The Weird, Wild World of Pregnancy

The Worst Days of Our Lives

2008-08-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

From my journal, 8/8/08:

Abigail Love Davenport was born at 3:05 p.m. on 8/8/08. She had her father's nose, her mother's chin and feet, and no heartbeat. Abigail Love was born dead.

She was the first child of Ann and Ben Davenport. Her parents had been prepared to teach her tennis and yoga, to take her on hikes and read her books, help her excel in school and give her a laughter-filled, joyous life. Instead, Ann and Ben found themselves sobbing over her tiny, lifeless body, 20 inches and 5 lbs 7.9 oz swaddled in a receiving blanket.

"We were going to make dandelion chains together," said Ann.

"We never even got to see her open her eyes," said Ben.

The day before, they'd found out that she died in the womb, from no discernible cause. Ann had just gone in for a regular prenatal checkup, and the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat with the usual doppler microphone. Nor could she find it with the next ultrasound machine. Nor could they find it with the big heavy-duty ultrasound machine at the hospital's birth center next door to the doctor's office.

Despite this compilation of evidence, her mother Ann could not quite bring herself to believe it until the next day, when she felt her daughter's body flop lifelessly from her birth canal. And even after that, at times, she stil cannot believe it. It seems like some hellish nightmare from which she will awake to go feed the baby.

*****
So ends this blog, not according to plan, but with the worst turn of events in the world blindsiding me like a freight train in a meadow where there aren't even any train tracks. The statistics say the chance of this happening is about 0.7 percent. The doctor says we have an "excellent" chance of going on to have healthy, living babies in the future. As we grieve for our beautiful daughter, we cling to the hope of being able to share our love and our lives with our children in the future.

She was so beautiful. She was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. And I am a mother who will never look into her child's eyes. No matter how many children we will hopefully go on to have, she will always be our first child, and always be in our hearts.

Do me a favor and go tell the people you love that you love them. Cherish the fact that they can hear you, and hold them close.

D-Day minus 5 weeks...

2008-08-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Oh, golly. It just hit me that I'm at 35 weeks today. That means that our official due date is 5 weeks away. Um... that's not a very long time, at all... wow.

Not that I'm hugely attached to the due date; only five percent of babies are born on their actual due date, after all. And she's small, so could easily be late, plus first babies are often late. Though Colorado babies are often early, on the other hand, and Murphy's Law seems to play a pretty dominant role in the workings of my life, and since I don't want her to be born TOO early (as in before the major event I'm running at work on August 30th, 11 days before she's due) it's entirely possible that she'll cheerfully arrive, say, tomorrow. Lord a'mercy.

We call this "head-hamsters", because these thoughts run circles in my head all day and night. Fortunately, they don't often loom too large, because when they do they give me a whole lot of anxiety. For the most part, the positive thinking and breathing exercises I'm practicing for HypnoBirthing are large and in charge, which is a really good thing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited to become a mom, and I can't wait to meet this little gal, but every so often it's a bit overwhelming to think of how radically my life's going to change. In many ways, I know it'll stay the same - especially after the first few months of major adjustment, and as she becomes able to, you know, support her own head and hold a fork and other such milestones. But all reports indicate that the first six weeks are super-intense, and the intensity settles only mildly after that point as she goes through the rapid development of the first few years.

I've gone from reading a ton of pregnancy books to reading a bunch of parenting books. Man, they're so dogmatic! To paraphrase, if we co-sleep, my baby will be a spoiled, manipulative, three-month-old diva. If we don't co-sleep, my baby will be insecure, not trust us, and predisposed to mass-murdering or something. If we breastfeed, she'll again be overly dependent; if we don't breastfeed, she'll be dumber than if we do breastfeed and more prone to, like, death. And other bad stuff. Good grief. Is there no middle ground? It reminds me a lot of the whole medical vs natural birthing debate.

Speaking of that debate, I finally watched "The Business of Being Born", which is an amazing documentary. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is even thinking of getting pregnant, or anyone who isn't thinking of getting pregnant but is passionate about women's issues. It is intense; very well done. The night that I watched it, I had a really powerful dream about giving birth. It was pretty crazy but very cool.

We've been busy getting ready & doing all the stuff that still needs doing. There's still a pretty long list, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because doing the tasks helps keep my mind off any anxiety about becoming a mom. This weekend we took an Infant & Child First Aid & CPR class, which reassured me to know that I'd at least have some basic skills to cope with a medical emergency. We had our first appointment with our doula, also, which was phenomenal and I swear, I already feel like hiring her has been so worth the money.

Yet to be done: interview pediatricians & select one; read up on early childhood vaccines & the link with autism; deal with all the insurance paperwork that I haven't been dealing with; set up the crib; wash all the clothes with special baby-strength laundry detergent; get my hubby to finish taking care of all the stuff around the house that needs fixing before the kiddo arrives; not hyperventilate; finish the birth plan and pre-register at the hospital; remain calm; um... locate a diaper service; and let's just add 'not get overwhelmed' onto that list, just for laughs. Ha ha, haa...

K, so the point of writing this blog was to vent my anxiety... I repeat: I know everything will be fine. In many ways, I feel totally ready for her to join us out here in the non-amniotic world. It's just every once in a while that I get a little caught up in the to-do's. Maybe I just ought to get the damn things done and then, voila, they can't stress me out. What a concept!

A Sneak Peek

2008-07-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

So, when we went for a regular prenatal checkup last week, I mentioned to my doc that all and sundry had been commenting on how I didn't look 8 months pregnant. "You are measuring a little small," she said calmly, "but everything's probably fine; we'll just do another ultrasound to make sure she's coming along well."

At which point, of course, I was seized by the conflicting emotions of concern over the health risks run by low-birthweight babies, and the excitement of getting to do another ultrasound. Excitement turned to elation when she offered to let me come in and have a FREE ultrasound because they needed some test subjects for a couple product demos of ultrasound machines for their new office. In a word, WORD. Free is good, ultrasounds are cool but expensive, and the machines have the 3D/4D technology (the fourth dimension is time).

So yesterday, in we went... into a tiny little visiting room where my hubby and four random women - okay, not totally random, two were reps for the ultrasound machines, one was a doctor and one was the ultrasound tech testing the products - all squeezed in to check out el sproggo with me. For a while, I couldn't see the monitor, as they were going through showing the ultrasound tech all the buttons and gizmos and various cool functionalities. Then they got to the 3D stuff and turned the monitor around so I could see the little pooker. It was amazing. Amazing isn't strong enough. It was... dare I say... supercalilfragilisticexpialidocious? Check it out:

We think she has Ben's nose. :) That's her hand over part of her face there, obviously. And that blobby thing on the left is the placenta. Say hello to the placenta... it's a little weird to be looking at that, actually, and I apologize if it grosses you out. Apparently the sprog is all cuddled up next to it like a big, cosy, nutrient-and-vein-infused pillow.

