I'm back & Happy Halloween: Updated

E picked me up from the airport yesterday at 12:45pm. We had a lovely lunch at home, given that I wanted normal food. After 5 days of eating out (most of which was convention center CRAP!!), all I wanted was a pb & j with carrots on the side. That's exactly what we had.

I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the couch, taking a bath, reading my new Consumer Reports book about baby gear (thanks R, J & M!!), taking a nap, and walking Gladys. Not a bad afternoon in my opinion.

In the evening, E and I ran out to buy me a witch's hat for my Halloween "costume". Everyone dresses up here at my job, so I now have a hat to fit in/play along/look like a team player etc... The truth is, I'm the freak that hates dressing up for Halloween. I blame my mom who hated finding four costumes every year (except that I also find it totally understandable/justified!!) I really like my. own. clothes. SOOOO, I'm wearing all my own clothes (black) and I have this hat I can wear at the party this afternoon. A perfect Halloween compromise.

So, I'm back and getting into the swing of things. I have a lot of work to catch up on here at the office, but so does everyone else on my team.

Happy Halloween!

Update: I did not win the costume contest, even though there were several prizes. I won't win next year either, as I plan on being the very same thing. Next year I'll skip the lining up at the front of the room and voting so that I can sit in the crowd and enjoy my caramel apple in peace. :-)

Alone

S is gone for till Tuesday and Gladys and I are home alone. I'm supposed to be working on the house but just haven't gotten to it yet. I am about to start cleaning out our bedroom. The plan for getting ready for the baby include a new master bedroom layout, cleaned out closets, and organizing the new office (moved to the basement). These are the tasks I'm supposed to work on this weekend, but, um, I just haven't started yet....

Oh well, Gladys and I have been having a pretty good day otherwise. We have slept in, gone to the dog park, the pet store, talked to a good friend that lives very far away, and now are watching a little football.

Happy Saturday! Miss you S!

A-maz-ing

WOW! What a feeling to look at your baby for the first time. Tot is adorable! We saw the heartbeat, 167 bpm. We saw feet! We saw arms! We saw a nose! Oh, my god you can’t even being to explain the emotional wonderment that happens when you see your child for the first time. Thank god we did this.

Everything is measuring normal and wonderful. The 4-D was way cool because that was when Tot decided to start moving around and pushing off the side of the uterus! AMAZING!!!!!! Here are some of the pics. Enjoy, we did!


What a beautiful profile!



4-D lounging with arms tucked behind the head!!!!!!



Booty, feet and toes!!!!



Tot waves hello!

My Gift: My Wife

Have you ever felt like you got the gift on someone else's birthday? I do every year. Today is my wife's birthday. This is the day, 24 years before I ever got it; I was given the best gift in the world, S. Now, her mom, sisters, and many others may argue that they got the gift as well, but, they had the first 24 years and I'm gonna get the last 75 or so!!!!! I win! Ok, I'll share her sometimes. Anyway, I cherish this day every year because it is the day that God put my perfect match on this earth. She is my completer (I don't care if that is word or not). She is the one that makes me who I am and encourages me to be better everyday. Enough about me here is what she is:

beautiful
sincere
loving
kind
brilliant
caring
a dynamic thinker
a cheerleader for others
a giver
my best friend
compassionate
nurturing
creative
well read
smart
strategic
pretty
one hell of a cook
my love!
MY BABY'S MOMMA!

She isn't a few things but I'll save those for another day!!! :)

I love you baby! You are my one, my world, and always and forever my wife. Thank you and Happy Birthday!!!!!!!

A warm Fall Sunday

E and I are having a pretty good weekend. Yesterday, we went for a nice hike and took the dog with us - she even had a chance to swim for a while, a big treat. The weather was fantastic, and the only reason we left was because I was getting too hot! We had a nice dinner out and then came home where I slept for the first nigh with a body pillow - I highly recommend it!

