Lawyerish

The Answer

I'm lying on the table in the dimly lit room, watching the grainy images on the screen. 

She goes slowly, starting with the head -- a nice profile shot of a perfectly round, Charlie Brown-like noggin, then a straight-on skullface ("they all look like that!" she says when we snicker at its ghoulishness); then she does a cross-section of the jaw and teeth, showing us that the baby has a fully formed palate; then the heart, thrumming along at 148 bpm -- we can see all four chambers, working valves, and the aortic arch; the diaphragm; the long bony chain of the spine with ribs arcing out to the sides; the kidneys, two dark spots in the ether alongside the spine; the blood flow of the umbilical cord, highlighted in blue and red; the legs, feet and hands with all the fingers and toes; the tibia and fibula, radius and ulna.  Everything looks perfect. 

And then, finally, she lines up the shot from underneath, with the baby's legs bent and splayed a bit -- the shot we've been waiting almost 20 weeks to see.

Tech:  Now, what do you see?

Me:  ???  (seriously, not a CLUE what I was looking at)

Joe:  I see...nothing?

Tech:  That's exactly right.  Clear as day, there's nothing there.

Me:  {blink....blink...blinkblinkblink}

Me:  So...

Joe:  It's...a girl?! 

Me {sitting up a bit}:  Are we 100% sure about this?

Tech:  You've got a double-X here, unless that's a boy without a penis!

Me:  !!!

Tech:  You can go out and buy all the pink you want -- it's clear as day. 

I'm still stunned.  We'll be halfway to babyville on Thursday (the time, it FLIES), and I can hardly believe any of it is happening, despite all the evidence that yes, really, it IS. 

We're having a baby.  A daughter.  A baby daughter!

Craziness.

(Belly shots and the like to come; things have been insane lately but I should be getting my life back in the next couple of weeks, hoo to the rah.) 

All A-Flutter

I started feeling the baby move a few weeks ago -- on the early side as these things go, but it was infrequent and easily confused with...you know, digestion-y stuff -- and now it's like a party in there almost every afternoon and evening.  At first it was sort of burbly, a little vibration from time to time, but it has since increased in intensity to discernible bumps and rolls, and occasionally I burst out laughing because I swear it's like being tickled from the inside.  He (or she) seems to like cocktail hour; between about 5 and 7pm, things get funky in there.  If I could eat hot dogs, I'd serve the kid some pigs in blankets to contribute to the ambience.

Speaking of which, here are some of the other things I haven't been eating, thanks to Pregnancy Fear-Mongering:  lunch meat (not that I ate it all that often before, but this does make me one of those people at a workplace lunch who stands over the sandwich platter for forty-five minutes trying to figure out which unidentified offering they can eat); burgers or steak (oh, the pain this brings, but if I can't have it medium-rare, I'm not having it at all); pepperoni (some "expert" on one of those crazy-making Ba*byCenter emails said it can harbor listeria, just like lunch meat, sigh); or any soft cheese that I have not confirmed to be pasteurized (I had a slice of white pizza some weeks ago and then nearly perished of anxiety because I hadn't made CERTAIN that the ricotta was "safe"). 

It's all quite silly, since I recently read that two of the foods that most commonly harbor food-borne illness are spinach and tomatoes, and I have been consuming those by the truckload.  So logic and accurate assessment of risk may not play a central role here.  Related:  I heard that in France, the pregnant ladies are told that all meats and cheeses are fair game, but they should avoid salad.  Salad!  Zut alors!  But since no gestation-related pamphlet or e-mail blast has specifically warned me against eating my beloved veggies here in the great US of A, I am forging ahead. 

Also, there's no easy segue into this, but tonight I almost ate a spider.  I was merrily finishing up my rosemary-garlic oven fries and suddenly something skittered across the plate, and it was a tiny SPIDER.  I have no idea where it came from or how long it was lurking under my dinner, but all things considered, I was fairly unperturbed by it.  I guess because spiders aren't on the verboten list; so while I'd really rather not eat one, at least I don't have to live with crushing guilt if I accidentally do.  Whereas I have the distinct feeling that if I were to sneak a frankfurter into my diet, the Bad Mother police would find me and pummel me with rubber flipper-babies. 

So!  Next Monday, we have our big anatomy scan, which means that if the babe cooperates, we'll get to find out if our squirt is of the boy or girl persuasion.  OMG, I CANNOT WAIT.  And next Thursday, we'll be at 20 weeks.  Halfway through!  Holy moly.  Time flies.  I thought the big 20-week reveal would NEVER ARRIVE (and I'm sure this week is going to CRAWL by), but now it's mere days away.   So place your bets, ladies and gents!  You've got a 50-50 shot.  (Not to bias you, but I am still totally convinced it's a boy, and I will fall off the ultrasound table if it turns out to be otherwise.) 

