Lucky Thirteen

My "baby" has started kicking me! Of course, that "baby" does not have
all its bones yet, so maybe it's just mad about that.

I can't feel anything; it's still too small to notice. I was going to start paying attention during savasana in yoga class last night, but my splitting headache made me stay home and pamper it with a bath and tea and a documentary about Pete Seeger. It still was not satisfied, however, and was being a stompy diva when I went to bed at 9:30. I ended up dreaming about seeking out headache treatments. And boobs. Don't know what the second part was about. Maybe it was Pete's dream.

The book also says that the fetus may already be sucking its thumb.
Bad habits at -6 months. What am I going to do with this thing?

Shopping

I posted this one on kittywhumpus and on vox, but it's relevant to the fetus. Heck, pretty much everything is.

*sigh*

Do my boobs make me look fat?

You don't have to answer that. I know that they do.

I am still wearing most of my regular clothes, though I have definitely put on a few pounds and not all my pants are entirely comfortable. Still, the main problem is that, well, my boobs are disproportionately large, and they make me look bigger all over than I am.

It's hard to tell if I am getting any sort of "baby bump," a term I dislike because it's all over the tabloids due to the aforementioned knocked-up celebrities who I am merely copying in my reproductive aspirations. Any "baby"-related abdominal evidence is probably still hidden under the extra flab I was already carrying. Though this is the time to start looking for it, and also the time to begin the futile fight against stretch marks, which my clinical book tells me there is nothing you can do about, and which my other books still insist on saying can be treated with creams.

I went ahead and made one figuring that it can't hurt, and since I made it, I know what's in it. It's a mix of cocoa butter, wheat germ oil, light sesame oil, apricot kernal oil, vitamin E oil, beeswax, and vanilla. It's a pleasing buckskin color, it smells nice and nutty, and it absorbs well. Plus, I could eat it, and nothing bad would happen to me. Not that I am planning on that, but it's astounding the kind of crap that is put into beauty products and is therefore absorbed into your skin. I am figuring the fetus does not need any petroleum byproducts or hormone-confusing chemicals.

My own hormones are quite enough, thank you very much.

And thank goodness, again, for maternity style for juniors. I can get inexpensive shirts that I will be able to wear for a few more months. Of course, they are all size large so they can fit over my maternity mammaries.

Headaches

The latest thing is headaches.
I am prone to them anyway, but now my treatment options are limited to Tylenol. This plus the fact that I tend to need more medication than the average bear--or cow--has made it difficult to get rid of these cranial menaces.

I have gotten one headache a weekend for the past month, but now, my Sunday headache has hung around a bit, making reappearances yesterday and today. Right now, in fact. I should probably fill up my water bottle and perhaps take a walk, but the Tired tends to spurn all hope of exercise.

Tylenol does not work, and I really don't want to be taking medications, anyway. These headaches are persistent; I guess the little bugger is beginning to flex and kick, and though I can't feel it, maybe it is somehow kicking my frontal lobe, metaphorically. All I can think about at the moment is "bath and bed."

It's 1:30 in the afternoon.

Halfling Food

They tell you that you might get nauseous. They tell you that you will gain weight. They tell you to eat good food.

No one told me I would be eating like a hobbit.

Not in quantity, but in frequency.

I noticed it a few days ago at work. I get up between 6 and 6:30 in the morning, and I eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast. This is very exciting to Fritz, the oldest cat, as I have switched from rice milk back to cow milk, and he apparently loves cow milk. I eat my cereal and Fritz waits for the bowl with the milk dregs. I say "waits" when I really mean "prowls and yells."

I bring lots of bits and pieces of foods with me to work. Peanut butter and jelly. Crackers. Fruit. String cheese. Hard boiled eggs. Leftovers. Pie. It was on a Pie Day that I noticed my hobbity eating habits. I was sitting at my desk and feeling very hungry. I ate a small piece of pie. It was 9:00.

Second breakfast.

For Elevenses, I had half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Luncheon was chicken corn soup.
Tea: more pie.
Dinner was a banana and some crackers.
Supper was tacos. (Inspiration came to me out of the ether while sitting at my desk.)