Today we are expecting a visitor - a lovely friend of ours whose husband attended grad school with me. She is bringing her 8 month old son to meet us for the first time. We are truly looking forward to it! In the meantime, E is mowing the lawn since it continues to grow in 70+ degree weather, regardless of the season. The kitchen is clean, a few thank you notes written for some early baby gifts (booties and our first baby toy!!!) as well as a pair of boring black flats my sis sent me, which will come in extremely handy given that my feet have expanded outward thus rendering my nice heeled shoes unwearable. I shall again, at least, be presentable at work!

I had a dream the other night that I was carrying our baby boy to my cousin's wedding (far from reality since this particular cousin was married 8-ish years ago, but...) I kept looking at him then lifting him and hugging him. I don't know that the gender in the dream was any kind of premonition, but it was weird b/c when I awoke, I felt like I didn't have a particularly large affection for the baby in the dream, which made me feel terrible since I feel as though I dearly love this child already. E pointed out that we have yet to see or hear the baby, and we are going to be closer to her/him once that happens. All evidence of our child's existence is actually- up to this point- indirect, and we are READY to see him/her!!!

Speaking of seeing our child, our ultrasound is Wednesday morning, and we've come to the point where it is now mentioned every 1/2 hour or so. We are so very excited - not particularly nervous, but definitely anxious and ready to see our Tot!!

Finally Friday

I must feel this way often - Blogger completed my title before I could get it out.

I am very glad it's Friday. I am basically left on my own at the office today, which means I can be very productive. I am looking forward to finishing bunches of stuff and then heading home to enjoy two days of not waking up very early yet still enjoying a nice early bedtime.

Have a great day, all!

Enough Already

That is it. Look here hormones ease up on my wife already.

Man, this tot must be doing some major growing and developing. It must be forming a genius brain or something. S has been hit with the yucks hard this week. Here I am absent due to my overly ego maniac board members, leaving her to fend for herself. She even had to walk to my office yesterday because I was stuck on the phone and she needed the car to get food. I mean NEEDED food!!!! Then she had to deal with me and my overly sensitive, frustrated, and quick tempered self that exists after having my energy and brain sucked dry by dentists. Poor baby.

I love you tot, but give your mom a break already!!!!

As for remedies tried for this nausea, here is the list and I may have missed a few, we've tried it all. Peppermint tea and hard candy, ginger flavored anything makes her feel like she is going to barf, lemon favored hard candy, crackers, preggo pops, sea bands, naps, eating every time she starts to feel sick, raspberry tea and suckers, belly bars, and so on and so on.

I think I'm just going to have to pamper her till this latest version of the yucks passes.

Busy Busy lives

Things at the Village have been rather busy of late - particularly for E. I'm thinking I might get my wife back before I leave for a trade show next week, but there is no guarantees at this point. Of course, next week, it will be E who will be losing her wife for nearly a week....

Admittedly, I'm greatly anticipating November.

1. I will have finished up the tradeshow, which has been sucking what life I have out of me every day at work.
2. We will have entered trimester #2 officially, and I will likely be feeling better more consistently (unlike days like today where I've managed to stave off any obvious pregnancy symptoms - aka pregnancy pukes - while at work, but only barely. )
3. We will have seen the tot on screen (10/24 - I can't wait!!!) I'm assuming that my anxiety will decrease 10-fold or more at that point.
4. We are ALSO going to receive one of the greatest gifts on earth: a visit from our dearest friends who are traveling all the way from SF to see us as a twosome for the last time!! C&c are planning to visit again after the Tot has arrived, but this trip will be the last time we are just 4!

So, at the moment, I am living in the future. A future where I feel well, I see my wife from time to time, and my favorite friends are visiting.

A message in our inbox on Friday (E's fabulous dad)

I woke up this morning with the first thought of the day being "Tiny tot how are you? A sense of warmth and connectedness produced a very big smile on my face. Then I knelt down and said a prayer for the well being of all of you. What a great start to the day. Take very good care of yourselves.. Love and lots of it. Dad

Am I gonna what?!?!?!

So, here is the deal that S said I would post about. I thought what better time than after reading jay's post about "other mother" stuff (really would like a different term for that but don't like non-bio much either).

