The Not-So-Divine Secrets of -Motherhood-

Summer Season is Open

Ahhh. Another successful pool party. I define successful parties in a number of ways. During college, a successful party was measured by whether or not there was a random pool of puke left in either my front yard or that of one of my neighbors.

I've since grown up. Now a successful party is one in which half the guests never go home. They are smart enough to realize that they are too drunk to drive and they take advantage of my enormous castle of rooms in which to crash. Currently we have two rooms occupied.

The best part of a pool party? Waking up with no hang over. This is so rare that I am basking in the glory. When my other guests wake up with the shakes and heaves I am going to smile as I hand them a Bloody Mary. Wow, this actually feels pretty good. For a change when I got up and saw the leftover dips that had dried up and encrusted their bowls I wasn't ready to puke. I cleaned the kitchen in about four minutes flat and didn't need to lie down in between.

What? Could this be the turning of the bend in my life where drinking into oblivion won't be a priority? I can't take full credit for the choice to remain alcohol-free. I mean, had I not been pregnant I would definitely have taken full advantage of the festivities. But honestly, now that I've been to the other side I just don't know if I can imagine crossing back over. Particularly when I have an infant relying on me.

So, summer season is open at our house. I will play beer-wench any time. I will clean up after my friends and a long night of their drinking because I love them that much. But I will also enjoy every minute of the alert, feel good, day-after feeling that they will be missing out on.

Friendships

One of the things that I consider a blessing over the last two years of trying to conceive is the knowledge that I have met countless other people that have provided me unconditional support. They have listened to my rants, have provided me a shoulder to cry on, and have spent time trying to distract me from searching the internet and self diagnosing. They know me better than I know me sometimes.

Over the last two years I have had many "pen-pals". I have actually formed strong bonds with some of these women, considering the fact that I've never once spoken to them on the phone and will likely never meet them in this lifetime.

It is such a strong circle that I physically share their joy as well as their heartache. Today is Mel's day and my heart is absolutely broken for her. You know, it's terrible to know that as you experience infertility you always expect the worst. But truthfully, even though we all come across as crusty old matrons that see the glass half empty we almost always have hope in our hearts. If we didn't we wouldn't continue down the treacherous path of trying to conceive.

Mel, honey, even though you received what feels like Earth-shattering news today, please please please do not give up hope. When one door closes another one opens. You and your husband have some soul searching to do. This is just another test, life is full of them. And I will tell you from the bottom of my heart- that you married this man you love because you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him. Cry it all out, drink the entire bottle of wine. Call in sick to work tomorrow, go to the park and sit in peace. But then, pull it all back together and look for the hope. It's there.

So this is to my online friends. Real people that have given me little pieces of their hearts and souls. I hope that I have given as much as I have received over the last few years. All of you will be in my thoughts and prayers tonight.

Identity Crisis

So it hasn't escaped me that my blog is now having an identity crisis. I mean, originally this blog started as a forum to vent my frustration about not being able to get pregnant. And now here I am, almost fifteen weeks pregnant.

Maybe I should add that to dumb suggestions that fertile people make to infertile ones about how to conceive. You should start a blog about being infertile and that oughta' do the trick! That would rank right up there with "elevate your hips after having sex" and "just try to relax".

Don't get me wrong, I still have not associated myself with the category of fertile people. For all I know this could have been a freak accident and may be the only kid I'll ever conceive. Although I'm not even going to send myself into a tailspin thinking about that.

But in the mean time it means I am kind of cheating by calling my blog Adventures In-Fertility. I'm bummed because now I need to think up another catch phrase and a little summary to go with it. And since I've gotten pregnant I feel the wit has been sucked right out of me. My creativity has gone to the wayside and my humor has run dry. This could take awhile.

If I wait long enough I will no longer be pregnant and then I will face another change- parenthood. So now the question becomes does the true procrastinator in me show through or do I make the changes now?

Well, not RIGHT now. I mean, why do today what I can put off until tomorrow?

Moving Right Along

So now that I am feeling better, and I am definitely feeling better, I am finding that time is actually moving right along. Nothing like the snails pace at which those first four weeks moved. Today I was going through my mental list of how my life has changed even in such a short amount of time.

