packed up the last of my things, said goodbye to my coworkers, and turned on my pre-drafted "I'm on maternity leave" out of office email reply when I shut down my computer.

After work I studied a bit for my yoga test. I took a shower and washed and dried my hair and had some dinner. By 7pm I was outside waiting for the classmate that had generously offered to drive me to and from training all weekend because, you know, NO CAR. STILL.

I made it through that night's training, including teaching my a 90-minute class as part of my exam. I got home at 11pm and felt exhausted but elated. This is really all going to work out, I thought. I just need less than 24 hours. We're going to make it. I collapsed into bed around midnight and fell asleep instantly.

*****

Seven and a half hours later I woke up having what I thought might be a contraction. I looked at the clock: 6:33am. One of the nurses had told me the week before that real contractions would feel like the worst case of constipation I'd ever had, and I had to laugh at that. Uh, constipation is one of the pregnancy symptoms I've suffered with since the very beginning. How are you supposed to distinguish between a contraction that feels like the worst case of constipation you've ever had and, well, constipation that feels the worst case of constipation you've ever had? She assured me that when contractions really started, I'd know.

I got out of bed and waddled to the bathroom. When I got back to bed Joel woke up and asked if I was OK. I told him I thought I might be having contractions. A few minutes later, I had another one. It could just be false labor, we told each other. Joel went and got a stopwatch.

Just before 7am I called my mom. Don't freak out, I told her, I'm not sure if this is really it, but something's happening. I think you'd better come down. She asked if she had time to eat breakfast or if she should go immediately to the car. No, eat breakfast, I said. Everything's fine. It's probably just false labor, but I think you'd better come down and just stay here until the real deal starts. I don't think this baby is going to be late.

After we hung up I called my dad and emailed my brothers to let them know that something *might* be happening. I still thought it might be false labor and I could possibly go to yoga that day. Just give me until 8:30 tonight, I told the baby. I don't even have to do anything today, I just have to show up and take a test. We'll take it easy, and at 8:31 you can can do whatever you want.

The contractions I was having weren't terrible, but I certainly couldn't go back to sleep. Joel went to take a shower and get the things on our last-minute hospital bag list ready (my favorite pillow, the comfy brown skirt I wanted to wear home from the hospital, the laptop and camera, etc). I moved downstairs and started watching Jersey Shore after making myself four slices of cinnamon toast. One of my biggest fears about labor was that I was going to be starving the whole time. I knew they weren't going to let me eat once we got to the hospital (a precaution in case you have to have an emergency C-section) and I had a terrible time with this when I was admitted overnight back in July, so I wanted to eat as much as possible beforehand. Just in case.

Around 9 or 10am, things started to suck. I was having terrible pain in my lower back. Two words I never want to hear again in my life: back labor. The contractions in my stomach were uncomfortable but tolerable. The back labor... I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't the sharp, acute pain I was expecting with contractions. It was more like this wave of all-encompassing, nauseating discomfort radiating from my back. The only thing that made it feel better was for Joel to press really hard on my back through the entire contraction. We were still trying to time contractions, but it was difficult for me to tell when one ended and the next began. Some were two minutes apart and I wasn't sure if they were really one long contraction with two peaks or if we were suddenly at the oh shit we should be at the hospital stage. Then the next two would be twelve minutes apart, but I wasn't sure if I missed a small one in between. The hours suddenly seemed to be going by really quickly. I realized there was no way I was going to yoga today, whether this was false labor or not. I tried taking a bath, which helped a little bit, and then moved back to the bed with Joel to try and watch a movie.

By the time my mom arrived at 11:30, I was in rough shape. She found me draped over the bed (thank goodness our bed is so high off the floor, it was the perfect height for me to lie over with the top half of my body while keeping my feet on the ground, giving me a nice stretch in my back) and started taking turns with Joel pressing on my back during contractions. We sent her down the store a few blocks away for some Sprite, which apart from cinnamon toast is go-to comfort food when I'm feeling sick. Part of me was still thinking that if I could hydrate well enough, maybe we could stop this false labor.

Ten minutes later I threw up and I decided it was time to go to the hospital. We piled into my mom's car at 12:45 with our hospital bag and our camera and my barf bucket and drove the five minutes to the hospital.

*****

The receptionist at Labor and Delivery was asking me questions and it was all I could do to not barf on her forms. The other girl behind the desk was on the phone with a sandwich place, double checking that the order she'd placed had no tomatoes. I was like, HELLO I AM HAVING A BABY HERE CAN WE AT LEAST PRETEND THIS ISN'T BUSINESS AS USUAL. But of course, it was exactly business as usual there, and soon enough I was checked into a room and given a hospital gown to change into. How can we help, my mom asked as I struggled to get out of my clothes and into the gown. Don't look at my butt, I answered. She laughed because obviously people were going to be seeing a little more than my bare butt in a hospital gown pretty soon, but at the time... I don't know. It seemed humiliating. As soon as I got the gown on I puked all over myself, the floor, and the garbage can I managed to grab just in time. I changed into another gown in the middle of the room, no longer caring who saw my butt or anything else. Joel informed me that he thought I'd lost my mucus plug, as it seemed to by lying on the floor. I had the vague idea that I should be grossed out, but I didn't care. I didn't even look. My mom cleaned it up.

A doctor came in and checked my cervix. I was 4-5 cm dilated, 90% effaced and the baby was at position -3. (For the uninitiated, pushing starts when you get to 10cm dilated, 100% effaced, and baby at position +2.) This meant that I wasn't being sent home, this wasn't false labor. It was the real deal. No yoga, but it looked like at least we'd have no problem getting the baby out before midnight -- giving her the awesome birthday of 9/10/11.

Now, my original plan was to go as long as I could before getting an epidural. But by the time we got to the hospital I'd decided that six hours of laboring at home was quite long enough and I think the first words out of my mouth after I handed over my insurance card were "can I have an epidural now?" It seemed like a really long time before the anesthesiologist showed up, but when she did... oh my god. You guys, I wanted to name the baby Epidural. The doctor warned me that I shouldn't expect complete relief, and that often epidurals were less effective on back labor. But almost as soon as they started pumping the medicine in I felt 100% better. I couldn't even feel the contractions any more. The back labor was gone. I felt awesome.

I got checked again about an hour later and had progressed to 6cm/90%/-2. Things were moving along, and I felt great. This is more like it, I told everyone. This isn't even so bad! I could have a baby every day!

That lasted for about five hours, during which we watched movies on the hospital TV, talked, updated Facebook, sent Joel and my mom out for food. But I had stopped progressing. After no movement for about four hours, the doctor wanted to start me on pitocin. My original plan was also to refuse pitocin the first few times it was offered because I wanted to give my body a chance to do its thing in its own time. Plus, I was feeling great and wasn't really anxious to change anything. But the doctor insisted it was necessary, so in went the pitocin at 6:30pm.

After a little while I could feel the contractions again, but they weren't terrible. At 7:30pm I felt my water break. The contractions slowly got worse and worse. I no longer felt awesome. I started pushing the little button that gave me an extra dose of epidural juice evey once in awhile. Then I started staring at the button, waiting for its little indicator light to turn green, meaning that twenty minutes had passed and I could push it again. That green light bulb became my best friend.

*****

Things got bad again. I was having trouble remembering to breathe deeply and the baby's heart rate started dropping during some of the strongest contractions. I was asked to lie on my side and wear an oxygen mask for awhile. Since the doctors weren't freaking out, I didn't freak out either. I asked for and got another dose of something in my epidural line that made things significantly better. I was progressing slowly, and we were anxiously watching the clock tick closer to midnight. The nurse that had been with me left when her shift ended. A new set of doctors came on. Time ticked by and slooooowly I progressed, part of my hoping we could just hurry up and get this show on the road... and the other part of me hoping we never got to the pushing part, which I was terrified of.

At 11:15pm I was officially declared fully dilated. What does that mean, I asked. Do we start pushing now? Yes, the doctor replied. Now we start pushing. So, I pushed.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Then again, I thought I might die... so that's not really saying all that much. Thanks to my beautiful, wonderful epidural, I could feel contractions but they weren't horrible. I was able to time my pushes with the contractions, which is supposed to be great but it sure didn't speed things along any. I ended up pushing for two hours. While it didn't hurt like I was afraid it would, oh my god... it was hard work. I had to wear the stupid oxygen mask again and it made me so, so hot. The contractions were coming 1-2 minutes apart, which was giving me almost no break between pushes. A few times I pretended like I wasn't having a contraction just so I could have a minute to rest.

A special pediatrics team was called in because the baby's heart rate was dropping during pushes again, plus there was meconium present when my water broke (meaning the baby pooped in utero, which isn't great because it can get into the baby's lungs.) I had the vague feeling that I should be scared that they were calling in special people, but I was just relieved at the time because I figured it meant we were getting close to the end. One of the doctors announced that the baby had light brown hair.

Just before 2am, the pediatric specialist announced that she wanted to use a vacuum. The baby's head was turned sideways and was having trouble moving down the last part of the birth canal. She tried to break the news to me gently, explaining that the baby really need to come out now. Thank god, I told her. No one agrees more than me that this baby needs to come out NOW. So she broke out the vacuum (which is a suction cup type thing that attaches to the baby's head so the doctor can pull while the mother pushes) and after a few more really hard pushes, Hannah was finally out. It's a boy! my mom announced, confused by the umbilical cord. No, it's a girl, Joel said.

So much for finishing yoga, so much for not having a baby with a 9/11 birthday. So much for giving a shit about any of that.

I expected to feel some huge rush of emotion at that moment, but I just felt so, so tired. The entire labor I'd felt sort of disconnected from my body, I think as a defense mechanism. I felt like the entire thing was happening to someone else and I was just watching. Even while I was pushing as hard as I could, I just kept thinking, my god I hope this is over soon because I'm tired. And after 20 hours of labor, I was really, really tired. I knew it, I said. I knew it was a girl. Hannah.

(Everyone else was tired too.)

The pediatric team had Hannah for awhile, cleaning her up and making sure everything was OK. Despite the dropped heart rate and the meconium and the long time she had her head stuck sideways in the birth canal, she scored great on the Apgar scale. She was OK, and it was over. I couldn't believe it.

I still can't believe it. It's been two weeks and I just can't believe that we have a baby.

A daughter.

Introducing Baby Pink Herring!

RA here! I'm so happy to announce that Baby Pink Herring has arrived! 

Hannah Rose

September 11, 2011, at 2:08am (after 20 hours of labor!)

6.9 pounds, 19.5 inches

 

Mama and baby are both exhausted but doing great! Congratulations to the whole Pink Herring family!

Home Stretch

Hey, so, remember this?

At the time I was kind of proud of my zen attitude. Shit happens, right? Nothing to be done now, nothing I could have done to prevent it (except for, you know, park in front of a different house). Sure, we're out a $500 deductible and this is an inconvenience, but whatever. No one got hurt and we'll survive.

Well, that was two weeks ago. Sixteen days, if you want to get specific. Apparently the entire smashed up roof needs to be replaced, and that takes a very long time. I've officially upgraded the situation from Minor Annoyance to Medium Pain in the Ass.

The lucky thing is that neither of us NEEDS a car. We can both get to work without one, there are two grocery stores within walking/biking distance. We could, theoretically, get by without a car in the city.

Theoretically. In reality, I am 8.75 months pregnant and this is starting to suck. What used to be a leisurely 20-minute walk to work for me has become a 30-minute death march. In fact, I've completely given up on walking the whole way in. I've been taking the free employee shuttle, which I used to scorn (why would I wait for a shuttle when I can just walk?). And even that system isn't really cutting it because 1) the shuttle doesn't pick me up in my living room, noooo, I still need to walk three blocks up the biggest hill known to man, and 2) the shocks on that bus leave something to be desired and as we jolt over one particular series of potholes every morning I prepare to walk directly into the hospital instead of my office to report that my water just broke.

While we don't need a car to get to work, we do need one for bigger grocery trips other errands every once in awhile.  So that's become a major pain. I had to cancel a hair appointment last weekend -- a hair appointment that I scheduled months ago so that I could use a Groupon right before it expired -- because I didn't want to chance taking public transportation on the morning Hurricane Irene was supposed to hit Baltimore. The city was talking of shutting down public transportation at some point during the day and I thought it would be less than super to be stuck in the semi-ghetto, extremely pregnant, in a hurricane. Also, the public transit schedule was going to turn this haircut appointment into a half-day affair and on our last free pre-baby weekend I did not feel like spending four hours riding around on the bus. So I canceled, I'm going to lose that Groupon, and in a fit of desperation last night I returned to the salon that has butchered my hair in the past because my due date is six days away and they had an opening and they're four blocks from our house. I asked for a 2-3 inch trim and instead got a layered, 5-6 inch chop that "looks very Jackie-O" according to Joel.  

But whatever, my hair has been cut. CHECK. This is, apparently, my version of nesting. I will suddenly decide that something needs to be done, and it needs to be done NOW. The dishes in the sink? They need to be done at 11pm no matter how tired I am and how much my back hurts because dudes, I could go into labor at any time and I CANNOT leave for the hospital with a sink full of dirty dishes. My long hair was driving me crazy and now it's just sort of Jackie-Oish and uneven and whatever, I'll add "bad haircut" to the list of damages when I submit the homeowner's insurance claim to the guy whose chimney fell on our car.  

********

So, um, yes. My due date is in six days. I... don't really know how I feel about that. Sometimes I say that in my head and I start to panic. I've done OK telling myself not to worry about labor and delivery, there's no point in stressing about it, it will be OK. But now that it's NEXT WEEK (or, you know, in two weeks. Or in five minutes! Whenever the baby decides it's party time), I'm kind of scared again. But I still don't have that whole "this is really happening" feeling. I can't comprehend that at this time next week, we could very likely have a baby in our house. Hell, today could be my last day of work. Or the baby could be late and I could be in all next week. Who knows?

Not knowing when shit is going to go down makes it seem less real, I think. We've done pretty much everything we need to do to prepare, and now we just sort of wait. Every afternoon when I leave the office I copy over the entire contents of My Documents to an external hard drive so my temp replacement can access them if I don't come in the next day. The baby's room is as set up as it's going to get for the moment. I have a email with email addresses filled in saved in my drafts folder, ready to send out a birth announcement to everyone we know. And other than that, we're just sort of going about our daily lives.  

In the back of my mind I keep thinking things like "the next time we see a movie in a theater, we'll need a baby sitter" and "this is the last time I'll buy toothpaste before the baby comes". All the small, monthly or weekly tasks have suddenly taken on this sort of arbitrary meaningfulness. I participated in my last staff meeting as a pregnant person. This Thursday may well be my last prenatal yoga class. The next time we go to Sam's Club, we'll have a baby with us. These are small things, but when I think about them that way -- that the next time I do them, my entire life will have changed -- they seem monumental in some way.

But other than a that, and the lingering feeling of non-belief that this is all happening, I just feel... I don't know. A little scared. Mostly in denial. Guilty that I don't feel some sort of SUPER DUPER CRAZY EXCITEMENT. I just... I don't know. It doesn't seem real.

And then I look at pictures like this one, taken at the wedding we went to this weekend, and I am not sure how much more real it can get.

Continued

Part eleventy billion: yesterday, 2pm

An earthquake hit the East Coast. Perhaps you heard about it. I was grateful for the opportunity to once again display how stellar I am to have around in any sort of emergency, what with my very first reaction being to loudly proclaim "what in the HELL" as my office chair began to shake. And then I went into my boss's office and asked IS THIS AN EARTHQUAKE OMG WHAT DO WE DO CAN I HIDE IN YOUR OFFICE in my most panicked voice.

(Oh, how I wish I were joking... but no, I definitely said the words "can I hide in your office." I don't like to be alone when scary things happen!)

The earthquake was both exciting and scary, I don't care what all the smug people from California say. Yeah, yeah, they eat 5.9 earthquakes for breakfast with a side of organic flaxseed toast over there on the West Coast, I get it. Californians are used to earthquakes. But that's exactly the point -- they're used to them. We here on the East Coast, not so much. I'd like to see Los Angeles wake up to find this in their backyard and be all "whatever" about it:

Although, I must admit: Baltimore did shit its collective pants when Snowmageddon 2009 hit. But that's because Marylanders are a bunch of Snow Pussies. Joel and I were unperturbed -- in fact, it was one of the best weeks of my life! Free week off from work! -- because we are from the Northeast and have seen a few feet of snow before. We are used to it. People in South Caroline are used to seeing alligators lurking around on golf courses, people in Texas are used to seeing rattlesnakes slither around on their porches. People in California are used to earthquakes and that makes them very cool and hip. We alllll get it.

But I'd wager that most Californians don't live in 110-year-old brick houses with 110-year-old brick chimneys which spew 110-year-old bricks and two vacuum canisters worth of 110-year-old brick dust all over the damn place during an earthquake.

This mess took me an hour and a half to clean up and I STILL have to dust the entire house. I think we can all agree that unnecessary dusting is a pretty big fucking deal. Whether you think earthquakes are scary or not.

So I vacuumed and washed the floors and wiped brick dust off every single surface in The Baby's Room (uh, guess it was a smart move to not put the crib right in front of that non-functional, decorative fireplace!) and finished cleaning (except for the dusting part, which I'll do sometime for Sir Fetus turns five) (maybe) just in time to make it to my Tuesday night yoga class. I changed, walked out the door and...

Part eleventy million and one

... realized I'd just locked myself out of the house. And this yoga class is one I need to drive to, so I was screwed.

Part eleventy million and two

I called Joel to see what time he might be planning to come home from work. As luck would have it he was just packing up to come home!  He sped home on his bike, opened the door, I gave him a quick kiss and waddled off towards the car as quickly as I could.

Part eleventy million and three

Oh dear.  

Hmm. It seems that the chimney of the house our car was parked in front of enjoyed the earthquake even less than ours did. And it showed it by collapsing and chucking bricks down onto the street. Right onto our car.  

So. That happened. The earthquake made me miss yoga. How's that for ruin and devastation, West Coast earthquake scoffers? I MISSED YOGA!  

We need to come up with a stronger term than Pregnancy Brain

Part One: Last Week

I place a fairly large Amazon order to fill in some of the last things we really, definitely need for the baby. More cloth diapers, more diaper covers, a wet bag to hold dirty diapers, the special laundry detergent you use to wash cloth diapers. Most of it revolves around diapers. But there are other things too!  Many things! Many things that babies need! I hit "place order" and feel very accomplished. Now we'll have all the absolute essentials covered and Free Super Save Shipping to boot. I ship the order to Joel's office, since we can't receive large packages at our house and I don't feel like carrying a big fat Amazon box 3/4 mile home from my office. Look at me, thinking ahead! Actually learning my lesson after having our crib shipped to my office!