Anyway, even though it's only a glimpse of part of her face, we think she's freakin' adorable beyond belief. It's incredible to see her like this. It makes her seem so much more real to me, for some reason, instead of just some vague concept of a hugely life-changing event that has packed 46 extra pounds onto my frame and given me a more extensive knowledge of acid reflux than I ever hoped to have. It's so worth it when I realize that there's an actual, real, distinct person inside me, and she'll be here so soon - if she's on time, only six more weeks!

So she actually is a bit small, but not to the point of needing to be worried, according to the doctor. She's 4 lbs 2 oz right now, which places her at the 18th percentile. The doc said they don't worry unless the sprog is around the 5th to 10th percentile. And her amniotic fluid level is good, which is evidently a good thing. She'll supposedly gain between a quarter and a half pound a week for the next six weeks - the doc said closer to a quarter pound - so she should be pretty close to 6 lbs if she's on time. Hey, as long as there aren't concerns about her health, I'm really okay with her being on the small side... kind of gives me the edge logistically for that drug-free birth I'm wanting! And even if she's late, she'll still probably only get to about 7 lbs max.

We had our first hypnobirthing class this past Friday. It was really cool, very interesting stuff. I've been practicing the breathing techniques and it's so good to have reinforcement of the power of positive thinking, considering that these last couple months of pregnancy are not the most physically comfortable I've ever experienced. In fact, I even used positive thinking during the ultrasound, with interesting results. They couldn't get a clear shot of her face for the 3D picture (seriously, what's posted above is as good as it got), and they'd tried many times, and were close to giving up. I started thinking, "She's going to turn and let us see her face," and focused on visualizing her doing so. Within less than a minute - no kidding - she'd turned and we could see her face! Could be coincidence, but personally, I'd rather attribute it to the power of positive thinking.

Zero tolerance.

2008-07-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Let it be known, I do not suffer fools gladly.

Oh, you already picked up on that? Nice. Clearly, you do not fall in to the "fools" category. Rest assured, when I vent about random strangers, I do not mean YOU, random stranger who has the good taste and free time to read my blog (or you, obviously, treasured friends who read my blog). I mean the random strangers that feel a need to force themselves on my consciousness as I innocently roam through life on a daily basis.

My most recent favorite is courtesy of some dingbat that foisted her company upon me last night. Here, verbatim, is what happened:

Total Stranger I've Never Before Seen Or Spoken To (excitedly): How far along are you??
Me (polite smile): Eight months.
Total Stranger (searching stare with brow furrowed, as if I am lying to her; in highly skeptical tone of voice): Oh. You don't... look... like you're quite eight months...
(Pause, in which she continues to apparently wait for me to stop lying to her, and I restrain myself from smacking her upside the head.)
Me (shrugs): Okay.
(Another pause.)
Total Stranger: ...But, you're eight months. O-kay! That's great.

What I would like to have said:
a) Really? Do you think I should call my doctor? Maybe something's wrong!!
b) I'm sorry, you're right. I'm really only three months, but people freak out when I tell them that.
c) Isn't that funny? You don't look like a complete idiot, either, but appearances certainly can be deceiving.

I should really just ignore people's comments. I realize this. But I have been having to listen to them for a long time now, and I am honestly getting more and more fed up. I think I really am going to start telling people I'm only three months along, just to have some fun with it. It's also quite tempting to tell them that it's a hermaphrodite. Hee hee hee.

To the cravings question, which Dingbat-Chick also asked a little later, I might start answering things like "Haggis, mostly - and motor oil". Or perhaps "Well, I've been a vegetarian half my life, but now I'm pretty much just eating raw meat. Haven't you heard of the Raw Diet? Oh, it's great! Sometimes I cheat, though, and have french fries."

Aside from not meeting random strangers' expectations, size-wise, I feel absolutely huge; will have to post another picture sometime soon. As of yesterday, when I hit 32 weeks, I'd gained 44 pounds. It boggles the mind, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, in other news, I am super-stoked that we start our Hypnobirthing classes next Friday. It will be so interesting! I'm also excited about them because my BB will be able to get more involved in labor & birth preparations by attending them with me, and they'll give him some concrete tools/actions he can use to help me through labor - which will likely be of some comfort to both of us!

Sigh.

2008-07-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Over the last week, the reigning question that I hear from all and sundry is, "Are you ready to get that thing outta there?"

The answer I would like to give: "No, but I'm ready to stop answering asinine questions from random assholes I don't even know."

Oh, I'm sorry, did that sound cranky? Honestly, the whole discussing-one's-private-life-with-near-strangers is so not my cup of tea. It's worse than when I was getting married, which is the other time in one's life that everyone feels qualified to weigh in with a comment or three, because you couldn't tell just by looking at me that I was going through this major life change.

Besides, I have two freakin' months left (as of this coming Wednesday, anyway, and assuming she's on time). If I start getting sick of this now, it's going to be a long two months. I really don't mind being pregnant, I just mind having to talk about it with everyone, every day, multiple times a day. What's ironic is that the people with whom I'd like to talk about it have the good sense and compassion to not ask, because they are my friends, while the people I want to throttle feel a need to plumb the depths of my current emotional and physical status as often as possible. Well, phtbtbtbttt to you, people!

Okay, I feel better now. Nothing like a little venting to get the bitchiness out. Now let's focus on the positive. On Friday, my work friends threw me a totally awesome baby shower, which was SO much fun. It was lovely, although I felt a tiny bit weird having people gather together just to give me presents, with it not being my birthday or anything. Still, it was really nice; we had a yummy lunch at a local restaurant, and the baby and I received all kinds of adorable clothes, toys and books. Unfortunately, I couldn't read the books, because I would get all teary-eyed just looking at the first page, but I could tell from the covers and quickly flipping through that they were adorable nonetheless. This weekend, I wrote 20 thank-you notes (not all from the shower; a few were ones that had been lingering for a couple of weeks), and felt very virtuous and well-organized. I figured if I didn't do them right away, I would totally slack on them.

