Independence Day, and why having children is awesome.

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. Yesterday was the first Fourth of July since I was three that I haven't watched the fireworks over Lake Union from my parents' house. Except for that one year when I was fifteen and thought my parents were totally uncool and I went to Gasworks Park with every other person in Seattle. And that night I learned that my parents' party was in fact way, way cooler than anything else I could do. But my parents sold the house this spring, so no party for me. 

The Fourth is probably my favorite holiday after Thanksgiving. Not because I am especially patriotic or anything, but it was always a big deal for us, the one day every year my dad made worstenbroodjes from scratch. And fire works! So I was super bummed this year. No plans, had to work until 7 anyway. But last minute I had Kyle come with the baby and meet me on the other side of the lake in Sammamish. And it was perfect and Tycho danced to the band and got a balloon and ate kettle corn and oohed appropriately at the fireworks and I loved every minute of him loving it.

Tycho found a mom throwing a (tiny, nerf) football with her son, and decided he wanted to get in on that action. (His own ball and his own mother both proved far less interesting.) They took pity on the poor kid and let him throw their ball. I got to talking with the mom when she complimented his throwing technique (he will hit you square in the chest every time), and it turns out they are a big baseball family, too and she was from Cleveland! I love that Tycho found just the right people for us to chat with. Kyle invited his husband to bring their kids down to hi baseball facility. 

Babies are so awesome. Without Tycho it would have just been me and Kyle quietly sitting in a damp patch of grass. Life is so much more with him. Happy Birthday, America!

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want

I really want... another baby? I think? Maybe?

It feels a little crazy. A month ago I was still firmly in the NO WAY NO HOW NOT NOW camp. Which is, I am pretty sure, where my dear husband is still. It kind of snuck up on me. Maybe it's that now Tycho's sleeping through the night, maybe since he's now so clearly a little kid and no longer a baby, maybe I'm finally ovulating again since we're nursing (slightly) less. Maybe.

I can just go back and read my old blog posts and know that pregnancy made me sick and that the newborn stage was so hard and I know that we're finally settling into a good groove here and finding our sea legs and blah blah blah some other such analogy, but I'm feeling all nostalgic about it all right now. I miss sharing my body with my baby, miss being one person, just the two of us. I miss being his whole entire world, both when he was on the inside, and later on the outside, too. Now he has so much more beyond just me, and that is good, wonderful even, but different, and I'm feeling all melancholy.

We're not really quite ready yet. We're going to take ourselves on a grown up vacation, without Tycho (yay for grandmas!) in February, We haven't decided officially yet, but probably Hawaii. But after that, I think I'm ready to get my IUD taken out and see what happens.

Sigh.

Another day

Today is a better day. Yesterday was pretty okay, too, actually. I haven't cried since Friday, but I cried way a lot on Friday, so I guess it all evens out. But at least a little bit I think I'm learning how to live at this new pace that is the end of pregnancy. Living slower is making me feel like I'm not doing quite so much impossible waiting. I'm sleeping in and taking leisurely showers and generally not clock-watching and probably moving half as slow as the rest of the world, but I think that's for the best. The only hard part is that no one else is on my new schedule, so it can get kind of lonely. Everyone else also has lives and jobs and things, and I think are reserving their time for later, because it's much more exciting to hang out with a newborn baby than a bitchy term pregnant woman.

However. Kyle and I wandered and ate our way around the Bite of Seattle yesterday, which is pretty much the perfect event for a pregnant woman, and today BFF and I did some mall-walking, Frappuccino -drinking, and nursing-apparel shopping. I am a much happier person if I get out of the house and do something, anything, at least once a day. Tomorrow the only thing I have planned so far is a pedicure, but that is something at least. And beyond that, who knows. I'm having a hard time thinking more than one day ahead at this point. Everything seems far too uncertain.

I am starting to feel like I'm living in some sort of dream world. The longer things go, the less real anything feels. Kind of like the early weeks of my pregnancy where in between bouts of nausea I wouldn't have any symptoms and my body hadn't started changing yet and I would feel like I had imagined it all. Obviously, I am huge and clearly pregnant, but the reality of getting a baby sometime in the next week and a half seems to recede further and further into the distance. A week ago I felt like labor was imminent and I was ready, and now... it all just seems impossible. I feel like I am sitting in a nursery decorated for no one, and that I'm going to turn into a crazy lady pushing around an empty stroller. It is very strange and surreal.

But I guess it will all be over soon. This is the last month I will be pregnant. I will have a baby in the next couple weeks. This will end, and I will have my new reality and it will be good. I just need to remain calm and patient. I'm doing okay at that today.

Overdue

I've been putting off writing this post,  as it feels a bit like admitting defeat, but here I am. Still no baby. My due date has come and gone and nothing really has changed much. Baby boy shows no signs of being ready or willing to come out ever.