First and foremost, my stomach is "popping" as my husband calls it. Since I have hidden behind cute, billowy maternity tops my husband usually doesn't get the visual on the belly the way I do. Especially considering I am in bed and long asleep every night before he even heads upstairs. So every now and then when he gets a peek (for example when I change into a pre-pregnancy tank top) I think it actually freaks him out a little. His first reaction to my buddha belly was "Holy crap, when did that happen?" And now each time he sees it I can see his eyes growing wide as saucers when he realizes the magnitude of this.

But even with the belly I don't feel pregnant, only like I ate way too much at the buffet. And sleeping? Forget it. I had about ten days in there of really good sleep and now I am back to some random twinge or pulling feeling waking me up every hour or so.

Oh, and we can't forget the actual lifestyle changes that I have made. Yes, I did give up caffeine cold-turkey. And although I haven't had any desire to drink I also gave up my favorite pasttime, drinking and socializing. So that was a pretty big change. My poor husband, it was a change for him too. I was always the good wife and kept both fridges well stocked with beer. Since becoming pregnant though I must admit that I don't even so much as wander the beer aisle, so more often than not the fridge is empty. That is particularly disturbing on the days that my husband has a really bad day. For example, last Friday. He came home and all he wanted was a nice cold beer. He looked in the house fridge and couldn't find anything but thought for sure the stash was in the garage fridge.

Umm. Bad wife. No sex for you tonight. He wound up rummaging deep into the fridge and found one stray Natural Light left by my father (ugg) and one random Guiness left by some well meaning friend that really took to heart my suggestion that they bring whatever they prefer to drink. My best friend and I got a good laugh out of that- first he drank a beer so thin it was like water then he drank the beer that he could chew. I actually did feel pretty terrible about it so I went and bought him more beer the next day. No chance the fridge will run dry in the near future.

Have I mentioned my new purse? I had to go out and find myself a good sensible purse, a la Mary Poppins style, in which I could hide snacks and beverages without drawing attention to myself. Ladies, I must suggest the Nine West bags. They seem to be large enough to house two small meals as well as a bottle of water without even displacing your original purse contents. All that and a bag of chips, literally!

How about my general standard of living? My mother jokes around that my idea of messy is her idea of clean. I say, who cares either way! I haven't mopped in three weeks, and even then I didn't mop. My sister and her friend came over and did it all for me. And here I am, as proud a person as they come, it didn't even faze me. Do you do laundry also? No seriously, I haven't cleaned my house (like I consider clean) since before I got pregnant. See, I told you this pregnancy thing was eating away at me.

Well, the list could go on and on. I'll have to save some of them for another time. I just really hope that I'm able to feel this baby move in the next few weeks. I've read that people who are pregnant with the second child or are very thin can feel the baby move before some others.

Define "very thin".

Stuck on boy

My husband is really going to be disappointed if this baby turns out to be a girl. I know how badly he wants a boy, and just for that, I really hope it is a boy. It doesn't help that we got an ultrasound photo that looks clearly like a boy and now he is somewhat convinced that it is.

I cheated. I took the ultrasound photo to my doctor's appointment last week to get a second opinion without telling my husband. First I asked the nurse what she thought, she said in her professional opinion it was clearly a boy. Then I asked the doctor what he thought and he told me that he would not be making any sort of judgements based on that photo. It could be too many things, the umbilical cord could have come around the side of the body and that could be it. He also said it was very very early to judge gender. Darn him. I wanted him to just say "That is clearly a boy and there will be no questioning his manhood, ever."

I've been gently trying to prepare my husband that it might very well be a girl. I threw out the same suggestion about the umbilical cord, at least trying to plant the seed in his mind. He isn't having it. He thinks it is a boy. So I asked, "What are you going to do if it is a girl?"

Response, "Just be ready at the hospital, I'll pick the two of you up at the front."

I know he's kidding.  At least I'm pretty sure he's kidding. But now I'm wondering if I should find out what we are having so that I can at least know if I need to give him something more than gentle suggestions.