Part Two: Wednesday night

Joel asks what the status of the Amazon order is, as it has not yet arrived at his office. I look in my email and forward him the tracking information saying that the order has shipped in two parts, one via UPS and the other via US Postal Service. Oh, and upon further inspection it seems the Postal Sevice portion has already been delivered! Woohoo, baby stuff!

Part Three: Wednesday night, two minutes later

"You used my new office address, right?" Joel asks. As in, not the old one that his company moved out of many months ago, whose address no longer technically exists?

Part Four: Wednesday night, two minutes and five seconds later

Um... oops?

Part Five: Thursday morning

Joel checks his office to see if by some miracle the packages have arrived there. After all, they did set up address forwarding with the post office and they get a shitload of UPS packages and the driver knows about their office move. Maybe they made it despite the wrong address! SHUT UP, MAYBE.

Yeah, no.

Realizing that the Postal Service package is most likely a completely lost cause, I dedicate myself to saving the UPS package. I check online: out for delivery. OK, so it's not too late! Surely UPS can call the driver and tell him oopsie, actually DON'T bring that non-existent old address, bring it to the new address!  It's not far from the old one! In fact, Joel insists that since they get so many UPS deliveries the guy might actually just recognize the old address and know that it's really supposed to go to the new one. SHUT UP, HE MIGHT.

Yeah, no. Again.

The UPS phone rep insists they can't do anything until an actual delivery attempt is made. If the driver is unable to deliver the package, then I can call and change the address. UPS suggests I call Amazon and try to change the address with them.

Part Six: Later Thursday morning

To avoid the shame of having my entire office overhear me try to navigate my way out of this bungled mess, I log into Amazon's chat help. A nice Amazon lady asks how she can help me. I explain the situation and beg her to change the delivery address. Sorry, but she can't change the address once an order has shipped. She can't even put a note in the system or do anything to somehow alert the UPS guy that some dumbass used an outdated, now nonexistent shipping address. I am about to cry. Joel's old office is now just an abandoned space. The city is doing a ton of construction right outside it. Our baby stuff is either going to be run over by a bucket loader or stolen by hooligans. 

However, the Amazon lady continues, she can issue a refund for the entire order. Then I can re-order all the items and use the correct shipping address. Would that be OK?

Um, yes, I guess that would be "OK", if by "OK", you mean extremely generous considering this entire problem is 100% my dumbass fault. She does that. Refunds the entire order. I... really don't know what to say.

Part Seven: Thursday, lunchtime

I get in the car and drive to the site where Joel's office used to be on the off chance that the Postal Service package is still lying on the sidewalk or was somehow delivered to the company next door. There is, predictably, no parking downtown. I illegally park in the area reserved for the construction workers. As I walk by their cars, I notice that they ALL have an official-looking permit displayed on their windshield. This is so fucking stupid, I think to myself. Some nice lady from Amazon.com is not going to swoop in and save your ass when you get the car towed. But I'm already halfway to the entrance of the other office, and I'm expecting this whole thing to be a bust anyway. Joel has warned me that neither the security guard nor the loading dock staff at this building are particularly friendly or helpful. But at least I do have a strategy in place: 1) explain the situation, admit it is my fault and beg forgiveness, 2) look at pregnant as possible, and 3) cry, if necessary. But still, I am fairly certain I'll be back out in thirty seconds after they shut me down, and the car will be OK for thirty seconds. I hope.

I tell my sob story to the security guard. I am a silly, very pregnant person who forgot to update her Amazon shipping address and has he perchance seen a package -- he interrupts me to say that yes, a package from UPS just came this morning and he took it back to the loading dock. Do I know where that is? No, no I don't. He escorts me back peresonally and introduces me to the loading dock lady, who isn't very friendly but points to a pile of packages. And right on top, there it is! The UPS package!  Unharmed! I pick it up and give it a kiss.

Now, there was another package delivered yesterday by the regular postal service, I explain. Do you know where that might be? Oh, says the loading dock lady. That's going to be a problem. That'll be in the mail room. You have to go up there and look for it. I... don't know where that is, I stammer. She rolls her eyes and picks up the phone. I think she's completely dismissed me, but then she hangs up the phone and tells me if I go back out to the front, the security guy will take me up to the mail room.

THANK YOU, I say. I will go right up there in just one second, I just need to stash this in my car [and make sure my car isn't being towed, which by this point I'm freaking out about just a little bit because it's been much longer than thirty seconds and oh god, I saw a city ticket lady one street over on the way in, what the hell was I thinking parking there]. I run (RUN, which I have not done in several months) out to the back entrance of the building, clutching my precious UPS box. The car is still there. The car doesn't have a ticket. I get in and move it into the parking garage, berating myself for not just parking there in the first place. I hate, hate, hate paying for parking (especially because we used to have a free pass to this exact garage, you know, back when Joel used to actually have an office here), but I reason that if all this idiot mistake ends up costing me is $7 for parking (rather than, you know, THE COST OF OUR ENTIRE AMAZON ORDER), I can count myself insanely lucky. I park in the garage and hustle back up to the front door, preparing my saddest, most pathetic pregnant lady face to tell my story to the mail room employees.  Except I never even get to the mail room, because in the time it took me to move the car it seems that Mr. Security Guard has gone to the mail room for me, retrieved the package, and has it waiting for me at the front door. THANK YOU, I tell him. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I go back to the parking garage, again feeling slightly irritated that I will now have paid $7 to park in the garage for less than five minutes, but WHATEVER. I should consider myself fortunate! Both packages found! Amazon was willing to refund my money! I fixed my bonehead mistake! THIS IS A GOOD DAY. I insert my credit card into the machine at the garage entrance, pay my $7, and take my little ticket back. As I get in the car I look at the clock and see that not only did I succeed in retrieving both packages and not getting the car towed, but I'm going to make it back to work in less than an hour.

Part Eight

I pull up to the garage exit and go to insert my paid ticket, except... it's not in my hand. Or in my purse. Or in the car console. Or... anywhere. I illegally back up so I'm not blocking the exit lane and start to go through my purse methodically. I cannot have lost this ticket between the machine downstairs and my car. It's just not possible! I didn't go anywhere, stop for anything, put anything down. It HAS to be in here somewhere.

It's not.

I take everything out of my wallet. I take every paper out of my purse. I look in the glove compartment, under the seat. I get out and look in the trunk, thinking maybe I dropped it when I put the second package back there. No. Ticket.

Part Nine

I hang my head in shame and go into the parking office next to the exit. I lost my ticket, I tell the lady working there. Somehow, between paying the machine and walking to my car I lost my ticket. I just paid. Just now. Two minutes ago. But I can't find my ticket. I paid with a credit card, is there anyway she can look it up? I furiously look away from the sign declaring "Lost Tickets Pay Maximum Daily Fee - No Exceptions".

She holds out her hand for my credit card and walks back to her computer. She scrolls through many screens. I stand there for at least five minutes. She obviously cannot find it. I resign myself to paying the $22 maximum fee, on top of the $7 I already paid, reasoning that it's still cheaper than getting the car towed. Or having to pay for an entire lost Amazon order. Things could be a whole lot worse.

OK, I see you, she says suddenly, handing back my credit card. Just pull up to the gate here and I'll let you through. Thank you, I tell her. Thank you so, so, so much.

Part Ten

We are not going to talk about how I had to park in the scary annex garage when I got back to work because there were no spaces in the regular garage, and then I spent fifteen minutes trying to find my damn way out of there. No, we're not going to discuss how the exit door had a sign that said "Push Hard - Door Will Open" but I pushed as hard as I could and the damn door did NOT open, so I had to go back up the stairs, back to the car, and walk all the way through the annex garage and the regular garage to get back out to the street.

Epilogue

We're also not going to talk about how I after work, I 1) forgot my purse in my office, and 2) was stopped by a kind lady on my way out of the bathroom who told me that my skirt was a little bit caught in my bag. Which was her nice way of saying "your skirt is tucked into your underwear."

Lie to me

So when exactly are you supposed to have that moment? You know, the moment where it really hits you that you're going to have an actual baby? Because we are currently at T-minus twenty-seven days and, yeah... I still don't really get it.

I feel like I've been pregnant for five million years. I am used to being pregnant. But I still can't quite grasp the idea that we're going to have an actual baby in twenty-seven days. (Please don't remind me that babies are known to show up before their due date. Twenty-seven days sounds soon enough.)

It's crazy to me that we won't be wondering whether it's a boy or a girl any more. We'll know. We'll be able to see this thing that's been doing gymnastics in my stomach. I just can't get my brain wrapped around that. I know it's true, but I just can't imagine what that's going to be like. At this point, I'm not sure if I'll actually get it until I see the actual baby in the hospital.

I will tell you this, though: I'm ready to be done with being pregnant. I think I've said that before, but I had no idea what I was talking about back then. This time I mean it. My feet hurt worse than I ever would have thought possible, from the superhuman task of sitting in an office chair most of the day. (Yes, I am walking around plenty and putting my feet up and all that. And yet, I wake up in the middle of the night to pee and actually limp to the bathroom because my heels hurt so much.)  My hands are so swollen that my fingertips are numb most of the day. I am officially up 30+ pounds, and man, it feels like it. I feel like a whale. And then I catch a glimpse of myself in a window or a mirror and I look even more whale-like than I feel! But at least whales can just pee in the ocean whenever they want without having to limp-waddle to the bathroom. Lucky bastards.

So yes, I am ready to be done with this gestational business. But at the same time I'd like to stretch out our pre-baby lives by just a few more weeks. On Sunday night as I was lamenting the untimely end of yet another weekend, I realized that we only have two more free weekends with just the two of us. Over Labor Day we have a wedding to go to, and the weekend after that is my last yoga teacher training. And then the baby is due two days later. So we have next weekend and the weekend after that to do our normal hang around the house, watch movies, run errands routine. Two more weekends of normalcy... for the rest of our lives. I can't comprehend this whole living, breathing baby thing but I can understand THAT. And... holy shit. Can I get a pause button or something?

Next Tuesday I'll officially be full term, 37 weeks. ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. I should basically be prepared to go into labor at any time after that.

Heh, labor. See, I'd kind of purposely forgotten about that, telling myself it was far away in the future and there was no point fretting about it. And now it's almost here and guys: I am scared.

During one of our yoga teacher trainings, the meditation teacher told a story that helped me immensely at the time. As the story goes, two young monks living in a remote monastery came across an older monk sitting on a bench. In his hand he had a pair of pliers. The pliers held a bloody tooth. The young monks were horrified and asked the older monk why he'd done such an awful thing -- pull out his own tooth with a pair of pliers! -- when they would have happily taken him to the dentist in the nearest village. "Didn't it hurt?" they asked him. "Well, it didn't hurt when I realized the tooth was rotten and needed to be pulled. It didn't hurt when I walked to the shed and got out the pliers. It didn't hurt when I put the pliers in my mouth. When pulled it out, that hurt for a moment. But now it doesn't hurt any more."

That story was exactly what I needed to hear at the time, after that horrible childbirth class had scared the pants off of both of us. There is nothing to be gained by working myself into a lather thinking about horrible labor is going to be. There is no point in scaring myself, worrying about what if my epidural doesn't work or what if I have to have a C-section and I can feel the doctor rooting around in my insides, what if I can't handle the contractions, what if the entire thing is just as terrible as everyone says it is. There is no turning back. It will be what it is, I will live through it, and then it will be over. The end.

Well, that was a lot easier to tell myself when it was still a nebulous event months and months away at some point in the unimaginable future. Not twenty-seven freaking days away. Or less! Oh god, it could be less. So I've been doing the sensible thing, staying awake until 3am worrying about it and being annoyed by my numb hands.

Tell me it's not going to be that bad. I don't care if you're lying.

**********

I can't believe that I am posting this picture, but here you go. Official 35-week photo! Next time Joel asks me if I really want to take a photo in my sweaty yoga clothes, please remind me to listen to the man.

 

(HEY LOOK IT'S A CRIB OMG. See guys, I told you we were going to get our act together eventually!)

(We don't exactly have a Pottery Barn nursery going on, but we are basically ready for the baby at home. Well, sort of. We have the crib set up. We have the somewhat random assortment of baby clothes that we own washed and stuffed into the drawers of a little changing table/dresser that we bought off Craigslist. We lugged all the hand-me-down stuff that was generously given to us by a coworker up from the basement. I have the vague feeling that we are going to need a whole lot more stuff -- for instance, we currently have three pairs of socks. Do you think we need more than that? What if we have about ten footed sleeper outfits? We're probably OK on socks then, right? I sure hope so, since the only socks I could find at Target that weren't for 6+months were those little Carter's gift sets that cost $7.99 for four pairs. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying $1 per sock. Plus, we don't have any more space for more stuff. So three pairs of socks is the limit. Sorry, baby. We should have registered for a bigger house instead of eight swaddling blankets.)

How the baby ruined our TV

A few months ago, Joel declared that we should cancel cable once the baby arrived to save money.

My first reaction was hell to the N-O. Fresh off reading this post, I was fairly terrified about feeling lonely, bored, and isolated during those first few months and I saw the suggestion as a personal affront. Sure, let's cancel cable! That sounds like a fantastic idea! While you're off at work with your fancy fast internet and your people to talk to and important work-things to do, I'll just sit at home with an infant attached to my boob, staring at the wall in silence! And while you're blissfully sleeping through the night I'll just wake up every two hours and quietly hold the baby with one arm while I hold up a copy of War and Peace in the other arm at 3am. Who needs TV when I can be educating myself AND feeding a baby in the middle of the night? And then I believe I cried. Have I mentioned that pregnancy hormones are fun?

Still, I was not pleased with the suggestion, even after I recovered my wits and peeled myself off the tear-stained floor.

BUT. Then we decided to actually do something about turning our second living room into the baby's room.  Previously, we had a big couch downstairs with a flat-screen TV connected to the main cable box and Xbox with surround sound and all that crap. We used this for Netflix Instant and occasionally one of those old-fashioned "DVD" thingies. On the second floor, we had a loveseat and a smaller TV connected to the Tivo. This is where we watched most of our TV (and coincidentally, where we ate dinner, since the coffee table up there doubled as our dining room table). So our first step in Preparing for Baby was to take the Tivo and coffee table downstairs and set them up in the Big TV Room. We then promptly (meaning five weeks later) put all the second floor room furniture on Craigslist. We weren't exactly following the What to Expect When You're Expecting Official Timetable to the letter, but whatever. Progress! We were making it! 

There was just one teensy little problem. When we connected the Tivo to the main cable box downstairs, it started recording every show with this little red flag icon instead of the happy green circle icon we have known and loved for many years. We ignored this at first. But then when I went to watch a rerun of Law and Order I'd recorded, I got this strange little warning telling me that "due to copyright settings," once I started the program, I'd have 24 hours to finish it before it was automatically deleted. Pardon moi? Upon further investigation, we learned that the little red flag also meant that we had only seven days to watch a recording before it was also automatically deleted.

As far as first world problems go, this was a pretty huge one. I came home one day to find Joel frantically watching an episode of Eureka. "I can't talk right now!" he said as he triple-beeped his way through the commercials, "I only have 36 minutes to finish 42 minutes of this show!" A week later, I stayed up way later than I wanted to in order to finish watching Project Runway after forgetting that it went to a 90-minute format last season. Normally I would have just stopped it whenever I felt like and resumed watching it when I was good and ready, whether that was the next day or two months later. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW TIVO IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. But no, I stayed up until the late, late hour of 11pm (shut up) and finished the goddamn show because I wasn't going to have time to watch it the next day. The whole time, I bitterly remembered the night I became utterly convinced that we needed to pony up for a Tivo. We were coming home from the grocery store and it was 7:57pm and Prison Break was about to come on. Joel slowed down while we passed the house and I jumped out of the still-moving car (possibly I have dramatized this evening in my mind a wee bit) and raced inside to set the VCR while he looked for a parking space. I struggled with getting the VCR properly set up and we missed the first ten minutes. This was back before all shows were available online, and also back when Prison Break was a good show. It was a tragedy of minor proportions and I decided I was sick of it. We got a Tivo a few weeks later and the Tivo set us free. The end. Until now.

This little copyright debacle has been going on for about a month, and friends: it sucks. We went on a babymoon vacation to South Carolina (and met the lovely Angela!) and while we were gone, all our shows were deleted. We can no longer bank up three or four episodes of a show and watch them back to back on the weekends. The Tivo is basically useless, and without the Tivo... TV is basically useless. And these two now-useless commodities are costing us $75 a month.

I tried contacting Tivo's customer service, and they were helpful enough, but ultimately concluded that it was a Comcast problem. I tried contacting Comcast and they were... not helpful. At all. The first person I spoke to on the phone said she'd never heard of such a thing and it must be a Tivo issue. The person I talked to on via their online chat help suggested that all our problems would be solved if we switched to a Comcast DVR for a low introductory price. As a last ditch effort, I tried contacting Comcast Bill on Twitter. I've seen other people have great success solving customer service problems via Twitter, and I figured it was worth a try. And what do you know -- it worked!

Well, sort of. It worked in that Comcast Bill put us on some kind of VIP Customer Service list and I got a call from a very nice gentleman who was very concerned about our problem that same afternoon. He agreed that we had a serious (SERIOUS) problem on our hands and set us up with a service appointment that same weekend.

It didn't so much work in that the service tech was unable to actually, you know, fix the problem. He tried switching out the cable box and spewed out a lot of mumbo jumbo about "cable cards" and our elderly Series 2 Tivo "not having one" (and he also had some helpful advice about how we should find out the sex of the baby so that we can know if we're "in for trouble" or not), but the bottom line is this: we either replace our perfectly fine Tivo with a newer model and pray that fixes the problem, or we suffer with the faulty copyright setting forever.

Strangely enough, I have almost stopped caring. It's the summer and there's not much on. I'm totally over Covert Affairs and Pretty Little Liars. So all my shows are getting deleted? Whatever. I'm just pissed that we're now paying $75 a month for, basically, nothing.

Friends, I think we are going to cancel cable. Hold me.

Two years

I always thought the old adage that rain on your wedding day is lucky was just a load of bullshit that people slung around to try and make rainy-day brides feel better.

But maybe there's something to it.

Happy anniversary, sweetie.