40 weeks, this past Wednesday

I am.... barely holding it together. There are lots of tears. LOTS. I think I am dehydrating myself from crying so much, actually. I have a wicked headache this morning. I'm trying to rein it in and get more fluids in me, you know, in case I have the occasion to need to buttload of energy in the near future, but I'm really no match for my hormones and emotions right now. Yesterday Kyle decided that an hour of hysterical wife sobbing was a reasonable excuse not to go into the office and took me to lunch instead. And before he went out in the evening for baseball-related activities, he had me invite myself over for dinner at my parents. They thought it was hilarious that he was having them "babysit" me, but it was probably for the best, since I likely would have otherwise sat at home in the dark crying. Yes, I know I am pathetic.

I also got myself a Frappaccino yesterday afternoon and walked around the lake listening to my labor playlist, and it was very nice. 2.8 miles and it only took me an hour and twenty minutes. It was actually lovely, even though it started raining a couple times. The headphones means that no one talked to me and I got to get some alone time without it making me feel depressed and isolated and helpless. And you know, the walking thing, that's supposed to help, right? I think it's going to be a regular afternoon activity for me until baby boy decides to show up.

My sister is also back from France now. She got in Wednesday night. I'm happy she's here, of course, but I was really hoping to have a baby before she got here, so I haven't been as joyful about it as I perhaps should be. I love my sister, but she can be somewhat emotionally draining for me, and I'm spread thin already as it is. And she doesn't understand why I am so short and so angry and so quick to fly off the handle, that I'm not really ready to spend a lot of time with her quite yet. Unfortunate.

I really want to have a baby soon. If I make it to my next appointment on Thursday I have to have a non-stress test and we'll sweep my membranes and schedule an ultrasound and I really want no part of any of it. Please please please please please let me have a baby first.

Up to here

Yesterday was a hard day.

It started early. I woke up just before 5am from a terrible nightmare in which I couldn't warn my husband that he and our baby were about to be drowned by a nefarious evildoer because someone reprogrammed his number in my cellphone to one that called a nursing home. It sounds completely ridiculous now, but I awoke in a panic, and every time I closed my eyes I would see it again, so I ended up just laying in bed crying for a while.

But then I got up and decided to compulsively scrub my bathroom for a couple hours. Me. Bathroom cleaning. At five o'clock in the morning. Very strange.

It was also very depressing for me, because good god is our house crappy. Two hours of cleaning and the best I could get it to look is dingy.  It's funny, because I am so not a cleaner, and tidy but dingy is normally quite alright with me. But not anymore, I guess. Perhaps nesting has set in after all. But what more could I do? So I took a shower.

Freshly clean with my clean towels in my clean bathroom I am rubbing body oil into my belly to keep it from itching, and the hand towel bar above the counter that is really only very precariously balanced there rather than actually being affixed to the wall spontaneously falls and knocks my bottle of oil everywhere and into my drawer full of hair care implements and I. Just. Lose it.

I sat down, naked and wet, on the edge of the tub, bawling so loud that I woke Kyle in the bedroom, across the hallway through closed doors. So loud that he actually decided to get up and investigate instead of ignoring it and going back to sleep. Which, if you know Kyle, means I was really fucking loud. And I couldn't tell him what was wrong because I could catch my breath between sobs and I couldn't stop crying. Finally, when he got me back to bed, all I could manage was "WE HAVE TO MOVE RIGHT NOW." He assured me that we will move and it will be okay and he would fix the stupid towel rack and I was hysterical because "the lease isn't up until August! I can't put a baby in that bathtub! We can't live here!" Insane.

So yeah. I managed to do a load of laundry, completely scrub my bathroom, take a shower, and have a nervous breakdown all before 8am. And then I had a full day of work ahead of me. Needless to say, I wasn't completely on my A-game. In fact, I felt on the edge of tears for most of the day. My girlfriends have assured me that losing one's shit over something inane like the wrong kind of chicken during pregnancy is totally 100% normal, so I feel a little better. I still don't feel good about our home or how we're going to be able to move when we are scheduled to have a two-week old baby or how we'll be able to afford a place any nicer than the one where we currently reside, but Kyle said he'd worry about it for me, and it seems like I'm better off right now letting him take that responsibility.

This morning brings better news. My sister booked her tickets home from France for the summer, and she'll be back in Seattle on my due date!  And her French boyfriend will be joining her a month later. Now I have two things to look forward to.

Week 23

Yesterday was 23 weeks. Yesterday was also my mother's birthday. I spent a very exciting evening with her eating finger foods and doing a puzzle. Not exactly heavy lifting, you know. But then when I got home I was having these horrible cramps. I thought maybe Braxton Hicks? But the hurt, like menstrual cramps, and Dr. Google diagnosed that as BAD NEWS. So I freaked out, obviously.