It's not that I am eating heaps of food, but I am eating more often. The hobbity habit helps to keep down the nausea.

It's a good thing I am not traveling to Rivendell with Aragorn. They didn't get second breakfast.

I want pie.

I just want to clean the house.

Is that so wrong?



12 weeks today and the end of the first trimester. Here's to hoping that it's also the end of the extreme exhaustion so that I can start getting things DONE again! The house is messy, and I want to try out the new vacuum. We bought it weeks ago, I finally got it out of the box a week ago, and it's almost assembled. It's just sitting there on the messy rug, waiting.

What really amuses me is that it's a "Healthy Home" vacuum and was recommended in one of my "green" baby books. It's supposed to be all about healthy air, and yet it comes with two dust mite killing agents, one a powder and one a liquid, that you are supposed to use. How is putting something with a poison symbol onto your rug good for you? From what I have read, its active ingredient is approved for use in foods by the FDA, but other sources say that it's only really necessary if kids who have dust mite allergies are playing on the rugs or carpets. As people with asthma or allergies are not supposed to use the product and are supposed to stay out of the room for three hours after it is applied, I am just going to say "No thanks" and take it to hazardous waste.

Tannic acid, found in tea among other things, has anti-bacterial, anti-enzymatic, and astringent properties, and can be used to kill dust mites as well. It is supposed to be used sparingly, however, because it can slow down the absorption of iron. I might look for some of that and try it out. Do I clean the rugs with black tea?

All this to say that at this point, I am hoping this 3-inch long, four-fifths of an ounce little bugger will let me get off the couch and rejoin society a little bit. To help jump start that, I went to yoga for the first time in months, and it was really hard. I am glad that I went, though, and I plan on going every Thursday. Kira is a really good teacher, and she can help me to modify poses as things start to get in the way. I find it amusing that the fetus' head is nearly half the size it's entire body. Good thing it does not stay that way, but as Pete and I both have big heads, I don't know how much it will change. We also have fingernails and toenails, people, and it's starting to get a more "baby-ish" appearance.

And look, it's already praying to Jesus!

How adorable.

Test Results

Screen negative

Down Syndrome: 1-470
Age: 1-89
Cut-off: 1-220

Trisomy 18: 1-10,000
Age only: 1-310
Cut-off: 1-100

83% accurate. No further testing indicated.

Well, at least, not for now. Between weeks 15-18, I can have a blood test looking for spina bifida and encephaly, which I am sure I will do. Don't want to miss any chances to have blood taken out of my arm.

A translation of the above numbers is that the chance of this fetus having Down Syndrome is 1-470. If you were to calculate the chance based on my age alone (old, old, old), that number would be 1-89, but the tests at the ultrasound brought that number up well above the cut-off of 1-220. Any number below the cut-off would require continuing for CVS testing, which is invasive. Same goes for the Trisomy 18 numbers. It's good news, and tomorrow is the end of my first trimester, so we can tell everyone now. Pete gets to make his phone calls after work.

I'm happy that we can spread The News now. And I am braced for the attention it will bring.

I hope he doesn't try to put me on the phone...

Domestic Surveillance Program

This is my uterus on surveillance:

I don't think this is the kind of thing for which the Bush Administration is seeking approval, but just in case they are interested, that's what's going on down there.

Yesterday morning, Pete and I went in for First Trimester Screening and Ultrasound. Pete was observing and did not need screening, although he might be in his first trimester as well, judging by the aforementioned moodswings. We got a look at the little bugger for the first time, but it wasn't just for fun. In fact, it's mostly business. Because I am going to be 38 years old, this is termed an "elderly" and "high risk" pregnancy. I have no chronic medical conditions, I am on no medications, all my 13 tests so far have deemed me to be a healthy individual, but I am old, so this is high risk behavior.

The ultrasound technician was taking measurements of the skin a region under the skin behind the fetus's neck. It's called the "nucal translucency test," and in combination with a maternal blood screening, these testes tell whether or not the fetus has an increased risk of Down syndrome and Trisomy 18. I could also help detect certain heart defects or skeletal problems.

