Monday, October 31, 2005

Half way!

I have very little to say about baby, and that's all that's really interesting in my life right now.

(I go to work, I sit at my desk; sometimes I have work to do, usually I do not. Mike and I make dinner every night, and then do some dishes, and then I eat brownies or cake. Then we go to bed and I struggle to stay sleeping on my side with a body pillow jammed between my legs. It's a nice, happy, peaceful life. But it doesn't make for good blogging.)

But, this weekend, we hit the half way mark! The baby has been growing for as many days as it has left. It seems agonizing to wait as long as it's already taken, but I know it will go quickly, as I have the holidays to breeze through.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Everybody's a critic

The internet is cool. I got a comment from someone (I have no idea who) suggesting that it's ironic that I pander for comments but then don't respond. Now, I've only ever gotten one comment from someone I didn't know the identity of, and it's true, I never responded. I didn't really understand what (s)he was trying to say. But the cool part is that while the person wasn't rude in this comment, (s)he did insert some sarcasm about my 'words of wisdom,' which I can only assume means that the commenter thinks that I think that everyone should want to read what I have to say, er, write, and then participate in a discussion.

But, really, all I was trying to do was to get my mother-in-law to have some fun, since she's the only person who ever reads this. So come on, I dare you!! Click that Comments link! It's fun. It's free!

Back to strangers commenting: no matter how hard I try, I can't get any results for my blog when I google phrases I've used on here. I don't know why, but I also don't really care. But I'm very curious how people got here in the first place. I guess you can just scroll through blogs. I should really figure out how to work that stat counter stuff. Eh, whatever.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Thursday, October 27, 2005

A comment on commenting

Commenting is appreciated. It's very easy. See the '0 Comments' in green type below each entry? (If I'm really, really lucky, it says '1 Comments.') It's a link to a page in which you can type anything your heart desires in response to the post. It doesn't even have to be related to the post. You could comment that "Cheez-its are delicious," or "I heard that the gene that allows one to roll his or her tongue is recessive. Why can so many people roll their tongues then?!"

So, once you read the post, click on the word Comments, and then type something clever into the big box. Then click on the dot by Other, not Blogger. You also supposed to put in a name, but that's entirely optional. You can of course just call yourself "Anonymous," or "Superman," or even "studluvr," and I won't mind! Now, there are probably really smart people who could figure out who commented by finding an IP address or some other technical stamp that people leave all over the web. I am not one of those people. If you want to be anonymous, don't worry. I won't snoop. I swear. I couldn't even if I wanted to. (And if you have no reason to be anonymous, you could even go so far as to call yourself "Mom.")

Oh, and there is also a place to put in your email address or a webpage or something. You don't have to do that. Just leave it blank. You can leave them all blank. It really doesn't matter.

But when you get to the end, there is a funky-looking string of letters that you have to type in. So here's the deal: if you don't make a real, live human being type the letters in that image, computers elsewhere can automatically create and post "comments" about buying a nice, new ocmputer from them, or seeing Kandy Kane's special holiday between-the-legs treat. Some blogs don't use this 'verification' system for posting. I have no idea how they stop spam. But I see the verification system as "Who cares?" so I use it. So you just have to type in the letters you see. That's all. Then you click Publish your comment, or Preview if you want to look at it before posting it, and viola! You have commented on my post. And this makes me very happy.

(It is worth noting that Mike and I argued over who would tell you how to do this.)

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

On blogging

I feel like I should write every day. But then I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say everyday. And I think I shouldn't just write garbage just to post something. But it's the only way to stay in the habit, right?

Sigh. We'll see.

On office politics

You know how when someone leaves a box of food in the office kitchen, it's pretty much for the taking? Sometimes it's leftover pizza from a meeting, sometimes it's a box of cookies their kid was selling. And then sometimes, albeit rarely, it is a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts with pristine chocolate goo spread just so.

Background: I have never eaten a Krispy Kreme doughnut. I gave up doughnuts years ago when I was a teenager and discovered nutrition labels, but I'm woman enough to admit that I've had a couple of them over the years. But the times when I've been desperate enough to have a doughnut (I was truly hungry for breakfast and it was the only thing available), it's never been a Krispy Kreme doughnut. And I've been offered a Krispy Kreme doughnut before, but if I'm not hungry, and I don't need it, I politely (and probably stupidly) decline. I've been mildly curious about trying one, since some people swear it really is that big a deal. But I've never really wanted one. But I've never been pregnant before, either.

More background: There are two kitchens on our floor of this office building. Our group's kitchen is more of a kitchenette with a mini-fridge, crappy microwave, and 12" sink. Way on the other side is a more reasonably sized kitchen with a real fridge, two microwaves, and even a table and chairs. Crazy! I don't usually venture to the big kitchen, because it's a long walk, and I just feel a little bit out of my element. It's still there for our department, but not really our group.

