Putting the 'flutter' in Butterfly

I believe that young master or mistress Acorn Thrasher Butterfly is making his/her presence known. I'm just shy of 15 weeks so it should be just a teensy bit too early for me to feel the babe at play, but twice today I've gotten butterflies in my stomach that were completely unrelated to anything going on around me. I've had the occasional, brief flutter over the last week or so, but nothing I would have really put stock in, until now. Perhaps the Olympics (though winter) are inspiring Acorn to get his/her butterfly stroke on??

Pregnancy Brain

For the uninitiated, "pregnancy brain" refers to the sudden onset of spaciness, forgetfulness, and general lack of organization that occurs when one is pregnant.
Oh, it's real. I thought it would take a few trimesters to kick in. Not so.
Those little details...they slip through the fingers so easily! I had no idea how organized and detail-oriented I was until I stopped being that way, and everyone noticed. My supervisor. Steve. A few of my friends.
Steve looked it up and supposedly it's due to lack of sleep. I've been sleeping really well -- being careful to get no less than 8 hours, aiming more often for 9-10. In fact, 10 seemed to be the perfect number for me to feel good the next day, so I was hitting the sack pretty darn early. A lot.
I think it's just pure distraction. One can't help but have one's thoughts turned either inward, evaluating one's physical sensations and needs, or turned to the future: will the baby be healthy? What gender? What will our lives be like? And so forth.
Whatever the reason, oy! It hit me hard. Perhaps now that I'm getting my energy back it will lighten up a bit as I have more resources to draw from...

Beats, Birds and Breakage

Yesterday began with rousing from a semi-restful snooze on our recently reassembled waterbed. After adjusting to the oddness of having to actually climb out of bed I called in to my soon-to-be former workplace and let them know that I would be taking the morning off to attend an important appointment with E. As usual, their response was bafflingly obtuse and I was left shaking my head in wonderment at how insane this job had nearly made me. We went to the ob-gyn and a few moments later I heard the most stupendously beautiful sound; Acorn's heartbeat. My natural response, "I must record this!", was patiently tolerated by the women in the room.

We returned home, E. took off to her internship and I tried to figure out my daily "mix" of job searching, errands, staring at the wall, messing with the dog, exercising and cooking. I decided to go browsing at a local pawn shop. While they had some tools I had been craving they were really beaten up and missing parts, so I passed and reassured myself that the tools I had were enough. On the way home the Beetle's clutch cable broke. For those readers who don't speak "Gearhead", a clutch cable breaking is one of the least frequent car problems, on the order of once every 150,000 miles. You'll probably wear out your engine before your clutch cable breaks. Since I am overly cautious when it comes to 37- year-old-vehicle maintenance I had picked up a spare clutch cable and accelerator cable a few months back. The cable broke about three blocks from my house, on a slight incline. After pushing the car out of traffic and up a slight rise (note, this is incredibly tiring even at sea-level), I was sitting and gasping for breath when a guy pulled up in his expensive SUV and offered to help. I thanked him and said I could use a tow for a few blocks. He forced an uncomfortable smile and stammered that he didn't have the time, he had to go skiing, and good luck. Ooooookaaaayy.... thanks for stopping, brother. I started the engine, turned the car around manually, coasted down the incline I had just pushed the car up and popped it into first gear, no clutch. Got home without having to stop and sighed with gratitude at my amazingly good bad fortune.

A few hours later as I was fixing the car I heard a great commotion of crow-noise outside. It went on for many minutes so I went to see what the issue was, expecting a bird of prey or dog or similar. I found a crow in a bush in our front yard that seemed very disoriented, unable to fly or even hold on to the bush. Its murder had been making all the noise, and quieted after I came back out to collect the injured bird. Wary of Avian flu and West Nile virus, I kept the crow in an empty trash bin with a lid and contacted animal control. They came by about an our later to pick up the crow who was still alive and very disoriented. The guy reassured me that there was nothing to worry about.

12 weeks, 2 days, and many more to come

Just a quick post to say: we went to the OB today and...heard the heartbeat!! Acorn's heart was 160 beats per minute. We are officially in the less-than-1%-extremely-rare range for miscarriages. Although the ultrasound felt pretty unreal, that heartbeat...that heartbeat was visceral. I felt a little weepy and ended up giggling as the OB patiently held the dopler in place while S. fiddled with his MP3 player (which has a recording feature). S. did get a recording of it, which with any technological savvy, we may be able to post on this blog at some point.
Our little one is a lover and a fighter. Look out world! :)