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! :)

The emotional process, weeks 3-12

In a nutshell (oh what a delightfully awful pun! Acorn, you're in trouble if you're not a word nerd!), my emotions over this first trimester have been intentionally controlled. As I mentioned in an earlier post, many dear friends have had miscarriages, and the first trimester is the highest risk for that to happen. So when we found out, the emotional clamp came out. I refused to be super excited, or super stressed, or super planny, or super you-name-it-I-was-not. I was not going to get attached to this pregnancy until the pregnancy attached to me.
That doesn't mean that the emotions don't sneak out from time to time; the hormones take away a lot of my say in that. While driving with a car full of family over Christmas, I played a song for them off of my ipod that I liked, and stunned myself by very nearly crying over it (Fireflies, by Owl City, in case you're curious). A few weeks ago, after a very early, very long day at my internship, S. teased me when he got home about lying like a lump on the couch, and I told him in very short and direct terms with absolutely no mischief in my voice just exactly where he could stick it. (Oops. I apologized later, after he acknowledged the insensitivity of the joke and I acknowledged the abrupt swell of my irritation.) Mostly though, it's Cool Hand Luke all day every day.
We have our 12 week appointment on Wednesday, and if they say it's okay to breathe, then I am intentionally unclamping. I'm ready to be excited, a little stressed, a lot more planny. I'm ready for the bump, the first kick, even the heartburn and the back aches, the list of names, deciding whether or not to learn the gender, picking the birthing method, and so on. I'm ready to swallow this experience whole (along with whatever food may be in the vicinity) and to have full emotions to go along with the ever fuller figure. I'm ready!

A note about updates

Last night I was asked why I was not updating daily.
Daily updates? Is anyone that interested?? (Okay, I know the person who asked is!)
While the point of this blog is to keep everyone updated, I do try -- try -- to keep it remotely interesting. So if time passes without comment, it's only because nothing new or significant has come up.
As a graduate student, I might also be up to my eyeballs in school work, though more than likely I'll be more inspired to write on this blog when I have work I don't feel like doing. :)
And lastly...S. may also end up writing some updates on here as well. While obviously it is the natural order of things, it bothers me that pregnancy is so much about mothers and the fathers get little forum for discussion (let's not even launch into non-traditional couples -- other mothers or dual fathers probably have even more to say on the topic!). It bothers me that it's only my name on the account at the OB's office; as a committed couple who have both attended all the appointments, shouldn't it say both of our names? It bothers me that the "father chapter" in The Book basically boils down to "support your woman in every possible way, have the patience of a saint, and make sure to do all the cleaning." Really? Nothing about the emotional process of becoming a dad? Nothing about how to handle helplessness or fear besides holding your woman's hair while she vomits and being tough for her sake?
So this will be an equal opportunity blog, written by the parents of acorn whensoever S. chooses to do so.

News to me

I finally stumbled across something I had not already read in The Book or heard about by word of mouth: sinusitis. According to the RN we had a consultation with a week ago, pregnant women are prone to sinusitis. I had been noticing a runny nose during the day and a stuffed nose at night (I was mouth-breathing so fully my tongue was dessicated every morning) and hearing that it was not just Colorado's ridiculously dry climate was a relief. However, Colorado's dry climate is not helping!
Over the weekend we visited some friends in Seattle and I could not get over how much better I felt -- less thirst, better sleep, some added energy. It made me aware that while pregnancy thirst is common and noticeable, Colorado Pregnancy Thirst is a beast of its own. So on Wednesday I bought the recommended warm mist humidifier and my nights have gotten distinctly more pleasant. I still have to work at drinking as much water as I can stand (I'm a big fan of lemonade these days and am trying out crystal lite to help throw in a little variety) but at least I can keep my mouth closed when I sleep!