I called Kyle to COME HOME NOW from wherever he was out with friends because I couldn't handle it on my own at all. I couldn't be sure if it was okay to be worried or if I was being an insane paranoid hypochondriac or what. He was hesitant that I needed him, but when I started sobbing he said he was heading home.

I curled up in bed and cried. Curling up in bed helped with the pain, like it always has with my period, and by the time Kyle got home it had stopped. But I was still a mess and I wasn't sure if I should call and wake someone up in the middle of the night or not but how would I live with myself if anything happened? Kyle called the on call midwife for me and we decided things were probably okay if the cramping had subsided, and to keep an eye on things. But even after being reassured I just could not stop crying.

Today I felt much better after getting a full night's rest, so I went to the zoo with my mom as we had previously planned. We had a good trip. I love the zoo. I hope baby boy will love the zoo, too. Certainly we'll take him there often. But as the day progressed I started getting antsy again, because I hadn't felt him move all day. I wouldn't have been so worried under normal circumstances, but after the cramping episode last night... well I couldn't get it out of my head.

I ended up going to see my midwives after their last appointment of the day. Everything is peachy keen of course, and I'm feeling slightly stupid for being so worried, but I was SO. WORRIED. And while I'm no longer fearing any present danger, I can't shake this cloud that's hanging over me. I just don't know what I would do if something happened. It makes me feel physically ill.

I can't imagine this will get any easier once he is on the outside.

Dizzy in the Noodle

So I kind of feel like Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella in the 1965 made-for-TV Rodgers & Hammerstein production when everyone is home from the ball and she is waxing poetic to her step-sisters about how wonderful it all is. "What all is?" asks her step-mother.

This pregnancy thing is freaking amazing as all get out, I tell you. I keep writing these posts about how OMG, you guys, the baby is kicking FOR REAL this time! And then two days later I'm feeling like I should tell you more about these kicks because they are so much freaking better today than they were last time I posted you have got to try this!!

So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, omigoodness, I just love feeling him moving around. I'm feeling it all the time now, not just when I don't have other things to distract me, and it's more often than not real, discrete kicks instead of some vague wiggly feeling in my gut and holy cow I am in love.

The store I used to work at had kids and baby departments, but it was in the middle of downtown Seattle, and as such most people didn't bring their kids on shopping trips. Sure, there was always a munchkin or two, but nothing crazy. Certainly they were always outnumbered by mannequins. My new store is in a very family friendly suburban mall and out store is outfitted with a coloring table for the little ones and there is a parade of adorable (and sometimes appallingly behaved) children that come through our doors. Lately I've been watching the little boys. I'm going to have a son. I've never really imagined myself as a mother to a boy. A spitfire tomboy girl maybe, but for whatever reason, my imagination just didn't go there. So now I catch myself studying them. Will he be like that? Can I handle that? What have I gotten myself into?

But it always comes back to how wonderful it all is!

And so it begins...

Hello blogfriends.


Things are awesome. I am definitely in the good part of pregnancy. I mostly feel great, except for a little backache or leg cramp here and there. My energy is back up, and barfing seems to think of the past (knock on wood). I get heartburn at night when I lay down, but it's not severe, and mostly just ends up serving as a reminder that hey! there's a baby in there.


Speaking of, tonight baby kicks just got real.  I mean, they were there before and everything, but in that sort of demented goldfish bumping into walls and kind of vague movementy feelings kind of way. Now I'm feeling real, discrete kicks.


Last night Kyle came home bearing a bag of baby presents. The mother of one of the kids he coaches sent it home with him. Tons and tons of stuff, omigosh! Elephant print onesies! Sleepers with turtles! TINY PLAID OVERALLS! So many things. I think that was the most fun I've ever had opening presents ever. Oh, the generosity of strangers. Unbelievable. I've never even met this woman!


Having actual baby stuff meant for my very own baby makes this feel another level of real. I spent a little time last night imagining my son (OMG! My son!) in tiny plaid overalls and it was lovely. Now that he's a he and he has clothes and he has a name and he kicks me in the stomach I'm just filled with JOY, however cliché that might be. It's definitely the best descriptor for the feeling.


My project for this week, then, is to actually find a home for all this baby gear that is assembling in my home. It's everywhere! In bags in my bedroom, on my desk, in my dresser. In a suitcase in the hallway. Crazy. I probably should have been expecting stuff to start showing up, but wow. I feel like there's tons of it already.

Where the hell did my butt go?

So, I think I'm feeling the second trimester awesomeness now. I don't feel like barfing, but I'm not huge and unwieldy yet. My appetite is back, thank goodness, and most things taste pretty good. I'm finally starting to look sorta kinda maybe pregnant, although I'd be happier if I didn't also sorta kinda maybe look like I have a beer belly. However, I still have to pee all the damn time, or possibly even more often, even though the internet said my bladder should calm down, and I'm still so freaking tired and need like fourteen hours of sleep a night to feel well rested, and that happens pretty much never, so yeah. But still, pretty good.

