It just occurred to me that this Friday is the 13th, and I was thinking, if this baby takes after its dad (he loves horror movies) or somehow absorbed the info that our favorite bar in San Francisco was called "Lucky 13," maybe we'll see some action then?
"Jason Voorhees Chesney/House" has a nice ring to it, no?
Last night I had my first really vivid dream about the baby, and it was once again a boy. It looked normal and healthy and I recall noting it had eye color like mine, only a lighter, more aqua color.
The midwife today asked me what I thought it was and I mentioned the dream, and she said she thought it was a boy too. I told her lots of people said that because of how I was carrying it, but she said she thinks dreams are even better indicators.
Do with that information what you will. :)
...the baby registry is pretty much at 100% complete, so feel free to use it at will. And thank you to a few of you who have seen fit to purchase certain items already -- it's been like Christmas in July!
In related news, we are having one more baby shower on July 24th, and I'm looking forward to it. Mom and I have spent several days coming up with ideas for favors and food. I've unwittingly uncovered a surprise guest or two, I'll be meeting some new colleagues from my upcoming job, and Steve's mom and step-dad will be in attendance too! I'm so excited to see everyone!
...other than that I'm in CT. The road trip proved to be pleasantly uneventful and totally manageable.
I have my first Connecticut OB appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday; the first to check in and transfer records, the second for my 34 week check up. I'll continue weekly after that.
Other than that, it's hot and humid (and right now I don't mind the humidity, as previously stated when complaining about the dry!) and I'm just trying to keep cool and wait for my dear husband to make the journey too.
Some of you may have already noticed the new box on the side of the blog that says "baby registry." It's a work in progress but I figured I would finally set one up. My mom arrives back in town on Friday and she, Steve, and I plan to go to a Babies R Us in person on Saturday to actually see and test a few of the products (like cribs and strollers and car seats and so forth) and then update the registry more thoroughly; given time constraints the updating itself might take another week until Mom and I arrive in Connecticut.
In any case, it's there if you want to keep an eye on it!
Steve and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary yesterday on June 12; the traditional gift is cotton. I believe we'll be getting a boat-load of that on behalf of Acorn! So instead we spent 8 hours waiting for Packrats to drop off our storage container (they told us between 8am-12pm and got there at 4pm) and then got ourselves a really, really nice dinner at our favorite fine-dining place and treated ourselves to a movie at home. My 31st birthday is on Tuesday the 15th and then the 6-year anniversary of our first date is on Wednesday the 16th. This is always a special week, and we used to joke that we were going to time it so our children were born on the 13th and 14th so Steve could have just one week a year where he had to remember stuff. :)
My last Colorado OB appt will be the 22nd, Mom will fly out around the 25th, Packrats will pick up the storage container on the 27th and Mom and I will start our road trip back East, and then our lease is up on the 30th and Steve will officially 'live' in Laramie, WY until his job is complete. By the 4th of July weekend, all of our residential ties to Colorado will have been cut!
This morning Steve woke up before I did and decided to read a few chapters in a book a friend got us entitled " Pregnancy Sucks: For Men." Pithy title aside, it is meant to take the flowery prose out of pregnancy books and replace it with cold hard realism, in this case for dads. Each chapter describes what he can expect to be feeling, what he can expect to be dealing with by virtue of what I'm dealing with, various tips about how to prepare for the baby, and of course what the baby's up to in there month to month. One thing that I like about these books is that pretty much every single one so far has been written by someone (or by a man married to someone) whose pregnancy has been about 75% worse than my own. Such information serves the dual purpose of making me feel good and reminding my husband how easy he really does have it. :)
I don't know WHAT this book did for him -- maybe it was the sheer power of normalizing our situation or helping him feel more prepared or involved or maybe he did see how easy he has it -- but the man came downstairs an hour later and asked me if I wanted a foot rub. Then later he asked me if there was anything he needed to be buying for me, pregnancy-wise. (I did allow him to buy me a new pair of sandals.) He volunteered to go grocery shopping and the first thing he asked me is if we needed any ice cream. When I got home from that stupid walk pale and panting, he filled up a glass of water for me without being asked and then he ran right out and got me that slurpee.
If they sell a book entitled "The First 3 Years of Child-Rearing Sucks: For Men," you know I'll be the first in line to get it!
According to my supervisor, this chart (mouse over for link) has been accurate for all the people she's known who have been pregnant, with only one exception. It's based on mother's age at the time of birth and the month in which the baby was conceived.
My own evaluation of it has it right for me, my brother, and Pete & Allie's baby Sophia, but not right for Steve...hmmm.
In any case, its prediction (I'll be 31, and we conceived in November) is that Acorn is a girl!
...means we're past the half-way point. Put on your helmets people, only 19 weeks to go, give or take.
So the flutterings of many weeks ago were a false alarm -- merely butterflies. About a week and a half ago I felt an odd sensation -- not a muscle spasm, not a butterfly, not a gas bubble or borborygmus -- just like someone took their pinky finger and poked at a muscle. Only from the inside of my uterus. Whoa! These sensations have continued intermittently over the many days that followed, and I can now confidently say Acorn is trying out his/her new limbs. It's very odd and kind of amusing. Steve has even been able to feel it a couple times.
Only, if one ascribes any meaning to the timing of these occurrences, then Acorn is a NERD.
First time I felt it I was playing World of Warcraft, a nerdy online multiplayer game that has turned about 10 million people worldwide into nerds.
A lot of activity while watching A Beautiful Mind, a movie about famous mathematician John Nash.
A lot of activity while watching the X-men Wolverine movie.
And a lot of activity while a family of six sang *terrible* karaoke on Piet's Pier while I waited for Steve to get back from a night dive.
Let's see, computer games + mathematics + a movie based on a comic book + karaoke = NERD.
But was there every any doubt of that? Really?
(Shut up, Fred.)
...I just want to say that my student insurance plan covers pretty much NOTHING about maternity and it sucks. I'm even going to double check that labor is properly covered, because if they won't pay for barely any lab fees, I can only imagine how much they'd like to dodge that cost. And *all* insurance plans available for purchase by an individual in the state of Colorado treat pregnancy as a "pre-existing condition." It's unconscionable.
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.
Four people close to me (and several more who were not, but whom I found out about) have had miscarriages in the last year. Put another way, in the last year I have known more women who have had miscarriages than successful pregnancies. The old statistic was that 20% of women will have miscarriages; now they're surmising that it's more like 40%. Had we not been to the doctor this week who told us our chances were at 3-5% now that we've seen a heartbeat, I probably would not even be writing this blog.
I have two to three more weeks to go before our chances drop down to less than 1%, and I just want to acknowledge that this blog is not intended to tempt fate. Let's call it an act of optimism and hope and leave it at that. And if you happen to be reading this blog and have had a miscarriage, please know how truly sorry I am for your loss.
I'd been referring to it as my alien overlord, but that was simply too long to say every time. So we were trying to come up with names. Acorn just came to me one night as I was falling asleep. I murmured it to S., and he murmured back his assent. There you have it.
At close to 10 weeks of pregnancy, I'm feeling just this side of comfortable enough to start blogging about the process. Hope you're feeling just this side of comfortable enough to read about it.