The other great thing about the baby shower was that it gave me the opportunity to put ribbons and bows on my head, which is something that I very much like to do when opening presents. I don't know why. It's just more fun when you festoon yourself with ribbons. See how much fun I'm having?! Thanks to my friend Kirsten for taking lots of awesome photos of the shower! Okay, I will post the photos as soon as my computer decides to cooperate, which apparently it does not feel like doing right now.

On Sunday, we went down to our favorite local bar to hear one of my favorite blues bands play - this trio fronted by a 17-year-old prodigy named Grant Sabin. I love how much live blues and bluegrass I've been able to expose her to while still in the womb. As I told my friend Sherry, "If this kid doesn't come out loving blues and bluegrass, she'll have been switched by fairies." It was a great show.

Sherry also mentioned that she and her hubby are throwing us a baby shower in August, which is very, very exciting, because we didn't have the prospect of another shower before the little tyke arrives and there is a whole lot of shit on the registry we still need. Yikes. That whole crib, stroller, swing, a billion other supplies etc thing is a little daunting, cost-wise. So now I can just figure out what I really want to get in the house and set up before late August - ie, the crib - just in case she does arrive early, which we hope she won't but would be fine if she did. Right. Anyway, it's times like this that make one appreciate how totally super and awesome one's friends really are.

Moving right along

2008-07-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a nice holiday weekend; on Friday, we hosted a cookout for about 15 friends, then watched the fireworks in the sky right over our house. One of the benefits of living on a high hill in a small town is that we had absolutely killer views of the fireworks. Once again, the old feet and ankles got swollen from the five or six hours I spent cleaning and cooking in preparation, but happily, it actually got nice and hot in the early afternoon, and I took an hour-long break to soak in the baby pool, which totally and completely rocked. It was so relaxing. We had to take the pool down right afterwards, so we'd have room on the deck for the guests, but I'm looking forward to setting it back up again next weekend.

I've had a small return of energy, and a lot less swelling, so I think I've fully recovered from the road trip. It's nice to feel slightly more normal again. Of course, the lack of fatigue could be more like occasional bouts of insomnia, but I'm not going to look gift energy in the mouth, for lack of a better phrase.

She's kicking a lot more, which is awesome. It's so fun to watch her move around, too; sometimes my belly reminds me of when we'd play games with parachutes at camp. Her daddy finally got to feel her moving the other day, when she had the hiccups. He keeps worrying that I'm going to somehow hurt her by pressing lightly on my belly; unlike me, he hasn't had a dozen other women share with him how they used to actually poke their bellies to make their sprogs move around.

Had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, and the next one will be three weeks out instead of four weeks - definitely entering the home stretch with the more frequent doctor's visits. I reached 30 weeks this past Wednesday, so officially, there's only 10 weeks left, but I'm trying to not get too hung up on dates. When people ask when I'm due, I just tell them mid-September. I just hope she doesn't come too early, only because it would put a lot more stress on the other people putting on the special event at work on August 30th. August 31st or anytime after would be fine, really.

Turns out we won't start hypnobirthing class til late July or possibly even early August, which is fine because it's only five weeks, of which the fifth week is more of a review. Still, guess that means I'd better start practicing on my own now. Everything I've read and the various people I've talked to have said it helps as much as the person practices it, which makes sense. I also need to start working with those pain-coping techniques Pam England outlines in Birthing from Within. Oh, and I finished Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and it was so fantastic - if I were only going to read one book while I was pregnant, that would be it. I'm glad I've read the others too, of course, but I think I'll definitely have to reread this one (and excerpts from a couple others) to help keep my head in the right place as the due date approaches.

Life's little ironies

2008-06-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

Ah, Murphy's Law. It never fails. No sooner had I gotten the baby pool set up on Friday evening than the weather immediately turned cool and drizzly. And I mean immediately, like I'd flipped a freakin' switch. Saturday was also cool and drizzly, and I tried to savor the irony of actually wanting hellishly hot weather just so I could cool off in the pool - with little success. Today? Well, today is comfortably mid-70s with a light breeze. It was just warm enough that, after waiting til 2 in the afternoon, I put on my swimsuit and headed out to the deck for a little hydrotherapy. Unfortunately, the water was not mid-70s; it felt closer to mid-50s or so, to the point that when I stepped into the pool, my first thought was not "Ahhhh..." but "Holy crap!!"

But I was determined to put my fabulous plan into action, so once my feet and calves had gotten used to the chilliness of the water, I sat down to get the rest of the acclimation over with. I blithely ignored the goosebumps on my legs and arms, and soon enough, had gotten used to the frigid water. Of course, before that comfort zone had been fully reached, we had several minutes of ironically refreshing (read: freezing) breeze blowing, causing a relaxed clenching of the teeth and the silent wish that someone would turn off the freakin' refreshing breeze.

I must say, the buoyancy alone was well worth it; it's nice to have a break from the extra 40 pounds on my midsection now and again. It really was quite nice in the pool once I'd gotten used to the water temperature, which probably only took five minutes. The breeze even stopped, once it saw that I couldn't be ousted. I enjoyed the hydrotherapy for about 45 minutes or so before deciding it was time to return inside.

In another of life's little ironies, I'd originally gotten the pool with the idea that it would help the swelling in my feet and ankles, since I could stretch out and elevate my feet much better than in the confines of our funhouse-sized bathtub. But I've had little to no swelling today, I suspect partially due to having laid around for much of yesterday, and also due to having made a new friend out of an old foe: namely, pantyhose.

Let me tell you, hose and I have never gotten along in my 29 years on this earth. I hate them with a passion. Pity my poor mother for every time she made me wear them; those were some major skirmishes in the battlefield of my youth. Not only are pantyhose hot and itchy and uncomfortable, but I inadvertently possess this magical ability to get holes and runs in them within an hour of putting them on. Every time.

But my friend Angie, who had her first baby in January, had passed along a tip from a doctor friend of hers. "Support hose," she said, nodding wisely. Apparently they help prevent varicose veins, as well as keep swelling down. I'd only worn them once or twice so far, though.

So yesterday morning, we went to play 9 holes of golf with a couple friends of ours. I squeezed my poor protesting feet into socks and sneakers, and brought my faithful flip-flops along to wear as soon as we were off the course. When I pulled the sneakers and socks off, I saw the weirdest looking feet I have ever seen on a person, and they were mine. The feet were not swollen at all, thanks to the restriction of the sneakers. Where the sneakers ended then bulged out sort of like a baseball, or like play-dough feet and legs in a sculpture by a fairly untalented child. Then where the socks ended, not too far up the calf, was this sort of rounded indentation to form the top of the baseball and my calves were swollen out a bit more beyond that. Fun!!