Pride Cometh Before

You know what I would not recommend, Internet? Falling down. More specifically, falling down face-first onto cement when you're seven months pregnant. Which is exactly what I did on Monday night. I slipped, I fell, I landed directly on my belly, and I bought myself a 24-hour stay in Labor and Delivery. What can I say, I didn't want to be upstaged by Joel and his visit to the ER.

Thankfully, everything is OK. Sir Fetus seems undaunted (so unperturbed that he didn't move for a full 30 minutes after the fall, which sent me into a panic thinking he was, you know, DEAD.) It seems that I didn't tear any vital internal baby accessories, we stemmed a possible onset of premature labor, and everything is going to be fine as long as Madame Cervix stays at her current 1-2 cm position and the contractions I've been having since the fall keep themselves nice and spread out. I have strict orders to keep myself on a pre-bedrest regimen, avoiding strenous exercise, lifting or carrying anything heavy, and certain, ahem, adult activities (collective sad face from the men in the audience).  Oh, and I'm also supposed to stay excessively hydrated for the remainder of the pregnancy and not fall down any more. I didn't tell the doctors just how good I am at falling down (anyone remember this?), afraid they'd strap me into a straitjacket for the next nine weeks.

All joking aside, it was a mildly terrifying and generally un-fun experience. I do not enjoy being in the hospital. I kind of wish I'd more seriously considered a hippie yoga home birth just so I wouldn't have to have an IV in my arm when I give birth (but then again, I really want that epidural, so I guess I'll deal). I don't like "sleeping" in a tiny, uncomfortable bed, with wires all over me and machines beeping and people coming in to do things like "check on me" and "take my blood pressure" and say "oops I thought this room was empty." I really, really do not like not eating for 24 hours. I'm sorry, but 5 liters of IV fluids just doesn't cut it. (Funny thing, though: you know what the nurses brought me when my 24 hours was up and my IV came out? A cold turkey sandwich from the cafeteria. So much for listeria!) Overall, I give the experience one star and would certainly not recommend it to my friends.

The good thing to come out of it, though, is that I feel better equipped to handle labor when it comes. I was terrified when we arrived, but I didn't cry (the closest I came is when Joel left to go home and sleep -- at my insistence -- and I suddenly felt horribly lonely) or totally freak out. The procedures ranged from mildly uncomfortable (wearing monitoring belts around your stomach for 24 hours, "sleeping" in a tiny bed with said belts on) to pretty painful (blown out veins during IV insertion, semi-strong contractions, raging headache) to downright awful (three full pelvic exams and four cervix checks in 24 hours, several performed by a resident who needs some serious work on her technique with a speculum), but I was able to breathe and focus on relaxing the rest of my body and just living through it. Make no mistake, I didn't exactly have a smile on my face and I know labor is going to be much, much harder.  But I feel like I can do it now. That's more than I could say a few weeks ago, when we were fresh out of the Childbirth Class of Doom.

But I'd still like to not do it for at least another 8-9 weeks. You hear that, Sir Fetus? Stay in there. And in the meantime, Joel and I will think very seriously about finally getting that crib set up.

A glimpse of nights to come

When we got a notice in the mail that there'd be a planned power outage for repair work on Sunday from 12-4am, it didn't strike me as a particularly terrible idea. It made sense, I guess, that they'd cut the power overnight while everyone should be happily asleep. We probably wouldn't even notice!

Right on schedule, the power went out at precisely midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, causing our burglar alarm to shriek out in protest because BURGLARZ R CUTTIN TEH POWER OMG. Before my heart rate could go back to normal I heard the cool, blessed breeze of the air conditionering slow down and die. Our ceiling fan made a few halfhearted circles before dragging to a halt. The other fan we use for white noise was conspicuously silent. By 12:02 I was covered in a sheen of sweat and muttering the entire trio of unforgivable curses in BGE's direction for not doing this during the goddamn DAY, when people could at least leave the house and go somwehere with air conditioning.

Opening the windows was quickly ruled out because the low overnight was in the high seventies. With humidity, it felt somwhere in the 80s. And to someone seven months pregnant, it felt about five degrees short of molten lava. I packed up my pillows and my book and moved to the couch on the first floor, where it's about ten degrees cooler, and I used my newly acquired booklight to read quite happily. It was cool enough and I had seven different pillows positioned strategically and I wasn't even that upset about being woken up.

That is, until the noise started. The problem with the nice, cool first floor is that it's at street level. The couch is probably ten feet from the sidewalk, and without my beloved fan for white noise I was forced to listen to every drunken conversation, every dog barking, every bird chirping. (Aren't birds supposed to sleep at night? Because our birds CHIRP ALL NIGHT.) 

Still, I was OK. I was really tired from being at yoga training all day and I was confident I'd fall asleep quickly despite the guy yelling "what the fuck, man, what the fuck!" right outside the window. I briefly wondered if I should get up and see what was going on, but decided against it because 1) getting off the couch is no easy feat nowadays, and 2) I don't have any maternity pajamas. And it was really hot. So what I'm saying is, I wasn't exactly appropriately attired to be peeking out a window three inches away from a drunk yelling guy. So I gave him a little huff of indignation and continued reading my book.

Then I heard Joel talking on the phone upstairs. While I'd been feeling annoyed at this guy for not keeping his damn voice down while I was busy trying not sweat to death, Joel had looked out the third story window to see him being mugged and beaten unconscious. So! The police and ambulance were called, Joel went outside to help the guy (who had since regained consciousness and was sitting across the street on our neighbor's stoop). After about fifteen minutes the guy insisted he was OK and stumbled off. The police and ambulance finally arrived, Joel showed them where the guy was (unsurprisingly, he hadn't made it very far down the block).  The guy declined medical attention and the police and ambulance left. It was all very exciting. I mean that sarcastically, which is how I know it's time to get the hell out of this city. (Also exciting? After all this happened, someone came along and shotgunned two beers and left them in our plant. Party at our house on a Saturday night!)

By this time it was 2:30am. Joel returned upstairs, I retired back to my couch. And then Henry the Cat started howling and running around like a maniac on the second floor. Thanks to the historic 100-year-old wood floors that were such a nice selling point when we bought this house, it sounded like a rabid pack of wild hyenas taking down a zebra instead of an 11-lb house cat batting around his green felt mouse. The power was still off and I imagined that I could actually feel my couch-refuge getting hotter by the second.

Still! I was confident everything was going to be OK! I read some more and eventually passed out around 4am, book in hand... only to be woken up by the beeping of every elecrical appliance in the kitchen and the sweet, sweet sound of the air conditioning sputtering to life two hours later (that would be two hours LATE, BGE, and don't think I didn't notice). I waddled my aching back upstairs and returned to the bed, giving my white noise fan a hug and a kiss on the way.

And then two hours after THAT, the alarm went off saying it was time for me to wake up and go back to yoga teacher training. 

It was a bad night of sleep, is what I am saying. And you know what made it worse? Realizing that in 10 more weeks, this is going to be the norm.

And this is why you can't trust doctors

Joel and I were invited to a fourth of July BBQ this Saturday. Fun, right? Sure, unless you're me. And you don't really like doing stuff. Or talking to people. 

Also, this BBQ is just us and two other couples from my work. I like them both very much, but I don't really like hanging out with work people on the weekends. Because that means I have to wear real clothes and act like a normal person. And I have social anxiety that I normally treat by drinking several alcoholic beverages except I can't drink. Thanks for nothing, baby.

I was sorely tempted to say "sorry, can't make it!" and revel in our long weekend with no plans, no obligations, nowhere to be. But then I realized, hmmm, perhaps this is why I don't have any friends in this city. And I remembered how I got a severe case of The Sads about halfway through Memorial Day weekend when I realized we had done absolutely nothing (this is ridiculous, because I love doing nothing. I never claimed to be rational, and also LAY OFF ME I'M PREGNANT).

I'd be embarassed to tell you how much time I spent thinking about whether we should go to this stupid BBQ or not. Finally, I clicked "respond" on the invitation email, said "We'd love to come! See you there!" and clicked "send" before I had time to think about it. There! We're going! It will be fun! I'll make Pioneer Woman's pesto cream pasta and everything will be great!

And then this morning I got slapped with these fun accessories.

Apparently this is what happens if you have astronomically high cholesterol and mention to your doctor that you've been having intermittent chest pain and heart palpitations. Sure, no problem, I'll wear a heart monitor for 48 hours, I said at yesterday's 29-week appointment.  In my head I was envisioning something like the heart rate monitor that Joel uses when working out, a discreet little band that goes around your chest and is easily hidden by a shirt. Instead, I got electrodes from my ribs to my neck, a mess of wires, a sweet little battery pack that you wear around like a shoulder bag, and orders not to shower until Sunday at 11am. It's classy AND sexy and I'm currently praying that we get out of work early for the holiday so I can go home and hide in the house until Sunday morning.

OH WAIT EXCEPT I HAVE TO GO TO A FUCKING BARBEQUE AND MAKE SMALL TALK WHILE LOOKING LIKE WALL-E'S FATTER COUSIN.

SOBER.

This baby owes me so hard.

 

Have scooter, will travel

When the hospital scheduled us for the June session of the childbirth class, I was kind of pissed because I wanted to have all the invaluable information we were bound to learn fresh in my mind when the Big Day came. Little did I know that Prepared Childbirth was actually the shorthand name for Childbirth Class From Hell. Now I am so very glad that we have two months to brainwash away all the  horrifying little bits of trivia we were treated to during the last four weeks. Like, did you know that after a C-section, they take your uterus out of your body and plop it on your stomach to sew it up? I wish I could un-know that, and now you can all wish that too. You're welcome. 

I guess it wasn't ALL bad. We did learn a few helpful tips. Like, apparently you're not supposed to shake your baby. Or hit it! Who knew?

I fully intended to write a scathing evaluation of this class because I really feel like it was not only not helpful, but actually detrimental. I am aware that giving birth is not exactly going to be the most relaxing and pleasant experience of my life, but before we started this class I wasn't scared. Now... I am scared. Really, really scared. I kind of want to postpone this whole "having a child" thing until science figures out a way to get the baby out via teleportation. Or until men are somehow able to give birth. I'm fine with all the discomforts (and oh, THE DISCOMFORTS, I will restrain myself from tell you allll about them) of pregnancy, but I am no longer fine with birthing a human being.  This poses a slight problem, as you can imagine. And that's what I was going to write on the evaluation, except that we had to fill them out during class. While the perky instructor stood a foot away, watching me furtively circle numbers on a scale of 1 to 5. Since there's a fair chance that this perky instructor will be on duty when I go into labor, I pussied out and left the comments section blank. Even though "please tell us the one thing you'd like to see changed about this course" section was calling out to me.

********************* 

This weekend my friend asked me if I was still riding my bike around town and I confessed that I've pretty much given up the bike. It's only slightly uncomfortable to ride with my big old belly in the way; the real problem is that it's too damn hot. So instead I've taken to riding our little motor scooter around town.

You may remember the tragic tale of our first scooter, which lasted less than 24 hours before it was stolen off the sidewalk outside our house. We did eventually get it back, but it was damaged beyond use and now sits, sad and lonely, underneath a tarp on our back patio. We bought a new scooter on Craigslist (which looks exactly the same as the old one) and Joel used some of the parts from the poor old scooter to fix it up and get it in working condition. But the fun and ease of riding it was ruined by the fact that we have to keep it locked up and out of sight in the alley to keep it away from thieves. I'd thought for a long time that we should just sell both the damn things and clear out some space on the patio.

But then I started this yoga teacher training. The weekend trainings don't get out until 10:30 on Friday nights and 8:30 on Saturday nights, by which times it is impossible to find a parking spot in our neighborhood. I started out riding my bike, but the studio is about a 30-minute ride uphill on the way there, and it's HOT. Plus, I'm pregnant. It was too much.

Joel encouraged me to ride the scooter and I resisted and whined. It was hard to get out of the alley. The battery was dead and it was difficult for me to get it kick-started. The first time I consented to ride it, I tipped it over trying to get it up on the kickstand and some poor fellow parking his car had to run out and help me stand it back up. I was not happy with the stupid scooter.

Joel persisted, though. He got it a new battery and fixed it so that the push-button start worked again. Either the kickstand lever loosened itself up or my technique got better and I no longer have trouble with it. I learned that as long as I park it facing uphill, it won't tip over. And best of all, Joel agreed that whenever I want to use it, he'll act as my scooter valet and bring it in and out of the alley for me. And now... I kind of love riding it. It goes 35 mph, which is much faster than my bike ever was AND I don't have to huff and puff up hills. It gets probably 80 miles to the gallon, so I don't feel too bad about using fossil fuels instead of my own two legs to get around (plus: pregnancy card). And best of all, I don't need to cruise around for 40 minutes looking for a parking space for it when I get home late at night.

I told all this to my friend, and she looked incredulously at my midsection. "I'd pay money to see you riding around on a mini-motorcycle with that belly," she said. 

(Video link)

I neglected to ask her exactly how much money. PAY UP, BITCH.

Vasovagal response

The first time that I can remember feeling totally frozen with fear was on a family vacation to Hawaii, about 5 or 6 years ago. We went bowling (in re-telling this story, my sister-in-law was confused as to why we'd go *bowling* in Hawaii. I am not really sure. It must have been raining. Or nighttime. Or... I don't know.) We were having a grand old time, making bets (my brother cannot play any sort of game without betting on it) and talking smack about my patented between-the-legs grandma bowling style* when my mom walked up to the line to bowl. She wound up, her arm swung back, and in what seemed like slow motion her shoes slipped out from under her and she flew backwards like a cartoon. Except in the cartoons, a when Wile E. Coyote slips on a banana peel and goes flying over backwards, his skull doesn't make a sickening crack when it hits the ground. The crack sounded as loud as lightening, and my brothers and I stood there frozen for what seemed like a very long time while my mom lay there, not moving. 

She was fine. We carefully finished our game, made jokes about no more drinking while bowling. But for that split-second, we were just frozen in place, unable to process the potential consequences of what had just happened. Head injury. Skull fracture. Concussion. Coma. These are the things that flew into my head. I was completely paralyzed.

*I used this method again last weekend and totally tied my bet-loving brother, so there. It works!

********************************

The second time I can remember feeling the same sort of unable-to-react horror was during the car accident, two and a half years ago. Again, it felt like time slowed down and I had an eternity to consider what was happening. The car was moving in the wrong direction. I could hear glass breaking and metal tearing. We were crashing and there was absolutely nothing I could do. I'm going to die in this car, I thought. This is what it feels like.

I was not exactly fine, but I didn't die in that crash. No one did. It was OK.

********************************

The third time I experienced that paralyzed, refusing to comprehend yet at the same time processing a million terrible possibilities, terror was on Tuesday night last week. At the second session of our Prepared Childbirth Class. When, after what I thought was an unnecessarily detailed description of the four degrees of vaginal tearing, the instructor moved on to All About Episiotomies and Joel passed out cold.

Typing it there, it sounds almost funny. It's like a sitcom! Dad-to-be passes out in the delivery room, hilarity ensues! Turns out it's not all that funny when it's actually happening to you in real life.

********************************

Tuesdays are a hectic day, and neither of us has time to go home between work and the class, which starts at 7:30pm.  Since February, I've been leaving work early on Tuesdays so that I can drive up to Towson and go to a 4:30pm yoga class. It's a pain in the ass and it makes for a very long day, but as part of our teacher training we're required to attend one class taught by the studio owner a week, and this is the only one she teaches that isn't hot yoga. Normally I love hot yoga, but I've been trying to avoid it while I'm pregnant. So I negotiated a modified work schedule and I schlep up to Towson once a week now. 

Last week we also started our Prepared Childbirth class on Tuesday evenings. I have enough time to change after yoga and drive directly to the class, but not enough time to go home and shower. Or eat dinner. Tuesdays have become a sort of marathon day, where I leave for work at 8am, go to yoga from 4:30-6pm, and then go to the childbirth class from 7:30-9:30pm. It sucks, but it's only for four weeks.

Joel normally works until 7 or 7:30pm, so making it to the class on time is difficult for him too. The first week, he had just enough time to stop home and pack us some cheese and crackers to snack on during class. But last week we had no snackable food in the house. When we got to the hospital, we briefly toured through the cafeteria to see what sort of dinner or snack options it might offer. I was this close to buying some chicken fingers for us to share (I like to make healthy food choices when I'm on the way to a class about caring for my unborn child), but then I saw the price. Five dollars for four chicken strips, you have got to be kidding me! No way, I'll just wait, I said. I asked Joel if he wanted anything. "Well, I thought we were going to share some chicken fingers..." Oh! Well, in that case, the breakdown was only $2.50 each, and while I'm not willing to spend $5 on a snack for myself, I'm willing to split a $5 snack. But honestly, would four chicken strips be enough for both of us? No, better get the six piece. Which is SEVEN DOLLARS OH MY GOD. No, we'll just wait. (This is how my brain works.) I had a yogurt in my purse, and I'd been careful to eat two bananas and one of those 90-calorie granola bars over the past couple of hours to stave off the wolf-hunger that hits me when I go too long without a snack. I handed Joel my spare 90-calorie granola bar and we went up to the conference room.

This week's class topic was (TMI alert) vaginal delivery. It was not exactly for the faint of heart. We watched a video that included footage of an actual birth, full frontal and up close. I... really did not need to see that. And then we started talking about labor. Hours and hours of labor. Contractions. They don't feel good, apparently. More contractions. Contractions followed by contractions with a 30-second break in between, being in horrible pain for hours. I was displeased, to say the least. I know that this is all going to happen. I KNOW. But I don't really think it's necessary to spend 20 minutes driving home the fact that HEY, CONTRACTIONS ARE AWFUL, SUCKS TO BE YOU LADIES. I know I am going to go through this and I'm OK with it... as long as I don't think too hard about it. I will survive it just as generations before me have survived it, except I have the benefit of drugs. Which I will be taking lots and lots of. I am quite proud of the fact that, except for one dose of Tylenol and my prenatal vitamins, I have not taken a single pharmaceutical during this pregnancy. I feel that this buys me a guilt-free pass to take every legal drug available during labor. (Again, this is how my brain works. I am much better at suffering through the long-term, chronic discomforts of pregnancy than I am with the acute pain, so I will do my very best to be healthy and all natural and all that hippie bullshit during pregnancy, and then during labor: I want drugs. ALL OF THEM. And this rationale makes me feel like labor is going to be OK. If I am wrong, I really don't want to know about it.)