I also hear (well, read) that I should be able to feel baby move soon, but I haven't quite been able to will that to happen yet. I spend a lot of time concentrating on my abdomen and trying to feel it, but I don't think it works that way. I am trying to be patient, and I think I'm doing as good a job as can be expected, you know, for perhaps the most momentous thing so far, but it's haaaaaaard.

Tuesday brought another prenatal appointment, so now I have met all three of the midwives at my practice. I do have a favorite, but I am happy with them all, which is good, since you don't really get to pick who will be on call when you go into labor. I brought my mother with me to see the birth center, and she was happy. I gained back four of the five and a half pounds I lost, and my uterus is in the right place, blah blah blah normal perfect wonderful. I feel like we should be doing more at these visits, but when you're pretty much complication free there's not much to do. I probably shouldn't complain about that.

 

As of Wednesday we're at seventeen weeks. No pictures of my cute outfit, because I forgot to take pictures until I got home from yoga. However, as cute as outfit was, it was made up entirely of pre-pregnancy clothing, and as such, was only cute when I was standing perfectly still. Once I moved at all everything rode up or fell down or just generally looked awkward and askew and I spent all day readjusting everything and it sucked. I have now acquired a few maternity pieces, but nothing even close to a functional wardrobe, and I really need to get on it. Beyond being impractical and annoying, things are getting downright uncomfortable, and perhaps worse, unflattering, and ugh. Shopping shopping shopping. 

As much as I love shopping, I don't really spend all that much money on clothing. I mean, I do, but not all at once. In general, I buy stuff that has longevity, and I wear my clothes for years, until long past when I should probably get rid of them, so having to buy a lot of stuff all at once, that I can't even wear for very long is super difficult for me. I guess I just have to get over it, though.

We now have our appointment for our next ultrasound, where we'll find out if baby is a he or a she. I've thought about it long and hard,  and I really, truly have no preference, but still I'm really excited to KNOW anything more that we can know about baby. I'm excited for it to stop be an IT. We've been working on names, and I think knowing more about who we're naming is going to make it so much easier to talk about. And I just can't wait to see baby again, because OMG! BABY!

Speed Racer

Um...this is all happening really fast.


A coworker from my old store made the above as a comment on my belly picture from last week when I posted it on my Facebook. No kidding. It's February, guys! I could have a baby in as little as five months from now. I will be a MOTHER. What the fucking hell? (Perhaps I should try and learn how to swear less in the next five months.)

I am still having moments of "holy crap I'm having a baby!" Last night I couldn't sleep. I am going to be somebody's parent. Seriously? Am I ready for this? Am I even old enough for this? I want my mommy.

I'm sure this is all perfectly normal and everything, but still. Scary. Very scary.

Sixteen

Little Belly!

As of yesterday, we've made it to sixteen weeks. I'm not really counting the days so much anymore; the weeks are all starting to run together. July 13th feels like it's right around the corner, and there's so much to do! One thing I'm not loving about pregnancy is that there is always some decision to panic about. And boy do I panic. Because every decision is also the most important one I've ever had to make. This is MY BABY we're talking about. It's not like buying a new pair of shoes or getting a hair cut, or really anything I've ever had to do before, and the (mostly self-imposed) pressure of the decisions mixed with pregnancy hormones and my already overly neurotic nature is running me ragged. I cry a lot. Kyle plays the good husband and tells me everything will be fine, but honestly, I don't want to hear that everything will be fine unless that statement is accompanied with information proving it to be true.

The other day I was chatting with BFF (she is pregnant too, a couple weeks behind me, but shh, don't tell), and she mentioned that she had registered for her child birth class recently. Wait, what? Already? Oh yes, she says. Her midwife asked her what class she was taking at her 12 week appointment and that apparently got her going on it. What? At  MY 12 week appointment, with that very same midwife, I expressed concern (i.e. freaked out), about not getting things (birth classes, pediatrician picking, etc.) done on time, and she assured me that they would let me know at each appointment what I should be working on. Or not, I guess. So I start looking. The teacher most highly recommended by my birth center... well her class is already full. Shit. In the end we found a class that we are happy with, and we registered this afternoon, but OMG stress! However, I should tell you, that we are taking our birth class from none other than Penny Simkin herself. How awesome is that? I have now moved on to stressing about daycare. Oh, daycare. But my stress surrounding day care is probably more than enough for it's own post.