Ill-Suited

I went for a checkup last week (at 16 1/2 weeks), and I got the dreaded "you've gained too much weight" scolding.  Sigh.

Admittedly, my weight has gone up, um, substantially since the beginning, and we're not even halfway through yet, but since it seems to be concentrated in the belly and chestal area and everything else appears to me to be mostly the same (arms, legs, face) AND I started at a low weight for my height, I wasn't terribly concerned.  Plus, in the first trimester, when I gained more than the typical amount (most of the guidelines say you should remain the same or gain maybe ONE POUND in that first 12 weeks; my body laughed at those rules and put on nine pounds right off the bat), my doctor assured me that it was mostly water retention and increasing fluid, blood volume, etc.  Now, though, she's more concerned -- well, not concerned, exactly, and she was super nice about it, but she wants me to be attentive to it and keep my gain down in the next month so as not to put myself at risk for gestational diabetes and so forth.

In my defense, by the way, I was weighed in my clothes AND shoes around 3 in the afternoon after a lunch that included, in part, pasta salad and about a liter of water.  When I got on the scale at home the next morning before breakfast and in the altogether, I was FIVE POUNDS LIGHTER.  Which still puts me ahead of the power curve, but isn't quite as dire. 

Mind you, I'm calm about it, but the point is well taken.  I've been doing a lot less running than I was pre-bebe (regular half-marathons to...irregular 3-mile jogs/walks), which seems to make a big difference, since I haven't changed my diet all that much.  So we're eating lots of big salads and fruits and less pasta and all that sort of thing, and I'm trying to squeeze in some more exercise around my crazy work demands of the moment.  It's fine.  It was just kind of...startling, at first.  

Also startling is the apparent fact that the maternity clothing industry does not believe that pregnant women should have to wear business attire at any time.  I need suits for my job, not for every day, but for client meetings and court appearances, and I had to canvass the city for weeks to find anything that was remotely appropriate for such things.  I finally located exactly two -- TWO -- suits at A Pea in the Pod, and even though they're somewhat ill-fitting (the jackets are a bit comicallly large, despite my RECORD BREAKING weight gain), I had no choice but to get them both. 

And then I nearly DROPPED DEAD when I saw how much they cost -- these are clothes, let's remember, that one can only wear for a period of about six months.  Six months!  It's OUTRAGEOUS.  Yes, suits in general are pricey, but generally you can wear them for YEARS and you don't have to buy more than one at once.  Good lord, people.  This is deeply distressing to someone who is as cheap as I am about apparel.

Naturally, I also find this to be evidence of a vast conspiracy to force pregnant women out of the workplace.  My suspicion is that Old Navy pays these companies off to limit business-wear production so they can sell more yoga pants.  (Although, let's not kid ourselves, when I'm eight-plus months along and my belly is the size of an exercise ball, I'm totally wearing yoga pants to the office.  And I DARE anyone at work to say a WORD about it.)

Finally, we watched a little documentary the other night called "Life After Tomorrow", and since I know that lots of you all were die-hard "Annie" fans like I was, I have to recommend it to you.  It's about the girls who were in the Broadway and the touring show and how the experience affected their lives -- really interesting and well done, and appealling to the "Annie" nostalgia in all of us.  There are also some quite riveting interviews with this random old dude who collects "Annie" memorabilia and wrote an "Annie" newsletter and lives in a house bedecked with "Annie" figurines, posters and original costumes.  They didn't say, but I am fairly certain he lives alone.  Anyway, you should rent it. 

Waiting for Gilbert

You'll never guess what I did last night.  I went out to New Jersey and met up with a long-lost friend, and we went to see (dun dun DUNNNNN) Little House on the Prairie: The Musical. 

Dude.  DUUUUUDE. 

There were no songs with the word "wagons" in the title, but there were wagon wheels on stage, along with plows and a somewhat conceptual wood-frame house (which had a door, yet the actors never used it; they just sidled in and out through the invisible side wall -- the hell?).  One thing that was not on stage, much to our chagrin, was Melissa Gilbert, who has been playing Ma throughout the national tour but was allegedly felled by a back injury during the prior evening's show.  SIGH.  The understudy was fine and all, but hello?  Melissa Gilbert, people.  Part of the reason we wanted to SEE this thing.  FAIL.

