Seven years

Seven years ago, I was a technical writer at a university in south Texas, trying to help department heads hash out some sort of more detailed hurricane plan in the wake of Katrina the year before.
Seven years ago, I had a salary of my very own.
Seven years ago, I saw a lot of movies in the cinema.
Seven years ago, I'd never watched an episode of Curious George.

Seven years ago, my husband was at a conference a plane ride away, and I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant.

Seven years ago, I'd never heard of Facebook.
Seven years ago, I'd already been blogging indolently for a couple of years.

Seven years ago, I knew my life was about to change utterly, and I was about as ready for it as you can be.

Seven years ago - plus a few hours - my waters broke.

Happy and zen

There's nothing like a day of being crampy and grumpy and miserable to make you appreciate only having swollen ankles. Today, I am so not-in-pain that I'm all zen and happy and barely feeling pregnant at all, and if the dilemma on whose horns I am currently poised is whether I put my feet up under my desk or sit up straight and thus am able to reach the keyboard without straining, well them's not very pointy horns.

Yesterday, I was the other thing. Grumpy and crampy with New Exciting back pain thrown in for good measure. Because the back pain was a new thing, I almost thought maybe this would be it and today I'd be in labour (and thus not have to write the blasted hurricane plan, which was certainly a consideration of a silver lining). But at about 2am this morning, suddenly it all went away and today I'm lovely and happy. And bumpy. People have stopped telling me how small I am. I don't think this is a coincidence.
Luckily, I had a midwife appointment yesterday, so I was able to not be too paranoid about the new pain. They took my blood for the "36 cultures" (no, that doesn't mean we have to stick you 36 times, it's just the 36 week thing) and I had the pelvic exam that will be a regular feature of my visits from now on. Apart from taking various swabs and confirming that my chronic yeastiness is still around (lovely, eh? no wonder nobody reads this stuff) and giving me a prescription for it, my midwife said I'm 70 percent effaced but still not dilated at all. Which is fine with me because not only will B. be away at a conference this weekend, but so will the midwife. So when she said "You're not going to be having a baby this week" there was more than a hint of the imperative in there along with the wise-woman prognostication. Fine with me, especially if I keep feeling like today more than yesterday.

That would be nice.

A bit more abstract

I just had to get all that updatey stuff out of the way, but what I really wanted to talk about was much more abstract.

Every now and then I stop and try to think about what's really going on here. To convince myself of how there can be an almost-fully-grown baby in me. It's still hard to do.

Yes, it moves. Lots. But I still think of it as a part of me - my liver or my kidneys do things I have no control over too - why should this new tummy not be similar. To grasp that it's a whole person that is other, with a soul separate from my own - if you like - that's what's impossible.

When it's on the outside, how will I relate the baby in our house to these moving bumps under my skin? Will I somehow instinctively know that it's the same entity? Or will it be a whole new thing? I suppose what I'm asking is whether we'll have a ready-forged connection, and I'm pretty sure the answer will mostly be No - because that's what the whole bonding thing is about. I suppose for its part, the baby will be more familiar with me - the sound of my voice, my smell, my heartbeat - than I am with it.

Bizarrely, I sort of feel like the whole "growing your own" aspect of the baby is less important, now that I've done it. Except for the genetic side of things, which is totally magical and I can't wait to find out about. I'd put money on a blue-eyed blond(e), but I suppose there's precedent for brown or even red hair and green eyes too. Somehow, I assume it'll take more after B. or my Mum than me and my Dad.

Maybe because of all my blonde cousins.

Head down and ready for the off

Oops, it's been a while. Like, five weeks, I suppose, since I'm 36 now, and officially 8 months pregnant. There were a few days back there when people were leading me to believe I wouldn't get this far, because I was having cramps and they sent me to the hospital and gave me an IV and put me on a monitor and said "Hmm, yes, you're having contractions", and officially what I was admitted for was "Pre-term labour"; but after a few hours they relented, gave me a jab, and let me go home. Mostly I was stressed because poor B. was back at work, from where I was meant to pick him up after my appointment because he hadn't cycled that day. So he had to get a taxi home. At no point did I really think I was about to drop a sprog.