And then after we got done talking about how long and difficult labor is for first-time mothers, we got to the part about (TMI! TMI!) vaginal tearing. First degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree. "You'll need a LOT of stitches and you won't be sitting down without a donut for a couple of weeks," the nurse teaching the class chirped. "And now let's talk about episiotomies!"  

And that's when Joel got up and walked out of the room. To go to the bathroom, I assumed.  A few seconds later we heard a crash in the hallway. I thought it sounded like someone had crashed one of those wheeling beds in to the wall. I hope they didn't crash that bed right into Joel, I thought. In the seconds that followed the nurse continued talking, but there was just silence from the hallway. No sounds of a wheeling bed continuing down the hallway. Nobody apologizing for crashing or almost crashing a bed into my husband. (Why did I assume it a wheeling bed? I don't know.) Ten seconds probably passed before the instructor and I realized at the exact same moment that something was not right. We both flew out our chairs and went to the hallway, where we found Joel crumpled in a lifeless heap on the floor.  My brain immediately began both processing and denying, and I was just frozen. Over and over my brain repeated, this is not real. This is not happening.

I snapped out of it within a second and was on the floor shaking Joel's shoulder trying to wake him up. After a few moments he opened his eyes and looked at me, confused. "Are you OK?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, looking completely baffled as to why I'd ask. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, his mouth started to move without making any sound, and he went completely limp again. "Has he ever had a seizure before? Is he diabetic? Does he have any health problems?" the instructor asked urgently as she rapped on his sternum with the knuckles of one hand and slapped his cheek with the other.  "No!", I responded. "He's healthy!" Except for the fact that he is completely lifeless at the moment, my brain added silently.

It felt like a really long time, but Joel eventually came to and was again completely confused as to why we were standing around him asking him if he was OK. He was fine, he insisted, he just wanted some air. It wasn't some kind of macho, nothing-hurts-me protesting. He didn't understand why I was worried, why everyone was standing in the hallway looking at him. He felt like he needed come out in the hall for some air, and now he was out in the hall getting some air. What's the big deal?  That scared me even more.  He had no recollection of collapsing. He'd started to sweat through his t-shirt and he had the pallor of a corpse, but he kept insisting he felt completely fine.

So, spoiler alert: Joel is OK. We were in a hospital, our class contains two doctors in addition to the nurse teaching it, and about fifty more doctors were immediately called. We were issued a free wheelchair ride down the elevator to the ER, where his vitals were checked and I had the privilege of using the most disgusting bathroom I have ever encountered, including port-a-potties (hey, turns out that spending five minutes convinced that your husband is going to die is an instant cure for pregnancy constipation!).  After a second nurse checked his blood pressure she gave us two options: be officially checked in and wait to see a doctor -- with the approximate wait time being six hours -- or go home. We opted to go home. After a brief discussion about how I did not feel it was a good idea for him to RIDE HIS BIKE HOME (omg), that is. 

"Don't you agree that it's not a good idea for him to ride his bike home right now" I asked the second nurse while she was taking off the blood pressure cuff.

"Ride a bike? Why would he ride a bike right now?" she asked. 

"Because that's how we got here." 

"How on earth are you still riding a bike?" she asked, eyeing my belly.

"Well, I didn't bike [although I do still ride my bike for shorter, non-hilly trips thankyouverymuch]; I rode an adorable motor scooter. That's not the point, don't you agree he should just walk?"

"Oh, we don't recommend walking in this neighborhood."

OMG. She REFUSED to back me up. Instead of getting into the fact that I know EXACTLY what kind of neighborhood this is, you know, since I work across the street and waddle my pregnant ass in here on foot every damn day, we left and got a Sprite from the vending machine in the cafeteria. After Joel pounded the Sprite and I tried one more time to convince him that riding his bike home was not the brightest idea, can't we just walk, we departed -- Joel on his bike and me riding the adorable scooter alongside. We made it home (on a bike, it's only a 5-minute downhill ride) and I then forced him to chase that cafeteria Sprite with a huge glass of lemonade and a bowl of cereal. Joel went to bed complaining that he felt uncomfortably full from all that liquid and I was quite pleased with that. So pleased that I only woke up about ten times during the night to make sure he was breathing.

25 weeks

In the very beginning, people kept telling me to "enjoy the pregnancy!" because "it'll be over in a flash!" and at the time I wanted to kill them. For one thing, I do not like being ordered to "enjoy it while it lasts!" because this somehow implies that I wasn't already enjoying it, and I was plenty overjoyed thankyouverymuch. And secondly, I felt like general ass for the first couple of months and it wasn't particularly enjoyable. So shove your cheerful orders right down your nauseous, barftastic throat and see how you "enjoy it!", assholes.

Anyway, the point is I now feel like the pregnancy is truly flying by. Don't get me wrong, I also feel like I have been pregnant my entire life. It's been less than six months since I first stood in the bathroom trying to convince Joel that that was in fact, a second line, I was sure of it because I had been I had compared it to the previous five days' tests (what?). I can hardly remember what it was like to wear normal clothes and drink coffee every day. Someone asked me how far along I was on Monday and I had a panicked moment where I couldn't remember. Twenty-three weeks? Twenty-four? Twenty-five, I blurted out, because I have taken to slightly exaggerating just how far along I am with strangers in hopes of preempting any comments about how I'm just so HUGE for [insert number of weeks here]. (It's working, because no one has insisted that I'm having twins or called me a hippopotamus in weeks.) And then when I got home and looked at the calendar I realized, holy shit. I actually AM at twenty-five weeks. It's just like the time I accidentally lied to the doctor about my age because I couldn't do the math in my head fast enough, so I just guessed. The more things change, huh? 

I half want things to slow down so I can enjoy and record and cherish and all that. Feeling the baby kick and move all the time. Looking undeniably pregnant, but not so huge that I'm desperately uncomfortable and can't get around. Experiencing all the stereotypical pregnancy symptoms without wanting to throw myself off a bridge just to escape the nausea. These are probably the best weeks, I know.

But still, I'm half ready for this pregnancy to be over. I wouldn't mind having control of my own body back. I am a little tired of having to work my morning schedule around baby-induced, ahem, gastrointestinal issues. (Which present themselves at exactly the moment I need to leave for work every. single. day. So I can either 1) be late to work because I was... tied up in the bathroom, 2) try to make it to work and deal with the issue there [no thank you] or 3) wait until the next day. Because apparently that's how it works. It's 8:15am or nothing, THANKS BABY.) I'd like to be able to sleep on my stomach again. Just for one, blissful night. I'd like to not have to get up six time (SIX TIMES) a night to pee. And I would really, really, REALLY like to have one of the cool, refreshing mojito-type drink concoctions I've been making for Joel with fresh mint from the garden and leftover ginger ale from the morning sickness days. Or, at the very least, I'd take one of those green apple Smirnoff Ices we have in the leftover in the fridge from when some friends were visiting back in March. They just look so... cool. Refreshing. Delicious. Have I mentioned that it is hotter than hell? No, really, we are setting records and shit here on the East Coast for hottest May ever in the history of the universe, and guys: I am scared. People warned me, "it's going to be a long, hot summer!" and I dismissed them, because 1) not much I can do about it now, guys, and at least I won't have to buy a maternity coat SO THERE and 2) I am pretty used to the Baltimore heat. I know it's not pleasant, but I can deal with it. I'd rather be hot than cold any day.

That's what I said, anyway. Now I think I'd like to move to Antarctica. We walked the seven minutes over to the garden plot over the weekend and I felt just like I used to feel after running ten miles in the ridiculous heat. Like I was never going to be cool again. I asked Joel to spray me with the hose in the garden (normally I would murder him; I hate water, I hate swimming, and I don't even like showering). When we got home I had to run my feet under cold water in the bathtub. While fantasizing about buying a kiddie pool, filling it with ice cubes, and spending the rest of my life submerged in it up to my neck. This was all in MAY. I am not really sure how I am going to survive July, let alone August.

But most of all, more than the heat and the peeing every ten minutes and the not-so-gentle kicks in the gut, I am ready to be done with the emotional pregnancy roller coaster. I mean, this week I feel great. That's nice. Last week was not to nice, not when I was sobbing in the bathroom because I felt like a terrible mother already. You see, we still have yet to purchase a single baby item and I had absolutely no idea where to start or any sort of urge to find out. I'd read about other people making grand plans for paint colors and cute art for the walls of the nursery or spending hours researching car seats and crib mattresses and I just could not make myself care. About any of it. Why didn't I want to do this stuff? Why didn't I want to go buy baby clothes and pre-wash them and fold them perfectly in the dresser (which we don't have) next to the baby's (non-existent) crib? Why, instead of feeling all starry-eyed and lovey when the baby kicked me (hard) (right in the guts), did I find myself resenting the baby and wishing I could just have a break for five goddamn minutes to eat my food without having it kicked back up my esophagus? If I already couldn't handle the stress of a non-complicated, relatively easy pregnancy, how in the hell was I going to handle a crying, pooping, demanding newborn? I diagnosed myself with some kind of pre-partum depression and then I cried for three days straight anytime someone mentioned the word "baby".

And then, suddenly, I started to feel better. I realized it was going to be OK. Janet reminded me how crazy people got about wedding stuff, too. I remembered how people were shocked that I had no idea what our bouquets were going to look like until they showed up on the day of the wedding. And the look of horror when I admitted that we weren't having favors. Not even a donating to charity in lieu of favors or anything like that. I just didn't care about them, so we weren't having them. And I was fine with that. It didn't mean I didn't care about our wedding. And having no desire to read 800 crib reviews on Amazon doesn't mean I don't care about the baby. That makes sense now, but it didn't last week.

Helping a lot to pull me out of the funk is that fact that we are now officially registered for baby gifts. See! Something has been done! (Never mind that someone at work asked me if we had our nursery all set up and I stammered something about it not being quite finished yet. And by that I meant, our "nursery" is still our living room. But at least it's painted a nice, gender-neutral shade of green, so we've got a head start there!) We spent two hours, armed with a scanner gun and Amalah's registry checklist, in the baby section of Target on Saturday. And then we treated ourselves to Chick-Fil-A as a reward, amen.  Joel finished our Amazon registry on Monday night. I nearly cried again (happy tears! the good ones!) looking at all the stuff he'd put on there on Tuesday morning. Stuff that he'd picked out for our child. Just thinking of him picking out a Cat in the Hat hooded towel for our baby to use is so amazingly wonderful that it feels like... too much. My heart feels like bursting. And those are the happy hormones talking, I know. I like them much, much more than the mean, sad hormones. But I think I am ready to have all these hormones go back to my baseline level of crazy.

(Jesus, even I'm starting to think it's twins.)

23 weeks

Well, here I am. I survived the weekend. Looking back, I am really not sure what I was so panicked about, but you know how that is. Or maybe you don't because you're not an anxiety-prone person who works themselves into a lather at the thought of not having a full weekend day to zone out on the couch. Lucky you.

Things went pretty well overall, if anyone cares. I survived the entire 18 hours of yoga training and my teaching portion went really well. No prize dropped from the ceiling as a reward when I walked out the door on Sunday at 4pm, but I'm sure that was just an oversight and a big box of chocolate covered something is on its way. The flea market was a pretty good success, despite the fucking RAIN that would not stop raining down from the rain-filled sky the entire day. And my friend and her boyfriend ended up not coming to town and staying with us. Which was probably best. For their own safety. I spent a good hour and a half cleaning up and putting shit away last night after work and the place STILL looks like a post-yard sale disaster. I had to leave the back door open all last night just to vent out the nasty smell that has somehow invaded the house. Henry the Cat chose to lounge on the deck next to the compost bin rather than in the house, if that tells you anything. I'm going to stop talking about this now.

****************

Now that it's glaringly obvious that I am quite pregnant, a lot of my fellow teacher trainees have been politely asking if I knew I was pregnant when I enrolled in this training. The answer is kind of complicated. When I registered and paid my non-refundable deposit in November, I was not pregnant. Shortly afterwards I got my PCOS diagnosis and we started to very seriously think about trying to get pregnant sooner rather than later. I obviously realized that with the training running from February-September, there was a possibility that I would (hopefully) have to complete some portion of it while pregnant. I looked at it as betting on both sides: if we were able to get pregnant, hooray!  And if we couldn't get pregnant, well... at least I'd be able to complete the training! Which, by the way, I'd been meaning to do for years, but there was always something in the way. I was working full time and going to grad school and didn't have time. I was travelling too much for work. I was planning a wedding. I just felt like if I put it off another year it was just never going to happen. So we plowed ahead on both tracks.

And then by the beginning of January, we realized that hooray and holy shit, I was pregnant. For real. With a baby. I emailed the studio owner who runs the training to see if I was even able to still do the training, which is pretty intense, while pregnant. She said it was totally up to me. I wouldn't be the first person to do go through some of the training pregnant (although I've since found out that I will be something like the third, and that I will be the first to do the ENTIRE thing pregnant), but they would refund my deposit if I wanted to drop out at that point. The thing was, I needed to decide right away so they could fill my space before the training started in February. If I started and then couldn't make it through, I'd be getting zero refund. This thing is pretty expensive. She did graciously offer that if I had to drop out, I could make up what I missed in a future year's training at no charge... but we really, REALLY hope to not live in Baltimore at that point. So I'm not considering that as an option.

Obviously, I decided to go ahead with it. At that time, way back in January, the pregnancy seemed so tenuous and incredible that it felt like I'd be tempting fate to make any sort of life alterations around it. And now here I am, halfway done with the pregnancy and halfway done with the training. So far, so good!  The training ends on September 11th. I am due on September 13th. The closer we get, the more ridiculous it seems that I thought cutting it so close was a feasable option.  But really, I didn't have much of a choice.Hopefully the baby stays in until its due date. Hey, my mom had all three of her children on her exact due date!  It could happen. And we're allowed to miss one day of the training, which I am obviously saving for that last day in case the baby is two days early. Maybe I'll be the first person to go into labor during this thing. At least I'll be surrounded by a pretty competent bunch, which includes two nurses and a gaggle of doulas and midwives. I'm trying not to worry about it, and to just take it one week at a time. Right now I can still do both. If I reach a point where I can't any more, I'll figure something out.

*********************

You may have noticed that I'm still calling it "the baby". Not "him" or "her". That's because we're not finding out the sex. As an impatient person who doesn't really like surprises, trust me, I know. But Joel really, really wants it to be a surprise on the day of the birth and he's a pretty good guy so he gets his way on this. I'm actually very OK with it. What's another 20 weeks of not knowing in the grand scheme of life?  Sorry to disappoint those of you who've asked, though. You'll know when we know!

 

I have absolutely no feeling one way or the other. I had one dream that the doctor accidentally let it slip that it was a girl. So maybe it's a girl. Then again, I have about five girl names that I really like and no boy names that I'm absolutely in love with, so it's probably a boy. Place your bets!

Maybe if I write it all down it won't seem so overwhelming

I am not sure how everything that needs to get done in the next four days is going to happen.

I started a yoga teacher training in February, did I tell you guys that? I meant to tell you about it in NOVEMBER, when I signed up, but then I got distracted. And then I got pregnant. And as you may have noticed, that sort of took over my life and my blog. The teacher training has been great so far, but it is extremely time consuming. One weekend a month, from February to September, we have training all weekend. And I mean ALL WEEKEND. 7:30-10:30pm on Fridays, 12:30-8:30pm on Saturdays, and 9am-4pm on Sundays. It's fantastic, but it's exhausting. Rest assured, we're not actually doing yoga that entire time (I'd drop dead) (although we nearly did yoga the entire time the first weekend, and I nearly did drop dead), but it's still 18 hours of paying attention and taking notes and, now, practice teaching.

On top of that, we also need to go to 90-minute yoga classes three times a week. I thought this would be the hardest thing, but I actually love this. It does cut into my TV time, but I've come to love knowing that Tuesday and Thursday nights I have to go to yoga. There is no hemming and hawing over how I really should go to the gym, but I don't feel like it, but I REALLY should, but I REALLY REALLY just want to go home after work. No more worrying about it. I just have to go. And unsurprisingly, I feel pretty great from doing that much yoga. But still... it's more hours cut out of the week. And on weekends when we have the training, I have to squeeze in all three classes during the work week and that is kind of tough. While also trying to cram in the required reading that I always procrastinate doing.

Anyway, we have a training weekend coming up tomorrow. It's my group's turn to teach an hour-long yoga class and I am really nervous. And on top of that, we all have to have ANOTHER individual 30-minute class prepared, and I am also nervous about that.

And on top of THAT, we are participating in the neighborhood flea market on Saturday. When I haven't been at yoga this week, I've been helping Joel go through the entire house from closet to basement, deciding what to sell and what to keep. Hint: everything is a sell. Apparently a baby is going to live here in four months (FOUR MONTHS) and currently the only space we have to put said baby's crib (which we don't actually own, because the thought of researching and buying baby gear at the moment is enough to make me faint from exhaustion) is next to Henry's litterbox in the room we affectionately call the Poop Room. Because, you know, it's where the cat poops. And unfortunately, that's also what it smells like.

So I have to go to yoga tonight. I'll get home around 7:30. Then we'll start (and finish) pricing stuff for the flea market and cleaning off all the stuff that was stored in the spiderwebby basement. Then I'll HOPEFULLY go immediately to sleep, since I haven't slept the past two nights. Then on Friday, I'll finish out what has been an insane week at work, go immediately to to the yoga studio to practice one last time with my group, and stay there for training until 10:30pm. On Saturday we'll wake up around 6am, set up for the flea market, and then I'll race back to yoga training at noon, teach our class (OMG), and stay there until 8:30pm.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that my friend and her boyfriend are staying with us on Saturday night? So at some point, our disaster zone of a house is going to have to get cleaned. I'm putting Henry in charge of that.

All this to say, I cannot wait for it to be 4pm on Sunday. I can't even decide what I want to do starting at 4:01. Go directly to sleep? Surgically attach myself to the couch and watch 12 straight hours of TV? Compulsively pull every single weed out of the garden?

Sometimes when I'm feeling really overwhelmed it helps me to just list out everything I need to do, and then I realize it's not really that much. It didn't so much work this time so I'm just going with my backup strategy, which is to count down the hours until everything is over and then go into autopilot mode. First, survive the work day. Then survive Prenatal Yoga. Eat something, do the flea market stuff, sleep (please, god, let me fall asleep tonight). Repeat with variations on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday all I have to do is survive the training, no teaching anything. And then at 4pm I can go home and return to my life.