Aside from that, the show was...well, how to put this.  It had a certain "Waiting for Guffman" quality to it.  The staging involved a lot of moving in slow motion, like pioneers bending against the stiff prairie winds and migrating west...in slow motion.  And Almanzo driving his Morgans in the Fourth of July race, which was accomplished by the actor holding onto some reins tethered to the front of the stage and slapping them against the ground while leaning back and doing wide-legged squats...in slow motion. 

Aside from that, the show was both overly long (running time: TWO AND A HALF HOURS) and too rushed, like they wanted to cram in every possible episode of the Ingalls family's life in De Smet, so there would be about five seconds of dialogue (and/or slow-mo action to swelling music) and then they'd launch into another song.  A bit of editing would have been appreciated.

Some of the performers were really good, like Pa and Ma's understudy (SIGH) and Mary (who, contrary to the books, wasn't blind when they left Plum Creek but instead caught scarlet fever in De Smet, which just WASN'T RIGHT); but Laura was rather grating and had an extremely shrill voice that made it sort of impossible to like her character.  She seemed to play her as about eight years old at the beginning and by intermission she was suddenly a teenager and ready to move to the Brewster settlement to teach so that Mary could one day attend the Iowa College for the Blind.

Also, OMG, NELLIE OLESON.  The girl who played her looked EXACTLY like Alison Arngrim from the TV series and played her, to a cartoonish degree, EXACTLY like Alison Arngrim did on the show.  They had her do this absolutely ridiculous musical number when she sees the Ingalls girls outside the schoolhouse and makes fun of them, and I guess it was supposed to be like Tori Spelling's pratfalls and slapstick in "90210", some comic relief from all the high drama (here, the Pioneer Hardships and Laura's Journey of Personal Growth), but it so did not work. 

I mean, there were lots of familiar moments from the books, which were kind of fun to see brought to life, but on the whole it could have used some...refinement, I guess.  We, ah, left at intermission, feeling that we'd gotten a sufficient taste of the thing and didn't need another hour and ten minutes.  But I'm glad I went, first and foremost to reconnect with a fabulous friend, and also because I otherwise would have always wondered how the musical depicted my favorite series.  I think if we'd had a couple of little girls to take with us in calico dresses and sunbonnets, it would have been more palatable.  MAYBE.

Which reminds me, if they ever revive "Annie", we'll be the first in line for tickets.

All Over the Place

We watched the original "Fame" movie the other night, and all I could think was, damn people in the 70s were skinny.  It was a different kind of skinny than even the willowiest movie stars now, too; they were all ribcage and gangly legs, nothing but bone without muscularity and a hollowed-out area where a stomach should go.  You didn't have a sense that any of these people exercised for 8 hours a day or followed the Zone diet.  Instead, they probably smoked their asses off and ate nothing but grapefruit and an occasional lump of cottage cheese.  Then in the 80s everyone started jazzercising like crazy, which produced those Jane Fonda leotard butts and, somehow, bigger boobs.  Maybe that's when they started pumping hormones into our meat?  I really have no idea, but seriously -- the 70s.  SKINNY PEOPLE.  Even the men -- those white bell-bottom trousers were narrow.  Odd.

This weekend, amid the usual errands and the lately-usual work obligations, we squeezed in a jaunt downtown to check out the New York International Pickle Festival, which involved much sampling of delicious brined goods and several pickles-on-sticks.  I was also surprised and somewhat thrilled to see that there was a booth offering peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, as my mom used to make those for us and I have always believed that we were the only family in the world to eat such a concoction.  I swear, though, they are delicious -- white bread, creamy peanut butter, and crunchy bread-and-butter pickles?  Mmm. 

Sometimes we also had peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, which I can't recommend in good conscience.  On the other hand, several years ago I had a peanut butter and bacon sandwich, which was one of the greatest things I've ever eaten -- recoil  in horror if you will, it was tremendous. 

(At Allison's house, they would have peanut butter and cheddar cheese or cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, which I used to think was also unusual, but I'm guessing they were more widely consumed than PB and MAYO.  So now I have to ask, what kind of unique things did your parents make for you?  Was anyone else out there in the PB & Pickle club?)

Anyway, after having a spicy pickle that almost seared the inside of my mouth off, we headed over to Il Laboratorio di Gelato and inhaled several scoops to cool the burn.  Which means that I have now fulfilled the Number One Cliche of Pregnancy. 