The cramps continued on and off, and still do, but I'm flooding my system with water and they're much weaker these days. All in all I'm more comfortable than I was a few weeks ago, and sleeping better too, which is great. Every time something happens I think "This is it, now, it'll be this way till the end of the pregnancy", but then it wears off, and things are better again. I like that about it.

The good thing about that day was that I got to lie in a hospital bed in the labour and delivery area and find out what it's like to be hooked up to all the stuff. Which let me to understand that I really don't want an IV or continous monitoring while I"m in labour if I can help it, since it really does feel restrictive. It's all very well to say that you can move about because the IV's on wheels, but that just doesn't cut it. Also, I got felt up in the lady parts by three different people in quick succession, and am now officially without shame. And my lovely midwife ascertained that the baby was not only head down, but actually engaged, and my cervix was 50% effaced. And she said "Well, this baby's not going to be late, anyway."

Since that was two weeks ago now, who knows what's going on with my cervix at this stage. But the baby's still head down, because the doctor I saw this week, who didn't want to do a pelvic for whatever reason, ordered a sonogram to make sure the baby was where it's meant to be, which of course it was. So we got a couple more headshots for free.

Next week they'll do all the cultures and whatnot that they need to do, and then I'll be free to go into labour when ever I choose.

But not until the hurricane plan is written, some would say.

Glucose and blankets

31 weeks today.

The OB clinic is messing me around and has just postponed my appointment for the second time - meaning that even though I'm meant to go every two weeks now, the next time it'll have been a whole month since the last time. The trouble is that my midwife only works two days a week there, so chances of getting an appointment with her aren't so great - and that's not even allowing for those days when she's unavoidably delivering a baby just when my appointment was supposed to be. It doesn't seem very well organized. I can always see someone else, but she's the only midwife in the practice, so I don't particularly want to see one of the OBs instead, unless I was worried about something and felt the need to be checked out.

I wouldn't care, really, except that I still haven't done the damned gestational diabetes screening test, and the horrible glucose drink is burning a hole in the fridge waiting to be drunk an hour before I next go to the clinic.

In nicer news, the co-sleeper arrived on Friday and we had a lovely time setting it up (and then taking it down and stashing it away). It's perfect, though I'll need to buy some pretty blankets to cover up the paranoid safety warnings that adorn all sides of it. And the sheet has all these velcro bits as well as being a non-standard size, just so that you have to shell out another 15.00 for each extra one, instead of getting a cheap generic one. It's a scam, I tell you. (I'm still going to try a couple of generic ones to see if they'll work, because they could be a third the price.)

Big head, small package

29 weeks. Just so you know.

We had the second official ultrasound yesterday. To be honest, the unofficial one was by far the most exciting - back at 12 weeks the baby was baby-shaped and small enough to see all at once, and active. Yesterday, possibly as a result of all the kicking it had been doing in previous days and all the food it had been making me eat, it decided to sleep most of the day. When the picture came up, we got an ariel view of the head, and that was mostly it. We have a couple of head shots showing one eye, but neither of us can really work out the angle as it was explained to us. We saw an arm and a leg and the torso and the heart, and everything's in the right place and the right size, so that's great. But it didn't leave us with much of a sense of the Baby as Person. (I typed "Parson" there first. That would be interesting.)

In fact, even though I'm still small, the baby is measuring ahead of its dates - we were told that the due date according to size, or however they work this out, would be April 29. That's a little more than a week before the real due date. I'm hoping it's just a growth spurt and things will even out - I don't want a gigantor baby, and I really hope this isn't an indication that I have gestational diabetes. I'll be happier when I've finally done that screening test - next Wednesday - and hopefully ruled it out.

The tech was surprised that we didn't want to know the sex, and made us look away when she measured the femur, in case there was anything there to be seen. Then she said "So I'm the only person who'll know...". Heh. Later, when we got a quick shot of the legs as she swept the sensor over that side again, I sort of thought maybe I was seeing something, um, pokey; but I didn't look to hard. Still, I think I need to assume it's a boy, because I'm still not used to the notion that it might be, and I don't want to be disappointed on the day, if it is. And as the tech pointed out, not knowing will stop me from buying too much stuff, because there's a lot less gender-neutral stuff out there. This is a Very Good Point, as now that I've started buying clothes I'm slightly afraid I might lose the run of myself - and my credit card - altogether. It's all so cuuuute.