Seventy-eight hours to go.

Halfway there

Hey, so I went to San Francisco! It was the perfect balance of tourist-vacation stuff in the mornings and naps and Harry Potter watching in the evenings. This is why I love my friends.

While I was there, my friend Beth asked me if I kind of high-fived or gave other pregnant women a secret glance when I passed them in the street. I've thought about this more than once, because I LOVE seeing other pregnant ladies out there and I feel this instant bond with them -- I want them all to be my new friends. But I've never said anything or waved or high-fived them because 1) I don't want to assume that someone's pregnant when in reality I have no idea, they could just be gestating a baby made from Wendy's Frosties and Safeway frozen pizza (which I would fully support, BEEN THERE), and 2) I don't want to seem like some strange person insistent on talking to them about their potential pregnancy, you know, in case they can't tell that I'm pregnant too. I have a couple of outfits that I think minimize my pregnant state, and I was careful to wear one of them (a ruched sweatshirt) on the plane to minimize the possibility of being drawn into a never-ending conversation with my seat mate (that didn't work, since he point-blank asked me if I had kids. After he showed me his iPad, his iphone, and said "I'm the type of guy who's going to talk to you whether you want to read your book or not!"). So, you know, I just don't want to seem like a wierdo.

Don't worry about that, Bethy kindly told me. I am pretty sure people can tell. 

Yeah, I guess she's right. Secret's out, huh? 

I thought I was looking extremely pregnant MONTHS ago, and now I look back at those pictures and my god, I cannot believe how skinny I was.

 

We visited the sea lions while we were in San Francisco, and on the educational placard next to their hangout on Pier 39 I learned that it's called "hauling out" when these 1000-lb beasts heave themselves out of the water and onto the docks. That's now the term that I use to refer to my getting into our very high bed at night. And also getting off the couch. Or out of my office chair. Someone should install a little ladder for those sea lions, is what I'm saying, because this shit is HARD.

(I cannot believe I am going to continue getting bigger for 20 more weeks. Hold me.)

I really and truly feel pregnant now, if I didn't before. The fact that my body has decided I should experience every pregnancy symptom known to womankind is helping with that. Heartburn! Bleeding gums! Constipation! Headaches! Insomnia! Eyebrows that grow faster than I can pluck them! The most painful zit I've ever had in my life... on my shoudlerblade! 

 Oh, but also, there's this:

 

For the first time in my life I have nails! On my fingers! They grow back faster than I can bite them and more miraculously, I no longer feel the need to pick at my fingers. That alone, friends, is enough to make the heartburn and headaches and the... bathroom issues worth it. That and the tiny (and some not-so-tiny) baby thumps. God, I never would have thought I could love getting kicked in the bladder so much.

Pregnancy Brain

I have a friend who is a doctor. If you don't have one of these, I highly suggest that you go out and get yourself one; they're quite handy when you want to know why people get antibiotics for pinkeye when pinkeye is a virus (answer: for no real reason) or whether it's really that bad to do hot yoga while you're pregnant (answer: maybe). My friend was visiting this past weekend and I took the opportunity to pepper her with every pregnancy question I've been too embarrassed or forgetful to ask my OB. Like, why am I suddenly so much dumber than I used to be? Is the baby sucking up all my brain cells? Does that mean it's going to be the smartest baby in the history of babies?

Answer: I don't know, no, and no. Pregnancy Brain is not a medically recognized phenomenon, it turns out.

Huh. In that case, all those 2/3 vodka 1/3 diet snapple cocktails I drank in college have finally caught up with me, because friends: I am no longer smart. I vaguely remember that I used to be sort of intelligent. Sometimes. Capable of handling everyday tasks, at least. But lately... not so much. No much at all.

For instance, I took two checks to the actual bank the other day. Normally I just deposit checks in the ATM, but one of my checks was actually a money order and it looked a little suspect (remind me to tell you the backstory on the money order, which involves the Jetta that I cannot escape, even though I sold it two years ago) and I wanted to make sure it got deposited OK. I worried the whole way to the bank over that stupid money order. It had a little spot on the front for a signature, but the dude who sent it to me hadn't signed it. And are money orders even legit? They sure do not look it and I swear to God, if this thing is a fake and I have to deal with one more iota of bullshit over this car that I do not even own any more -- oops, I almost just walked right past the bank. 

I walked up to the teller window and sent my checks in the little tube to the magical teller room, crossing my fingers that I'd just get a receipt back and be on my merry way. Instead, the teller appeared on the little video monitor and asked me to pick up the phone. That's never good.

Turns out, no, the money order was not valid until the dude signed it.

Turns out that I had also forgotten to sign the back the money order. And the back of the other, regular check.

Turns out that I had ALSO forgotten a deposit slip. Because apparently this is my first time ever using a bank.

I encounter tasks like this on a daily basis now; tasks that used to be very simple but now seem impossible to figure out. I'll try to dial a phone number at work and I'll have to type it in ten or eleven times before I get the digits in the right order. I have completely lost the ability to tell time on a non-digital device. Joel gave me a refresher on the three steps to starting up the scooter, but if there were $1000 on the line I could not tell you what those steps are right now. I continually try to unlock the front door with the car's key fob. We just got a check in the mail for our state tax refund with a little note that said, hey, so we tried to direct deposit your refund like you asked but you wrote down your account numbers wrong, dumbass. Spellcheck has become my very best friend, although I am still not sure I 100% believe it about "unvolatile" not being a word. I am pretty sure I ruined the hat I've been knitting since January because I was supposed to be counting and decreasing stitches and... yeah, that was more complicated that I anticipated. 

This pregnancy brain feeling is distinctly different from the kind of insomnia fog I know well. I'm not tired or distracted, I just can't figure shit out. Even when I try really really hard, I can feel the cogs in my brain trying to turn and make sense of things and they just. can't. do. it. I think this must be what it feels like to be stupid.  

I'm supposed to fly to San Francisco tomorrow (YAY!) and on top of worrying about the top of the plane ripping off mid-flight, I'm wondering if I should maybe ask Southwest to give me Unaccompanied Minor passes to wear around my neck. That way the flight attendants could make sure I don't try to leave behind my luggage or miss my connection or, you know, get lost on the way from the gate to the plane.  

Totally not over it

I've tried describing what it feels like emotionally to be pregnant, but this video sums it up better than I can:

 

(Hey, remember when Sunny used to be a funny show? Just thinking about how far it's fallen in the past two seasons makes me want to weep bucketloads of rage-filled tears.)

The moodiness. Oh, that word. It so fails to describe how I feel on a daily basis. Much like the morning sickness, I seem to suffer with it mostly at night. This is good for surviving the work day, but bad if you are married to me.

I'll leave work and feel like skipping. What a great day! I had a productive day at work, the sun is still shining, I have the whole evening ahead of me. What could be better? I get home and am reminded of how happy I am to be through with morning sickness. Look, I feel so great that I can get some cleaning done and start dinner before Joel gets home! If I'm feeling generous, maybe I'll take Henry the Cat out on the back patio so he can roll on the cement for a bit. Then I'll watch some Law and Order while fixing dinner and generally reflect on how grand my life is.

And then at some point, with a trigger or without, things change. I feel tired. I am tired of cooking this dinner and I don't even want to eat whatever it is any more. Why am I always the one who has to cook, anyway? I work too. What I really want to do is wash this filthy kitchen floor, but why should I have to do all the housework? Why is the stupid cat yowling, SHUT UP OH MY GOD. Ugh, now Bones is on. I hate this stupid show.

Joel is home! Yay! I love him. I'm so happy he's home. Maybe he can help me cook this stupid dinner so I can take a shower. UGH, and I have to wash my hair. And then I'll have to dry it. And before I do any of that, I have to walk all the way upstairs. Whose idea was it to build all these houses on three stories? If I never see another stair in my life it will be too soon.

We eat dinner and I have to give myself a pep talk to get off the couch and go blowdry my hair. Maybe I put it off awhile longer and watch some TV first.  I start to doze off on the couch, but I can't really get comfortable because my wet hair is making me cold. I fantasize about having a personal hairdresser who could just come and dry my hair while I remain planted on the couch. But no, no. I have to do EVERYTHING myself. I feel like crying but I can't figure out why. That in turn makes me feel crazy, which makes me want to cry even more. Just go and dry your hair, I tell myself. Get it over with. Except it won't be over! I'll still have to brush my teeth and wash my face and then tomorrow I'll have to start all over again and oh my god, I just want to go to sleep.

At this point it is usually around 9pm.

So, yes, I feel like the word "moodiness" is so insufficient it actually makes me angry. At a word.

I know this is one of those caricatures of pregnancy, along with sending a harried husband out for pickles and ice cream at 2am, but it is just so true, at least for me, that it's kind of hilarious. You know, if you find things like hormonal, achy-backed hippos (oh, do I have a story for you, just wait) on a rampage funny.

Here's an example from the other night. I asked Joel if he knew when Vampire Diaries was going to come back with new episodes. Well, that's what I meant to ask him. Instead, what came out was, VAMPIRE DIARIES IS NEVER COMING BACK DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW.

I totally did not mean for it to come out like that. I'd just been thinking about how ridiculous it is that shows think they can just think these months-long breaks in the middle of the TV season like, what, no one will notice? And we're all just supposed to keep caring and waiting and filling our evenings with crappy sub-par programs because there is NOTHING ELSE ON and oh, what's that? Maybe we should be doing something more productive with our time than lying on the couch, especially since there a giant pile of laundry in the corner and a sink full of dishes downstairs?  Well, we're TIRED, so shut the hell up. And speaking of couches, this one we have is so uncomfortable and no one is doing ANYTHING about it and I would throw it out the window into the street and run it over with the car if only I weren't so damn TIRED all the time.  

And... that's more along the lines that came out of my mouth.

Anyway. Guess what! Vampire Diaries will be airing a new episode tonight!

(About damn time.)

I hate feeling so volatile. And I hate feeling sad and angry a lot of the time while knowing full well that there is no actual reason for my sadness and anger, other than hormones run amok. I try to apologize to when I catch myself reacting in an unreasonable manner, but I also feel frustrated that I feel compelled to apologize at all (oh, this is getting ridiculous, isn't it?). You think it's bad dealing with someone like this, friends? Try actually feeling this way.

It's part of the process, I know, and it won't last forever (I hope). And hey, it IS better than feeling like throwing up all the time.

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It's not all tears and horror, though. I try to relish the moments of irrational elation as much as possible, and they do exist and feel just as real and the directionless rage and sadness. It was eighty degrees out earlier this week and we went for a delightful walk after work. All the spring blossoms were in bloom and I felt like shouting ATTENTION EVERYONE, IT IS A GLORIOUS DAY! as we strolled through the crowds of people in Orioles gear by the waterfront. 

That made up for the fact that, for no reason at all, I almost burst into tears later that evening over the borderline rude comments a gang of ghetto children had shouted at me on my way home from work. Highs and lows, I keep telling myself. Just hang on and don't let the waves toss you out of the Emotional Rowboat.

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I am now feeling the baby kick on a daily basis. I thought I felt twice during week 14, but all the websites said that was too soon and I was half-convinced maybe I just imagined it out of wishful thinking. But then the next week I felt the exact same tiny thumping sensation again, only stronger. By the end of that week Joel even felt one particularly big (but still tiny) thud. By that time I was pretty damn sure what I was feeling was the baby kicking, not some sudden onset of intermittent gassiness. 

I used to feel it only while lying quietly in bed or watching TV, but now it's surprising me in the middle of talking to a coworker or answering the phone. It's such an odd sensation, and such a lovely reassurance every day that the baby is still alive and well in there. I absolutely love feeling it, but I am a teensy bit scared. If the baby was kicking hard enough for me to feel it at 14 weeks, what is it going to feel like at week 30?

(I'm having visions of that scene in Breaking Dawn where the baby claws its way out of Bella's stomach.)

(We do not have nearly enough vampire venom stockpiled to deal with that kind of situation.) 

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Okay, I am going to tell you guys a story and then I am going to officially Let It Go. The stupid comments about how it must be twins in there, gosh, you're so big! actually pale in comparison to one I got at work last week.

So, at a meeting last month we all got these little African-themed souvenirs. Some had giraffes on them, some had zebras or birds or lions. I chose one with hippos on it because I think hippos are cute.

Last week a colleague who shall remain unnamed brought his souvenir out to show me and lo and behold, out of the 50+ designs, we had chosen the exact same one with the hippos. Funny, right? We remarked over just how funny it was. It was funny. Oh, how I wished the conversation had ended there. 

The he noticed that I also have a little hippo-shaped paperweight on my desk. (I swear, I don't have a weird obsession with hippos. We do work in Africa, people bring things back and you know what, FINE, I like hippos.) "Yeah, I like hippos; they're cute," I said, ending the conversation. 

There was a brief pause, and then he said, "Well, good... because you're starting to look like one!" 

And then he chuckled his way right out of the room. 

I, on the other hand, spent the rest of the day alternating between trying not to cry and wishing that I WAS a hippo so I could bite him in half.

So if we're starting a list of Things You Should Probably Not Say To A Pregnant Person, "You must be having twins" can be #2 and "You look like a hippo" will be #1. In fact, I'd venture to say that you should probably never tell anyone they look like a hippo. Even if you're at the zoo, standing in front of the hippo enclosure, talking to an actual hippo. 

OK, I'm over it. Even though it was especially insensitive since we pregnant people are kind of KNOWN for our "moodiness" and OH MY GOD WHY WOULD HE SAY THAT. That's it. I. Am. Over. It. 

(Not really.)

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TWIN HIPPOS!

14 weeks

This post (written on March 16) is the last one in my drafts folder! We are officially caught up with real time [insert the signature bloop-bloop-bloop digital clock noise from 24 here].

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The question "how are you feeling" now delights me, because guess what! I am feeling GREAT. I mean, I'm still tired. But I can stay awake until 10pm now and I feel confident saying I am officially over the nausea, after several weeks without a single episode. Hallelujah and welcome, second trimester! I think I love you.

So I feel totally SUPER!

Except... for the occasional nuclear-level bouts of rage and/or sadness. These are not unexpected, I suppose, but they're still kind of brutal. Example: Joel was busy on the computer one night, leaving me booored and loooonely and feeling quite sorry for myself. To avoid bursting into tears over how neglected and sad I felt (because... why? My husband was, like, doing stuff? Stuff that didn't involve meeeee, and I was left all alone to entertain myself? THAT's WHY.) I decided to pick up our copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and read the current month's chapter. A few pages in, I came to a paragraph that talked about nasal congestion during pregnancy. Well, hooray!, I thought! So that explains why I can't breath and I have to blow my nose every ten minutes! Thanks for the info, What to Expect. You're not that bad after all.

And then they followed up that nugget of actual, useful information with this bit of advice: Proper nose-blowing is an art you'd do well to master.

Followed by detailed instructions on how to blow your nose.

(For the record, you're supposed to gently hold one nostril closed while exhaling through the other nostril into a tissue, then reverse sides. The more you know!)

I soldiered on, through the helpful section on how to battle insomnia:

As a chronic insomniac, I especially appreciated the suggestion about the healthy helping of relaxing conversation. I can't believe that never occurred to me! I'm sure I'll never have insomnia again!

And then I got to section #45032 promoting their ridiculous Best-Odds Diet:

And after reading that last line I set the book on fire. The end.

***************

Other things that have made me irrationally angry:

1. This week's Baby Center email, which stated: The top of your uterus is a bit above your pubic bone, which may be enough to push your tummy out a tad. Starting to show can be quite a thrill, giving you and your partner visible evidence of the baby you've been waiting for. Take some time to plan, daydream, and enjoy this amazing time. It's normal to worry a bit now and then, but try to focus on taking care of yourself and your baby, and having faith that you're well equipped for what's ahead.  Starting to show? STARTING TO SHOW? How about "You may have had to come out of the closet at work a month ago because someone asked you point-blank if you were pregnant and you only had one pair of pants left that buttoned. Or, "You may be getting asked if you're having twins on a daily basis." No, no, I know:  "You may want to print out this email, place it on top of the ashes of your What to Expect When You're Expecting pyre, and throw another log on the Condescending and Vaguely Insulting Baby Literature Fire."
2. Have you guys seen that commercial that has something to do with frozen pizza and family game night? It features a mom and a kid slo-mo dancing down the grocery story aisle, doing some sort of running man dance with a pizza box. I hate it and I want it to die.
3. I hate YouTube for not providing me with a linkable video of this commercial so you can all see it and agree with me that it is the worst commercial in the history of the world.
4. I was going to record a video of it myself with my phone, but my Tivo permanently erased the episode of Pretty Little Liars that had it during every commercial break. So I hate the Tivo too.
5. The aforementioned boneheaded comments insisting that I'm having twins. Now, I have absolutely nothing against twins. I would be ecstatic (and fine, a little bit scared about buying TWO of everything) if we were having twins. In fact, back when we were discussing the likelihood of being able to get pregnant with my doctor, she said our first line of potential infertility offense would be Clomid, and then warned us that it carried a significant risk of twins. We were fine with that. Twins are great! What is not great is being told that you MUST be having twins, you know, BECAUSE YOU'RE SO FUCKING FAT. This is one of those things that wouldn't be such a big deal if I hadn't already heard it at least 30 times. Twice it has been accompanied by uninvited touching of my belly.
6. I know there were more things I meant to put on this list, but I forgot what they were. You know what you are, things. And I hate you.

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Hey, so what do you guys think? Totally twins, right?

8 weeks

Today's post brought to you by the letter B and the date February 2, 2011.

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I went in to the ultrasound not really knowing what to expect. I know everyone says that it's a hugely emotional moment when you hear the baby's heartbeat, and I believed them... but we're nowhere near that stage yet. Mostly I was just excited to make sure there was really a baby in there, not a blighted ovum (for those not initiated into the cult of pregnancy hypochondria, a blighted ovum is when an embryo fails to develop within the placenta. You can have all the symptoms of pregnancy, just no baby in there. Why, why WHY must I google these things?) or some conspiracy of the universe to trick me into thinking I was pregnant by providing me with eleven false positive pregnancy tests and some kind of evil flu that makes me feel like barfing for a month straight.  Oh, and I wanted to confirm just how far along we were, since that had been an argument with the nurse at our first appointment (the first appointment was for talking and information only. BORING!). Did you know that at the moment of conception, the medical establishment considers you to be 2 weeks pregnant? How stupid is that? It's got something to do with counting from the date of your last period (which, theoretically, would be 14 days prior to ovulation if you have a 28-day period) but I maintain that it's total bullshit -- especially because I no longer believe that anyone has a 28-day period. Mine, (TMI alert), prior to our conception was 57 days long. So... counting from the first day of my last period was NOT going to be accurate. Apparently medical people don't care about that. At that visit, I was given a due date of August 28th, based solely on my last period.  I calculated my own due date to be Sept 13, based on the fact that I'd been paying attention and keeping track and, you know, can count (with the help of a calendar. And a calculator. And an excel spreadsheet to doublecheck the math). Anyway, I was pretty goddamn sure that Sept 13 was correct and August 28 was WRONG. 