On an entirely unrelated note, if you've been watching the new season of "So You Think You Can Dance", did anyone else think Mary looked a little...I don't know...rough last week, especially on Wednesday's show?  I'm not sure if they'd been bar-crawling on Bourbon Street and slamming hurricanes until 4am or what, but her face was all puffed up, nearly to the point of obscuring her eyes, and there was sort of this thickness to her voice and a generally subdued air about her and...well, it wasn't pretty.  I wanted to hand her some Advil and a Gatorade and tell her to go sleep it off. 

Also, the guy in Atlanta who had been a crack baby and was raised by his toothless, convalescent aunt?  He got to me, man.  I'm rooting for him. 

Finally, to close, another belly shot.  And dudes, I think it's the angle of the camera or the way I twist a bit to get the shot, but it looks SO MUCH BIGGER than this in real life.  Like, there's almost a SHELF demarcating the belly at this point, but try as I might, I could not capture it in a photo.  You'll have to take my word for it.  (Also on Flickr, some pics of our Georgia visit, including several where I look like I am about to abscond with my niece.)

Details, Details

I apologize in advance for YET ANOTHER pregnancy-related post, but you know -- kind of a big deal and all (see also: not much else going on except work, geh), and I realized the other day that I could already barely remember what the early weeks were like (we're at Week 15, y'all -- less than six months to go!) so I figured I'd better write about it, lest this crucial information be LOST FOREVER. 

Like most women who start trying to get pregnant, from the moment I tossed out my Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, I started obsessively analyzing every twinge and burble and pang that my body had to offer.  I also spent a tremendous amount of time Googling "early pregnancy symptoms" and "lower abdomen pain hot cramp 9dpo" and the like, which takes you right into the heart of the madness that is the TTC world of the Internet (back away slowly, slooooowly).  I even started keeping a log during the two-week wait so I could at least compare what happened from month to month and see if I could discern a pattern. 

As it turned out, I wasn't entirely crazy, because the month It Happened, I did indeed have oddly specific and unique symptoms -- a swollen lymph node under my arm (evidently this is related to the immune system backing the heck off so as not to reject the embryo), sharp pangs in my lady area (implantation!), crampiness after I peed or exercised, hot flashes, a smattering of pimples across the top of my back, bloating, mood swings, intense hunger, heightened senses (aside from the bionic sense of smell, everything I ate tasted AMAZING and, I kid you not, my eyesight became sharper), dreams about pregnancy and babies (and EVERY dream I have had, and there have been MANY, has been about a baby girl, by the way -- hmmm) and, um, a lot of gas (sexy!). 

Once we knew that MVM was, in fact, In the House, the crampiness and bloating and gassiness escalated, and the carnival of new symptoms began.  Mostly it was the fatigue -- oh, MAN, was I tired, almost to the point of hallucination -- which ramped up around Week 6 and bludgeoned me until about Week 12; it's so much better now, although still at any given time if given the opportunity I could drop off into an hour-long nap.  (I'm great at parties these days.)  There was also the Yuck, which as I've mentioned wasn't full-on nausea for the most part (and, OH, am I grateful for that), but it was like at all times I'd just gotten out of an un-air-conditioned cab ride where the driver was weaving all over the place and starting and stopping abruptly and wearing pounds of Axe Body Spray.  Unsettled, is the best way to describe it. 

And by the way, let us remember that I had to SHOWER AT THE GYM every day during those early weeks, thanks to our dang retiling project, and BLARGH, the mere thought of the toothpaste-like scent of the gym's shampoo and body wash gives me The Yuck, even now.  Although I have to admit, the (forced) exercise seemed to help lessen the less pleasant symptoms, including The Yuck.  So, yeah, the exercise relieved The Yuck and the showering at the gym brought it back. 

I never had especially severe mood swings or increased teariness, and still don't.  If anything, I'm on a more even keel now than I was before.  For the most part, I'm not a wildly moody person, but after I went off the pill?  DUDE.  I became a BASKETCASE.  It was unreal.  I felt out of control and unbearably sad and it was the weirdest thing.  Intellectually, I knew it was probably my hormones readjusting after 12 years of being...suppressed or artificially supplemented or...whatever, but at the same time, I couldn't control it in the slightest.  I mean, we were also mourning the HORROR of the failed adoption, so it's not like I didn't have a perfectly valid reason to be a disaster, but this was really extreme and I felt kind of unglued and kind of terrified that I might always be that way.  It turns out lots of people have this reaction, but no one had ever warned me it might happen so I was unprepared for the violence of it. 