I understood what was going to happen before I went in, but they succeeded in thoroughly confusing me with the process in the clinic. We went in first for the ultrasound, and I had trouble with the technician's accent. She took the measurements and the pictures, and then she said something about a doctor having to sign off, but the doctor would not be in until 9, and that they had tried to reschedule this appointment. None of that made sense to me. She said I might have to come back upstairs after going downstairs. She gave me two sheets of paper to take to the lab and told me it was on Level C. She did not tell me why I was going to the lab. I knew that I needed to have blood drawn, and I suppose I could have made the connection, but she was also talking about the tests she was doing related to the ultrasound. Not to mention that the building was divided into numbered floors, and "C" is not a number.

It was 8:00 on a Monday morning. I guess I needed more clarity.

We went downstairs, to "Level C" which meant "Concourse," and which would have made sense to me, and I handed the woman at the Lab desk the two sheets of paper. She told me to sit down. I did, and I finally figured out that those papers were related to the blood test. They did not say that in layperson terms.

I don't really mind having blood drawn. I don't watch when they put the needle in, but it's not such a bad thing overall.

This time, it hurt. It hurt the entire time. I don't think she did it very well. But I had better get used to discomfort, after all. That's what the first and third trimester are all about, after all. Not to mention that I hear labor can be a tad uncomfortable, too.

It's nice to have a visual. It does make it more real, and after The Scare, it's nice to have visual as well as aural confirmation of its existence, if the exhaustion, sore boobs, queasiness, and weight gain were not enough.

They gave us our screen captures in an envelope. I did not notice until I got them out later that the envelope was decorated with this:


Dear lord, the cuteness starts.

I can tell you one thing: I don't think I would need all these blood tests and internal images if the stork were responsible for this.

Cake & Pie

I have been watching a lot of Friends DVD's. They comfort me and keep me company. Pete has been good about it. So far, all he has said is "I can't believe you don't get sick of these."

The thing is, those people eat a lot of muffins and cakes on that show. I probably would not have noticed it were it not for the fetus, but now, it's all I can see. Chandler just licked Monica's muffin. Oh, look, they have a cake for the nice caretaker man, and Ross has icing all over his face.

Cake. I want cake.

Luckily, I am resourceful and I tend to have a reasonably stocked pantry. This evening, while Pete was getting ready to go out (I am not fun anymore. At least not past 8:00), I broke out the paperback Betty Crocker Cookbook and went trolling for a chocolate cake I could make without having to leave the house to buy ingredients.

I found one that did not require milk or eggs, incredibly, and that you just mix up in the baking pan and shove into the oven. It turned out pretty good, and now I have a double chocolate cake. I don't need much, really, it's about the taste. Sometime on Sunday, I needed lemon sponge pie, like my grandmother makes. I have no idea why. But I bought the ingredients, and they are just waiting to be assembled.

Haven't made one of those in over a decade, I bet.

It's going to be GOOD.

News

Once you reach a certain age, "news" starts to mean something.

If you are single and in your twenties or thirties, it's usually an engagement. If you are in a relationship, it's usually a baby. Or, at least, that is what people expect. You have to watch how you throw around the phrase "We/I have news!" It could be that you got a new job. It could be that you are moving into a new house. Maybe you sold a song or a story. But if the audience wants babies, then anything else is going to be a disappointment, and you can see that disappointment crush the initial excitement and then witness the painful recovery. "Oh. Oh! Oh, that's great!"

When I am trying to keep something to myself, I have to hope that I am not asked any direct questions, or it's all over. I won't be able to think of a plausible lie, and the truth will come out after some awkward verbal stumbling. It happened when Kira offered me wine on Liza's Birthday, and I answered "I can't" instead of "No, thanks." It happened again at work yesterday.

Originally, I was intending to wait until the end of my first trimester and the results of the screening test to tell work. Then, after The Scare and having to call in "sick," I was thinking that I would tell my coworkers so I could explain my absence, in case something like that happened again. Once I got back, though, no one posed any questions that I could not get around and I was feeling more comfortable that things were, at least for the moment, stable. It did not happen until Friday when we sat down for a meeting and one of them asked "So were you on vacation earlier in the week?" I said "No, I was on the couch for four days."