Hence, this morning - although happily the swelling had abated after a restful afternoon and evening yesterday - I decided to give the knee-highs another try. And lo and behold, no swelling. My feet look like my feet. My ankles look like my ankles. It's amazing. Now if I can figure out how to wear hose all through the long, hot summer without going insane, I'll really be in good shape. ...And if I can't, there's always my hydrotherapy 'perspective pool'.

By the way, I feel I should apologize for the obsession with the swollen feet and ankles. I realize it's dominated the last several posts. Trust me, it's probably better than hearing about my bacne, reflux or farting. Anyway, now that the situation's improving, I hope you can look forward to somewhat more interesting posts. :)

Chapter 29: In Which I Slow Down... Significantly.

2008-06-26T18:30:00.001-07:00

Sigh.

It's funny how there are all these things that I read would happen and instantly dismissed. Swollen ankles? Not for a yoga devotee like me! Annoying, freaky people I don't know rubbing my belly? I'll fend them off with both tact and wit. No energy in the first and third trimesters, lots of energy in the second tri? No way, I'll keep riding the energy wave all the way to mid-September. That major event at work I'm planning for 11 days before my due date will be no problemo.

Double sigh.

What's funny is that my family always jokes about having unusual stamina - we think it is largely thanks to my dad, who used to take us on these twelve-hour marathon amusement park visits and other such activities, and expect us all to remain energetic and cheerful the whole time, which, by and large, we did. So I suspect that my energy level may now resemble that of a more normal person, or perhaps a little below. But I realized that right about the time that I entered the third trimester - which would be a week and a day ago, in case you were wondering - my energy level plummeted like an anvil tied to a large rock, headed straight for Wile E. Coyote's head. Picture me nearby holding a small sign that reads "Uh oh".

Of course, it could be related to the 4400-mile road trip we were in the middle of, at the time. It will be interesting to see if my energy level rises again during the restful weekend I have planned (two words, people: baby pool. Aw yeah. There's more than one way to beat the heat, but it does become more challenging when you don't have air conditioning in your house). But I realized that I must really have been low-energy when my friend whose wedding beach party we drove out to said he enjoyed my "quiet presence". ...Folks, if you don't know me, let me just tell you that this is the first time in my entire life that my presence has been described as quiet. In fairness, though, I was also the only person at the wedding who wasn't intoxicated fairly often, so that probably gave me the edge on quietude. And speaking of intoxication, there's nothing like hearing drunk mothers tell you their pregnancy stories. I'm sure one day I'll be telling those too, but I do hope I remember to not spend five minutes drunkenly rubbing some stranger's belly. Yeesh!

On a happier note, I did manage to choose my doula, which is very exciting. I feel great about my choice, too, although both women I interviewed were fantastic. It's a relief to have that decision made. We also narrowed down the lexicon of names slightly, which is good. 70 hours in a car together certainly fosters plenty of conversation.

I'm looking forward to starting the hypnobirthing classes in the next couple weeks. And I ordered 'Ina May's Guide to Childbirth', which sounds like sort of the sequel to Spiritual Midwifery. I'm stoked to read it... while sitting in my baby pool... did I mention that I bought a baby pool? It was freakin' hotter than a (insert favorite comparative hot thing here) yesterday, and I realized that I needed to wipe those evil, sucks-to-be-you grins off the faces of the million and one people who've told me "it's going to be a hot summer". I also realized that it's not so much the heat, which at a certain point gets on everyone's nerves whether they're pregnant or not; it's being hot while having a sore back, aching feet and ankles, acid reflux, needing to pee every half hour and having 40 extra pounds attached to your midsection. Not that I'm complaining. I still love being pregnant, seriously. It's just getting into the more-concerted-effort-into-thinking-positive phase, shall we say. It's great to feel her moving around a lot more, I must say. And to know that my body is somehow currently creating, and I quote, "billions of neurons" in her brain. Wow. How the hell am I doing that? No idea. I feel very talented though.

And in news from the outside world, my best friend had her baby!! I'm so excited for her. The pictures are too adorable. It was good to see them, so that I could remember there is a point to this amalgam of minor discomforts. Really, when you end up with a perfect, darling baby in your arms, what's a little back pain now and then? Guess it's all about perspective. If I can just manage to keep mine in check, everything will be fine. Maybe I'll start calling it the Perspective Pool, instead of the baby pool.

Side note: the hubby is not pleased about the baby pool, which I admit is not the most tasteful thing I've ever added to our yard. I wonder if I can get him to set it up for me. Looking a little doubtful.

Adventures of the third trimester

2008-06-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

So you're seven months pregnant. For fun, do you spend your free time:

a) Shopping for baby clothes and setting up furniture in the nursery.
b) Doing water aerobics and getting prenatal massages.
c) Going on a more than 4,000-mile road trip.

If you answered c, we have so much in common! People think we're crazy for loving road trips, and while I'll admit we are a little crazy, we're also having an absolutely awesome vacation. We drove from Colorado to Brooklyn, saw a bunch of good friends, drove down to NC, saw our moms and more good friends, and now we're on the Carolina coast for the wedding of two more good friends. It's been great - the only negative has been the massive swelling of my feet and ankles. I know swollen feet & ankles are sort of par for the course in the third trimester anyway, and I've had some swelling prior to now, but this is unbelievable. I've been feeling like I need to keep a wary eye out for people of Polish descent in case they mistake my feet for sausages and try to slap a bun and some sauerkraut on them.

I did bring my yoga mat along, which has helped a lot, and there's both a big ol' ocean right across the way and a pool at this house, so I've been loving my time in the water. This afternoon I came out of the ocean and when I went to wash the sand off my feet, was astonished to see that I actually had ankles. Like, visible ones. It was thrilling. I should really go swimming more often when we get back to Colorado.

So, this road trip has really been quite the adventure so far. We've hit 14 states and seen more than a dozen good friends (plus made plenty of other friends at this ongoing wedding beach party thing we're now attending). I'm not totally looking forward to the three day drive back to Colorado, during which I expect my feet to do their weinerschnitzel impersonations again, but it'll be fine.

Now if only I could make up my mind about which doula to hire. I'm so torn. I'm now late in getting back to both of them. I really need to address this... but it's hard to be too stressed out by this while I'm on vacation.