But!  Happy ending!  Now I'm a level-headed pregnant lady (although I will admit to having the occasional bout of snappishness, especially in the afternoon when people want me to get shit done and what I really want is to be NAPPING, PEOPLE). 

What else?  OH, yeah.  Pregnancy brain.  Definitely a real thing.  I would forget my butt if it were not attached to my body.  In fact, right this moment I'm trying to remember what other thrilling pregnancy details I wanted to share with you, and I'm drawing a complete blank.  (Not that you haven't had PLENTY of this by now, jeez). 

OH, oh, oh.  The other thing was that, even though my symptoms were pretty mild, if they decreased on any given day, I flew into an instant PANIC because of course I thought that meant something awful had happened.  For a few hours, I'd be frantic and filled with dread, and then The Yuck would return, and I'd mentally celebrate as I swigged ginger ale and munched on Saltines.  Hooray for The Yuck! 

That pretty much brings us up to date on the gory details.  

Another thing I should mention is that not only is Joe positively ECSTATIC about this baby, but he's been a fantastic support for me on this wild ride -- I mean, I fully expect that any partner of a pregnant woman should bend over backwards for her, but he exceeds even my already demanding standards.  He's been taking care of way more than his usual share of household stuff while I've been tired or out of it; he's dashed out countless times, day and night, to get me ginger ale or Gatorade; he makes sure I'm staying fully hydrated and well-rested; he (of course) has come to every doctor's appointment and participated with great enthusiasm, asking questions and getting all giddy at the ultrasounds; he massages my stinky feet; he's read everything in sight about pregnancy and newborns; he's gone shopping for maternity clothes with me; and he has stayed calm and upbeat even when I was JUST SURE that something was wrong and all was woe. 

It's funny, I always thought that pregnancy would be sort of isolating, that it would make me feel resentful that the guy doesn't have to go through ANY of this and I have to SUFFER THROUGH IT ALL; but it hasn't been like that at all.  Quite the opposite.  It feels like we're in this together, that this is our little collaboration, our project; we just have different roles and responsibilities.  We're a team, like we've always been and like we promised to be in our wedding vows -- now more so than ever, and that's only going to increase as we go forward and as we get to experience parenthood.  I mean, we're creating a new person together, one who's never existed before, and that's...man.  That's something. 

I'm so damned lucky. 

Boys and Girls

We spent the past four days in Georgia for a mini-family reunion, and I used the majority of that time to huff the intoxicating baby head smell of my niece, who is three months old and insanely adorable, with perfectly round cheeks and pillowy thigh rolls and an ecstatic smile that bursts forth with a full-body wriggle at regular intervals.  Needless to say, when my brother and his family were piling into the airport limo this morning, I almost created a diversion so that Joe could grab her car seat and run for the hills.  (It's barely twelve hours later now, and I am jonesing for that scent like crazy.)

We also got to relive some childhood memories with my bright and funny and sweet 3-year old nephew, as my mom had bought some classic Fisher Price toys -- the airport, the village -- and a Lite Brite (now battery-operated and in flatscreen!).  I think we may have had even more fun than he did playing with the jumbo jet and the mail truck and the little wooden people with the plastic heads (the bald guy in green, the baby with the lacy collar, the curvy blonde woman with the blue dress). 

In addition to lots of family time and a trip to the beauty parlor for a much-needed haircut and some gossip, we got to have an after-hours ultrasound at the office of a family friend who is an OB/GYN there in town and had offered to give my parents their first live peek at their next grandchild.  I was, of course, game, since I jump at any opportunity to see MVM, and I thought it would be cool for my parents since they didn't have such high-tech options back in the 70s when they were reproducing. 

It turned out to be the coolest one so far, because it was long and unhurried and MVM was really active.  The kid was stretching his/her (long) legs (now with visible bones -- the kneecaps looked like they were glowing) into the outer corner of my uterus and waving his/her arms and sucking his/her thumb.  We counted limbs (four!) and fingers and toes (ten and ten!) and saw a spinal cord and even a (full) bladder. 

Naturally, we asked if the doctor could see The Goods, and after trying a bunch of times to get a glory shot, as it were, he peered and contemplated and said he would write down what he thinks we're having.  He said we should wait until the 20-week anatomy scan to open it (yeah, right) and that we should keep in mind that it's quite early (we know, we know) and he didn't get the right angle (shy baby!) AND that he would put his confidence for this guess at 50-50 (so...right where we were before).