I'm also starting to feel quite a bit better about the whole maternity fashion thing. (Is it vain to talk about this so often?) I still don't quite look pregnant, unless you're looking from the exact right angle, and my posture is just so, and you knew what I looked like before, etc. etc. And feeling like you look fat instead of pregnant isn't any good. But I've been able to find a few more good pieces here and there and I don't feel like I am wearing the same tee shirt every day, so that is good. I still need to do a lot more work to build a functional wardrobe, but it probably be and ongoing process, especially since I'm sure some of the stuff that fits me now won't anymore later. BFF and I have a date this weekend to visit every maternity store in the Seattle metropolitan area, so that should be good, I think.

In other news, Kyle and I did venture to the local (well, it's really in another city) Babies 'R Us to start our registry. There are only maybe ten things on it as of right now, since we actually have to research car seats and strollers and bottles and what kind of baby grooming kit we want, but I feel better knowing that we've at least started it and that I've exposed Kyle to the sheer masses of stuff that we don't necessarily need, but that is available to make our lives easier (or perhaps more difficult) with a baby. And I'm slowly acquiring information and knowledge about car seats and strollers, so the volume of choices is starting to feel not entirely overwhelming, and I'm beginning to feel relatively confident that we'll actually be able to make a decision we feel confident before the baby turns two.

What's in a name?

How in the world do people name their children without have a complete nervous breakdown? I feel like this (and every other decision we have to make involving pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting) is the biggest, most important thing I've ever had to do and the consequences if we get it wrong... well, I don't know what they are, but they are hanging over my head, nonetheless. A name, a car seat, a parenting philosophy... it's all so overwhelming.

Names in particular are so important to me. I have a "weird" name. I also had a weird nickname as a kid. I love my weird name. Maybe it's because of the millions of times my dad told me how much thought he and my mom had put into choosing it, and the reasons the had, and so on, but I'm so glad I'm simply Astrid, and not Jessica R. or Jenny, because there's already a Jen and a Jennifer in my class/workplace/whatever. And yeah, it was often pronounced incorrectly or completely misheard, and yes, there were a couple of weeks in third grade where the older boys called me "ostrich," but none of that really matters. What matters is that my dad thought it was really important for his daughter to have a strong feminine name, one not too dainty or diminutive. What matters is that I was the only Astrid around, and my name was mine, all mine, and almost nobody has any preconceived notions about who I am or what kind of person I should be. I get to make that first impression.

We talk so much about teasing when we talk about names. When we talk about anything, really. Don't name you kid after a fruit, she'll get made fun of.  You have to circumcise your son or the other boys in the locker room will bully him. Your daughter will have a hard time making friends if you send her to school with a pita and hummus instead of a PB&J. I think the moral here is not that we can protect our kids from taunts and bullying by normalizing everything about them, but that our children will be teased no matter what we do, and that shouldn't be a good enough reason to name them John, or preform elective cosmetic surgery on a newborn, or whatever. And I think I'd so much rather be Astrid/Ostrich than Sarah number seventeen.

So my kids are not going to be Aiden or Emma, or whatever is at the top of the charts right now. But I think picking a unique name is so much harder than just going with the flow, or following some family tradition, or what have you. When you have all the freedom in the world, you can become paralyzed with indecision and get completely overwhelmed with all the choices, not to mention the lifelong consequences they'll have for your children.

We have a little less than six months to figure it out. Let's hope that's long enough.

Stuff!

I went shopping today. For maternity clothes. Wahoo? Found an Old Navy store with a Maternity section, but boy was the selection there dismal. (There are a couple other stores in the area that have Maternity, so I will try my luck there next.) And wow I hate shopping. Which is strange, because I normally love shopping. My mother likes to call me a fashionista, which drives me nuts, but it's kind of true, so this was a weird experience. I still don't really NEED maternity, and I'm not buying pants for as long as I can help it (or at all, if I can manage), but my pre-pregnancy wardrobe is, shall we say body-conscious (aka TIGHT) and therefore 95% of my tops are now too short and awkward and terrible. So I need some interim, sorta-pregnant clothes. The trip wasn't totally a bust. I got two super long camisoles and a couple of plain v-neck tees and a couple of black dresses, which look like they will be able to fit a substantial belly. But the whole lot is black, gray, and white, completely unembellished, and utterly boring. Fine for basics and layering pieces, which is what they are, but I need fun things, too, and I have no idea where to find that. It seems that maternity clothing seems to all be basics. And the whole, everything is too big for my boobs thing seems to be doubly true with maternity clothes. Anything I tried on that seemed like it would be able to fit me when I'm big was gaping ridiculously in the bust and at the arms. So hopefully I fill out at some point. Blah. But I did pretty good, since all of that, plus a t-shirt for hubby cost me under $60 with employee discounts and sales and all that, so I guess I can't be bummed. I think my next stop will be target, and also buying buttloads of stuff online and returning most of it, because it seems like all the interesting pieces and colors are online-only. Boo.