"What did you have?"

Silence.

I thought about it for a second, and decided that there was no better time than the present, and I told them what had happened and what was happening. I had been worrying since I found out that I was pregnant because I had just accepted this job and would be starting with this big secret that would take me out of the office in a few months for an unspecified period of time. I felt bad about it, like it was a professional betrayal.

They were all happy and excited, though. No one had a noticeable outward moment of "Nice, so you'll only be working until September?" All in all, it was actually a relief, and now I don't have to be vague if I have to be out of the office for appointments or anything else. It will be even better when we can broadcast the news, and tell everyone.

I am looking forward to that.

11 weeks

I don't have a picture for 11 weeks. I guess the book did not feel that there was enough happening to warrant an illustration. You can refer to the ten week picture, I guess, make it a little bigger, call it a "Fetus" instead of an "Embryo," and imagine that it is developing recognizable external reproductive organs.

Adult Fun

Pete and I went out last night for a Valentine's Day dinner. It was the longest consecutive string of hours I have spent not in pajamas for a month. We had made reservations at a local restaurant called "Heartland" about which I had heard very good things. They focus on using locally-sourced ingredients, prepared in interesting ways, and I figured that a special occasion was a good time to patronize it.

We made our reservations early because I get sleepy at 8:00, and I even put on a skirt and my new boots. I felt very wide and large, but Pete said I looked nice, and that's what matters. Pete was very handsome in his blue shirt and clean-shaven face. It was nice to play grown up and indulge in about the only adult fun that is allowed for me at the moment.

And the food? The food was excellent. They had a menu prepared for the evening. You chose one of the meals, each of which consisted of five courses, and the choices were "Forest and Prairie," "Rivers and Lakes," and "Farms and Fields."

I was so naughty. I chose "Forest and Prairie," which was basically a meat feast and included very rare beef and elk, which I am not supposed to be having. Pete chose "Farms and Fields" but wanted to sample some meat as well. He really wanted a nice filet, but he thought that asking to plop down a hunk of beef on top of the Canadian wild rice-wheat berry risotto en croute might be a bit of a stretch, substitution-wise.

Pete was wary of ordering wine because I could not have any, and he did not want to be rude. I said that I did not mind if he had a glass of wine. I might mind if he had four, but it was okay. I did not want one, anyway. I wanted exactly what they had: Pepin Heights sparkling apple cider. Perfection. He had a Malbec.

About half way into the farm duck leg confit with roasted winter squash, preserved cherries, and black walnut sauce, I realized that I was feeling very uncomfortable. The food was excellent, and I did not want to waste a bit (this was my first duck, after all, and when do I ever eat things with that long a title?), but I was having my weird pregnancy indigestion, crampy gas, and a little nausea. I was hoping it would go away.

I could not eat much of the roasted rack of Wisconsin elk with celery root-potato puree, wild boar guanciale and scotch whisky sauce, and I had to have him pack it up for me. I felt so bad. It was so good. Pete was wolfing down his aforementioned risotto with preserved button mushrooms, caramelized sweet onion sauce, and a Wisconsin parmesan cheese cracker (no filet), and wanted me to try it, but I couldn't do it.

We had a good time, though, just talking and laughing together. Earlier in the day, Pete had written me about names. He was wondering about the name "Finn." The initial appeal of "Connor" was wearing off for him. It was funny because I had thought of Finn on February 3 when we were driving home from Trotter's Cafe. There's a "Finn Street" back there, and I was reminded that I really liked that name. I was also reminded that Julia Roberts had named her twins Phinneaus and Hazel, and bummed me out because she took such good names. But, as we don't really move in the same circles, I think it would be OK to have another Finn around.

I ate my cellar-aged Wisconsin washed-rind cow milk cheese and most of my vanilla rosewater creme brulee; I was feeling a bit better by then. Besides, we had to get home. There was a good "Secrets of the Dead" on public TV followed by a show on the Freemasons. Romance!