For a change...

For a change I have nothing to gripe about. Nothing to obsess over. Nothing to ponder. I don't have any stupid animal stories. No tales of pains and twinges that have me running to webmd.com for diagnosis.

What a sad day. I can't even dig deep and come up with anything witty so I'm just going to go to bed. I'm going to hope that tomorrow when I wake up I have an epiphany of some sort and then I can come back and type like a madwoman.

For once I think I'm speechless.

Acceptance

It's funny, this journey of trying to conceive. I know full well I am not the only one out there and I also know that my journey was not nearly as long or as heartbreaking as that of others. Yet during the whole process I just really felt the need to keep everything a secret. It wasn't like I was ashamed, well, maybe a little ashamed, but it was just strange.

I have these strange habits and these wierd ideas about what is appropriate to share and what is personal. For example, I have total issues with my bed being unmade and having someone other than my husband seeing my exposed sheets. I mean, for heavens sake, I sleep there. I get intimate there. Those are my sheets! I know, it is a totally irrational thought process, but I honestly cannot ever have my sheets showing when we have company over. Now, the bed doesn't have to be meticulously made, but the covers must be pulled up. So that is one of those things that I find very personal.

On the flip side, I'm not a total prude. I mean, I own a t-back bikini imported from Australia. I also wear pastees whenever we get drunk at the river. No problems with personal or intimate there.

So I am left wondering why it was such a big deal that I needed to keep my trying to conceive journal a total secret. I didn't even tell my mom. The only people that knew were my baby sister, my best friends, and my boss. But the funny thing is, now that I'm pregnant, I am totally open about it.

In the lunchroom today I was right in the middle of the conversation talking about the heartbreak of month after month of negative home tests, the psycho madness that the fertility medications can bring on, and the fact that I wasn't even able to attend baby showers any more without experiencing anxiety and ultimately anger.

So I guess I'm at that stage that some recovering addicts get to. The stage where they can finally stand up in front of others and admit that they had a problem. They can talk openly about it, without shame or regret because they know they are at a point in their life that they have moved past that.

My name is Jennifer and I was trying to conceive for almost two years. Today I am over thirteen weeks pregnant, and this is my story.

Something learned

So today was uneventful. I learned that chipmunks bury their food. That's fantastic. And you are probably wondering how I ever made it to management in my career.

No really, it is kind of cute. I have a corner office that looks out over the parking lot and the landscaping. (It sounds much more plush than it really is) There is a vacant lot across the way and we have the cutest little chipmunks that come out of nowhere and run across our sidewalks. So yesterday I saw a couple of them and I left some mixed nuts out on the ground where I could see them from my window. I went into a meeting and when I came out all the nuts were gone. I was a little ripped off.

This morning one chipmunk came back to the same spot so I put another handful of nuts as well as a small scoop of Harry & David mixed rice crackers. I love those things! The little fella came back about half an hour later, sniffed at the rice crackers and passed them over for the nuts. I swear to you his nose was probably wrinkling- if I would have been a few feet closer I would have seen it.

I was fascinated at the fact that these tiny animals sit up on their hind legs and eat with two paws, taking the cutest little nibbles. He ate about two peanuts and then he stuffed a whole almond in his little mouth and ran across the sidewalk. He dug a little hole in the rocks, dropped it in, and buried it. So the next time I saw him take a whole nut I thought he was going back to the main storehouse to keep his nut. Nope, instead he zig-zagged the other way and buried it somewhere else! This went on most of the day, until all the nuts were gone and nothing was left but rice crackers.

Don't get me wrong, I've been to the zoo. I'm sure I've seen hundreds of chipmunks and squirrels eating, yet every time it still fascinates me. The real question of the day is, once they bury that nut, how do they find it again?

So for a change I have something else to Google besides medical terms regarding pregnancy.

Slowly breaking down

You know that poker face that I like to portray when people ask me about decorating the nursery or picking out baby names? Well, if you don't know it I will share.

So every time someone asks me what theme we have chosen for the nursery or what names we are thinking about I put on my best poker face and tell them calmly that we aren't going to decorate the nursery or choose a name until the baby gets here.