Last background: The polar jug in our kitchenette was broken. I don't know what happened to it, as there was a nice, full jug of water on the base, and the hot water was working, but no cold water would come out. I had to trek all the way down to the big kitchen to fill up my water bottle. I did this several times through the day.

Finally, the stupid story: At around 2:30 or 3:00, I stumbled into the big kitchen to find, gasp, above-mentioned box of 6 chocolate iced doughnuts. They were lined-up, untouched, ready to be evoured. There was a post-it on the box that simply said, "PAID." I figured there must be some mistake! No one would leave these out for the taking. I felt it would be rude to just take one without asking someone first, but I don't really know anyone from that side of the building to ask. And if I just took one, and got busted in the hallway running off with someone else's doughnut, I'd be very embarassed. (I'd probably just point to my enlarged belly and bat my eyelashes, but I don't want it to come to that. Yet.) So I decided that the more polite thing to do would be wait until 4:30 or 5:00 when most people were gone for the day and if there were any left then, steal one and devour it without an iota of guilt.

I went back to my desk and could think of nothing but a perfectly chocolate iced Krispy Kreme doughnut. I think I drooled. I made it to about 4:15, and then casually cruised back to the big kitchen. And the box was in the trash. Right on top. And I peeked inside in case some insane person was cleaning the kitchen and trashed everything, but alas, it was empty. I blew it. And I wanted to cry. But I held it together. I stumbled back to my desk, numb and defeated.

I had never wanted a baked good so badly. What's wrong with me?! The good news is that I ended up buying a teensy bag of Chex Mix (for 85 cents, the theiving bastards) from the vending machine and eating that and my yogurt for an early-evening snack. I was impressed with myself.

Then I went home and ate lots of pizza and brownies.

But my question is this: should I have just taken the doughnut in the first place? Wouldn't anyone else assume that a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts just isn't the same as cold, gross, obviously left-over pizza? Mike said he would have taken a doughnut in a second. Was I wrong? Am I too virtuous? Too considerate? Too dumb?

Baby Sugar Ray

Imagine my surprise to be beat awake this morning. And it didn't hurt! There were pops and kicks and thuds all over inside me. I didn't know the baby had the reach to hit both sides of my abdomen, practically at the same time. It was exactly what I've been waiting for.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Bloosh, bloosh, bloosh, bloosh...

Its head is not squished!

(We assume the head is intact, because the heart is still beating. Perhaps it could still beat with brain damage, but it's unlikely.) So the baby is just fine. I heard the bloosh-bloosh, bloosh-bloosh of blood with my own ears. A fetus' heartbeat is very different from an adult's heartbeat. Perhaps my heart would actually sound the same with that weird tool they use, but it's a very, uh, liquidy sound. Kind of like splashing in a pool.

Still feels more like a mouse crawling around inside me than a baby though. No good bumps, but the occasional tingle of presence. I guess that will have to do for now!

I am putting on weight. It's a very, very strange feeling to get on the scale and feel proud of a few extra pounds. It's also daunting, since I just keep thinking that I will suffer having to get rid of those pounds very soon, or else suffer with a mom-butt for all of eternity. Then I'll have to buy mom-jeans and socks that go halfway up my calves.

Growing up is fun.

Roe v. Wade

A little news from the pregnancy front. Sabrina had another check-up today, all is well. She gained another few lbs. which takes her total up to 10 lbs of pregnancy weight gained. We received the results from the genetic testing and all is normal. The baby's heart rate is normal, which is great after the "monstrous elbow" scare of a couple of weeks ago.

On to my other topic, abortion. A little background info first. I am currently working on a B.A. in Legal Studies and an taking a course on Civil Rights'. So the discussion of Roe v. Wade came up in a class on the topic of "right to privacy". I guess I never put two and two together to realize that Roe is a case based upon the privacy issue of a woman and her practitioner and the "viability" of the fetus during the 3 trimesters of pregnancy.

The ruling on Roe dictated that the federal government could set some regulations about whether a woman can have an abortion. Note that there are certain laws and even amendments that are strictly state's rights issues; ex. 2nd amendment-right to bear arms and pre-Roe. Here is the interesting part of this case. During trimester 1 and 3 the Supreme Court dictated rules, but for the 2nd trimester the rules on abortion were deemed to be up to the state's.

So in Roe, if a woman who is in her 1st trimester wants to abort her pregnancy she has the right to do so without prejudice, no need to consult her practitioner because according to the Supreme Court the pregnancy is not viable. In her 3rd trimester, she can not abort her pregnancy without the consultation of a practitioner stating that the pregnancy would kill the mother if not aborted. If the mother's health is not in jeopardy and she still wants to abort the baby, she can not because the ruling in Roe state's the pregnancy would be considered viable. So the real question fell into the 2nd trimester. When does the child move from the stage of not viable to viable. Well the Supreme Court did not come out and dictate a specific ruling, but passed the decision off to the state's legislatures to determine themselves.