I made it though half of the Freemasons show.

Vitamins, RIP

I can't do it anymore.
On the last day of my four day scare and rest period, Pete asked me if I had taken my vitamins.
The long pause that followed pretty much said it all.
He did not need the chagrined, tiny "no" that followed. I could hear him shaking them out of the glass jar in which they reside, plotting their nefarious and nauseating ways.
"You had better be bringing me orange juice with those!" I warned.
He did.

I smelled the first one and gagged before I even got it near my mouth. I choked down three, almost brought the first back up, and realized that I was starting to associate orange juice with the vitamins, and that the orange juice itself was going to start making me ill. I can't have that. (This happens to me in the spring with enzyme cleaners and cat pee, but that's a story for the first days after we open the windows in Spring. It's related. Trust me.)

Christine came over in the evening while Pete was on a shoot, and she brought me fried chicken because she cares. We watched "Friends" reruns and knitted and complained about selfish people. It was glorious because we are both, of course, beyond reproach. I eventually said that I had to take my last three vitamins, while pulling a grotesque face, and she looked up her vitamin company to see what they had in prenatals.

Glory Be, they have a liquid form that you take once a day, one ounce. It has to be better, even if it is "Tropical Flavored" (Is that sand and saltwater? Suntan lotion and coconut?) Then, she stopped at the co-op on her way home to check for it, and they said they could order it for me. I am so on that.

In the meantime, it's a sub lingual B complex that gives me all the Folic Acid I need plus some Emergen-C, and that's going to have to do it. I need to enjoy my orange juice without pause. And I don't need more reasons to almost vomit.

We Need a New Couch

We need a new couch. The couch that we have has served the Meyers family well, but after spending three and a half days on it, I have decided that it is not suitable for such extensive resting.

Neither am I, if it comes down to it.


The couch has been around longer than I have. My parents had it when they were in married student housing in Bloomington, Indiana when I was born. Back then, it was a nubbly, sparkly turquoise. It was recovered in New Concord, Ohio in a lovely gold appropriate to the late 1970's, and then again in the late 80's in its present cream color. This was how it came to me, and then Fritz started dismantling it with his claws. It is down to the wood on the corners and covered with duct tape, sticky-side-out. It now wears a slipcover in a heavy, dark, cat-hair-attracting green. Pete has long remarked on its lack of comfortability, but it has not really bothered me much.

Until now.

At around 6:30 in the evening on Saturday, I started bleeding. It was still there at 8:30, and it was a significant amount. Pete came home from his gig at 2:00 a.m., and I was still up, waiting. I had not wanted to alert him while he was playing because there was really nothing to be done about it. If it was going to go wrong, it was going to go wrong. And if it went wrong, there was probably a biological reason. I was worried, I was nervous, but I was also resigned.

After all, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 15 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, and most occur in the first trimester, before the 12th week. I was ten weeks. This was why I was reluctant to tell people.

What happened?

Well... For the first time in a month, I felt, you know... frisky. I was relieved and pleased because it had been so long, and I had started to wonder if it would ever come back. I won't get too graphic, but suffice to say that the "O-word" is now on the list of fun things I don't get to do or have anymore, at least for awhile. It was soon afterwards that the bleeding started. I was not cramping or having any other symptoms, it as just red, red blood, twice, and then spotting.

Pete and I went to bed, and I managed to sleep until 8:00 Sunday morning, when I got up and called the nurse line. The nurse was very helpful and sane, and she said that I was doing what I should be doing, for now, but to get pads, monitor, and rest. "You get the remote, he does everything else."

I plonked myself back on the couch and watched Friends DVD's. Christine came over to knit and chat. Later, Pete and I watched the Bourne Ultimatum, which was good, but I am uncertain as to what the actual "ultimatum" was. I was not having any other significant bleeding, just spotting a bit when I peed, and nothing was really collecting in the pad. I was still not cramping, no fever, no tissue passing. I was hopeful that it was stabilizing, but still feeling that it was out of my control.