Anyway, it turns out the Old Navy the I went to was across the street from a Babies 'R Us, and I had some extra time so... why not? Actually, Kyle agreed to go with me to one next weekend to freak ourselves out and whatever, but I figured it couldn't hurt for me to get a head start so we're not both completely overwhelmed on that trip. And goodness, overwhelmed I was. I have no clue what I need or want or why I should even care about this or that feature, and holy crap all this shit costs a lot of money. I mean, I guess that is why God invented the internet and everything, but how does everyone else even deal? Or maybe while I was reading every thing I could get my hands on about pregnancy and natural childbirth, all the other girls were researching travel systems and pack 'n plays and diaper genies. I don't know. I guess we'll figure it out.

So we're going to go and freak out and hopefully bring Kyle one step closer to actually realizing that we'll be the proud owners of a real live infant six months from now. And probably start a registry because first great grandchild! On three of four sides! People are already buying me shit! And because I am a materialistic American, and registering is fun and I will not apologize for that.

Sorry for the really lame post.

Bonjour!

Greetings from Paris! We arrived yesterday morning after pretty much the best you can expect from an international flight. We flew direct Seattle to Paris on AirFrance, and let me tell you, the French know how to run an airline. There was a real meal that started off with a smoked salmon salad, and complimentary wine, and individual movie screens at each seat.  I think Kyle ended up watching approximately three whole movies, which wasn't exactly in his plans to sleep through the entire flight, but better than being awake and staring at the back of a seat. All and all, it went much more smoothly than I anticipated.

My family held off on "Christmas" until yesterday, although Kyle slept through all the festivities, since he didn't get any sleep on  the plane or the night before we left. There is only a very tiny oven here, so my dad cooked us Cornish game hen instead of turkey, which was wonderful, and we opened gifts, most of which were for my fetus. Baby now has a plate and bowl with animals on it, a stuffed elephant, and bunny slippers, which are possibly the most adorable things I have ever seen.

We are also joined here my some Dutch cousins of ours, and they are pretty much my Dutch mom and dad, so it is lovely seeing them and telling them of my pregnancy. Also, my sister. Since she's been here, she clearly become a classy French woman--it suits her magnificently, but when I am around she devolves into my baby sister, making dumb noises and faces and climbing all over me, and I miss her so much. It's very clear that she loves it here and has no intentions of coming home any time soon.  I told her she has to come visit after the baby is here, but she doesn't make very much money blah blah blah. I'm sure she'll find a way, though. Probably by talking my dad into buying her a ticket for Christmas next year.

We did the Louvre today. Kyle ended up splitting off and hanging out at an internet cafe, which is typical for him, but I figure that whatever keeps him happy is fine with me, as Paris really isn't his ideal vacation spot. The Louvre is kind of disappointing, though, to be honest. It's super crowded, and the collections don't seemed to be arranged with more thought than "this room is shit from Egypt." I think I prefer smaller, more specific museums. I loved the musee d'Orsay when we visited Paris last (I was 15 or 16), but I wanted to see the Louvre this time, since I hadn't before. Some of the Egyptian stuff was pretty lovely, though, and when we found rooms that weren't to crowded it was nice. We also saw the apartments of Napoleon, which is all the original stuff from when the museum was a palace, and that was amazing and definitely worth seeing.

But that picture doesn't even begin to capture the majesty. When you see the ostentatiousness of it you think no wonder they got overthrown. And behind all the walls filled with painting, every room is like this.

After the museum we went to a cafe for lunch. I thought it was funny the French onion soup is just onion soup here, but I guess that makes sense.

Tomorrow is sister time, I think. We're going shopping. I'm not too worried, for once, about spending too much money, since I can't really buy any clothing right now, with the whole maternity thing, but we passed today a lot of adorable expensive looking baby shops, so maybe that.

Like a kid on Christmas Eve...

So you know how the night before something exciting, like your first day at a new job, or say, a trip to visit your sister in France you don't feel like sleeping and you say it's like you're a kid on Christmas Eve? Yeah, I just had that thought. And then I remembered that it is in fact Christmas Eve.

I haven't really been feeling very festive this year. We didn't do any decorating, since leaving three cats alone in our house with a Christmas tree seemed like a poor choice. I'm not exchanging a ton of gifts with people this year, either, and what I'm getting will be for the most part purchased in Paris, so I haven't really done that either. Combine that with the stress of working in retail during the holiday season, and well, you wouldn't be feeling so jolly either.

It's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting in bed waiting for my nail polish to dry before I go to bed. Kyle is out getting a beer with a friend. We had mac and cheese for dinner. It's very unChristmas-y. And tomorrow we are taking the bus to the airport. Wahoo. We don't actually make it into Paris until the 26th, but the family is holding off on the festivities until we get there. So that is nice.