We pored over the pictures he'd printed out and thought...hmmm.  Is that...do you see...gosh, that looks like something...dangling out in space there.  Right?  Maybe?  You think?  And when we all piled back into the car, Joe looked at the stapled-up note and said, "He wrote down 'boy'!"

Now, y'all, I KNOW it's early (I was 14 weeks, one day at the time) and half the time I can't tell WHAT is going on in an u/s picture, so who the heck knows -- I'm not banking on this by any means, and we won't be buying any remotely gender-specific baby things until after an Official Confirmation at the 20-week ultrasound.  But still, it's fun to mull over.  I've thought since the very beginning that there was a wee guy in there and, I don't know, even before we knew I was pregnant, I figured we'd have a boy.  Maybe it's because we went through so much in our (failed) quest to adopt a girl and this new (ad)venture is such a total reversal of how we thought we'd start our family that it makes sense that we'd have a boy.  Or maybe it's because we have a truckload of girl clothes in our nursery, so of course we'd have a boy and need to start the wardrobe over (not that I object to a Big! Shopping! Spree!, especially when sailor suits and tiny overalls and engineers' caps are involved).  Or...I don't know.  I just kind of felt like that's what would happen.

And truly, it should go without saying that I am beyond thrilled either way.  I mean, OBVIOUSLY.  We want to be parents; we want a baby; we want THIS baby.  We're not picky about What It Is.  It's going to be a complete blast either way.  (Again:  DUH.)  I've figured out by now that the universe tends to unfold in the way it should (thank you, Harold and Kumar), so this baby is going to be exactly the baby we need.  And baby head smell is not gender-specific, so it's a total win-win regardless. 

And Now I Have to Pee...Again

A few things I've been loving lately:

Whole Foods Cucumber Yogurt Dip (I can't find it on their website, or I'd link to it).  This stuff is so good, I easily hoover a whole container of it in one sitting.  It's excellent with veggies or with basically any other vehicle to get it into your mouth as quickly as possible -- pita chips, Wheat Thins, blue corn chips, a ladle.  It feels virtuous because it's yogurt, after all (dairy, hello), and has actual cucumbers in it (veggies!) and I refuse to look at the label to ascertain that it is anything but excellent for me. 

Back to Nature Crispy Cheddar Crackers.  Like Cheez-Its, only less greasy and fluorescent, and you can pretend they're healthier because they are all natural and stuff.  And they are DELICIOUS.

Clarks Unstructured Shoes.  I bought two pairs of these recently (Unbrew and Unblend, in case you're wondering) and I am not sure I ever want to wear any other shoes.  They're not the sexiest things in the world, but DUDE, they are so comfortable I almost feel guilty putting them on, like shoes aren't SUPPOSED to be this comfortable and I am supposed to be SUFFERING with ouchy feet all the time.  You could practically jog in these babies.  And the website is run via Zappos, so you get your order like five minutes after you check out (how do they DO that?).  Hooray!

Separately, some of y'all asked how we told my parents about the baby.  Well!  Here's the story:

We hadn't breathed a word to them that we were, ah, trying the old-fashioned route, so they had no idea that this was even something we were considering.  Once we got the positive test, I still didn't want to tell them for fear it was too early and Something Awful might happen.  My doctor does the first prenatal visit at 7 weeks, so I slogged through a very long and tortured and PANIC-STRICKEN three weeks until that day arrived.  It also happened to be my birthday (I did that on purpose, figuring things HAD to go well if the appointment was on my birthday). 

That afternoon, after Joe and I had gone to the doctor and had a celebratory lunch and strolled around for a while, my parents called to wish me a happy birthday.  They were both on the line and asked what I'd done to celebrate so far that day.  I said, calm as could be, "I went to the gym this morning, then we took the dog to the park for a while, then I had a doctor's appointment where we saw our baby's heartbeat for the first time."

Silence.

My dad:  "Whoa!"

My mom:  "Are you...are you saying...you're...PREGNANT???"  {commence FLIPPING OUT}

Then there was the when and the how far along and I filled them in on the details and then there was a lot of "Man!" and "I did not expect to hear that today!" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT" and the like and then my mom asked who she could tell, and since I basically said no one until 12 weeks (though I eventually caved and we told her sisters at 10 weeks), the ensuing month or so had to be one of the most difficult she's had to endure.  But she made it through (and so did MVM, thank God), and now we're into the second trimester and the whole world knows so everyone's happy. 