In other news, we bought a bed frame so that the bed will be at the right height for the co-sleeper to be attached to it. It feels very strange to be so far off the ground. And we booked a weekend in Austin at the start of April, in a nice B&B that doesn't take children. And thus, our child-free holidays will have their swan song.

Also, my hips have started to hurt in bed. It's very strange and distressing to me that I'm actually sort of relieved when it's time to get up, because by then I just can't get comfy. I think there will come a time when I get up and spend the last few hours of the night on the sofa, where I can sort of curl up and thus alleviate the pressure on my hip bones.

Send help. Cheese won't string. Also, math.

My string cheese won't string. It doesn't taste as nice if I have to eat it widthwise, like a banana. Have I lost the knack? How do children eat this stuff? Maybe I just got a dud this time; the last one I ate - my first ever - worked fine. I didn't know one had to watch out for fleecing by the string cheese people too. Life is hard.

This morning, in the especially deep sleep I often fall into directly after the alarm has gone off, when my brain is busy literally dreaming up excuses for me not to have to get up, I dreamt that we kept going places and forgetting to bring the baby. I'd whisper to someone beside me "Where's the baby?" and they'd say "At home, sleeping." And then I'd worry because you're not really supposed to leave them alone in the house, even if they're asleep. It seemed like a bit of an oversight.

Interestingly for my dream-gender tally, I don't know whether the baby this time was a boy or a girl. I suppose, since we kept leaving it behind, I never actually got to see it.

Ah yes, I remember what I was going to blog about. The fact that I've now been saying I'm six months pregnant for about a month. How can this be, you ask. It makes perfect sense. When I got to 24 weeks, I assumed that meant I was 6 months, because 4 weeks = 1 month. Except, they don't. And there's that pesky two weeks at the start of the pregnancy that they count though you're not really pregnant yet. This is why in the Girlfriend's Guide, she keeps reiterating that it's really ten months, not nine. Once you do some elementary division - and really, the multiples of ten make it so easy that why would you not? - you realise that 4 into 40 goes 10 times, not 9, so she must be right.

But next week, I really will be six months pregnant - according to the calendar and everything. In the sense that I'll have three months to go, and when I say it people can count up "February, March, April" and be right when they assume that the baby's due in early May.

What a wondrous thing is maths. Are maths. Math. Bah.

This also means that next week I'll be entering the much-maligned third trimester. What delights await me there?

Rumblicious

My tummy just rumbled, and it was somewhere under my left boob. It's all baby these days in my ex-tummy location. Sometimes I feel it move on opposite sides at the same time, as if it's stretching for a big yawn or checking the dimensions of its little home. I haven't managed to identify any body parts yet, mind you.

Bongos

I swear I just felt something long move in there, like an arm or a leg. And then I had a flash of an "Oh my God, it's really a baby."

But really, what's it doing when it feels like it's playing the bongos on my tummy? I'd pay real money to see what's going on in there. I suppose I just have to wait a few more weeks for my next ultrasound.

Good things

Back after Christmas, with a bigger tummy and lots more kicking. At my appointment on Monday I'd put on 8lbs in the whole pregnancy, which while still not a lot for this stage, does mean that in the last month I put on as much as in the previous almost-five combined. Anyway, judging by the amount of activity going on in there most of the time, everything's just hunky dory. And I've officially grown out of everything but real maternity gear.

So over the holidays I let my guard slip a little. I stopped being all optimistic about where we lived and when people asked how it was, I was more inclined to say "Well, it's a place to live, and we'll be moving soon" or something equally unflattering. Driving back from the airport on our return, all I could think was how alien it all was, still, after 18 months, and how really the only thing making us come back was the fact that all our stuff was here. Oh, and our jobs, I suppose. But there are good things too about here: I just have to dig a little deeper to find them.

Things I do appreciate about living here, in no particular order:

Mixer taps. It's not that they don't exist in Dublin, just not in the houses we were staying in. It makes washing your face a pain when one side of the sink has water a degree or two away from ice and the other is boiling and never the twain shall meet unless you actually go to the trouble of putting in the plug and filling the sink.

Warmth. I know the climate is a mixed blessing and I complain about the damned heat and the stupid lack of seasons, but it is nice to be able to walk around in a towel after your shower and not have to throw on the first clothes you can see because it's just too cold to linger in less than five layers.
Not living out of a suitcase. Having all my stuff and a place to put it. Which I suppose is how I define home these days.