Chapter 26: In Which I Expand

2008-06-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

And how. I'm starting to get reactions from folks who haven't seen me in a month or so, along the lines of, "When did that happen?!" Um... shortly after sex, about six and a half months ago? ;)

26 weeks. I've definitely reached the garter-snake-swallowed-ostrich-egg stage. Minor feet and ankle swelling - minor, by the way, being a subjective term. It still kinda (shall I say minorly) sucks, but it goes away pretty quickly when I elevate my feet, and at least I haven't reached the stage a fellow yoga-goer described this week: "It feels like my feet are about to burst, like overstuffed sausages." Ouch.

In other expansion news, I'm up to 28 pounds, although according to my weighing schedule and bathroom scale, I'm still just under 150. I had the interesting experience today at the doctor's office, though, of standing on their scale and watching her slide the weight past the 150 mark. That was a first. Yow. Still, the weight gain's healthy and on track for what I expected, so it's all good.

My cat Jack Fate certainly approves of the ever-expanding belly. It forms an ergonomic pillow for him when he's curled up with me on the couch. He and Mugrosa, our other cat, also dig the several baby blankets that people have most kindly crocheted for our little pooker. They're currently being commandeered as kitty beds. Hey, multi-usage is cool.

Took the gestational diabetes test today at my doctor's appointment. I so prefer the tests I could study for. The glucose drink is like ten ounces of the super-sickly-sweetest orange soda you've ever tasted in your life. Blech!! Plus, the whole blood-drawing thing is not my favorite activity ever. Oh well. It beats next week's two-hour dental appointment for my first teeth cleaning in I'm embarrassed to say how long (poor dental hygiene has been linked to low birth weight and pre-term labor, among other things).

Yet to expand: my belly-button remains an innie. Stay tuned for further updates as events occur...

Yoga Goddess

2008-05-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned how much I love my prenatal yoga class? It's seriously the bomb. No, seriously. First of all, it's the magical back-pain vanisher, which is such a good thing for me (and all those lucky people who have to put up with me on a regular basis). Secondly, we start every class by going around the room and talking about what's been going on with us, preggo-wise, that week. It's great. Third, we end the class with relaxation and baby-bonding, and I float out of the building every week feeling all at peace and serene. (It sometimes even lasts past the first few stupid drivers I encounter on the drive home.)

And fourth of all, we do this semi-squatting pose called the Goddess Pose which is deceptively challenging, and for the first time this week, I was finally able to hold the pose the entire time our teacher called for it. Yeah baby... yoga goddess, indeed. I felt like I had accomplished something worthwhile.

Plus, since the class is only once a week, it's nice to have these stretching exercises that I can do pretty much any time to help my achin' back (which is acting up right now, and if I were smart, I'd put the computer down and go do the damn stretches).

Other things that are making me happy these days... ice cream; hypnobirthing relaxation exercises; Internet time-wasters; our iPod (which I just liberated from my husband's car a couple days ago); and singing to our daughter when I'm alone. The navel-gazing is still a big hit, as well. Oh, and flip-flops; we're entering the feet-swelling stage. Yesterday - this is insane - it was chilly out so I was wearing knee-high argyle socks, and when I got home and took them off, I had the criss-cross argyle pattern imprinted into my swollen legs. Now that's just plain trippy.

Navel-gazing

2008-05-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

Twenty-four weeks today. Pretty exciting stuff. I've taken to pulling my shirt up above my belly when I'm lying on the couch, so I can watch my skin bulge randomly when she kicks or pushes me. I know that probably sounds really weird, but it seriously rocks.

Twenty-four weeks, and twenty-four pounds. Feeling pretty damn good, I must say. Sure, there's the occasional twinge of back pain, and a few days ago I had a leg cramp that would've taken out Chuck Norris, but other than that, I feel great. I've found that focusing on the positive and just ignoring the minor discomforts really works pretty well.

I'm almost done reading the Hypnobirthing book, and it is freaking amazing. Talk about the power of positive thinking... I'm excited to take the class in it. Hypnobirthing, in case you're like me and hadn't heard of it until quite recently (like earlier in this paragraph), is this natural birthing method in which one uses hardcore positive thinking as well as self-hypnosis through breathing and visualization techniques in order to birth without pain - or such is the goal, anyway. The theory is that by expecting labor to be terrifying and intensely painful, we create that reality, because our body's stress hormones overwhelm the endorphin pain-blockers that labor naturally produces. So our fear causes us to fight against our body's natural process of birth, which makes it really, really painful.

It's really interesting stuff. The birth stories from women who've successfully applied the technqiues are pretty damn compelling, I must say. So I figure, I'll put the techniques to work for me, but just in case they don't, I'll also practice the natural pain-coping methods outlined in 'Birthing from Within' , just to cover all the bases.

But having read Spiritual Midwifery, Birthing from Within and Hypnobirthing, I totally believe it's possible to have a positive labor experience. (Whether or not I can manage to achieve one remains to be seen, but clearly, it is possible for some women.) Seriously, it's very cool stuff, and I totally believe these three books should be required reading for every pregnant woman.

A lot of the whole positive thinking techniques involve basically convincing yourself that the positive thoughts are true, and I'm about 75 percent there. Instead of 'this is going to be the most painful experience of my life', my new mantra is, 'This is going to be the most positive experience of my life.' I know it's contrary to everything our culture has told us since we were little girls, but shit, what can it hurt to buy into it? If it isn't true, I'll find out soon enough, but I'll have a lot less anxiety along the way. :)

What's in a Name?

2008-05-15T06:26:00.001-07:00

So as the daughter of a librarian, and being a total bookworm, I've generally felt like our old friend Bill Shakespeare put many of mankind's truest sentiments into words. But ever since we read Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade English class, I've thought that the whole "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" thing was by and large bullshit. I mean, seriously. Personally, I think Shakespeare himself didn't buy it, and was just working with a plot device to make a pretty speech. So, nope - we'll give him credit for his eleven-hundred-and-three other brilliant quoteworthy lines, but on this count, he's just wrong, wrong, wrong. (So there.)

And never have I felt this so strongly as now that my hubby and I are trying to name our daughter. Now, look. You're reading the blog of someone who makes it a habit to name her car, who lives for naming pets, who ponders for hours over the right name for a fictional character in a story. You think I'm going to take naming my kid lightly? Ha! Well, really, who does? (Except maybe that actor Jason Lee, who apparently named his kid Pilot Inspektor, presumably to ensure the continuing salary of some high-paid Hollywood shrink.)