Pete was worried and having more outward emotions, which was fine. Pete really wants this pregnancy. He's ready. I guess I could not allow myself big emotions; I was trying to maintain an even keel. It certainly clarified that I wanted to be pregnant, and I want to have a baby, and I did not want to lose this pregnancy, but I also realized that I was attached to the end result, attached to the idea that we would have a baby in September. I started thinking things like "Well, I guess I can have a glass of wine on Valentine's Day, and I can drink at Matt and Rebecca's wedding, and then we can try again." I was not being morbid or even "looking on the bright side," I was being realistic. We got pregnant; it did not take long; we can try again.

Monday morning, we got up, and I decided to call in sick. It felt weird because I was not "sick," but they don't know yet, and this was certainly not the moment to tell them. I did not have much going on, and I figured it would just be better to continue to rest. I also felt like I was waiting for something to happen, or not happen, for that matter, and I would be distracted at work. The nurse at my clinic called in the morning, and she said they wanted me to come in for a blood test to check my pregnancy hormone levels and then come in on Tuesday for an exam with Edie, my nurse midwife.

It was back to the couch for more waiting.


Every time I went to the bathroom, I worried. That's an interesting feeling, one that does not lend itself to regularity. At about 2:00 on Monday, though, it could no longer be avoided, and I had to poop. As I was doing that, I could feel something else coming out, and I thought "Well, there it is." When I stood up and looked, it was a dark red clot, about 3 inches by 1.5 inches, just laying there in the bowl like a dead fish. I poked it with a matchstick, and it felt pretty solid. I sent a text message to Pete, and he called back. He told me to call the nurse line, but again, I did not see what could be done about it. If I was going to lose it, I was going to lose it. That good old resignation. But I called. The nurse had that "Oooo, that does not sound good" tone to her voice and asked me a few more questions. Again, I had no fever, no cramping, no back pain, nothing. She said I sounded stable, and there was not much to be done until we got the test results and I came in for my exam.

Waiting.

I had no more spotting that day, and no more on Tuesday morning. Pete went to work, I stayed home. He came back for lunch and to pick me up for the appointment. I was not sure what they were going to do, but the test results had come back the day before with high and appropriate levels of the pregnancy hormone HCG, which seemed like good news. But that was before the clot.


They weighed me (154, thank you very much), and the nurse took a few notes. Then Edie came in and reviewed what had happened. She listened to my lungs and my heart and did a breast exam. Then she said she was going to check for a heartbeat. She warned it might still be too early; she said she might not be able to find it; we all knew it might not still be in there. She put the little ultrasound on me and moved it around for a few seconds, and I heard it, the fast, bird-like whoosh whoosh whoosh. I knew what it was, Edie looked at me and said "There it is." Pete was a foot away listening with a look of consternation on his face, mouth half open. He didn't understand. He was starting to walk toward me when I said "That's the heartbeat."

"That?"

"Yes."

"But it's so loud!"

"That's because we can turn up the volume," said Edie.

I said that Pete was a musician, so he was always interested in sound.

Edie was encouraged by the heartbeat, as were we. She then did a pelvic exam and pap. She found that I had old blood in there, but that my cervix was closed up, and there was no new blood. My uterus was the right size and position, and everything looked good.

Now it's fingers crossed. We have an ultrasound and first trimester screening on Monday morning, and then we will see if I need further testing.

Now I just have to get over my fear of pooping, as if I needed one more reason to be constipated.

And hopefully, I won't really need that new couch until we remodel.

Untailed

It's ten weeks and all the vital organs have formed, but the flip side is, no more tail. Ah, well. It's further developing actual fingers and toes, not just paddles, and it's making a skeleton, which is a weirder thought to me than making internal organs. It's making bones! Bones are forming inside of a thing inside me! It's even weirder to think that those bones are forming after the internal organs; those internal organs have just been floating around in there, without structure. I expect the bones to whip it into shape.

The ears are starting, and it's getting teeth buds. Amazingly, it's forming 250,000 new neurons a minute.

No wonder I am tired.

And shedding neurons every day.

If it's a boy, the testes will start making testosterone, but I don't expect that to make me more aggressive. After all, those testes are pretty small.