So the MW looks up at me, from whatever note she is writing from her last question, and says, "So, are you planning to breastfeed?" I thought she forgot who was pregnant. I think my intelligent answer was, "huh" while I proceeded to turn bright red. Now, S had mentioned something like that at one point but she is always reading weird things. I just never know what to really pay attention to, sounds mean but if you got as many New York T*mes articles sent to you (some of you know exactly what I'm talking about) from her you would become selective too. Anyway, I thought it would have to be really involved and so I blew it off as just another hair-brained thing some people out there are doing. That is until the granola naturalist MW mentioned it.

She told us another couple using the MBC was doing it and that it really only involves some birth control like pills and breast pumps. I would apparently have to start the process sooner verses later. S is leaving the decision up to me and it seems like a really easy one to make...but nothing is easy in baby making. Here is the deal.

1. After a two-year discussion leading to S being the sole person in our duo to carry our children I have completely removed myself from any thoughts about carrying and breastfeeding a baby. I have successfully done so to the point that I am now having a really hard time envisioning myself breastfeeding. I think I have detached from the idea that my breasts would ever be used in that manner. Does that make sense? I think I can re-attached myself to the thoughts but that leads me to #2.

2. What if (a) it doesn’t work and I have re-attached to thinking I am going to experience that amazing bond and I can’t? What if (b) the baby latches to me better than S? Does that cause a weird dynamic?

3. Breastfeeding for two-years of your life (timeframe is according to the MW) reduces your risk of breast cancer. My mother died of breast cancer when I was 14 and my aunt is a survivor going on nearly 10 years. I defiantly am high-risk. I could use some factors that reduce the risk, that is for sure!

4. Wouldn’t I be foolish to pass up the opportunity to try? This is a bond so unique to women and babies. I can participate! If I decide not to, I can’t really get that chance back.

What to do…..

The internet is loaded with information about this for adoptive mothers but little information for non-bio lesbian moms. I only mention that because I think that non-bio lesbian moms would have different situations in many ways, as there is another breast-feeding mother in the picture. Clearly an under reported dynamic. If there are any non-bio lesbian breastfeeding or intending to breastfeed moms out there lurking, talk to me! Any other input, as if some of you need that endorsement, please share.

10 weeks: updated

That is it! We are taking the dive. We have the call in to get the ultrasound. We are sick of not ever seeing anything and not having any proof (other than a tired wife) that there is a baby. Our MW is not really the biggest fan of the idea of an ultrasound but then again, she didn't have the bad dreams I had last night about the baby being lost. She also did try to get pregnant for two years! Well, she isn't really all that negative Nelly about the ultrasound but we are all the demanding Donna about getting it now! SHOW ME THE TOT!

On the other note, S mentioned in the last post that the MW gave us some new things to consider and that she was leaving it up to me to post about. I'm still working on figuring out my own perspective on it and will share soon.


UPDATE:
We have an appointment for an ultrasound on Oct. 24.

Appointment Update - Nothing to Tell

We had our appointment last night. I really like the midwife from last night- there are three in the practice and this one was bubbly (but not overly so), friendly and reassuring, as well as knowledgable. She talked to us for a while, and then did an exam and took blood for lab work.

We've officially decided that the only screening we're going to have is the 20 week ultrasound. We don't need anything else in our estimation. Other than that, she gave us some things to think about that I'll let E post about when she has a moment. (She's been overloaded at work lately, hence the one-sided posting lately.)

Unfortunately, we still didn't hear the heartbeat, so we're going back in two weeks for a fetal heart check. We will probably consider an u/s at that point if we still don't hear the heartbeat. The mw told us, though, that my uterus is "very anterior", so that would make hearing an early heartbeat rather difficult. Other than that, though, I guess everything "looks good."