What I should tell them is that we believe our parenting style will be to offer choices and we are going to let the baby choose when it is old enough. I'll bet they won't know how to take that. But not to be a smartass, I really did think from the moment we got that faint positive line that we weren't going to be doing any decorating or sounding out baby names until at least the seventh month. Here I am only three months in and I find myself sneaking little forays onto the internet searching for "baby furniture".

I found a crib and changing table that I think I am in love with. While I was checking out the furniture I also found two nursery themes. I believe in choices. My husband can vote for one of the two.

I'm sad that I can't just let myself be head over heels in love with being pregnant. I'm sad that I'm too scared to enjoy every single minute like other newly pregnant people can. I'm sad that when my mom was here for Easter she asked if we had already picked out a name or theme for the nursery and I gave her the same solemn poker face and told her we had several milestones to accomplish before even thinking of such things. The worst part was that she didn't understand. Her response was that she had already chosen both my name and decorated my nursery by the time she was as far along as I am. Well, must be nice that she was able to have four children, evenly spaced two years apart, right on command. It doesn't work that way for everyone.

But after she left it got me thinking. What harm is there in looking at what is out there? I mean, the one thing I want to avoid is buying it and lovingly decorating the nursery only to potentially have to come home to that room every day if something goes wrong. But I guess I can think about it in the meantime. I can bookmark two thousand baby websites so that when the time really is right I can go back and try to remember what was important about each one, right?

I mean, what the heck. I'm a Type A personality, must plan everything and not only with one plan, usually I have four or five backup plans just in case. So why can't I just let this work the same way?

I think I'm slowly getting there.

Psychosomatic

After discovering Friday afternoon that my appendix did not appear to be the immediate cause of my pelvic pain my husband suggested that we do some Internet research. I was thrilled that he was potentially validating my need to self-diagnose. What I wasn't thrilled with, however, was his suggestion that I go home and research "psychosomatic".

So here is the definition of psychosomatic, courtesy of wikipedia.org:

A psychosomatic illness is an illness whose symptoms are caused by mental processes of the sufferer rather than immediate physiological causes. If a medical examination can find no physical or organic cause, if an illness appears to result from emotional conditions such as anger, anxiety, depression and guilt then it might be classified psychosomatic.

Psychosomatic symptoms show that a human body can create physical symptoms that compensate for relationship deficiencies.

Of course, I argued with him on the drive home that this pain was definitely real and that I was sure we would get the answers today. So my follow up appointment today yielded no answers.

The doctor and my husband are in cahoots, I just know it. The next thing I will need to research is "schizophrenia". I want to see Dr. House. I'm sure there is some major illness that they are overlooking. The only thing that came back abnormal was my white blood cell count, and even that was only a minor aberration from normal.

I was certain that the doctor was going to tell me that they found a cyst of such massive proportions that it has engulfed not only my ovary but was overtaking my fallopian tube as well. That it had grown so grotesque that it has twisted itself all up in there and was threatening not only the survival of my ovary and fallopian tube but my very existence as well.

No such luck. I have good blood flow to my ovary so it isn't indicating any sort of twisting. There is a cyst there but of such minor size that they didn't even bother to measure. (that must be the diminishing corpus luteum cyst that my doctor referred to a few weeks back). Yeah, my white blood cell count is a little higher than usual but didn't I tell the doctor that I thought I had some sort of viral bug last week?

So anyway, that's all there was. Nothing. But seriously, this pain is very real. I know that even with my vivid imagination there is no way I could conjure this up from sheer anxiety. So my two choices are to nod and smile when they suggest it is all in my head and try to will my body to be right again or wait for it to explode into some massive man-eating organism that they have never seen before so that I can say "I told you so".

The sicko in me hopes for the latter.

Ahh, Easter Sunday

I know I don't usually go into details about my family so I'll share one of our quirks. We're Dysfunctional. Who isn't?  There are us four girls plus my two parents. We couldn't be a more diverse group and people often marvel that we are indeed all related.