Turtles. I saw one at lunchtime, in its natural habitat. Don't get that in Dublin in December.
Plentiful and cheap maternity wear. There's a lot more over here than there is at home, though I did well out of the sales over Christmas.

Our car. Driving my own car makes me feel like a grown up.

Better skin. I'd hardly been home a week when my cuticles were starting to shred and I was getting dry patches on my legs. I don't know if it's the humidity or the mildness here, but those are two things I don't have to worry about. (Of course, I have to weigh that against the better hair I always seem to have at home, but let us not speak of that.)

Martin Luther King day. Of course, there are more public holidays at home, but there isn't one next Monday. Nyah nyah.

So am I loving it?

I came up with this great entry in bed last night. Let’s see if I can remember any of it or if it was all the sort of crazy plan that makes perfect sense when you’re half asleep but then turns out to require zero-gravity and an infinite number of chinchillas once you’re awake.

A friend of mine – mother of two – told me in an e-mail when I announced I was pregnant, “I love being pregnant!” Which is a really lovely attitude. I was wondering yesterday how I feel about it so far. I’m not sure I’d go with love, even though I’m having a really (relatively) easy time of it to date. (Never mind the bladder infection I may or may not have. They should call today with a prescription if it turned out I need one.)

The thing is, my body is no longer my own. After thirty years, I was pretty good about picking up its cues, knowing what it needed and how far I could push it; but suddenly that’s all gone out the window. I can’t even tell when I need to go to the bathroom any more – I just find myself awake at 4am so I think “Oh well, may as well go to the loo,” and lo, a torrent comes gushing out of me that you’d really think I would have predicted was waiting in the wings. If I’m hungry at 6.30, I don’t know whether I really should eat something now or if that’ll mean I’m stuffed when dinner’s ready in half an hour. I might be starving again in half an hour. If I go for a walk at lunchtime and it turns out it was really quite warm, I’m afraid I might overheat, which is apparently a very bad thing. But how can I tell – I won’t know till I’m back from the walk and feeling woozy ten minutes after sitting at my desk.

So it’s all a bit confusing, really; and that's before you even get to the part about removing the baby from my ambivalent body. I’m thinking of looking into Lamaze classes. I had thought such things were a bit 80s and passe (I’m sure there’s a bit in When Harry Met Sally that makes me think this) but I’ve heard it’s available at the hospital, and it could be a good thing. My midwife agrees, and the notion of having something concrete that I know I should do when all around – and within - is going haywire, sounds comforting to me. I’m not naturally a very relaxed person – I think I am, but as soon as something happens that’s beyond my control I can easily frazzle up. Whenever I’ve had a massage, the masseuse always says “Relax.” “I am relaxed.” “No, you’re not. Look, you’re all tense.” The more I try, the harder it is, of course. I need to learn something that gives me an illusion of control, because knowing what I should be doing and doing it is what I need to get me through a situation fraught with so many other unknowns.

I was trying to explain it to B. the other day: “The thing is,” quoth I, “right now the notion of going into labour and giving birth is just as alien and impossible to assimilate for me as it would be if someone told you that you were going to do it instead.” He pointed out that at least my orifice was significantly bigger than any he has. Okay, so mechanically it’s more likely to be realistic for me, but psychologically, a lifetime of conditioning and expectation and planning notwithstanding, I’m clearly still in denial. I wonder does anyone really take it in till it’s happening?

Question-asking Girl

At my appointment yesterday, I was determined to be question-asking girl, instead of quietly-nodding-and-storing-information girl, which is what I normally am. (I maintain it all stems from my "children should be seen and not heard" upbringing; I never want to be any trouble, and I tend not to ask questions when I should. Unless I want to show off, of course, in which case I'm Little Miss Prove The Teacher Wrong.) Anyway. I began by asking the nurse who weighed me how much weight I'd put on. She looked at the chart and said "Two pounds." I was a bit horrified, but then realised she'd thought I meant since the last visit rather than for the whole pregnancy. She looked at the chart again: "Four pounds." Hmm. The books say I should be toting an extra ten pounds or so by now. I was unimpressed.