Also, if it's a boy, the name will not be Jim or James or Jimmy. The fact that both its grandfathers are named Jim will not sway me. There are just too many Jims on both sides of the family... fathers, grandfather, brother, cousins... it's too much. While we were in Ireland, we were talking about names, and Connor James came up, but then Kira told me that all the little boys out in western Wisconsin are named Connor or Hunter, which gave me pause. Guess I have to look up popular baby names and go another way.

Cats

This post is relevant to being pregnant, but I decided to leave that out of it so I could post it on my public blog because our cats our cute... even if they are living on borrowed time.

Re/Late

Pete and I have really not seen each other much lately, it seems. He has rehearsals and gigs and shoots (oh my), and I am sleepy at 8:30 in the evening. Some say that familiarity breeds contempt, but in our case, we are both better when we see each other a lot.

Into the Fray

We met my nurse midwife this morning, and I think I will like her. She reminds me a bit of Pete's mom, but she's taller and a brunette. And a nurse midwife. We went over my history, and I filled out a questionnaire that was very similar to the one I had to answer on the phone. I wonder where all that information went... It was a short appointment, and I did not have to take my pants off, which was kind of nice. I told Pete he can come to all the appointments, and he's welcome to look at my cervix if he wants to. I don't remember what his reaction was. After we left, I had numerous little tubes of blood taken out of my left arm, and I peed in a cup, which is always fun and never messy. Not at all. I couldn't pee on a stick without mess, how do you think I do with a cup? Yeah. Not so well.

One nice thing about my insurance company is that they have an online system called "MyChart," so I get emails whenever a new test is up, and they have been coming in all day. I get them, try to figure them out, and then send them to my mom because she's a nurse. Have I mentioned that?

This is what they did:

02/04/2008 CYSTIC FIBROSIS SCREEN
02/04/2008 HIV 1/2 ANTIBODY
02/04/2008 LEAD
02/04/2008 HEMOGRAM/PLTS
02/04/2008 HBSAG (HEPATITIS B SURFACE AG)
02/04/2008 RPR (SYPHYLIS SCREEN)
02/04/2008 ABO RH & ANTIBODY SCREEN
02/04/2008 UA, NO MICROSCOPIC
02/04/2008 URINE CULTURE
02/04/2008 RUBELLA IMMUNE STATUS
02/04/2008 VACCINATION SCREEN (ANTI-HBS)

All of the results are good. Oh, and I weigh 152 (yikes), and my BP was 110/68.
That's nice, but the real tests will come on the 18th when we go in for the ultrasound and initial screening.

Orange Juice

There always needs to be Orange Juice in the house. This is fine because Pete already loves it, but he's not allowed to finish it and leave me in a house without orange juice. And good orange juice at that. I was just fine with the Organic Valley brand until we went to Trotter's Cafe and had their fresh squeezed OJ, and that's it. We are not moving to Florida, so we have to come up with something.

OJ is about the only thing I can take my hideous vitamins with. It's getting worse. They make me gag almost every single time, and I am having trouble working up to my dose of six per day. Just the smell is enough to make me ill, so I have to take a breath, then put a vitamin in my mouth, then take a swig of OJ, and try to get it down. It's not pleasant. I am sure it's not pleasant to watch, either.

Junior Maternity Style

Apparently the new style for 17-year-old-girls is "pregnant."

I thought the teenage pregnancy rate was going down.

I went shopping for work clothes, and found that a lot of the clothes in the Junior section could double as maternity clothes (I know I am 37, but the regular lady clothes are... well... I don't like them).

This baffles me.

If you are young and slim, why would you burden yourself with empire waists and blousy tops? Oh well, it works out for me. I can buy "regular" clothes for cheap that will still work for me for a last a few months.

9 weeks

The tail is going away. This makes me a bit sad. I mean, I don't REALLY want a live baby with a tail, but the idea that we start out with tails is pleasing to me. Other than that, it's getting nipples and hair follicles (we're so proud!), and it's developing internal reproductive organs, but there's no external evidence of sex. It could start moving at nine weeks, but it won't be perceptible to me or the outside world. I mean, it's only almost an inch long.