But for all of our Dysfunction, we can really do up the holidays. I say this because my mom is honestly one of the very best holiday people I have ever known and someday (when I have kids) I aspire to be like her. Every single holiday, you name it and she had some cute little ritual. So for example, Valentines day we would wake up to candy on our pillows (how she got it there and we never rolled over it I can only imagine). St Patricks Day was green everything, beginning with our shampoo and conditioner. The green bagels were a trip, something only a kid would get a kick out of eating but we did.

Easter, oh yes, Easter. We always had beautiful Easter dresses and brand new sandals (fortunately we have lived in the desert Southwest most of my life so sandals were appropriate). When we were really little my mom would sew for hours and hours and make each of us a dress that was unique to our personal style, complete with frills and lace in all the right places. I loved those Easter dresses. Considering she worked full time I know she had to have sewed until the wee hours every single night in the last week before Easter arrived but we never heard the machine going.

She even has every Easter decoration you can imagine. She has an Easter Egg Tree. It's small, it sits on the coffee table and used to entice my young neices and nephews to pull on the cute little eggs hanging from the branches but every year she still put it out.

This is the first year that my two sisters with children both live in other states and I think my mom is a little lost. I mean, every year they boil up about four or five dozen eggs and we all gather around the table to dye them the day before Easter. The kids wind up tossing those little egg dippers made of flimsy hanger and opt to use their hands instead. All five fingers and half of their palms wind up some awful purple-black color by the end but who cares, we net approximately three dozen eggs (after accidentally cracking and eating the other dozen or so).

Easter morning brings some of the best treats as the baskets for the kids (and adults) are overflowing with candy and small toys. I remember as a kid we used to have bunnies and we lined their cages with hay outdoors. One year the Easter bunny went to visit our bunny friends outside and "accidentally" tracked hay in all over our house. God love my mother. She meticulously placed that hay everywhere the Easter bunny went in our house knowing full well she would have to pick it up at the end. But this is what I'm talking about- the real holiday spirit.

So this year the grandkids all live in Ohio and Texas. It's just adults. No dyed eggs, no candy baskets, no frilly dresses or new church clothes. I'm sad for my mom and dad. They are coming to our house and they are bringing the ham. My husband doesn't eat ham so he is making a little turkey. But it just isn't the same. And next year won't be much easier as I do draw the line at a six month old dyeing Easter eggs.

I can only hope that someday I can be as generous and holiday-minded as my mother. Happy Easter!

I forgot to mention

So I forgot to mention yesterday that I was only twelve weeks three days but the baby consistently measured thirteen weeks one day. At first I was a little freaked out because I could see when she was measuring its head, and I saw that 13 weeks 1 day. I knew full well I wasn't that far along. So I tried to stay quiet because again, I think she was a beginner. I didn't need to disrupt her routine, lest she forget something critical.

I waited silently for a bit. Then she measured again and the same thing happened- thirteen weeks one day. I formulated the question in my head for several minutes so as not to sound like a screaming banshee when asking it. "Why does it say thirteen weeks one day when you measure its head? I'm only twelve weeks three days."

They must practice for this in ultrasound school. She calmly replied that the head wasn't the only thing that measured that size- the stomach did as well, which meant the body was in proportion. Except the thigh bone- which measured closer to the real day at twelve weeks five days. So great, he's going to be smart and eat like a horse but he did not inherit height from my grandparents. He's destined to be short like my husband and myself. I tried to reassure myself. She must have known that I was still worried because she flipped over to some screen that I had never seen before and showed me (I didn't know where to look so I missed it) that anything between eight and ten days off was "normal". Now I know full well that if my baby was eight to ten days behind where it should have been that nothing would have been "normal" but I went ahead and told myself that because I am ahead of schedule that should be ok.

I'm just trying to restrain myself from checking out the internet to read about fetuses that measure five days ahead of schedule. I mean, could that signal some sort of chromosomal abnormality? The baby wouldn't have down syndrome would it? I was normal right up until this point, so I guess I'll have to ask the doctor on Monday.

I should have given up self diagnosing for Lent. That truly would have been a sacrifice.