So a little later I asked my midwife if she was worried. She seemed to be happy enough that I'm gaining less than the suggested amount rather than going in the other direction and putting on 20 lbs in the first half of the pregnancy. She measured me and that's all okay, and we heard the heartbeat with no trouble (didn't have to go fishing around this time - it was right there at the top of my tummy), and I assured her that I always eat when I'm hungry and am definitely not denying myself, so all in all we think it's fine. But still, overacheiver that I am, I'd rather be having a perfectly by-the-book pregnancy.

I also mentioned the mild period-type cramps I'd been having - last Monday and again yesterday morning, and maybe now and then in between. She didn't say that was fine and dandy and perfectly normal; she did say that there was a trace of protein in my urine and she'd send it for analysis in case I have a bladder infection. If I do, she'll just phone me in an antibiotics prescription and I can get them before we go away this weekend and everything will be hunky dory. I'm not sure if I hope I do have the infection, for a nice simple solution to why I was aching, or if I'd rather not and just have indeterminate pain instead. Last time I was on antibiotics, the result (apart from curing my sore throat) was worse than the symptoms, if you know what I mean - if I have to take them again I'll be mainlining acidophilus along with them, put it that way.

But on the whole, it's always better to ask than to sit around wondering.

Conflict

My co-worker, who has had two boys and a girl, says the fact that I'm feeling movement this early means it's a boy.

My sister-in-law, who has had two girls and a boy - and is a nurse, to boot - says this means it's a girl.

Ants, rice, and jeans

Ants. Ants everywhere. (Though not in my pants.) On my desk and climbing into my water all day. If I leave some water in my cup overnight, in the morning there's a little raft of dead ants floating in it. Joy.

Mm. Individual pots of rice pudding make a tasty mid-morning snack for the pregnant lady. I had a burst of nostalgia for Ambrosia Creamed Rice in the supermarket the other day, and while not the same, what I found instead are a tolerable substitute. I'm a bit sick of yogurt. (I'm also starting to crave Muller yogurts and other decent food from home. Lucky it's only two more weeks till we go.)

I'm definitely growing out of my trousers now - I'm only just fitting in my fat jeans, with the belt on the last hole (where it has never been no matter how fat I was). I have a couple of pairs where the trousers always fit me on the hips and I had to take in the waist, so I'm hoping that letting out the waist in those will see me through a couple more weeks, but really there's no getting away from the fact that I have to go shopping. I saw some potentially nice, bootleg maternity jeans in Wal-Mart (all the ones in Target are straight-legged) the other day, so I'll go back there and try them on this weekend. If they fit, they're only $17 and have cute pink sequins on the back pockets, so they'd be nice for going out over Christmas. Also, at that price I wouldn't feel at all bad about buying a second pair later on. I really need some tops too, but the real maternity ones are still floating on me in a very unflattering way, so I think I need to invest in a few larger sized regular long-sleeved things. There's no getting away from it - I'm just going to have to spend money.

Fizzes and pops

Oh, I am awful at this updating thing. Sorry, O nameless entities who may be reading.

So here I am, 17 weeks yesterday, bump starting to appear, we've gone public to all and sundry, and I'm starting to feel these bizarre fizzes and pops that must be movement.

I still don't look pregnant to the untrained eye, but I'm convinced that I'm bigger in the evening than the morning. This morning I stood up straight and looked at my tummy-profile in the mirror, and I could pretty much smoosh it down with my hand to totally flat. And I had no problem fitting my trousers. But last night by dinner time I was going round with my top buttons undone and at bedtime I looked positively enormous in a very pregnant way. I think the baby must be standing upright at the start of the day, and decides to sit down with its feet up (and pointing straight out) in the evening. Much like its mother, then. I wonder has it rigged up a little sofa-and-telly combo in there? (Well I hope you're not watching the Sopranos like we are, Sonny. It's not suitable.)

The movement sensation is weird, and cool. It started a week or so ago, with a sort of fizzy-fuzzy sensation that was almost like being hungry, but not quite. I didn't really think about it till I read that the first movements can feel like your stomach rumbling. But the last evening or two, as well as that, I've felt a sort of thud or pop on the right of my adbomen, low down, which I think must be movement. In bed the night before last thought I could even feel it from the outside, but it was too random to go running back into the sitting room and make anyone else feel it. (Also, I was comfy in bed.) But as soon as I say anything about it, B has his ear to my tummy, as if he'll hear the baby singing to itself as it bobbles around. It's really quite endearing.