We got to the doctors office and were promptly informed that there had been a scheduling snafu and I was not on the list to get an ultrasound that morning. That went over well, as you can imagine. My own tendency is always to assume I messed up in these situations, so I was REALLY glad Joel was there to confirm that no, I was not crazy, we had both stood there while the nurse scheduled us for an ultrasound at 10:30am thankyouverymuch.  They squeezed us in and I didn't even have to cry, although I would have been happy to oblige and was getting mighty close.

You guys, it was insane. I have had ultrasound as a therapy for knee pain and back pain before, and that basically involves using the machine as a deep tissue massager.  It's not hooked up to a monitor and a physical therapist just rolls the thing around on your knee for ten minutes. I was expecting pretty much the same thing, except Joel, the tech, and I would all be riveted to the monitor, searching for blobs that could possibly look a little bit like a tiny baby -- kind of like a Where's Waldo Ultrasound. Nope - the tech (who I loved because she was wearing cute boots and leggings) plopped the thing on my stomach and BOOM. There was our blob. No searching, no "maybe that's it... no, maybe THAT'S it" like I'd imagined.  No blighted ovum.  A definite blob with a head and a body. I started choking up immediately but managed not to start outright crying because 1) I didn't want to cry in front of the tech and her cute boots, and 2) I thought that if I started sobbing and moving my stomach too much, she'd have to stop. And oh man, I could have looked at that blob all day. She did a ton of measurements and showed us the umbilical cord and the yolk sac (yolk sac? Am I gestating a chicken?) and it was just like all those pictures in the books except it was RIGHT THERE.  It was amazing. We saw the fluttering of its little blob heart and oh my god, I am going to lose it just typing this.  Everything is going just fine, and my official due date was revised to... September 13th. TOLD YOU SO, NURSE LADY.

We got a bunch of printouts to take home and when we got home I immediately took photos of the photos (uh, didn't want to take them into work and accidentally leave them on the scanner) and emailed them to every member of our families.

I've seen lots of ultrasound pictures before on blogs and facebook, and I never really understood the point of sharing them. It just looks like a blob! No one can tell what's what. And yet, I just couldn't help myself. EVERYONE LOOK AT MY BLOB BABY.

 

Hey, if you want, you can click that photo to see an annotated version on Flickr! You know, if you care which end is the blob head and which end is the other blob stuff.

(After I sent my email blast I promptly hung the photos on the fridge. I'd make them my desktop background and wallpaper my office with photocopies if I weren't still in the closet at work.)

Hey, look! Here's a picture of me HOLDING the ultrasound photos! (I swear this is the last photo. Be glad I'm not making you look at the entire set; we're on course to fill an entire photo album long before the baby is even born.) Please ignore the large zit (edited to add: A ZIT I AM STILL SPORTING, BY THE WAY. Same one. Still there, two months later. Another fun pregnancy symptom!) and my professional artist's rendering of a football in honor of Superbowl Sunday. FYI, I am rooting for the Packers solely because I've wanted to yell PACKERS WIN THE SUPERBOWL ever since I first saw Mystery Science Theater 3000.  

 

Yes, our baby is destined to be a very big nerd.

Before the ultrasound I comforted my miscarriage fears with the thought that it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It would suck and it would be sad, but we could have another. It would be OK. Now... oh man, no. It would not be OK. Don't go anywhere, little blob, because I already love you.

Week 7.5

First of all: thank you guys for all the lovely comments about Madison. I loved how so many of you mentioned what a "sweet" cat he looked like! Oh my, he was anything but sweet. He was a very bad, very dumb cat, and we loved him for it. It's very odd having only one cat for the first time in my adult life, but we're all adjusting. Thank you.  

Second of all: Hey, remember how I said I had a couple of early pregnancy posts saved in my drafts folder? Yeah, I forgot too. Until now. This one is from January 31, when I was 7.5 weeks pregnant (counting the stupid "correct" way).

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OMG with the nausea. I am so very, very tired of feeling like I have to puke every minute of every damn day. Luckily ("luckily"), my particular brand of pregnancy sickness tends to be worse at night, so I can get through the workday OK most of the time. But by the time 5pm rolls around, I am just barely hanging on. I cannot wait to get home and stuff my face/lie on the couch in misery, if only home weren't so very, very far away. And by very, very far, I mean three quarters of a mile. I have the easiest commute known to man. But the thought of having to 1) stand up out of my chair 2) walk to the parking garage and 3) swing my leg over my bike to actually get ON that goddamned thing and then 4) keep the bike upright for the entire five minutes it takes me to coast home... the task seems similar to... something hard. Trying to come up with an appropriate comparison is also very hard.  

When I used to get home from work, I'd immediately start in on dishes/dinner making/cleaning up with a little Gilmore Girls or Law and Order on in the background. I got a lot accomplished. Ah, those were the days. Now, it is all I can do to plod up the first set of stairs (so. much. fucking. work. with. the fucking. stairs.) before I collapse onto the couch.  I have not done a dish in weeks. I have cooked maybe 2 meals out of the past 10. I had a snow day last week, and I managed to vacuum 3/4 of our 1300 square foot house and do three loads of laundry in the eight free hours I had. And that, my friends, took a lot of excited you can do it! from my inner cheerleader.

Oh, and remember how I used to be an insomniac? Now I often go upstairs before 10pm. I don't go right to sleep, but when 9:30pm rolls around, being awake and on my feet suddenly becomes much more than I can handle and I just want to be nearthe bed. In case I need it. Just lying in bed, not sleeping, is my new favorite activity. No thinking, no moving, just being in bed. It's fun, you should try it!  I thought it would be a real bitch to give up my nightly dose of benadryl, which I was highly dependent upon to fall asleep. (I always liked how Tylenol PM claims to be "non habit forming." Sure, unless you like sleeping. And you can't sleep without knocking yourself out. In that case, you might want to make a habit of taking it every night!) Even though benadryl is supposed to be safe to use when pregnant, I just don't feel comfortable taking it every day. I was prepared to deal with some brutal rebound insomnia, but so far I have more trouble staying awake all day than I do falling asleep at night. In fact, mornings have been a bit easier because I've been going to sleep so much earlier than I used to. So, thanks for that, baby!

The worst thing, by far, is the nausea. Sometimes in the winter I feel so cold and miserable that I can't even remember what it was like to feel hot. Right now I can't remember what it's like to not feel like barfing. But I realize actually quite lucky here, because so far I've only actually barfed one time.  And that was triggered mostly by overzealous toothbrushing, so I was positioned neatly over the sink and everything. I hate the feeling and the noise and the smell of throwing up so much that I usually start crying while I'm throwing up, and the crying makes me throw up harder and it's just really unpleasant. I am really, really happy that I have been spared the actual act of vomiting so far. But still. This sucks.

However, Joel reminded me last night that when I had a couple of good, nausea-free days I was convinced it was a "bad sign" and I actually WISHED I'd feel nauseous again. So... yay! I'm nausous again!

My nausea does not prevent me from eating, oh no. No siree. It's a very bizarre feeling to be both nauseous and ravenous at the same time. At first I'd just take a tentative bite, afraid that consuming actual food would trigger the dread vomiting. Now I'm an old pro at shoveling in the food while feeling like barfing. Sometimes the food helps! Sometimes it just makes me feel bloated. But it's all so delicious that I just don't care.

We have our first ultrasound tomorrow and I am SO excited. I know it's just going to look like a blueberry-sized tadpole blob, but it will be confirmation that there is actually a baby in there, not just 1) a blighted embryo (pregnancy hypochondria!), or 2) a figment of my imagination. I've heard so many people talk about the experience of first seeing their baby on the monitor and I just can't envision it. Will it be one of the moments I remember for the rest of my life? Will I cry? Will I finally believe in this mythical baby and stop thinking in the back of my mind that all those pregnancy tests were wrong?

And then there was one

We had a euthanasia appointment scheduled for two weeks ago, but I cancelled it at the last minute. The steroids seemed to be helping quite a bit and Madison had perked up. Not that he didn't look sick -- he certainly didn't look healthy -- but he didn't look like he was lurking on death's doorstep, waiting to be let in. I just couldn't do it.

But one thing I learned from going through this with with Max was that trying to evaluate day by day whether it was finally time to throw in the towel was a terrible idea. It's too hard to judge decline day by day, and it just never seems like TODAY could be the day.  Instead, I made another appointment for two weeks later. The vet said she was happy to cancel again if he still seemed to be doing OK.

Today was two weeks later. I didn't cancel.

This morning I woke up to find two cats pushing me out of my own bed for the last time. (Although, as you can see, Madison is not the one to blame for the pushing.) 

It was very peaceful. I'm so happy we were able to find a vet willing to do this at home, with no claws and angst and bloodshed. The vet said he was in liver failure, and possibly also pancreatic failure. There was absolutely nothing that could be done.

I am sad. I can't think or talk about it without crying, but I don't feel crushed by guilt like I did with Max.  I still don't feel good about how things ended with him. But Madison was so obviously in pain that it really did feel like the humane thing to do. By yesterday he not only wasn't eating his regular food, he was refusing a smorgasbord containing three types of wet food, two types of dry food, two kinds of treats, and a can of chunk light tuna. For his last meal, last night I helped him drink out of the toilet. That's sure something I never thought I would do: hold a crippled cat over the not very clean toilet for five minutes while he lapped away. But if that's the only comfort I could give him on his last day of life, hell. I don't care.

It's going to take a while to remember that we no longer have to guard our drinks and keep the toilets closed at all times.

Goodbye, pooker. You were a very bad cat and I miss you already.



4.5 weeks

I wrote a couple of posts and saved them in my drafts folder before I was ready to announce the pregnancy news. I figured I'd publish them now, just so later on I can look back and laugh at just how ironic it is that I started feeling like complete and utter crap (but simultaneously wanted to steal food off my coworker's plates at lunch because it all looked SO FUCKING GOOD) three days after I wrote that I wished I'd feel sick or something so that I could feel pregnant.  

This one is from January 7, the day before I turned 30. At the time I was about 4.5 weeks pregnant, if you count the two extra weeks that pregnancy calendars and doctors just tack on for no apparent reason (and I am counting those two extra weeks now, by the way. I think it's stupid, but I got tired of saying "I'm either 10 or 12 weeks pregnant, depending on whether you count the real way or the stupid way.") 

**************

I went to a pregnancy yoga class last night. I was expecting there to be five or six people there, as weeknight classes are usually pretty empty. There were thirty people. THIRTY. That's the max for the room. And most of these ladies were very pregnant. I felt like I should have brought my fistful of positive tests with me as proof I belonged there. I am pregnant! I swear! I mean... I think. Right? Eight tests in a row? GUYS?

In the very beginning of the class I turned around and recognized one of the students that works in my department. 

"Oh... hey!" I said. "I... didn't know you were pregnant. Congratulations!"

"You too!" She replied. "I... didn't know you were pregnant either."

"Oh, I'm not really," was what I almost said.

We promised to keep each other's secret. She's job hunting, and I'm... just not ready to have it out there in the real world yet. I am torn each minute between wanting to broadcast my new status to everyone and wanting to keep the secret all to myself. I'm kind of amazed that people can't magically tell that everything has changed.  But I'm afraid that once the news is out there, it will somehow cease to be real. Or maybe it will be TOO real. Although I feel like it's on my mind every second of every waking moment, every few days I'm just hit with the fact that holy shit, we're going to have a baby. It's the exact same sense of disbelief that would hit me every once in awhile when we first got engaged. I'd look down at my hand and see that ring and realize that we were going to get married. Like, for real. It's impossible.

Possible or no, my hypochondria is already working itself into overdrive. I used to be able to convince myself, simultaneously, that I was both pregnant and infertile. Now that I am 99% sure that I am pregnant (eight positive tests in a row, I'm preeeetty sure) I've been able to convince myself that I've killed the baby in a new and novel way every day. Going to hot yoga. Doing belly-down poses. Drinking half-caff coffee (I'm weaning myself off, but it's haaaaaaard). Wearing a belt that's a little too tight (already?! WTF?) all day. Taking a calcium supplement without clearing it with my doctor. Eating raw cookie dough. Having electric stim on my knee at physical therapy before I thought to ask if that was a bad idea during pregnancy (turns out, yes, it is. ACK!). I am still taking a pregnancy test every morning, just to make sure that 1) I didn't imagine the whole thing, and 2) the baby is still alive. I realize that this has no medical validity at all; the baby could actually die and I'd probably still get a positive pregnancy test the next day. But it makes me feel better.  So far, so good. 

************

I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting at The Book Thing. I wasn't expecting much, especially after being so annoyed by the tone of Taking Charge of Your Fertility and because of the cover. I mean, really? Is that what I'm supposed to look like now? I guess I'd better go out and buy myself a pink muumuu and a rocking chair.

The book, while annoying in some parts, has actually had one really helpful piece of advice for me so far: It's OK and normal if you don't feel pregnant, or if you feel detached from your pregnancy. That's exactly how I feel, and I had pretty much convinced myself it meant I was going to have post-partum depression (you guys, I am not kidding about the hyphchondria). I have convinced myself that I am pregnant, but I just don't... feel pregnant. I don't feel sick. I don't have any weird cravings (at least, none that I didn't have before I was pregnant). I almost wish I could just throw up or something, just so I could feel like this was real. I feel a little weepy, but that's nothing new. I have to pee an awful lot, so I guess that could be something.  Knowing that it's not terrible that I feel totally un-pregnant and detached makes me feel a lot better.

That little bit of comfort almost makes me forgive the book for this sentence:

Every time you pick up your fork, ask yourself: is this the best bite I could possibly give my baby?

ALMOST.

Less happy news

Back when I did that annual New Year's survey thingy, I mentioned that I didn't think Madison would last through 2011. Now I'm not sure that he will last through March. It's become increasingly obvious in the past few weeks that Madison is not going to be around much longer, and it is breaking my heart.

Madison has never been a good cat. In fact, he is a very bad cat. He scratches people, he behaves like a maniac at the vet and he tries to run away every time we open the a door.

Well, he used to do those things. Now he doesn't do much of anything, other than lie on the couch and limp around the house. Suddenly, I'd be delighted to chase him across the neighbor's roof. I happily watched him slurp water out of my glass on the coffee table yesterday because I was just relieved to see him interested in doing something. Anything other than sit curled in a small ball on the blanket downstairs, looking miserable.

We don't know exactly what is wrong with him. A couple of years ago we noticed that he seemed to have suddenly lost a lot of weight. It's kind of hard to tell because he is covered in fluffy fur (which is often matted, since he does not clean himself and will not submit to brushing), but one day I was giving him a couple of back scritches when I noticed that his hip bones were kind of stabbing me. That's... not good. We took him to the vet, where many expensive tests were run and several veterinary employees received flesh wounds. Unfortunately, no conclusive diagnosis was reached.  Some of his bloodwork was a little wonky, but without further expensive testing the vet couldn't be sure if it was cancer or some other crazy disease.  Since Madison will not submit to taking medications, I decided it really didn't matter what exactly what the problem was -- we would just try the prescription food for sensitive stomachs and go from there.

And lo and behold, that prescription food seemed to fix the problem. He went back up to a normal weight and we all just pretended that he didn't have some mysterious problem lurking underneath that mangy fur.  Maybe he just has a sensitive stomach after all, I told myself. Problem solved!

About a year ago I noticed that he was looking very thin again. His hip bones could be felt protruding through his fur when I petted him. I could easily pick him up with one hand and feel all his ribs when I did.  I took him back to the vet in January, and more expensive tests were run. His bloodwork was again wonky, in a way that again suggested cancer.  I sprung for an x-ray of his stomach (thank god for pet insurance!) because I was convinced that he had a giant hairball lodged in his stomach, but everything there looked normal. He'd lost 30% of his body weight since his last vet visit, a year before. That was a bad enough sign. The fact that the vet was able to draw blood and take three x-rays without sedating him was even worse.

Since January, I've purchased every kind of wet food for sale in the Northeast. I hate the smell of wet cat food, and I especially hate it now that all scents are magnified 1000% by my Pregnancy Nose. He turns up his nose completely at 90% of them, and eats only a bite or two at the few he does approve. Of course, the one he likes best is this: 

I have to punch myself in the face every time I put it in my grocery cart.

We have even put him on an appetite stimulant -- something that is quite entertaining to me, as a person who used to have to feed her 16-lb cat (RIP, Max) diet food. Again, that is bad enough. Even worse is the fact that I'm easily able to give him the pills. Instead of fighting me at first, he just sort of flopped over. Now he's taking the appetite stimulant AND a twice-a-day steriod without an iota of fuss.

I hate being in this position, trying to decide each day whether it's time to call the at-home vet and make a euthanasia appointment. We found a vet that did home visits when we finally had to put Max to sleep because I just couldn't bear the thought of his last moments being filled with fear and distress.  That decision was the only part of the entire process of putting a pet to sleep that I felt good about.  I'll definitely go that route with Madison, too. It's just a matter of when.  Something is now wrong with his back leg; it looks almost dislocated as he limps around on it (when he does get off the couch, which is rare).  Last week he tried to jump onto the dresser and missed, crashing back to the floor (and leaving a nice scratch on the surface of the dresser). Every day he seemed a bit worse, but now the addition of the steriod seems to have helped a bit. He's at least pretending to eat and he's managed to clean the crusted food off his snaggletooth and his chin! Then again, I came home on Tuesday and found a turd in the bed. The next day we found another in the hallway, in the exact spot where he likes to camp out at night.  That's... probably not good. (And more than a little disgusting.)

I know it's almost time to schedule the appointment. Just not today. Maybe tomorrow.

But at least I didn't mention Twilight

One of my coworkers rides the Baltimore metro to work in the mornings. The Baltimore metro is a whole post in itself, but to make a long story short: there is only one line. It goes from a random suburb into downtown, so only people who need to travel along its non-sensical route can make use of it. Largely it is populated by crazy and/or homeless people who ride it around aimlessly. My coworker often regales us with stories of the insanity she witnesses on her 10-minute ride to work.