Week Twelve- not all it's cracked up to be

Tuesday was twelve weeks on the dot and I was waiting for the heavens to open and the sun to shine down on my waves of nausea. It hasn't quite happened like that.

Instead, for three days I have had moderate to severe pains in my lower right abdomen. The nausea has worsened to the point that I have eaten nothing but applesauce for three out of the last four meals. And I've had the trots for two days to boot. So I finally called the doctor's office last night and scheduled an immediate appointment.

I went in at 9:20 this morning for an appointment that was all about mommy. I'm tired of being sick and I'm sick of being tired. I probably didn't tell you about my last doctors visit but just in case I did. humor me, I'm going to tell it again. Keep in mind, I saw my doctor every week for the first three weeks and then I've seen him every two weeks since. So my last appointment was great. I felt good, I saw the baby doing the YMCA, life was good.

The doctor asked me at the end, "So, when will you be back to see me?" Stupid me, I said "When do you need me to come back?"

"Well, we don't NEEEEED you to come back for four more weeks, but you can come back at any time. So, when will you be back to see me?"

Jokingly I said, "You don't think I can make it the whole four weeks, do you? Well I'm telling you, I am going to do it. I can make it the whole four weeks. I'll see you May 1st."

Yeah, I'm not going to be able to live that one down. I'm wearing the paper towel sitting on the exam table when my doctor saunters in. His first response? "You missed me, didn't you?"

Ok, a little. But seriously, I really need some medical advice here. All those other times I came in? Just needed personal reassurance then. So I've been crying wolf, what the hell, my insurance company ponies up every time so just keep running when I cry and we'll get along just fine.

I tell him that the little pain in my lower right abdomen is no longer just a minor nuisance. It has turned into a real pain. I mean, I bend over to put on my shoes and it stabs me. I roll over at night and it stabs me. It's pretty serious. So I point with one finger to the place that hurts. He pushes on it too. Ouch! Didn't I tell you it hurts when you push on it?

Instead he starts drumming on it. I about jumped off the table, YEAH, THAT'SITNOWSTOPIT. Umm, yeah, there could be a real problem there. He listened with grave concern as I described everything. I haven't eaten in two whole days because I've had diarhea so bad it goes in one way and comes right out the other. I thought, he's my doctor, that's what I pay him for, to listen to this. My husband sure as hell doesn't want to hear about it.

He wasn't sure but he wanted to rule out appendicitis. So he sent me to the radiologists office this afternoon for an ultrasound to check out the appendix. I about lost it as I was standing there waiting for the nurse to schedule the appointment. She told the person on the phone- right in front of me mind you- that they wanted the ultrasound done to check viability and to screen my appendix.

What do you mean, to check viability? This thing was hula dancing last week. I'm in the twelfth week. It damnwell better still be viable. I got back to the office and cried my eyes out behind my closed office door.

So the long and the short of that is, I don't have appendicitis. I think the ultrasound tech was new because I think she was more fascinated at doing the OB ultrasound than checking the appendix. That was all well and dandy but keep in mind I had about 48 ounces of water sitting in my bladder for an hour and it wasn't the most comfortable I've ever been.

We got to see everything- the baby's profile, it's face, both hands, both feet (so tiny!), the spine, the heart, the umbilical cord, the brain. Ahh, the brain. There were about fourteen shots of the brain. I hope that was a good thing. I'm not taking those nasty fatty acid supplements for nothing. They better be promoting brain development like they say.

She sent us home with an awesome profile body picture. But we are left wondering, did she share too much? It would appear that there is an appendage down in the baby's lower half. My husband kindly pointed it out and now that's all I can think about. I've searched other ultrasound photos at our same gestational age and it does resemble "boy parts" as they are so commonly called by the cheesy ultrasound techs.

Hmm...

I must be slipping

So when I first started this blog I was pretty excited- on average getting ten hits a day (hey, that's exciting in my limited cyber-world). Now I'm down to like 5.3 hits a day. Dismal. That means that my life is only interesting enough for five people to check it regularly. I suck.