The naming challenge is further compounded by the fact that my husband and I have drastically different ideas about what the name should be. In prenatal yoga a couple days ago, we went around the room, and several women said what their baby-to-be's name was while others coyly said it was a secret. I was SO jealous. How the heck did they decide? Was their husband just really easy-going? Or were they? Geez... naming envy.

But believe me when I tell you that we've been debating the name issue since, oh, December 31st (the day we found out I was knocked up). We've gone around so many times we're wearing verbal tracks in the figurative floor. (Or something.) We have about 20 names written on the whiteboard on our fridge. We have multiple name books lying around. And last night, we finally got to the point where he wrote down five first names, I wrote down five first names (okay, six - I couldn't decide between the last two), we swapped pieces of paper and came up with two middle names each for the other person's five first names, then we read them aloud to each other and hated almost all of them. We're gonna have to repeat the exercise in the near future.

SIGH. It's a damn good thing it takes 9 months to build a kid. We've got about 4 months left to figure it out. The plan is to narrow it down to two or three that we both like, and wait til we see her to decide. And no, once we finally (if we ever) decide on the top three, we're not telling. God knows we don't need any more input on this!! ;)

Good books

2008-05-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

It's funny how one's definition of a 'good book' can change. For the first, oh, 29 and a quarter years of my life or so, good books were typically written by Dickens or Pynchon or J.K. Rowling. Now I'm prowling the pregnancy shelves, and jumping on recommendations from friends like a starving pregnant woman presented with a strawberry-ice-cream-cone-topped-with-mini-peanut-butter-fudge-cups. (Or something.)

I just finished 'Spiritual Midwifery', a truly amazing, incredible book that currently ranks #1 on my recommendation list for pregnant women. It's the first book I've read that made me feel like giving birth could be a positive, incredible experience instead of an intimidating, scary one. Not that Ina May Gaskin downplays the intensity of birth; but she celebrates the natural process of it and shows how it can, well, basically, not suck. And how one really can get through it without drugs and have it be an amazing experience. Every pregnant woman should read it, seriously.

Another good book, albeit with a far broader spectrum than Spiritual Midwifery, is 'from the hips', which is basically a cool version of 'What to Expect'. 'from the hips' is by rebecca odes and ceridwen morris, and it covers everything from the stages of development to the post-partum body and beyond. What's refreshing about this one is that they really make an effort to give all the different sides of the story, regardless of the topic, and keep emphasizing that whatever choices you end up making need to be right for you - there's no one right answer that everyone needs to abide by or run the risk of being a Bad Mom. Though the more modern viewpoint does tend a bit towards the medicalized view of birth, they do a good job of laying it on the line in straightforward writing.

Speaking of 'What to Expect', the old classic, I have to say that the recently released 4th edition actually isn't bad. It's definitely coming from the medicalized view of birth, but at least they got that poor woman out of the frumpy clothes and the rocking chair, and there's a lot of good info in there. I felt like my other books pretty well covered most of the same bases, but it was still worth the read.

They've also come out with 'What to Eat While You're Expecting', which I think is a good one for folks to check out as well, especially if your nutrition hasn't always been super-conscientious. I've had to pay attention to my nutrition for a long, long time because of my diet (see my Cooking & Baking blog, http://annlovesfood.blogspot.com) so I felt like there wasn't a ton of adjustment needed to my diet, but I think it's really important to pay attention to what you're feeding yourself and your sprog. Also, it's helpful to have the info on what is now suddenly potentially dangerous to eat (oh sushi, how I miss you!).

Next on my reading list is the highly-recommended 'Birthing from Within', by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. I'm looking forward to it, as it comes with top marks from some trusted girlfriends. I also have 'HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method', which should be cool. Hypnobirthing, as you might have guessed, is where you use breathing techniques to hypnotize yourself in order to facilitate a natural birth. Sounds purty cool... my prenatal yoga teacher also gives classes in it, and we'll start those in July.

Anyway, if you were pregnant and not into reading (in which case, you probably don't actually know me, because almost all of my friends love reading as much as I do, but that's okay), I'd say go with Spiritual Midwifery and from the hips as your two must-reads, to cover a good variety of perspectives and useful info. And there you have it.

In the public eye...

2008-05-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

So, whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch, but part of my job at the humane society is to do occasional TV interviews for animal-related issues. The whole positive-outlook-on-weight-gain (see below) notwithstanding, I was a little embarrassed this weekend to see myself in a TV interview with my big ol' pregnant belly amply displayed in the two-person shot of myself and the reporter talking. Ai yi yi... I felt like calling up the TV station and asking if they'd put the wide-screen lens on the camera just to capture that special moment. I mean honestly, they couldn't just use a close-up of my face? (Though festooned in pregnancy-related acne as it is, that could have been only a slightly milder blow to my dignity.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be preggers, and loving my belly, but I don't think that many people have to show it off on the nightly news. Even the pregnant anchors get to sit behind a damn desk. Oh well.
It sure didn't stop me from later enjoying the heck out of a strawberry ice cream in a waffle cone topped with miniature peanut-butter cups. Yeah, you read that right. And it was DELISH. Go get pregnant and tell me I'm wrong. It'll take more than an unfortunate camera angle to put this burgeoning momma off her feed...

Weight Gain Is Fun!

2008-05-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

Really, pregnancy may be the only time in an American woman's life when she can listen to every food craving and eat like a freakin' horse without worrying about gaining weight. So far, I've gained about 19 pounds, which normally would reduce me to a state of minor self-loathing, but since I'm pregnant causes me to give a blase shrug at the scales. Ha! Take that, cultural brainwashing!

Right. So anyway, wanted to put up a couple shots of the expanding baby bump, which I promised lo these many posts ago, away down at the bottom of the blog. Stay tuned for the update in a month or so, when I officially reach "garter snake digesting ostrich egg" mode.

10 weeks, 6 days: "What, this? It's just a really large beer belly..." - totally believable for anyone who knows me for more than, say, two seconds.

18 weeks, 5 days: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall..."

What do you call it when you want to kill everyone, but it's not PMS?

2008-05-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

No, seriously... it's not the set-up to some hilarious joke, I just need to know what to call my present mood. "Hormones" doesn't seem specific or irritated enough. "Hormones from the flaming depths of hell", maybe. Maybe just "wanting to kill everyone".

Okay, I guess EVERYone is a little bit of an overstatement. Really it's just three or so of my coworkers, who insist on asking me, "So how are you feeling???" in these loaded tones as if I'm about to pass out or spontaneously combust at any moment. I feel fine. Great. The same as I've felt for the last five months when you didn't know I was pregnant. Get the hell out of my face!!