Apparently the baby's hearing gets "hooked up" this week and next, so any day now I'll have to decide whether we're growing a classical baby or one who's more into disco hits of the 80s and Sinatra standards. (I suspect it'll be the latter.)

And yes, we finally told the folks at home and everyone else here. Everyone displayed predictable levels of thrilledness or polite congratulations, as appropriate. My dad was the best - Mum put him on the phone for me to tell him myself. The conversation went like this:

Me: So, um, [thinking that somehow "I'm pregnant" is too clinical for my Dad] I'm having a baby. I mean, not right now; in May.
Dad: Oh, ooh, that's wonderful, congratulations, that's really great news. ... So, any other news? Any more hurricanes coming your way?

Clearly, thoughts of pregnancies are far from my father's experience these days, and he just had no idea what to say after the first burst of genuine enthusiasm. I got put back onto Mum at the first decent opportunity.

Baby by Cezanne

Last week, as threatened, I got a free ultrasound. It was great. I wanted to be sure before we started telling people that there really was a baby in there, and as I hadn't even heard the hearbeat at my 11-week midwife visit, I took advantage of the free ultrasounds the university offers to make sure everything still looked okay.

(Of course, apart from my office, we still haven't told anyone. This weekend my mother-in-law will be back from her oriental jaunt and we'll tell all the folks. Looking forward to that. Last Sunday Mum was regaling me with thrilling tales of the upcoming residents' committee meeting and saying "So, I'll fill you in on how it all goes next week." "Ha-hah", thought I, "we'll have something much more interesting to talk about next week.")

Anyway, the ultrasound. The woman on the phone when I booked it said "Drink a litre of water in the hour before", so like a good little patient, I tried my best. I drank three of the four mugsworth of water that I estimated to be about a litre, and then I had to stop because there was just no more room. When we got there I was practically hopping up and down as I filled in the form, so the lovely student who was in charge of me said "We'll just take a look and if it looks big enough to see I'll let you go to the bathroom." So I got all gooed up with nice warm gloopy stuff on my tummy and she took a look.

There, under the bulging, bobbing black blob of my bladder, was a baby. No longer just a pea-sized blip, this was an actual baby shape. Cool. Then the teacher came over, had a look, and decided she could let me go to the loo. Ah, the relief. I tried to only go partway, but really, once it started there was no stopping. I went back to get re-gooped up, and this time the view was definitely fuzzier, lacking the intervening liquid that helps define things (somehow; I really have a very vague idea how it works but I don't feel the need to think about it too hard). It was like looking at an impressionist painting too close up - you sort of had to squint and half look away before you got an fleeting idea of what you might be seeing. (I was slightly annoyed on behalf of our lovely student at this point, becuase the teacher came back, looked at the fuzz for a minute and then said "Hmm. You shouldn't have let her empty her bladder." On the other hand, if the silly lady on the phone had just said half a litre, or a slightly full bladder, then things would have been clearer. I'll know next time.)

As we watched the snowy image we realised that the baby, which had been head-down before, had flipped over while I went to the loo and was now upright. As we watched, he (/she/it; we said "he" at the time just as a shorthand, because "it" is just too impersonal)sort of wiggled, and stretched his limbs, and jumped up and down a couple of times, as if having a whole-body hiccup. It was amazing, and hilarious. Then he put his hand up to his mouth (probably sucked his thumb, if he takes after his mother) and faced forward and down, as if to say "Okay, show's over. Bye now."

It was sooo coool. Really. We were all giggly and elated afterwards, I think because it was so different from the previous ultrasound where there really had just been a peanut-shaped blob that turned out not even to be the baby but the sac the baby was in. This wasn't a raspberry, or a goldfish, this was an actual baby, all baby-shaped and moving cutely.

New shoes

Yay, I have new shoes. Also, I told my boss I'm pregnant.

But, anyway, shoes. They're not very thrilling to look at, being much the same as the old ones but with the undeniable advantage of not being seven years old, but they're comfy, and I can walk in them (I haven't tested them on a long distance yet, but so far so good), and they're about half an inch higher than the old ones, which makes me feel just that little bit sassier.

Today I'm officially twelve weeks pregnant. And feeling just a tiny bit queasy to mark the occasion. Boss took the news very well, and says I'm not to be giving him absence forms to sign for an hour off here and there - that I should only take sick leave if I need a half day or more. So that's fine by me.