I guess I have to think of ways to spice it up. I would tell you all about the fascinating sex that we have had since I got pregnant but I'm not that great at story telling. Besides, if I think about it and describe it my husband will probably feel cheated because he really isn't getting any. Especially after the weeklong marathons that we used to have when trying to conceive.

So what else can I do to make this blog appealing? It just seems that the only time I can commit more than two paragraphs is when I have something to gripe about. And when I'm not too tired to actually log in and type it. I guess I can do what the Jack in the Box people did, find some creative marketing. If you can't make the product any better you just need to find ways to market it better. Good thing this blog is just an outlet for me and not a real money maker. I would have starved by now.

Today is twelve weeks on the dot, eight of which I have known that I am pregnant. Eight long, torture filled, stressful weeks. Holy crap, eight weeks have already gone by. I'll bet I am going to run out of time to do all the things I thought I would get done in nine months. Probably because I am too scared and superstitious to start doing them now, like most other newly pregnant people would do.

I mean, we aren't going to find out what we are having, so as far as names go we are just going to have to come up with a handful and choose one from the hat once the baby is here. With the nursery in mind, I'm way too nervous to even think about it until at least the sixth or seventh month. Buying things here and there? No way! I'm not Jewish (is it Jewish people that don't buy anything for the unborn baby until it gets here? No offense if not) but I am a freak like that. Common sense tells you to just buy a little here and there and tuck it away. Well at least, that was what common sense would have told me two years ago.

I don't know. This isn't anything like I expected it to be. I have a hope chest for heavens sake and it is empty! Yes, I really did get a cedar hope chest at my high school graduation. My mom is old-fashioned in some respects. I've been lugging that thing around forever and there still isn't anything in it.

I'm pregnant and I have to tell myself it is GOING to work out. Note to self: "NO" is not even a word in my vocabulary. This is going to happen for me.

Sunny days

So I'm thinking that although it doesn't appear that the nausea has let up just yet the fatigue has eased a bit, and that's a great start. I will be twelve weeks tomorrow. YAY. I was such a pessimist freak I didn't really even think I was going to make it that far.

The sad thing is that I probably could have stopped worrying right around the eight week mark. I found a great website that tells you the statistics about once your bean reaches certain milestones what the chances of miscarriage are. My chances dropped to 0.5% right around that eight week mark but I didn't know it. Good thing probably because we definitely don't need a pregnant cocky me walking around. It's bad enough as it is.

I just wanted to point out that it is now after eight pm and I am still awake as can be. Well, not completely bright eyed, but at least I still have the energy to type with two hands. Although I should be careful what I say, I feel a wave of the yawns coming on.

It's a start. I'll take a little less fatigue to start with and hope that the nausea follows. If you are one of those "mind over body" people be forewarned, this is the worst mind trip you will ever go on. There is no such thing as mind over body when you are pregnant. Your body will dictate and you will succumb. I am a control freak and I have been whipped into submission. I am not in control of this and all I can do is sit back and hope that it goes away within that magical twelve to thirteen week window that I hear about.

Stay tuned folks, I think there are sunny days ahead.

Good day or bad?

Some days I can tell that it is going to be a great day. I wake up starving and with energy like I haven't seen in eleven weeks. Today I just can't tell. I struggled with eating my english muffin and choking down a glass of instant breakfast.

But I did wake up without the assistance of a kindly push from my husband after three snoozes so maybe it will be ok after all?

I did take the tags off my new maternity clothes and I've decided that I look so cute in them that I'm going to go buy more. Especially the ones that tie in the back and make you look like you are a little further along than you really are. It's like when you are young and can't wait to get older. Then one day you reach the magical age that you wish you could start going backwards. I'm sure I'll hit that stage at the height of summer when it's 115 degrees outside and I'm so pregnant I can barely move.

As for now, I'm still enjoying this. And I love the attention I get from everyone- including strangers. Since my tummy isn't quite visible yet I don't have to worry about them coming up and touching it but I don't even think that will phase me. (At least we'll see about that).

Here's to the power of positive thinking. I'm going to feel good today.

The tags can come off?

So today was a follow up appointment. One of the fourteen that I've already gone to. I was desperately hoping to hear the heartbeat on the doppler but first the battery went dead and then all they could hear was my own heartbeat.