This morning she told us she'd seen a painfully young mother dragging her two-year-old down the metro stairs, shouting "Come on Muggles! We've got to catch the Hogwarts Express so we can do some magic!"

There was some discussion of how this was a cute way to get her child to hurry for the train. And it is! Except... it doesn't make sense. And I really tried to keep my mouth shut, but I couldn't. 

"Heh, I wonder if her kid is going to hate that nickname when he gets older and reads Harry Potter for himself." [Blank stares] "'Muggle' is kind of an insult." [More blank stares] "Because... muggles can't do magic?"

"No, that's not true," another woman replied. "Hermione was a muggle and she did magic."

Oh, dear.

"Well, actually, Hermione was muggle-born." I clarified. "Her parents are muggles but she is a witch. That's why purists like Draco made fun of her. Her parents can't do magic. Because they're muggles. And muggles can't do magic."

"Oh."

And now I can never come to work again.

The longer version

Thank you guys, for all the lovely comments on the last post. We are quite excited about the whole situation, especially because now I can air all my pregnancy-related complaints on the internet! Joel is getting pretty sick of hearing about how bad I want a Wendy's Homestyle Chicken Sandwich, but you guys. Do you have ANY idea how bad I want one of those chemical-laden, cancer-causing slabs of fried chicken? Any by "one," I mean I want two. At least. Right now.

Anyway, Blob's due date is September 13. That means I have a long, hot summer of being extremely pregnant in front of me. Possibly we are not very good at planning and counting to nine and remembering, in the dead of winter, just how hot this city gets in the summer. But too late now! And with a newborn in the house, I'll have a perfectly good reason to stay inside all next winter.

***********

We've been angsting over the are we actually ready for a baby or maybe not quite yet question for a while. We'd talk about having a baby, and it would sound like a pretty good idea... but one that could certainly wait another six months. Or a year. Or however long. But in the back of my mind, the hypochondriac in me had that nagging what if machine going. What if I can't get pregnant? What if it takes forever? I mean, I'm 30. I know that's not old, but I'm not getting any younger. We want to have more than one kid. We've still got time, but not that much time.

And to be honest, it was only half hypochondria and half actual valid worry. Instead of evening out and coming to some kind of acceptable equilibrium, my cycles just got longer and longer after I stopped taking the pill in May. After I finished a lovely fifty-seven day cycle, I decided to take myself to the doctor just so I could stop worrying. I was pretty sure that everything was fine, and this wasn't a new problem. It probably wasn't a problem at all. It's pretty much the way I remembered things being before I went on the pill in college (and actually, that's why I went on the pill in the first place). I expected to go to the doctor, be told that everything checked out just fine, and just go on enjoying having half as many periods as you poor 28-day ladies do.

Instead, it turned out that my bloodwork had some abnormalities. And that my wonky bloodwork, combined with my inexplicably long cycles and some other lovely factors (hello, adult acne), my doctor felt reasonably confident that I might have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.

I was not 100% convinced of this diagnosis because Dr. Google informed me that I was missing several of the other key indicators, such as unexplained weight gain. All my weight gain can be traced directly back to homemade pizza and nachos and the stupid TVs at the gym always being broken. But I was still a little unnerved that something -- PCOS or not -- was amiss.  Where was my reassurance? My "you're fine, stop being such a hypochondriac"? I've been convincing myself I have every illness that I've ever read about for half my life, and now you're going to tell me that I actually HAVE one?  No, no, that is NOT how this works.

Whether it was PCOS or not, my doctor felt it was likely that we would have trouble conceiving. Our orders were to begin trying as soon as we were ready, and -- whenever that was -- we should only wait three months before coming back to start fertlity treatments.

Let me tell you something: there is nothing that will make you ready to have a baby faster than being told that you might not be able to have a baby. My very mature first reaction after seeing the very faint positive pregnancy test (well, right after holy crap) was SEE YOU CAN'T TELL ME I CAN'T HAVE A BABY. I do what I want!

***********

I still had a lot of anxiety over the official decision to start trying to get pregnant. One minute I'd be hoping desperately that I was already pregnant and the next I'd find myself hoping we'd have more time to ourselves. The thought that we might not be able to have a baby someday about killed me, but the idea of having an actual infant human being RIGHT NOW scared the life of out of me. Why do people want babies, anyway? I have always known that I want a family, and I want to have children. But... why? Every time I see a teenager being an asshole on TV, I think "why would I do that to myself?" What if our child grows up to hate us and only grudgingly comes over at Christmas and Thanksgiving? Why would we willingly throw our lives away like this, purposely conceive a being that according to all reports is going to rob us of all our sleep, time, and money for the rest of our lives? Is the biological drive to pass on our genes so strong?

My friend put it this way several months ago: her husband resisted getting a dog for years for the same reasons. It would cost money to vaccinate and feed and care for the dog, they wouldn't  won't be able to travel at a moment's notice or stay out late or do last-minute things without finding someone to watch the dog.  They'd constantly be sweeping dog hair and cleaning dog pee and picking up dog poop. They'd have to walk it in the rain, in the snow, in the cold, in the dark. Why would they pay money for a being that was going to essentially ruin their lives?  Eventually she won out, insisting that she'd do all the dog-work. And my god, they love their dog. I'm pretty sure it's the happiest, most loved dog on the planet. And it's not that all those things -- the money, the responsibility, the poop -- didn't come to pass. "Our lives are so much more awesome now that we have her," she said, "imagine how great it will be with a baby." 

That framed things in a way I could really grasp. My cats are huge pains in the ass. I'm not going to pretend that they're not. Madison is a general jackhole who does nothing but sleep, skulk around the house, choke up hairballs, knock over unattended drinks, and attempt to run away. Henry yowls his face off every night, beginning -- without fail -- at the exact moment I'm about to fall asleep. And Max. Oh my god, Max (rest his soul). Max ruined carpets, threw up in the bed, peed on furniture. He had every medical problem known to cat and cost us thousands of dollars in vet bills.

These things are all true. But I have never regretted my decision to bring these furry idiots into our house. Even though Madison is an undeniable jackass, even though Henry is loud and clumsy and dumber than a bag of bricks, even though the day Max died was the worst day of my life -- I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't go back and not adopt them, I wouldn't pick another cat instead. And though I may gripe about it, and I guess I do wish that Max wouldn't have completely destroyed that rug... I don't care. Not at all.

When we were first thinking of adopting a cat (notice how I say "a cat"? We were supposed to have ONE), I worried that it would be too much of a hassle. I'd have to wake up early to feed it and the food would cost money, and I'd have to vacuum more often and sweep up cat litter all the time. Did I really want to do that? Yes, I decided. It would be OK. And now those worries seem so stupid. Yes, it takes me an extra five minutes in the morning to scoop their litter (although, now it takes Joel five extra minutes! Pregnancy card!) and put out some new food. Yes, I have to vacuum more often and there is constantly cat litter being tracked around the house.  Yes, they cost money. And it's worth it. Why? I don't know. I can totally see why people don't want pets. It makes sense, logically! Why do I love them? I don't know. I just do.

***********

I can't express how thankful I am that we were able to conceive relatively easily. Maybe I really do have PCOS, maybe I don't. I guess we'll never know. I don't really care. I had pretty much worked myself into depressed frenzy over my impending infertility. Remembering how afraid I was that this would be unattainable has actually made it easier to soldier through the eight freaking weeks of "morning" sickness, the biggest misnomer on the face of the planet. (And "soldier through" is a term that is easy to use NOW, when the worst of it seems to have passed.) (Please, god, let the worst of it have passed.) And really, all-day-and-all-night sickness and all, I could not be happier about our little blob and the fact that on or around September 13th, we'll get to meet him or her in person.

Internet, meet Blob

I have felt like crap for the last two months. You're lucky I have not felt up to blogging, because my posts would have been something like: "I spent the evening on the couch. Again. Watched some Law and Order. Again. Felt pretty much like death. Still. Again." It has been a little repetitive. I imagine that the only thing more boring that feeling like crap for two months is hearing about how someone has felt like crap for two months.

Yes, two months. Of feeling like crap. It's been super. Maybe I should go to the doctor and have that checked out, you're thinking. Well, never fear. I did. And there's a perfectly good medical reason.

 

Yes, seriously. 100% morning sickness and everything seriously. I love how the ultrasound tech wrote "baby" on there so we'd know it wasn't, like, the remains of a Chipotle burrito or something.

And as of this morning, Sir Blob looks less like a blob and more like a.... baby.

An alien baby with a very large head, but still.  Dudes, it was moving! I watched it kick the hell out of my uterine wall on the video monitor and then it flailed its arm around like it was rubbing its eye (or eye socket, since I'm pretty sure it doesn't have actual eyes yet) and it was, hands down, the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life. 

I can hardly believe it. I could not be more excited. Slash scared out of my mind. Slash emotional. Slash craving a Wendy's chicken sandwich AND a milkshake AND a raw red pepper.

(For the record only the very last of those things can be directly tied to the pregnancy. But now I have a great excuse for all my random food cravings!)

I hate winter

I hate winter. I hate being cold and I hate winter.

But sometimes, sometimes, the sunsets are almost enough to make me change my mind.

I guess you're all right, winter. Now hurry up and be over.

One Angry Juror

Let's do a little poll, internet.

Have you guys ever been called for jury duty? How many times? Have you ever actually served on a jury?

I'm guessing that, for most of you, the answer is something like: Yes; 2-3 times depending on your age; No.  

My answers are: Yes; ten times; twice.

I was called for jury duty twice in New Jersey. Once, I went, was picked, and served on a jury during an attempted murder trial.  It was kind of exciting. I was by far the youngest person on the jury. By, like, 50 years.  Then I got called again in New Jersey a few years later, but I got out of that notice because I was by that point an official resident of Baltimore, and already getting more than my fair share of notices here.

For instance, here's the SEVENTH Baltimore City jury notice I've received during my seven years of residence here:

 

Oh, and here's my eighth notice. It arrived four weeks after the seventh one:

 

That's right, these notices arrived one month apart. Come on, I KNOW that's not normal. Also, I am pretty sure it's not legal. You're limited to serving once per year, or once every three years if you actually get stuck on a case that lasts more than three days.  I finally figured out what the problem is: I'm now getting notices both under my maiden name AND my married name. 

Now, I'm all for civic duty. Or, at least I was, back when I got picked for my first Baltimore City jury. And then I sat through the most ridiculous trial ever, where the defense lawyer would lose his train of thought halfway through a question, where the prosecutor would ask witnesses the same exact question three or four times hoping they'd change their answer, and where I had to sit in a room with eleven of the stupidest people I've ever come into contact with for two days. As in, one day short of the three days that would have at least bought me two additional years of not having to deal with this shit. On the first day we were there until almost 10pm. It was easily one of the most soul-crushing experiences in my life. You guys, people are DUMB. Like, unable to form coherent sentences dumb. And these people are in charge of deciding whether other people go to jail or not!  I cannot deal. No. Never again. It made me so sad and angry that I thought I was going to pass out right there in the crappy jury room. Or maybe that was just the low blood sugar, since we were stuck there until almost ten at night with no dinner. It was a super time all around.

Ever since I showed up for that trial (which was riiiight before I started this blog, and I remember thinking "I should have a blog, because these are some good stories right here) I have been getting jury duty notices like clockwork. One per year. And now, I'm getting one per year for both my unmarried and married selves.

I called up the number on the notice to remedy this situation, because that would seem to be the thing to do, right? Well, first of all, the person I spoke with made sure to tell me right up front that these duplicate notices are not the city's fault, no sir, because they "have no way of knowing that Jennifer MaidenName and Jennifer MarriedName are the same person". Oh, really? The identical address and date of birth aren't a hint? How about the fact that I filed a legal notice of name change at the DMV (actually, they call it an MVA here) almost two years ago? Don't you guys pull your records from the DMV? Whatever. I said none of this, of course. Instead, I politely asked if they could delete one of the records from their system. 

No, she told me. You need to come in for your next jury service, and bring your marriage certificate with you and we'll change it them.

OK... but should I come to the January 27th or the March 2nd date, then?

January 27th.

OK... but what if my number isn't called for January 27th? Do I have to come in for March 2nd then?

SIDEBAR! Each notice is issued a number from 001-999, at the end of the summons number. The day before you're scheduled for jury duty, you call a number and listen to a very long recording, and at the very, very end of the recording -- after the parking info, directions, hours of operation and detailed information on how you must wear clothes that 1) have been washed somewhat recently and 2) cover your body -- they give you the numbers that actually need to show up the next day. It's always 001-something. Usually around 001-600 or 001-700, depending on how many people have been murdering each other lately. So if your number is higher than 700, there's a good chance you might not have to go. You'll notice my number for January 27th is a golden 901. On March 2nd I have 320. 320 is not good. The mere fact that I know these things just goes to show you: I get too many damn jury duty notices.

No, the January 27th notice is the one on your real jury service record [phew]. If you don't get called for January 27th, call us back and we'll give you the fax number. You can fax in your marriage certificate and we'll fix the records.

Can't you just give me the fax number... now?

No.

... please?

Sorry, no.

Pleeeease?

No.

[Exit stage left, with moderate pounding of heads against desks] 

 

I am the walrus

Normally Joel would land himself in the doghouse for comparing me to a 700-lb sea lion, but even I have to admit that this is an startlingly accurate re-enactment of a scene that plays out at least once a night in our house.

 

Yep, I'm pretty sure that's exactly how I look when Henry the Cat jumps directly on my bladder every night as he completes his nightly patrol across the bed. He may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he never misses a landing.

Adios, 2010

Annual New Year's quiz thing time!  I love reading other people's responses to this quiz every year, and here's to hoping that you do too. 2007, 2008, and 2009 versions, should you care to look.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Got a job that I did not hate. Started a (*cough*prize-winning) garden. Celebrated a year of marriage.  Started composting. Crafted a homemade Christmas wreath. Learned how to (sort of) knit.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I have fallen out of the habit of making real resolutions because I didn't really like the pressure I put on myself to achieve each and every one of them.  Since one of my resolutions several years running was to be less hard on myself, I'd say that means yes, yes I did keep my resolutions.

I did informally resolve to go to yoga more this year, meaning I wanted to clock at least 53 classes during 2010.  Going once a week has been my norm for several years and it's pretty easy to fit in one class on the weekends, but it gets tricky when we go out of town or have company and I then have to try to "make up" the missed class.  In 2009 I just barely squeaked out 52 classes, thanks to the month I took off for the wedding/honeymoon, the three weeks I was incapacitated after my knee surgery, and the ridiculous amount of traveling I did for work, my brother's wedding and related activities, my wedding shower/bachelorette party, friends' weddings... etc. Anyway, this year was much calmer on the travel and wedding side, and I clocked in 64 classes. I'm quite proud! I am signed up for a teacher training course that starts in February, and the course requires that I go to three classes per week (OMG) so next year's tally will be even higher.

I also kind of resolved to lose some of the extra weight I'd been carrying and get into better shape, and I'd say I did fairly well at that. The last time I weighed in at the gym I'd lost a total of about 6-7 lbs. Sadly, that weigh-in was almost a month ago and I haven't been to the gym since then. I have no good reason other than I just never feel like going, even though the damn gym is right in my office building now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, the newly pregnant friend mentioned in last year's survey gave birth to an adorable baby boy! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no, but I am a little afraid that Madison's name will be in this space next year. The old badger is not looking so good lately, and by that I mean he is looking even worse than usual. He's due for his annual vet visit this month which should be a rocking good time, as always.

5. What countries did you visit?This is the first year in a good long while that has not seen a stamp on the old passport.  We did go to Colorado for our anniversary in July, and we made a visit to Vermont in October... but other than that and several weekend/daytrips to New Jersey, we pretty much stayed put.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A new job for Joel, complete with a new location for us.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 2nd, my last day at my old job, and April 12, my start date at my new job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  Getting a new job; realizing that it is possible to not only not hate your job, but to actually like it.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I am getting really sick of listing my knee for this question. Guess who's back in physical therapy? THIS GIRL. My settlement had better be very large is all I'm saying.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I'm having trouble coming up with something for this question, possibly because we tried really, really hard to put as much money into savings as possible this year. I did buy this pursein August and I love it, like, a lot. The Groupon for 5 Bikram yoga classes for $20 was an excellent purchase, and we've been getting a lot of mileage out of our Netflix via Xbox live acount as well.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Same answer as last year: Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Appalled: People who cannot shut the hell up in the movies.  Depressed: Apostrophe abusers.

14. Where did most of your money go? The mortgage was far and away our biggest expense this year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Quitting my old job. I miss certain things, most notably my old coworkers, but on the whole I am so, so, SO happy to be free of that place.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Zero, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Help I'm Alive and Stadium Love by Metric.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? Thinner.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Hiking. Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Sitting around wondering what we should do on the weekends.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010?  Christmas kind of blended in with the rest of my week-long vacation this year, which is just fine with me. We stayed home, slept in, watched Scrooged (which I'd never seen before) and then I screwed up our Christmas Ham (which was actually a shoulder roast, but whatever) but it turned out delicious anyway. Christmas was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010? With Raylan Givens, yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Justified. Walking Dead is a close second.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  Every single one of the stupid hooligans that ruined a movie for me this year by yelling through the whole damn thing. 

24. What was the best book you read? I didn't have a standout best book this year, but here are the books I really enjoyed:

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Watership Down by Richard Adams (This was a re-read, and I think I loved it even more than I did in high school.)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, speaking of books, are you on Goodreads? Me too! Want to be my friend?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Metric. My god, they are good. Also, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

26. What did you want and get?  A new job!  

27. What did you want and not get?  A new job for Joel. And a new house.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  I always have to ask Joel for help with this question, so here are our combined favorites:

How to Train Your Dragon. You guys, this is the cutest movie ever.

Inception. Lived up to the hype!

True Grit. As discussed.

The Town. Even though this movie was totally ruined for me, once again, by loud punk-ass kids in the theater. At the 2pm showing. IS NOTHING SACRED. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I turned 29, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I did.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Having more than one closet and a dedicated parking space.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Jeans, Jcrew tshirt, hoodie and Privos.