Meanwhile, I am super curious to see how long it takes for people to start giving up their seat on the subway for me -- if ever.  Some pregnant friends of mine have said that people LEAP out of their seats for them and others have said that never have subway riders been so engrossed in their magazines and novels than when a visibly pregnant woman stands near them.  Thus far, no dice, but to be fair, unless you know what I look like not-pregnant, you probably wouldn't be able to tell for sure that I'm sporting a baby belleh and not just a lump of extra poundage.  I've tried rubbing the belly and looking beleaguered as I stand in a crowded car, but it only seems to make people avert their eyes. 

Over the years, when I've felt faint on the train, which has happened maybe five to ten times, people have usually been quick to offer me their seats once I made clear that I was in distress -- it was always women, by the way, usually aged around 45 to 55.  I'm not sure why that is, but not once has a man given me his seat when I've been in need of one.  In fact, when someone shoves past me to get to a seat, it's pretty much always a guy.  And when I've seen other people give up their seats for pregnant women, it's been almost exclusively women.  Yet, oddly, most of the men I know would readily give up their seat for anyone who needed it (obviously my husband being one of them, since I wouldn't have married an unchivalrous seat hogger), so maybe the people who ride my train are just boars.  

Well, I have no more segues.  It's 8:39pm and I am ready for bed.  That is all.   

Proof

You guys.  Your comments have been making me giddy.  Thank you so much for your well wishes and for sticking around through the extraordinarily boring last six months or so around here.  Really, your support means so much and I can't thank you enough.

Now here's something you won't believe:  I haven't had a Diet Coke since June. 

I KNOW.

In the spring, I switched from 20-oz Diet Mountain Dews as my morning beverage to cans of Diet Coke, figuring I'd gradually cut back on caffeine and see how that went.  And it was fine for a while, but then one day an odd thing happened:  Diet Coke no longer tasted good.  It was like trying to swill battery acid.  I couldn't finish more than a couple of sips before recoiling.  Since then, I haven't wanted to even look at diet soda.  In fact, I feel pretty good just pounding ice-cold water all day, and while I miss the company of my fizzy friend from time to time as I check my email when I get into the office, it hasn't been the dramatic parting of ways that I would have anticipated.

Meanwhile, practically from the moment of conception I took on the supersonic sense of smell that I'd heard about from other pregnant friends.  I swear, I can smell every molecule in the air -- layers of scent, from the minerals in the soil to the bark of the trees to layers of human smells, soap under lotion under perfume with a undercurrent of thinly disguised B.O.  And what a pleasure it is to have that ability in the heat of a New York summer.  The purely body-based smells were blessedly few and far between, but the PERFUMES and COLOGNES.  Oh my lord.  It started to feel like people's spritzing on of Axe or Sunflowers or Clinique Happy was an act of aggression against me personally.  I am considering starting a movement to ban fragrance usage by all subway riders.  Just soap and maybe a lightly scented lotion or some baby powder, that's all that should be allowed.  I will vote for whatever public advocate candidate will take on this cause.

I guess I should share a few photos surrounding this blessed event, which is also my way of copping out so I can watch "The Wire" (episode 3, season 1) -- we're giving it a whirl since everyone seems to be raving about it, and so far it's good but I haven't burst into flames from the awesomeness yet (we'll give it a few more episodes to be sure).

So here's me, all gross and fresh out of bed and having just gotten the happy result (I really, really need new glasses):

Here's the inaugural belly shot, taken this morning, at 12 weeks, 5 days (aside from the noticeable belleh, I am also thicker all around; my waist sort of disappeared right away and everything just...expanded in my torso/abdomen area -- it's hard to explain, but I felt like I went from a willowy runner to a rather broad-shouldered Vikingette overnight.  Not that I'm complaining, and I am NOT saying I'm too big or fat or anything like that; I'm just saying there have been changes with this here bod, and it's sort of fascinating):

And, apropos of nothing, here's Miles getting dried off after a bath, totally unaware of how his life will be turned upside down in about six and a half months:

You can almost sense the fear in his eyes already.

The Part of My Summer I Didn't Tell You About

Back over the Fourth of July, as you may recall, we went to Chicago.  And after we got back, I was met at our front door one morning by a crow.  When I wrote about it, amandam commented that crows are a harbinger of change, signaling the death of one thing giving way to the birth of another.  Kathy similarly noted that crows "give us the message that there is magic alive in our world and this magic is ours to use and create a new world for ourselves with."  

Well!  Well, well, well.  

Exactly one week after the crow encounter (can you see where this is going?  not so subtle, I realize), we found out I was pregnant.  It wasn't, like, a "whoops, how'd that happen?" kind of surprise, but it was still a surprise in its own way, since given everything we'd been through with the (Non)Adoption From Hell (which ended, once and for all, in late February) we were a bit in the place of COME ON ALREADY even though this venture hadn't been going for that long, relatively speaking.  