So I mustered up the ugliest worried face I could find. "What do you mean you can't find the heartbeat? Are you sure it's still beating? What if?"

The doctor tried to talk me out of it. The ultrasound rooms were already in use. I would have to wait even longer than the hour I had logged. No worries, I have time. I'll MAKE time.

So we got into the first available ultrasound room. I welcomed the paper towels tucked into my waistband as you would old friends. Hi guys, me again. Glad to see you, it's been awhile. The jelly on the tummy was refreshingly cool. Low and behold, there was my little snowman on the screen right away.

I got to wear the cool Star Trek glasses that play the movie inside them so I could watch what my husband and the doctor were looking at from my cozy reclined position. I did see the little flutter of the heartbeat right away. I'm becoming quite the expert. Even though this ultrasound machine had cool space-age glasses to watch the action through it didn't have sound. What? No sound? What the? Who bought the beginner model?

It was ok though, it looked like the baby was waving at us. Then the doctor held still for a few seconds and it was the cutest thing ever- both arms and legs started moving and kicking! To me it looked like the little bugger was doing the YMCA dance in there. I could have watched it all day it was so fascinating. And to think, all that movement and I didn't feel a thing.

So the baby measured in at 4.5 cm CRL. That was eleven weeks one day, which is pretty much on schedule as according to my calculations tomorrow will be eleven weeks on the dot.

I'm feeling better. At eleven weeks with a healthy heartbeat and mobile arms & legs I feel somewhat reassured. The three bags of maternity clothes can all be laundered, which means I will have a tag cutting ceremony sometime in the next few days.

Things are really moving right along. Whaddya know.

Just checking in

It surprises me now that I actually am pregnant what little time I spend on the computer. Days will go by and I will realize that I haven't blogged anything and I haven't even checked our bank balance online. Good thing and bad thing. It's good to keep myself away from those scary websites but it's bad because I'm afraid one day that our checking account may go awry and I would never even know it.

So anyway, today was a good day. I should have a little chalkboard or dry erase board in the home office where I can make little tick marks showing how many good vs. bad days I have. I woke up starving (that hasn't happened in awhile). I ate something and sat out on the patio watching the golfers go by. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I read half the Sunday paper, I came in and posted to my friends on the chat board and then I couldn't help it, I had to go for a shower even though my husband was sleeping soundly in the bedroom.

I just know when it's a good day that I have to take full advantage. I tried to shower quietly but you know how that goes. The more careful you are the more things you drop. It was like a bowling alley with all the shampoo and shower gel bottles continually getting set up and knocked over. Oh well, with a day this nice he should have been up anyway.

I made it to the mall to try and find some longer shirts and some stretchy pants. First of all, maternity clothes are not cheap. And it would appear that they never really go on sale so waiting around for that one really cute outfit to come down in price doesn't make sense.

My best friend suggested the old rubber-band-through-the-loophole technique to stretch just a few more weeks out of the pants I already own. So I tried it. First of all, if you have to pee fifty times a day it can get really frustrating to fiddle with a rubber band. Secondly, I thought about it. Now why, if I have to buy maternity clothes at some point anyway, would I want to stretch out the clothes I already own? I mean, think about it, if you have to pay an arm and a leg for those things wouldn't you want to just buy them now and get as many possible wears out of them as you can?

So that was my line of thinking. I broke down and bought a ton of stuff. I think the deal with my best friend continuing to wear her regular clothes as long as possible was because she wears really cute, hip stuff that costs even more than maternity clothes. And probably because there is no maternity line that compares to the hip, cute stuff that she owns. But I'm from a different train of thought. The thing is, I tried really really hard to get to this point. I kind of want people to look at my outfit and know in an instant that I'm pregnant (even if the turkey timer isn't popping out of my tummy). I don't mind wearing those clothes that look like they are stuck in a permanent time warp, to me they are like a status symbol. I have achieved this bloated, water retaining, green in the face state and I will wear these clothes proudly.

That and my husband will make me wear them with a smile once he sees my American Express bill.