My dad's favorite cousin and his wife are also joining us for a few days in Paris, and I'm really excited to tell them about my pregnancy. When they saw my sister in November (right when I found out), they were asking her if I was going to do the baby thing soon, so they'll be excited. And it's pretty amazing to be able to tell the in person, since the last time we saw each other was at my wedding.

I'm itching to announce it. Now that we've made it this far, there's no point in spoiling the surprise before we get that ultrasound done in January when we get back, but I'm ready to be out. I feel lately like everything in my life relates back to this, and I'm finding it difficult just to carry on normal conversations with people for fear of letting something slip. And the whole growing belly thing is clearly going to become an issue soon. (I went through all my dresses trying to find something appropriate for going out in Paris and nothing fit!) But we'll be able to be out with family this week in Paris, and then we only have a few days after we get back before we can tell everyone. Ready ready ready.

I need a vacation

Okay, I am tired of being pregnant. While I am aware that most women feel this way at some point during pregnancy, I'm pretty sure that usually they last longer than ten weeks. But I'm ahead of the curve. Or something. Really, though, I'm over it. I don't want to like, not be pregnant, either, since I'm rather heavily anticipating the prize at the end, but I wish there was a pause button somewhere, so that I could maybe take a week's vacation from it all and then start back up where I left off. And I could eat raw fishes and soft cheeses and rare steak and have a god-damned cocktail. A girl can dream.

But seriously. I feel like I'm in some sort of pregnancy limbo-land right now. I'm definitely not showing yet, and we're still not sharing the news. The people that do know about it I think have gotten over their initial excitement, and so it's not LETS TALK ABOUT THE BABY!!! time anymore. Our first ultrasound isn't until January. And most of my early-pregnancy symptoms have tapered off. My boobs are still a little sore, but not all-the-time distracting. I'm periodically nauseous, but no longer vomiting. I'm not dead-tired anymore, but I'm still only running at about 80%. I suppose I should be happy about these things, but it just makes me feel like I am in no-man's land. At least I got to be constantly reminded that I'm growing a BAYBEEE! And, you know, I kind of like having something to complain about. Weird, but true. Now it's just whatever.

Lately I have also completely lost my appetite. Food does not interest me. Except for maybe chocolate. But nothing, say, nutritious. Or filling. And as such I forget to eat. And then my stomach starts growling and rumbling and it's uncomfortable and my body is telling me it's hungry, but my head? Still not interested. So then I eat some chocolate ice cream to quiet my stomach so that I can get some sleep. You think I'd be doing everything I could to make healthy choices for my fetus, but um, apparently not. At the end of all of this it's entirely possible that I will give birth to a baguette, since French bread is the only thing that doesn't seem completely unappetizing right now. Great.

Also, I am kind of freaking out. Interestingly enough, I am not really scared of becoming huge and swollen ankles and varicose veins and stretch marks and back aches. I don't fear contractions. I am not afraid of labor, or the "ring of fire," of any of it. I'm pretty sure it will be hard and it will be painful, but I'm completely confident I'll come out on the other side just fine. I think this is the result of spending oh, the last two years reading everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy and birth. Pregnancy and birth are old hat to me. Totally fine.

But everything else? I'm at a loss. I can push a baby out, but what the hell do I do with it afterward? Seriously. I've never babysat, ever. Never changed a diaper. I have given a baby a bottle twice, with supervision, and one of those times I was eight years old and I wouldn't even remember it except for the photographic evidence, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't count. I don't know a thing about car seats or strollers, and I'm pretty sure that babywearing sounds awesome, but as soon as I start thinking about the myriad options for slings and carriers I start panicking.

Lately I've been spending my time reading the archives of Alphamom, because it's so much more interesting than doing the dishes, or like, putting on pants. So last night it occurred to me, all of the sudden that not only am I going to have a baby, but at some point that baby is going to become a school-aged child, and perhaps a  TEENAGER and we'll have to talk about SEX and what the hell have I gotten myself into?

When did I get so crazy? Before getting pregnant I had all sorts of modern, positive ideas about age-approriate lifetime sex education and blah blah blah and this sort of stuff never worried me before and then hormones and you read one silly blog post about teenage boys and internet pornography and your brain explodes.

Did I mention I need a vacation? Welp, we go to Paris in nine days (holy crap!), so there is that. I will probably be pretty lax on the avoidance of fancy cheese and bubbly alcoholic beverages, because really, I need a break, and moderation and all that. Okay.

The Waiting Game

I can't make coherent posts when i am distracted by the possibility of pregnancy, apparently.

I've been obsessing over The Preconceptionist's list of early pregnancy symptoms. Maybe my mild constipation these days is related? Every little wave of queasiness I wonder if it's because I am pregnant, or its just the regular waves of queasiness I get anyway, and have been getting for the last ten years. And then I think that if its not worse than normal then there's no way I could be pregnant, and if I was I'd be cowering over the toilet bowl. I am psyching myself out. But I still have exceedingly tender breasts, and the nausea is there, even if it is all too familiar.