A good weekend

We spent yesterday morning driving to an apple orchard that didn't exist. Double bummer was that the fall colors we had hoped to see have yet to pop, likely due to the unseasonably warm weather. Nonetheless, E and I had a nice time together. After the no-go about an hour outside of town, we came back to our fair city and visited the tourist trap orchard here. We had a marvelous time. I had never picked apples before, and E and I had a blast. We picked out our pumpkins too. Pictures will come later. We did have to leave a bit earlier than we had planned due to the heat. I was overheating, so we left without finding any gourds for the front stoop - something fun for next weekend.

Today, we've been working on getting some things done. After church, grocery shopping, and taking a quick nap, we again felt motivated to work on the office-nursery conversion. Currently, E is still slaving away while I take a break in the basement to cool off and write this. Gladys has been so hot this weekend that our walks have been boring; she wants to go home and lie on the kitchen tile. Ahhh... October in Wisconsin.

We have a busy evening tomorrow where we are again visiting the midwife. This time, we expect lab work and a physical exam with less emphasis on the get-to-know-ya and nutrition education piece of it. We're also really hoping to hear the heartbeat tomorrow... really hoping. We'll be 9 weeks and 5 days, so the chances are pretty good.

**Update**
E and I are, by nature I suppose, very impatient. Last night, after I posted, we finished clearing out the office of everything office-related. We then couldn't help ourselves. We HAD to put up the crib and put the dresser/changing table into the room, in spite of the fact that we have yet to paint. Still, the crib looks marvelous in our house!!!

Happy Birthday Gladys

Gladys is 2 today!! No cake for her, but she'll get a nice walk when we get home!!

9 weeks

I really can't believe that we're at 9 weeks already! In spite of a nasty little incident on Monday morning (at work, blech!!!), I've been feeling pretty good this week. I'm definitely improving. Sure, I'm still tired, and extremely nauseous if I don't eat regularly, but the extent to which I experience these things is less and less... a relief.

We are still anxiously awaiting the second trimester- I'm tired of being secretive at work. My coworkers often ask me if I'm feeling ok lately... gee, the exhaustion LOOKS that bad? I've also been somewhat reluctant to work beyond 5pm, so I think the explanation in a few weeks will be a relief for me. We are also planning to tell my extended family at that time, which will be exciting given that I have a cousin just 6 weeks ahead of me.

I don't know if I've gained any weight.. I'm not overly anxious to hit the scale. I know that I did bloat a bit a few weeks ago, but I seem to be holding strong ever since, at least according to my clothes.

We are looking forward to our weekend - the weather should be good on Saturday (unseasonably warm), so I'm hoping for an apple orchard/pumpkin patch excursion. Other than that, hopefully we'll have time to focus on getting the house ready for baby again... Lots to do!!!

Wet socks & shoes

I walked Gladys this morning - the usual 20 minute walk outside with a stop at the park for her to run wildly (and gather as many burrs as possible in 8 minutes). That was at 730am, and my socks and shoes are STILL wet (approaching 3pm). Disgusting. I'm sitting in my semi-professional office with bare feet. My poor coworkers.

At least I got some of my exercise for the day out of the way.

The big appointment

Finally, we will be meeting with the midwife this evening circa 5pm, as long as nothing else interferes. We are hoping that we will be able to hear the heartbeat, of course. We are also hoping to feel happy and comfortable there; I guess we'll see.

In other news, we spent the weekend with my mom and her b/f this weekend and had a very nice time. She was so happy to see us now that we're preggers. We had great weather, too, which was very nice for visiting the farmer's market and doing a nature walk. Next weekend, we will not be hosting any company, and I'm hoping that we have time and feel up to heading to an apple orchard, eating donuts etc... No cider for me, unfortunately. Definitely worth it, but still unfortunate.

***Update***
No big shakes really. We were unable to hear the heartbeat, which is to be expected this early it was explained. Our time with the midwife was spent mostly talking about health history and nutrition during pregnancy. We didn't learn too much we didn't know before today, but it was nice to know that I can still eat chevre, as long as it's pasteurized. Sounds like good news to me. She also recommended fish oil caplets, which make me nervous w/ how nauseous I've been. We're going to check it out though: give it the old college try.

We have another appointment next week, when we will have an actual exam and labs drawn. We're also going to try again for the heartbeat.