So naturally there was much rejoicing, which quickly gave way to much worrying, because God knows after falling in love with two babies halfway across the world and not getting to bring them home, you start to be a little gun-shy about anything related to babies whatsoever.  (I should clarify that the worrying was pretty much all on my end; Joe was ecstatic from the get-go and not terribly concerned that DOOM WAS NIGH like I was.) 

But on my birthday, we saw the little smudge for the first time and we witnessed the wee-tiny heart galloping away in there, and then a few weeks later we saw a little snowman-baby with little nubbly flapper-arms and a slightly bigger heart still galloping away in there, and THEN last week we saw an almost human-looking baby on a big screen with a phantom hand and a button nose -- and a heart galloping away at a solid 153 beats per minute (it was partying in there, too, jumping all around and sliding about like it was in a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese).  While I can't say I'm TOTALLY relaxed at this point, I am feeling much less FRAUGHT than I was up to now.  Like this might actually happen.  (KNOCK ON MUCH WOOD.) 

I'm also feeling like kind of an idiot, because pregnancy for me has not been nearly the ride through Hades that I had always feared it would be (not that that was THE reason we pursued adoption first, of course, but it was there in my mind -- my whole life I have dreaded pregnancy like one might dread being attacked by rabid bats...sigh, all that wasted energy).  Dude, I could have done this YEARS ago.  We could be on kid number FIVE by now!  Durr. 

I have escaped most of the first trimester woes, having the occasional woozy moment or bit of nausea, but I've only thrown up once (ONCE!) and that was because I didn't eat immediately after taking my prenatal vitamin.  I have had a lot of fatigue, to the point where sleeping while standing up on a crowded subway train seemed like a viable option and accomplishing any high-level cognitive functions between the hours of 3 and 5pm became a life-threateningly arduous task, along the lines of summiting Everest.  And my body temperature is all weird -- I'm freezing one minute, gasping for air in sweaty panic the next.  But other than that, things have been fine, really fine.  Fun, even!  It's like an adventure every morning to wake up and see what's going to happen yet.  Plus, the milestones!  There are appointments and weeks to cross off the calendar and things, like, progress as time passes.  It's quite thrilling. 

I have had some food cravings and aversions; for the first week or two after we found out, I was obsessed with cherries, even though I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've eaten them prior to getting pregnant, while, on the other hand, chicken has become absolutely abhorrent to me.  Don't even mention it to me.  Well, actually, if it's in nugget or patty form, it's acceptable; but the thought of preparing and eating a chicken breast -- or, oh god, coming into contact with chicken ON THE BONE --makes me want to throw myself off a bridge.  Between that and the affinity for ginger ale and crackers and the overriding general preference for starchy, bland food, my palate has been reduced to that of a fussy two-year-old. 

At work, I've been looking like Maude, what with the billowy cardigans and oversized handbags strategically placed to cover the belly that seemed to pop around week six and continued to grow ever since.  I don't know if it's my build or what, but this thing seems to be an overachiever; it may soon have its own gravity field.  I just read about some super-skinny soap star who didn't tell her coworkers until she was FIVE MONTHS along, and I was all, DUDE.  I figured the office rumor mill was spinning the first week I knew I was pregnant.  Who are these people?  I know, we're all unique pregnancy snowflakes (TM Jonna), but it is duly noted that I am not one of those tiny women with a mosquito bite-sized bump that still fits into regular clothes for half the pregnancy.  Ho!  No.  I'm in maternity pants, baby, and I am loving every minute of it.  Do you know how COMFORTABLE this stuff is?  Elastic waistbands and roomy hip/seat areas!  I may never go back to regular clothing. 

Anyway!  So that's the news around here.  I told you we save our excitement for September.

I'm 12 and a half weeks, due March 26.  An Aries baby (assuming the due date holds any water, which I know it really doesn't -- the doctor said it could be three weeks before or two weeks after the due date, which seems...well, rather hazy, but still definite enough for my taste, all things considered) and a summer strolling in Central Park with a little guy or gal.  For now, the bean is known as MVM -- Magnus von Magnuson, the World's Strongest Embryo (now the World's Strongest Fetus, actually).  Given his or her superhero paternal parentage (have you seen my husband's arms?), and his/her tenacity thus far, we thought it appropriate. 

Hot damn, we're excited.  We're having a baby, y'all!