(Deep breath) I feel slightly better now. Seriously, I barely know someone, and I'm about to share some intimate detail of my current state of emotional and/or physical health with them? Yeah, right. "Great, thanks. My acne's getting on my nerves and I'm super-farty today, but other than that, everything's comin' up roses." Actually, maybe I should tell them I'm super-farty; that would sure get them out of my hair fast.

Okay, so I do realize there's a certain irony to bitching about sharing intimate details with random people as I blog away about my pregnancy on the Internet, sharing intimate details with numerous friends as well as total and complete strangers who have the insane good fortune to stumble across this blogsite. But humor me on this one: I'm choosing to share this info in this forum, and most people are reading this because they were given the link either by me or by a good friend of mine. These other, privacy-invading people are trapping me in public hallways and trying to discuss my pregnancy at the top of their lungs.

Maybe next time I'll just fart on them and run away. I could always blame it on the hormones.

And then, reality set in.

2008-04-30T09:43:00.001-07:00

So I've been intent on going non-toxic and eco-friendly to the best of our abilities, which is fairly possible, but there were a few things that were giving me pause. With the whole BPA scare, I've put a lot of research into finding BPA-free products, but key items like a bathtub that safely holds an infant remained as unanswered questions. Every baby bathtub out there is made of plastic, and none of them are telling if the plastic is safe or not. Since plastic tends to leach into warm water, this seemed like a pretty good thing to know. Even the two best sites I've found listing BPA-free products - http://www.thesoftlanding.com/ and http://zrecs.blogspot.com/ - made no mention of bathtubs. Bath toys, yes, in spades; no tub info.

Then this weekend I was at my dear friend's baby shower, along with several children under the age of five. It was a lot of fun, and interesting to observe the kids at different ages. (I don't spend a ton of time around kids at this point.) So I'm out on the porch talking with folks, and I look down, and there's this angelic little boy, probably between a year to a year and a half old, who is most contentedly chewing on his sandal. And when I say he's chewing on his sandal, I mean that he has the entire front of the sole of his little Teva stuck into his mouth, so that he's getting the full flavor of both the toe area and the underside of his shoe.

Yum.

So then I realized that no matter what you do, and no matter how many organic cotton clothes you buy for them, kids are pretty well going to get into every toxic, germy thing they possibly can, and the best you can do is be glad that they're strengthening their little immune systems.

Later that night, I put the bathtub on the registry.

Milestones

2008-04-25T22:27:00.001-07:00

So after flying across two-thirds of the country today, I had my first Braxton-Hicks contractions this evening. It was quite the interesting feeling; not exactly like I'd thought they were described, but definitely Braxton-Hicks nonetheless. It basically just feels like tightness in one side, and when I tried to breathe deeply, I got shooting pains. Fun! A little disconcerting, needless to say. The good news is that they're actually harmless, and pretty normal, but they're still a very weird feeling... an odd milestone, to be sure.

Even weirder is that after five months of falling asleep at the earliest possible opportunity, I'm wide awake after traveling for seven and a half hours. It's quarter to two in the morning on the East Coast, where I am; even if I were currently in Colorado, it'd be 11:44 p.m. and there's just no good reason I should still be awake. Maybe the lemonade and ice cream were factors. Still. Insomnia is supposed to be fairly common during pregnancy, so I find it a little ironic that I'm normally an insomniac but haven't been while pregnant - until tonight.

Since I've awakened to the baby-color-coding phenomenon, I've noticed babies everywhere that are all pink or partially blue. For some reason, boys can just have some blue, but girls are preferred in head-to-toe pink. Gahh! It's such a weird thing. Thank god the eco-friendly industry has a much more varied approach to color.

So anyway, twenty weeks. Insomnia. Braxton-Hicks. Massive bouts of pregnesia (aka 'baby brain' - have you ever been 40 minutes late for a meeting that you called? Little embarrassing). Gained 16 pounds. Working on the ultimate baby registry. Halfway there!

It's still a girl... and I'm still amazed.

2008-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and just lay there for a while, my mind boggling over the fact that it's a girl. It's funny, I've felt very close to the sprog for the last 20 weeks, but now that I know it's a she, I feel so much closer to her. I can imagine her more clearly, and she has a much more real-seeming identity to me now. It's weird; I didn't expect learning the gender to affect me this much. It's very cool, though.

20 weeks today... the halfway mark! It's funny how it's both flown by and seemed like the journey of a lifetime (in more ways than one, I suppose). Pretty exciting stuff. It's becoming harder and harder to hide the bump at work; I've pretty much given up hiding it outside of work these days, and just wear whatever the hell I feel like, but I'm still trying to keep it a little quiet at work. I just don't feel like having the baby conversation with 50 different people I don't know very well - inevitable though it may be. I went through a similar thing when we got married, as I recall. But sooner or later, the day of obviousness will come - and at this point, that's looking a lot sooner than later!

I've been having way, way, WAY too much fun with our baby registry. I believe the appropriate term is "going apeshit". We want to be as eco-friendly as possible, and expose her to as few toxins as possible (while being realistic - we do live in a pretty damn toxic world, sad to say), so I've got a plethora of organic cotton baby clothes on there, and so on and so forth. Amazon is my new best friend (sorry, Google and Wikipedia...).

One thing we're already taking a stand with the family about is trying to restrain the pinkifiedness - if you will. For the eight thousand and tenth time, I realized that my husband is the perfect man for me when I came home from work last night and he said, "I already told my mom, no pink." I looked at him in mild amazement and said, "I told my mom the same thing." Now watch, she'll turn out to be Super-Girlie-Girl. But until she's old enough to express clothing color preferences, there's going to be a lot of greens and browns and reds and whites and such in her life! Mwah ha ha... I'm tempted to buy a fair amount of blue, too, just to mess with people's heads.

IT'S A GIRL!!!

2008-04-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm excited or anything.

Ahem.

Seriously, ultrasounds are the coolest freakin' things EVER. We looked at her brain, and her heart, and her spine, and all sorts of interesting things. The sonographer said it's definitely a girl. I was shocked. For the first four months or so, I was so sure it would be a boy, but as the ultrasound got closer, I became less sure. My husband totally called it, though. I have to give him credit.

And as far as I can tell from the ultrasound picture, she's, well, perfect. Not to overuse the word or anything. But I fail to see how a 20-week-old fetus can be more perfect than this:

Come on, tell me she's beautiful. She's beautiful! And perfect. Did I mention that?

Frankly, I'm all a-tizzy, in case you couldn't tell.