Midwives and girly girls

Gosh, it's been ages. Sorry. Still pregnant, just lazy. Still hungry, not really nauseated much. All good, I hope.

I finally met the midwife on Monday, and she's lovely, and exactly what I wanted. Which is a great relief. I had to wait because at the time of my appointment she was at the hospital delivering her sixth baby of the day, but they called her and she said she could come over if I would hang around a bit. So I did my best to ignore the tummy rumbles and wished I'd thought to bring a wee snack, and eventually she showed up and all was fine. She's very much the midwife school of "childbirth is a perfectly natural process that your body is built for, and women have been doing it for thousands of years" rather than having the OB viewpoint of birth as a surgical procedure. She announced, "I don't like sewing," which was her way of telling me that she won't give me an episiotomy and will try to avoid my tearing at all. I likes the sound of that. But it's still a hospital birth and I can have an epidural if I want one. At the next visit, I'll ask her about rooming-in and lactation consultants and the like. I might even bring yer man, because it occurred to me that it would be nice if he met her at some time before I'm spreadeagled in a hospital with an alien trying to get out of me.

Next Monday marks the end of the twelfth week, as far as I'm concerned. (The doctors have me a few days behind my own calculations, as the seven-week sonogram measured small.) Which should mean we can tell people. We're going to hold off telling them at home for a little longer, mostly due to logistics and people we want to tell first being in Vietnam just now, but I might tell them at work next week. Mostly becuase I keep sodding off early for this and that and it's very unlike me. And last time I tried to submit a sick-leave notification for the three-quarters of an hour I took off to get to my OB appointment, my boss said "Point seven five of an hour? Pah. Don't waste my ink," and pot-shotted it into his bin. Which was very sweet, but I don't really want him to think I'm taking advantage - and I'm clearly not sick. Also, one of the advantages to working in a university that has a lot of medical-type students is that I can get a free ultrasound any time I like. So I've booked one for next Tuesday, just to make ultra sure that everything's going on as it should before we tell the famblies and my parents go into madly excited grandparent mode. (And they will be. I'm an only child. Of older parents. The heir is much anticipated but they've been very good and never mention it. Well, just the once.) On the other side, it's the eighth grandchild so not so much of a ruckus, except everyone will still be excited that their baby brother is grown up enough to produce one of his own.

So I might tell my boss next week, before I sod off early once more. It seems only fair, even if perhaps it's a bit odd to tell one's boss that one is pregnant before telling one's parents. But I have already told my best friend, because I am after all a girly girl.

Blurg. Rumble.

Blurgh. No, wait. Rumble. I'm either slightly nauseous or ravenously hungry, it seems. With the odd interlude of something that might be indigestion. (I stocked up on Tums, but of course they're at home and I'm at work.) The stash in the second drawer of my desk is taking on epic proportions - at least for me, who never eats between meals and never kept more than a packet of chewing gum to hand for emergencies. I have a small arsenal of crackers, two cereal bars, a banana, a yogurt, oh, and some more crackers. I've already eaten lunch. And some crackers.

Oh, in older news, the sonogram was all fine. The nice technician said I was measuring exactly seven weeks, which was fine with me - a later due date is better for not-being-induced-too-early purposes. It was swimming around more like a raspberry than a goldfish, which is to say, not much. But we could see the heartbeat pulsating away, though it was too small to hear, and that was the main thing. And today (by my count) we're at nine weeks down. Which is all good.

Raspberry goldfish

Eep! My sonogram is this afternoon. (A sonogram's the same as an ultrasound - we looked it up. But for some reason they keep saying sonogram at the doctor's.) I really hope the raspberry-sized item measures at exactly seven and a half weeks, so I can roll my eyes and say "I told you so" to anyone around. And that, y'know, we hear a heartbeat - just the one, thanks - and all that. And see a little goldfish swimming in there, or something.

I suspect I might be coming up to the constantly ravenous part of the pregnancy. I was starving by 5.30 last night and was forced to have a gourmet chicken club whatnot in McD's, because I was stuck in Evil Wal-Mart getting my pre-natal vitamins prescription and ordering my new glasses (ooh). And now it's barely 10 am and I'm guzzling my lunchtime yogurt.