I'm not even really sure what I want to turn up on my imminent pregnancy test. All of the negatives I've received so far have be disappointing, but I was always pretty sure that I wasn't pregnant, so I never really had to face the reality of what those two pink lines really mean. But now that I am more sure than not, I am kind of terrified of that positive. Don't get me wrong, I want this, but it's scary to me that if I am in fact pregnant, there's no backing out now.  We can't decide to wait another month or year or three. And that somehow at the end of many month of discomfort that I signed myself up for I have to remove a human being through my body via my vagina, holy crap, am I really ready for this? Well, it may be too late. And that's okay. But frightening, none the less.

On Wednesday night, as my mom an I were eating enchiladas, as we do after yoga class every week, I told her that I think that this time might really be it.  I realized I don't really know much about how my sister or I were born, so we talked. Mom said that she knew right away with both pregnancies. She delivered us both without medication, so that's a relief to hear, but she ended up with an episiotomy with my sister. (P.S. Chrome does not recognize episiotomy as a word.) Her labors were both very short, with mine lasting about twelve hours from waters breaking to delivery, and my sister's was even shorter. My sister breastfed easily, but I was lactose intolerant, so she pumped and added lactaid to her breastmilk for me.  We were both weaned to formula after her three month maternity leave, but this was 25 years ago, when pumping at work just wasn't an option for my career minded mother.

Hearing all of this makes me feel really confident about my own pregnancy and birth, whether that comes now, or further off in the future. I am really lucky to be so close to her and to have her nearby to go through all of this with me when and if I do find myself pregnant.

I am also looking forward to sharing pregnancy with my mother in law. I know she is itching for grandkids. She won't come out and say it, of course, because she's much too polite for that, but the hints have been coming hard. Kyle's parents just put an offer on a house, and she mentioned to me in an email that she is excited to move because she can imagine playing with her grandchildren in her (hopefully) new neighborhood. Sigh. At least I know that when the time comes my news will be good news.


All right, that's all I've got for tonight. Think pregnant thoughts for me. I think.

Kitty.

Maybe this is silly, but my cats make me want to have babies. I mean, clearly, I want to have babies anyway, but ...

This morning the bunny cat, who normally doesn't even like me that much was mewing and beeping and jumped up into bed and cuddled and nuzzled and generally loved me and it was amazing. And all I could think about was how much more amazing it will be when I have a baby in bed with me, cuddling and nuzzling and generally loving me.

Sometimes Kyle will baby-talk to the kitties, cradling them in his arms, and all I can do is picture him cradling a baby, and that image of big burly manly man holding a teeny tiny baby is just irresistible.

This has probably nothing to do with my cats in particular, and has more to do with my ability to relate anything and everything in my life back to babies. Every nap I take I imagine taking it with a baby asleep on my chest. I see everything through the eyes of my future toddler, from butterflies to bus rides. Work kills me. Merchandising baby clothing for a living means that every mannequin I dress I am creating outfits for my child.

I need a life. Or a baby.

I spoke too soon.

Immediately after my last post my period showed up. (As an aside, I so cannot get on board with this whole "Aunt Flo" euphemism.) So now I am crampy and cranky and still nauseous. And I have headache, but that's not likely related. I am happy that I am back to knowing what is going on again, but I am less than thrilled to start another round of the waiting game. I'd like to get this show on the road, and start waiting for new and exciting things, like midwife appointments and heartbeats and you know, a real, live baby. But right now we're in a holding pattern of waiting for ovulation, waiting for period. I'm bored.

The Best Laid Plans...

So our super romantic night last night, well, wasn't.

Apparently putting all sorts of pressure on yourself to like, make a baby, makes sex into work and not so much fun, and yeah. It just wasn't happening. And even though I'm pretty disappointed, I don't really want the conception of my child to be some sort of drudgery. So it will be okay.

But anyway, there goes this month. Most likely, at least, as I haven't had that  spike yet, so in the case Husband is feeling particularly amorous tonight... So probably not. Oh well.

I guess the key here is for us to stop thinking about it and talking about it and just let. it. happen. But the problem here is twofold: First of all, I am me. Talking and thinking about it is what I do. That's what this motherfucking blog is for, after all. And it's not like I could stop if I wanted to. I suppose I could stop talking to Kyle specifically about it, but that lead us to problem numba two: the way our schedules are so irregular and non-overlapping and crazy, if we don't plan in sex, we don't have it very often. So if we just "let it happen," it'll probably happen sometime in 2015. Great.

Right now I don't really know what the plan is. Kyle and I probably need to discuss it more when we're not half naked after really bad sort-of-sex.