Now the name debate begins in earnest...

The ultrasound cometh...

2008-04-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

And I can hardly wait! The first one, which was really just to confirm how far along I was (and whether or not I was having twins - yikes), was so cool. It's amazing to see the sprog in action. The ultrasound's next week, and we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl - at least, to technology's best ability to predict.

I went to my first prenatal yoga class a couple nights ago, and it was amazing. I really like the teacher and the other women in the class seem cool. For the most part, I've been really lucky with this pregnancy - my only negative symptoms have been occasional nausea and a crazy bout of acne that thankfully seems to be passing now - but for the four days before I went to yoga, I was having a lot of back pain in my lower back. Lo and behold, after the hour and a half yoga class, the back pain was completely gone! Plus, any time it's threatened to return since then, I just do a couple of the exercises I learned in class and banish it again. It freakin' rocks.

I'm at 19 weeks now, and it's getting pretty hard to hide anymore. I don't really care about hiding it, except at work, where I anticipate a few busybodies trying to give me unsolicited advice. It's a lot of fun to see my growing belly, though, and I feel the baby moving around every day now. Which, needless to say, is absolutely, phenomenally, mind-blowingly incredible.

I also found some non-fugly maternity clothes, to my great relief, at www.motherhood.com. Many of the clothes actually look like clothes I would normally wear, except they're made along maternity lines. Works for me. This week was the first week I've had to use them. I can still fit into one or two pairs of my normal pants and jeans - okay, make that one pair of jeans and one pair of pants - but I'm glad that I like the maternity clothes well enough that it's not depressing to wear them. Believe me, my first shopping trip was very depressing. I think Target must just be having a bad season - or the fashion industry is, more likely - because I've heard from several people whose taste I usually agree with that Target's a good place to go. Not so much this spring - I'm just not into garish prints, for some reason...

Anyway, look for a crazy-ecstatic post next Wednesday when we have the ultrasound. :)

The first signs, and then some

2008-03-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

Some women figure out they're pregnant because they miss their period. I, on the other hand, had a bit different experience. I'd sort of wondered if my time had come, because for several weeks before Christmas, I'd been super-busy with a special event at work, and hadn't gotten around to refilling my birth control scrip. Then, on Dec. 19th, I felt myself having a, shall we say, interestingly timed ovulation. "Oh, this could be interesting," I thought to myself, promptly assuming that the relevant zygotes were frankly all too drunk to actually find one another and make any magic happen.

Yeah. Ya know what happens when you assume? We all know the adage. Except this time, it's making parents out of him and me.

On Dec. 31st, about a week before my period was even due, I woke up one morning with really sore breasts. Not a totally unusual sign of PMS, but when I got out of bed, I felt a bit nauseous. "Oh my god," I thought, and raced to the bathroom, where I kept a small stock of pregnancy tests handy for just such occasions. Less than a minute later, an unmistakeable "Pregnant" showed up in the little window.

Some women might hear choirs of angels playing harps and such, or start leaping about the bathroom in joy. I quite honestly panicked. Freakout city, for about five minutes. I cried briefly, my heartrate skyrocketed, I took another test, I frantically read the tiny-print instructions that accompany the tests. "False positives are extremely rare," the instructions said. I took several deep breaths.

Then I told my husband.

To his credit, he remained fairly calm, though it was a surprise for us both. We'd thought 2008 sounded like a good year to have a kid, or start trying to have a kid, but there were things we wanted to do first, goals we wanted to reach, and I had inadvertently jumped the gun, pardon the phrase.

One of the first things he said, which was also one of my first thoughts, was, "So it's going to be a Virgo?" Never underestimate the powers of astrology in your interpersonal relationships.

"Well, its birthday will be near Leigh's, and she's cool," I pointed out. Having settled the astrology issue, we moved on to other things. We agreed I should take another test. I pointed out that I'd taken two, and that the tests recommended giving it a couple days to retest. We gave each other looks, and I said I'd probably pick up more tests that day and retake tomorrow. I mentioned the rarity of false positives, and said I would stop by Planned Parenthood for a more definitive test.

Then I took a prenatal vitamin on an empty stomach. Right now, there are thousands of imaginary pregnant readers laughing their heads off at that last sentence. If you are not pregnant, let me translate: Very Bad Idea. You'll see why momentarily. Yes, I had happened to have some prenatal vitamins in the cupboard, since it's recommended one takes them for a while before becoming pregnant (no, I had not gotten as far as actually taking them prior to getting knocked up).

Then I went to work, almost buzzing with the excitement of the pregnancy. Once the freakout subsided, I was thrilled, amazed at my body's talent and complexity. I emailed my best friend, who is also pregnant. Then, just as I was settling in for some blissful Internet research, the prenatal vitamin hit my empty stomach, and I found myself almost sprinting down the hallway to the bathroom. Luckily, it was Dec. 31st, so there were very few people in the office. I think I lasted all of an hour before I packed it in, left my boss a message that I was sick, and went home to puke some more.

I spent New Year's Eve chained to the bathroom, and the next couple days as well. In my well-intentioned foolishness, I worried about the sprog not getting the prenatal vitamins it needed, and forced another one or two down; I suspect this did a lot to cause me to keep being ill. My wise friend suggested I switch to a different prenatal vitamin and not take it on an empty stomach; thankfully, it worked.

I did a lot of things that probably a lot of women do. I bought various pregnancy manuals and read them feverishly. I overloaded on online websites. I subscribed to a couple "your pregnancy weekly update" emails. And, god help me, I almost instantly developed The Supernose.

The Supernose, for those of you who haven't experienced pregnancy, is this remarkable phenomenon that allows you to be grossed out by almost everything in the world with a superhuman sense of smell. My first trip to the grocery store bearing The Supernose made me truly sorry for dogs. The first time my husband took his socks off in the same room as my Supernose, I nearly passed out. Dirty dishes would send me retching and fleeing from the kitchen.

Happily, the Supernose has subsided slightly. I'm not often nauseous these days, probably because of this. On the other hand, I eat constantly. And when I say constantly, I mean like about two breakfasts, two lunches, two afternoon snacks, two dinners and a late night snack. And I've barely gained any weight. This is one hungry baby!

I've already started showing, too; the beer gut that I never exercised off before getting pregnant isn't helping here. I started showing around week 11, but I'm still managing to pass it off as my continued beer gut (fortunately, everyone who knows me knows that I love to eat and hate to exercise). I'll post some pictures of the belly expansion at some point in the near future.