32. What kept you sane?  Quitting my old job. This is getting a little repetitive, but I don't know how much longer I was going to survive in that basement dungeon. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Tie, between Timothy Olyphant and Georges St-Pierre. Did I mention that not only did I get totally into Ultimate Fighter this past season, but we went to watch the pay-per-view finale? At a sports bar? I never thought I would care about a sporting event -- let alone a fighting sport -- in my life. But between my love for polite, Canadian Georges and my burning hatred for Josh Koscheck, I was no-shit nervous about the outcome of that fight. (Georges won!)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ugh, I don't know. I hate politics. I am pretty psyched about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, though. I hope one day my kids will be unable to believe that such a stupid policy was ever real.

35. Who did you miss? My two best friends, who live way too far away.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Raylan Givens.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. If the other person pulls first, it's justified.

************************

2010 was a great year for us, and I hope it was for you all too. And if it wasn't, well, hooray! It's over! Here's to a happy and healthy 2011. Happy freaking new year, internet.

Tis the season for excessive movie theater patronage

So far we've seen two in-theater movies over this quasi-vacation (I'm not going to tell you how many movies we've watched at home, because the number would make my mom faint and because I stopped counting after the third Dirty Harry): True Grit and Tron.

True Grit was an easy sell. Joel loves John Wayne, like, a whole lot. I like Matt Damon. We both love westerns. We were pretty much guaranteed to love the movie, and love it we did.

Before we went Joel forced me to watch the 1969 version, starring -- you guessed it -- John Wayne.  As I may have mentioned, Joel loves The Duke. I... I do not. Like him. At all. I can't stand his stupid swagger. I hate the fact that, at least as far as I can tell, he plays the exact same character in every single movie. True Grit, you say? Never heard of it before this remake came out but let me guess: Credits roll, John Wayne plays a sheriff and shoots a bunch of bad guys while wearing a leather vest and a bandana around his neck, there's a horse thrown in somewhere, the end? (Joel was quick to inform me that ACTUALLY NO, for my information Mr. Wayne does not play a sheriff in this movie thankyouverymuch. He's a Deputy U.S. Marshall. GOD.)

And he has an eyepatch! Well, pardon moi for even insinuating typecasting!

To everyone's surprise I actually enjoyed the movie, John Wayne and his stupid bandana-wearing, reins-in-the-teeth shooting and all. It was funny! And had a very (very) young Robert Duvall! I'm not sure that I need to go home and immediately start watching Joel's Essential John Wayne box set collection, but I'll give The Duke a point for this one.

Tron was also a no-brainer, as it looked less insufferable than Transformers and I need to bank fanboy movie points so that Joel can't complain about seeing Breaking Dawn with me.

I liked the movie just fine. The Daft Punk soundtrack, however, I loved. Were these guys made for this movie or what? They hardly even needed costumes! I always love it when one band does the entire soundtrack/score for a movie, and apparently I also love French techno. If I'd only known these things about myself twenty years ago, I might have actually paid attention to the original Tron!

We've got another long weekend looming deliciously on the horizon... what else should we see? 

How to ruin Christmas dinner in three easy steps

STEP ONE.

December 23: Resolve to figure out how to cook the giant pork roast you bought at the farmer's market, because at five pounds for twenty damn dollars it was the least expensive piece of humane pastured hippie meat there.

STEP TWO.

December 24: Feel quite smug when after minimal searching you happen upon a recipe that is not only for the exact cut of gigantic hippie meat you have defrosting in the fridge, but also looks simple and requires a perfectly reasonable hour and forty five minutes to cook.

STEP THREE.

December 25, 4:30pm: God. DAMNIT.

 

 

Again, with the bike riding. Yes.

Word has gotten out, apparently, that I bike to work. I am now getting questions about it daily, mostly along the lines of "But you didn't bike TODAY, right?" (Yes, yes I did. It was cold, yes.) You'll be pleased to know that I am no longer annoyed at all by these comments... zen: achieved! Or more evidence that I should be locking myself in Tyler Lockwood's werewolf shed every month or so. Instead of being annoyed, I'm now finding them kind of hilarious:

You must be in such great shape!

Yeah, so my ride to work takes seven to ten minutes. It's uphill and it takes a little bit of huffing, which is especially apparent in the summer when I start sweating buckets. I often do count it as my daily workout, but really... it's less than ten minutes. It doesn't count. The ride home takes between five and seven minutes because it's 100% downhill, so that certainly doesn't count as exercise. Unless you count the increased heart rate and adrenaline rush from when cars try to run me over.

I take this recurring comment as a complement, especially because it's often paired with something along the lines of "you're so healthy!" (um, thanks but... no. I bring the same granola bar, yogurt, and apple for lunch because I am a lazy, lazy person.)

You must really care about the environment!

I do, and I have the most adorable composting worms in my basement to prove it! I'm glad that biking to work is good for the environment, but that's really not my primary reason for doing it. Before I had a bike I walked to work. The bike just allows me to go faster and therefore sleep later.

It must really suck riding in the winter!

It's not that bad... most of the time.  I've had a couple rides over the past few months that really, really did suck. On my way home from class a few weeks ago it was so windy and cold that I pretty much wanted to die.  I couldn't feel my fingers for the first 15 minutes (which made it hard to brake) and when I did regain feeling, it was pins and needles pain of fire. It was awful. Last week I had to go by the library on my way home from work and it was so cold and windy again that I could not feel my thighs when I got home. That was extremely unpleasant. But as long as I plan my outerwear correctly, it's (usually) not that bad. Sometimes it totally and completely sucks, but so does every other mode of transport -- sometimes. Metros and buses run late all the time. My boss commutes from a DC suburb, and it took him 2.5 hours to get to work when it snowed last week. I was pretty cold on my bike that day, but I'll take that over spending nearly five hours on one roundtrip commute. Biking is not pleasant when it's really cold, but we luckily live in the faux south where it generally doesn't get that cold.

Other random comments about how hardy/dedicated/awesome I am

I'll totally take the complements and roll with them, but honestly it's about self-preservation. I feel like I complain about the parking in our neighborhood all the time, but I'm not sure you can understand how frustrating it is until you've actually dealt with it. I used to think parking was bad in our old college neighborhood, where sometimes late at night we had to park a block (or sometimes, TWO!) away from our apartment. It was an annoyance but it didn't ever affect my plans. And then we moved.

I love, love, LOVE our neighborhood. I love it. But the parking, you guys. It's enough to counter out all the awesome things about our location. Here's an example from last night: Joel and I went to a yoga class that started at 6pm. We decided to drive there because we are stupid. Getting to the studio was OK, although it wasn't any faster than biking thanks to outbound rush hour traffic. We parked in Joel's office lot, which is conveniently a block away from the yoga studio.

The class ended at 7:30 and we got back in the car at 7:50. We pulled up in front of our house at 8pm. Then the search for a parking space began. After about 10 minutes of unsuccessful searching Joel dropped me off at the house so I could start dinner (and possibly because he could feel the rage starting to boil up inside me).  I'd made a pizza, put it in the oven, cleaned up the pizza mess, and made salads by the time he walked in the door at 8:35. 7:50 to 8:35. It took him FORTY FIVE minutes to get home from a yoga class that is less than a mile away. It only takes about 25-30 minutes WALKING to get to this place. It would have been a 10 minute ride each way if we'd ridden our bikes. That kind of completely wasted time just burns me up. It's worse than sitting in traffic for me; I just cannot deal. It makes me angry at other cars that I see who've just nabbed a space, it makes me want to bash in windshields when I see people parked in the middle of two spaces, it makes me mad at the people who have off-street parking, it makes me grumpy at the cats because those assholes never have to drive anywhere. It's just not pleasant to feel that way. Nor is it pleasant to feel homicidal, which is how I tend to get after receiving a (YET ANOTHER) parking ticket or a speed camera ticket.

And that is my treatise and confession, Internet. I suppose I could tell all this to the people in my office, but I kind of like hearing about how awesome I am every day.

The best laid birthday plans

I am not a very good gift-giver. Well, I shouldn't exactly say that. I love buying things that I see if they remind me of someone. If I happen upon a book or a scarf or something that I know a certain person will love, I'm a great gift giver. But if I don't happen upon something perfect, well... I just draw a blank. The idea of Christmas shopping gives me an anxiety attack. How are you supposed to come up with a good idea for every person you know and love at the same time?  Throw in the fact that my brother's birthday is in January and my mom's is in February and that is a whole lot of winter gift ideas that never seem to come up with themselves. Much to my relief (and probably at my suggestion), my immediate family did away with getting each other Christmas gifts several years ago. And Joel and I usually just get each other birthday gifts and forgo Christmas gifts, since his birthday in December and mine is in January.  It's just too much. (For me.)

Even with just one gift to buy for Joel, I always end up stressing about what to get him for his birthday. I always want to get him something totally awesome but as his birthday draws nearer and I still have zero ideas, I start to think that I'd settle for getting him something pretty good. Maybe just something not terrible. I mean, something he only hates a little bit, that would be fine, right?

I started fretting about his gift early this year, as this is the big 3-0 for us. My thoughts on turning thirty are another whole topic (I was totally fine with it until about three weeks ago), but every time the topic would come up whoever I was talking to would remark on what a BIG BIRTHDAY it was. Better get him something REALLY SPECIAL, huh?  Wouldn't want the BIG SPECIAL BIRTHDAY to TOTALLY SUCK, would we?

So, there's that. And then there's the fact that Joel is probably the world's best gift-giver. He comes up with ideas all on his own with no hints or suggestions. He often buys me things that I never would have chosen for myself and they always end up becoming my favorite things. And most importantly of all, Joel is just a good guy and fantastic husband and I wanted to show him how much I appreciate him with a totally kick-ass birthday gift for once.

Eventually, thanks to RA, I hit upon the idea of tickets to a Ravens game. I was pretty pumped about this idea. I looked up the schedule and found there was a home game the day after his birthday. Perfect! My brother and my BFF coached me on where to get tickets and what seats were better than others and for the first time ever I had a present bought and shipped and sitting safely in my office with weeks to spare.

Then came the task of keeping it a secret. I have never, ever managed to keep a gift a surprise from Joel. He always guesses it, ALWAYS, even when I think there is no possible way he could ever figure out what I got him. I was really feeling quite smug about my idea and it was SO HARD not to gloat about what a great gift I'd gotten him. But I kept my mouth shut and I refused to answer any questions, give any hints, or even discuss the matter at all because I was afraid he'd figure it out.

On Saturday morning we woke up and while Joel was watching cartoons I wrapped up the tickets in a spare box. I made him open all the other cards that had come in the mail before opening his present. He was genuinely surprised (or he's so good at faking it that I can't tell the difference) and I patted myself on the back for being the best wife ever.

And then this afternoon, around 3pm, Joel started to feel sick. You'd better suck it up, I joked, because we have a goddamn football game to go to whether you feel like it or not! Maybe he was just hungry, he said, so I made us some toast. An hour later he seemed to feel better, and then he went upstairs to take a shower. When he hadn't come back down after what seemed like a long time, I went upstairs and found him in bed. Just taking a nap, he said. Wake me up at 6.

At 6:15 he said he felt OK, but not great. He didn't feel terrible, but it was the kind of uneasiness that could change in to full-on suckitude or just pass. The game kicked off at 8:20. I think you can probably see where this is going.

I made myself some dinner. Joel didn't want any. I looked on Craigslist and saw there were people selling tickets at the last minute and a few people were looking to buy tickets. I wondered if I should list ours and see if anyone was interested. But I didn't want to give them up in case he suddenly felt better.

At 7, we decided to go to the game. We bundled up appropriately and got on our bikes and rode over to the stadium. In hindsight, biking there was a terrible idea, but at the time it seemed l ike a better option than walking through the serious ghetto to the bus stop or riding our bikes to another less ghetto but far away bus stop. 

When we got there, Joel didn't think he could go in. We hemmed and hawed for few minutes over what to do and decided to go in after all, since we were already there.  But when we got to the stadium entrance there was a wall of people waiting outside to go through security.  Just looking at the line made me a little queasy and I realized that this was the stupidest idea ever. So we go in, and what? Joel feels like shit for three hours? While surrounded by drunk, screaming people? In the freezing cold?  No, we needed to go home. I sold the tickets to some dude and we turned around. Joel stopped to throw up before we even made it back to the bikes and had to stop several times on the way home.

So! We're back home. Joel is retching over the toilet upstairs. I guess we'll remember his 30th birthday for a long time, so at least there's that.

Strangely, I am not overly upset. I'm sad that he didn't get to enjoy his gift and I definitely wish that Joel wasn't upstairs barfing right now. But this sudden turn of events made me appreciate all we have more than it made me feel angry at the universe for ruining his present. Even though it may have been the best birthday idea I'll ever have, no big deal universe!  Assuming this is just a stomach bug (and I refuse to consider any other possibilities), we'll be back to normal by tomorrow or next week at the latest. I'll still have my husband and we'll still have our overall health. Of all the disasters that could come out of left field at any time, missing a football game isn't the worst thing that could have happened by a long shot.

But now MY stomach is starting to feel a little questionable, so I reserve the right to take that statement back.

 

Taking Charge of Your Insanity

So, about that Oscar the Grouch post that's been decorating the top of this page for the past way too long: I was feeling mighty grumpy that day, as the title suggested. The day after I wrote it, I went around kicking random household items for being so goddamn IN MY WAY all the time. I came close to crying about thirteen times the week, including the moment that I found out there was no new episode of The Ultimate Fighter and when I realized we had no iced tea mix. And then (gentlemen folk avert your eyes) I got my period. Collective palm to the forehead, if you please.

After nearly thirty years (hear me saying the number out loud?) of being a lady-type person you'd think I would be able to recognize some good old fashioned PMS, yes?  But now that we're here in TMI territory, let me tell you something else: I kind of sort of went off the pill in May.

Before you start clapping your hands and throwing pacifiers at me, please know this: we are not "trying." Yet. But, at some point in the soonish (but not TOO soon) future, we would like to maybe think about doing that, so I figured I'd stop taking the pill just to see what would happen. Plus, my prescription ran out three weeks before my annual lady appointment and I didn't feel like calling the office ahead of time to request a special advance refill, so there was that. 

I had credited the pill with keeping me to a handy and convenient 28-day cycle and preventing babies, and not much else. And then I stopped taking it, and you guys... it's been bad. Thanks to your comments on this post I have procured and almost finished reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility, so I understand that my body is a scientific marvel of feminine power, blah blah blah. But tell that to everyone who has to interact with me when I'm riding the hormonal roller coaster, because hoo boy. I turn into this caricature sitcom version of a PMS-fueled bizzotch and even I don't want to be around myself. I have to stifle tears over everything from SPCA commercials to perfectly benign emails. The cat yowling when I get home is enough to set me into a three-day rage over how nobody appreciates anything I do. I watch Bobby Flay's Thanksgiving Throwdown Special and suddenly have an insatiable urge to eat an entire pan of roasted brussel sprouts, despite the fact that I've never before had brussel sprouts or pancetta in my life. After about five days of feeling like a bona fide crazy person I'll start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, please dear baby Jesus, my homicidal mood swings might mean I'm about to get my period.

And then, yup. DURR. Well, who'd have thunk it?

I'm not really sure what the point of this whole story was, but one thing has become pretty clear: when we do decide it's time for babies, I am going to be one fun pregnant person.

The grumpy cyclist

An acquaintance came into my office yesterday and told me all about this shuttle I could take home instead of riding my bike.  I would just need to walk a block over to the shuttle stop, wait outside for the shuttle to arrive, and then I could ride it to the stop that is only a block and a half from my house.  The shuttle comes every half hour, she told me, and it's great!  And then you wouldn't have to ride your bike in the dark!

 

Well, thanks. Except instead of walking a block, waiting up to half an hour, and then walking another block and a half, I think I'll stick with the bike, which I have to wait zero minutes for and takes me directly to my doorstep in less than ten minutes.   

 

I know that people mean well, but this kind of "suggestion" really annoys me.  This same lady is also extremely concerned that I have been riding my bike about 5 miles to a class after work once a week.  The ride kind of sucks because it's uphill on the way there, but it takes only about 15 minutes more than it would take me to drive and park, plus it means I don't have to feel guilty for not going to the gym that day. And better yet, I don't have to deal with parking when I get home at 9:30pm.  Yes, it's dark, but I have a super nerdy red flashing light on my helmet, another light on the front of my bike, and I am careful.  

 

Last night I did decide to drive to the class because: 1) I'd gotten about three hours of sleep the night before thanks to a raging case of insomnia and the idea of moving my legs made me want to vomit, and 2) it was pouring rain.  I made it home a little faster in the car, but then I had to drive around for 25 minutes looking for a parking space. Finally I gave up and parked the car in the no-man's-land ghetto and had to walk five blocks home.  I don't think trekking through the ghetto alone at 10pm and leaving my car there overnight is any safer than riding my bike home in the dark.  

 

She means well, I know that.  She insisted on driving me to this class two weeks ago when she ran into me in the parking lot after work, even though I politely protested and reminded her that if she dropped me off, I'd be left with no way home and I would really be fine on my bike.  No, no, she wouldn't hear of it.  In the time it took to cram my bike into her trunk, I could have been three-fourths of the way there and she could have been home.

 

Before I had my bike, a girl at my old job used to be horrified that I walked to work.  "Don't you have a car?" she asked incredulously. Yes, I do. However, parking costs $120 a month here. I live less than a mile away, I like getting the exercise, I like not paying for gas, and I like not killing the planet. I am more than capable of walking, I told her (politely).  Every time it would snow or rain, she'd say "You walked in THIS?" when I arrived. Yes, I walked today.  I've been walking since before you worked here, and I'm still alive.  Occasionally, if it was really, really pouring, I'd drive.  But honestly, when you have to walk to wherever your car is parked, and then walk again from the parking lot to the office, driving really isn't saving much time in the rain.  "But what about when it SNOWS?" she asked.  Well, in the time it would take me to shovel out my car and navigate the unplowed city streets, I probably could have walked in.  And then after work, I'd have to shovel out another parking space, if I was lucky enough to find one, to put my car back in.  So...I'm fine, thanks.

 

 

I am really not sure why this sort of concern bothers me so much.  I hope and assume that it comes from a place of caring, but it feels an awful lot like judgement; like their way is the right way and my way is the wrong way and I should change to make them feel better.  Instead of making me feel happy that they care enough to be concerned about me, it makes me feel rage-y because you know what?  You're not the boss of me.

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Five minutes after I published this post, Joel sent me a link to this article which illustrates reason number five (right behind exercise, saving money, saving the planet, and saving time) I prefer biking or walking over driving around this city: $252 parking ticket!!1!  NO THANK YOU.