not that surprising, after 7 and a half years.
Oh hell, let's just say it: Steve Jobs for president!
Today's news question: What does Janet Reno say she'd just found out, and what documentary could she have watched two years ago that would have told her the same thing?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Scott A. and Beth: stop reading now.
I'll cut to the car chase -- Darin and I are going to have a baby in early March.
Just in case you've been wondering why I've been updating sporadically and feeling icky so frequently, that's why. I'm 11 weeks pregnant (my count) and 13 weeks pregnant (the doctor's count).
I've still got morning sickness -- which is a total misnomer: it is all day sickness, and don't you forget it. (I sure haven't let Darin forget it.) It's has been going on for 6 weeks, which is only about 6 weeks too long. The worst part has been, it just keeps getting worse. It started off as a burning in my stomach that could only be assuaged by eating (which is the last thing you want to do, because food is so unappetizing). The burning was followed by increasing dosages of nausea (usually translated to: retching at any smell, even of tasty food, or retching if even slightly hungry, or retching if awake) and finally, the last few weeks, to actually throwing up. I'm not as bad as some women -- I'm not dehydrated and I don't need to be hospitalized -- but I'd rather have it like my sister had it, which is to say mildly.
A major bummer is the change in my eating habits: one food that makes my stomach turn at the thought of consuming it is...chocolate. Yes, I know. I can eat it, I just don't want to. Ice cream also turns my stomach. I feel like asking for a recount. Is that right? Is that fair? I don't think so.
The extreme bummer is that I lost my waist immediately. That isn't supposed to happen until Baby #2 (and I assure you, this is Baby #1 for me), but there it is. Not in month 4, like the books say, but in month 2. I could still fit in my jeans, but closing them puts pressure on my abdomen, and any sort of pressure makes me -- you guessed it -- retch.
I haven't gained much weight yet -- in fact, I lost 3 pounds between visits of week 7 and week 10. (Tiffany helpfully pointed out that I've been a sloth and fat weighs less than muscle.) My mother-in-law takes the cake, though: Darin was an 8-pound baby...and she only gained 14 pounds altogether. I've asked her not to tell me any more stories like that.
(Another story: Darin and his brother evidently were voracious eaters right from the start (and they haven't stopped yet), so all three slept through the night within just a few weeks. I have high hopes that's genetic, even with a girl.)
I had to stop running almost immediately, because I simply didn't have the energy. In fact, I noticed the extreme change in my stamina before I knew I was pregnant. I've tried walking, but I've noticed that even short walks produce the same result: I go back to sleep for several hours. I'm waiting for the mythical energy boost of the second trimester to start any sort of exercising again.
(As Rob said this past weekend, "When have you ever gotten an energy surge that people say you're supposed to get?")
I also cramped for weeks 2 through 6. That really bad series of cramps I mentioned? A physical sign of being pregnant. Which is why I told Beth when she hadn't gotten her period and she was cramping to go take a pregnancy test (she was negative). I was sure thousands of times I had to be miscarrying, because the cramps were so strong. No, everything was just getting settled inside there.
You really do feel as though you're the only person in history to do this.
Darin and I worked on getting pregnant for 10 months before I finally did. We had just found out what the problem was -- Darin has a low sperm count, due to a condition called "varicocele," which is evidently fairly common. We figured we were going to have to do artificial insemination or he was going to have to get an operation, which he wasn't looking forward to.
Around the same time, I had a test called an HSG (hysteroalpinogram?), where the doctor shoots dye up through your works and takes x-rays to see if everything's working.
"Conception rates go way up in the months following this test," the doctor told me.
Well, I thought, that's not going to happen, we know what the problem is.
Just like in a movie: Four days later...
(In fact, it was right before Darin went off on his trip to Michigan and Chicago. Some send off, huh?)
I assume I'll be having another HSG, the next time we want to have a baby. (It's far more likely than Darin having an operation.) Of course, it's rather unclear at this point if I'm going to survive this one. I spend a lot of time on the couch groaning and saying, "This is an only child."
We found out in early July, at two weeks. Pregnancy tests are supposed to have a blue line in the control window and a blue line (or not) in the test window. The first test I took had a blank control window and a blue line in the test window. So I took another one and then we were sure.
No, I didn't save the test, but I know people who have.
We know precisely when we conceived because of the exact charting we were doing, courtesy of a book Tamar recommended to me, called Taking Charge of Your Fertility, by Toni Wechsler, which I now highly recommend to you. Even if it turns out you need some outside help, as we evidently did, this book explains the entire conception process in a much more detailed and well-explained way than many other books.
In fact, I want to give it to a friend of mine, who recently told me that she had been assured she could have a boy if she became pregnant in the first half of the month and a girl in the second half. I stared at her, completely disconcerted, and explained that there's one day a month you can get pregnant, with the five or six days before that the days you should be having sex, so that the sperm are ready to meet the egg in the tube. There's a lot of misinformation out there. And she's as well-educated as I am (better, in fact; I think she paid attention) and didn't know this.
Needless to say, I am completely overwhelmed by the ideas that there's going to be a new person in this house, and that the person is coming out of me.
I don't know how I'm going to be able to take care of a baby and do anything else, like write. Evidently it can happen -- Mary is still writing away, despite taking care of baby Grace. (In fact, she says she's more organized and dedicated now, because she takes advantage of every opportunity to write, and doesn't dilly-dally before getting down to business.)
I'm very glad that our baby will be close in age to my sister's baby's age, so the cousins will be able to know one another. Madeline will be 9 months older than our baby; she has another cousin who's 9 months older than her. I figure that Abigail can learn a new trick and try it out on Madeline, who will then be able to turn around and try it out on our baby.
Yes, we're going to find out if it's a boy or a girl as soon as we can. It's going to be a surprise whenever we find out, and it sounds like there are altogether too many damn surprises in the delivery room.
Also, knowing allows friends to buy the right thing for the baby shower. As my sister pointed out, yellow only goes so far in the baby's room.
I've narrowed down the name choices to "Buffy" and "Fox."
The answer to yesterday's question: Thabo Mbeki is the new President of South Africa. Just to let you know how out of it I am, I didn't know even know there'd been an election.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com