In the end, with the changes in the Supreme Court if Roe is re-examined and overturned, the ramification would then turn completely onto the state's to deem if abortion is legal, legal at certain stages or not legal at all.

The whole time I was sitting in class pondering the thought of what my expectations in life would be without the upcoming birth of my first child. I just want this examined in the simplest of forms, not taking into account any financial, economical or sociological aspect. Why in the world would I ever not want this child to come into my life. I have the ability to bring new life to this beautiful plant. And then I was saddened by all the turmoil in the world and hope that the life we are choosing to have will not be terrible. All the emotions first felt when we found out that were pregnant, came at me full tilt in a matter of a 30 minute discussion. I am still thinking about the topic.

Now my question: When will the viability factor of a pregnancy cease to exist in our world of ever expanding scientific knowledge. Do doctor's have the ability to create life in a Petri dish, then carry the pregnancy as far as they can until it is time to transfer to a mammal, say a hormone and medicated induced cow with a placenta, to continue the pregnancy until the child was around 12 oz. a reality? Doctor's have been able to save children that were born at the weight of 12 oz. Cows have been able to give birth to sheep which were implanted in them. Are humans really needed in order to create "human" life a possiblity in the future?

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Der Musik...

As Sabrina has pointed out for a week or so now, she fears that the baby is not "functioning" like a baby should be. Now I understand that my monster elbow could have affected the baby, but the likelihood is slim to none. Also I would like to point out that this is our first child and we don't know what a baby is supposed to do inside the mommy. Now all mommies are different so how are we, or should I say Sabrina, to know what the baby is or isn't doing? I am going in the wrong direction here, sorry. My point is that this morning our baby had it's first taste of sound. We recently purchased some stereo headphones, they arrived yesterday and this morning "Franklin's Tower" rang through Sabrina's belly to our child.

Now the reasoning behind this song for me is firstly, why wouldn't I play a Dead song for my unborn child, secondly, it is a fun dancing body shaking song for me so why not for my unborn child, and lastly to try to get the baby moving to help Sabrina feel the baby and not be so worried.

It was a sweet moment for me, I just hope the baby and maybe Sabrina enjoyed it as much as I did...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Fear

I'm trying to post every day, just to get in the habit.

Today I am worrying senselessly about whether the baby's head was squished. I have hardly been feeling anything at all down there this whole week. Every now and again I get a little tug that may or may not be baby movement, but it usually feels more like a ligament stretching, a muscular cramp, or a nerve twinge. I just really expected to feel it rolling around in there by now, doing some acrobatics or hitting me or something, and I wish it would get busy already!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

That's great it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes and airplanes

If I'm being honest, I can say: I don't really believe in the end of the world, like in a biblical sense.

Then again, I believe in both creationism and evolutionary theory--creationism just says that God made the world. It doesn't say how long it took. In fact, the Bible says that a day is to a thousand years as a thousand years is to one day. And so what if they messed up the order a little bit; whether it was earth, trees, man, animals, then woman, or if it was earth, protozoa, pond scum, invertebrates, blah blah blah, then humans, who cares? I mean, the old testament had people living to be 7 or 8 hundred years old. Something was clearly wrong with their dating system, or their concept of chronology. So in my mind, every living thing on earth is the product of God, and evolution just dragged it out a bit. Even if the Bible suggests that God said, "Hmm, I think I'll make an Earth today!" and poof! there it all was, are we really foolish enough to think that God works in minutes?

So back to the end of the world. So I don't think it's going to suddenly rain fire and sulfur and we all either enjoy the splendors of heaven or rot away in hell. But, why won't the world come to an end the way it began--over millions of years? Perhaps that's the way God wanted it. But I am starting to feel like we're testing God. I truly believe that we're accelarating the end of the world. It almost certainly won't happen in my or my children's lifetime, but it seems likely within the next thousand years or so.

Okay, perhaps we don't have sulfur rain, but what about acid?

I think R.E.M. had it all figured out. Seriously: earthquake, check. Birds, check. Airplanes, check. So we're not currently having a snake problem, but isn't that what St. Patrick had to deal with in the 4th century? We're talking about millions of years here, so this is somewhat relevant today. (Aside: in searching for a site to link to the snakes being driven from Ireland, I learned so much! 1) There really are no snakes in Ireland, but there probably never have been, since the island separated from the mainland in the last Ice Age and 2) St. Patrick never really drove anything out of Ireland at all. He simply brought the Irish Catholicism, which they did not have before him. So it was like driving out the demons, oft represented as serpents, or snakes. And here we are back in the Bible, in the garden.)

And R.E.M never even mentioned hurricanes worsened by global warming (at least not in the lyrics I could manage to memorize.)

I'm scared. I realize that terrible things have been going on for a long, long time. But it's just weird to feel so vulnerable in this world in which we act like we control everything. There is a pandemic coming, and thousands or even millions of people could die, and we are powerless to stop it. We usually know when hurricanes, or earthquakes, or tsunamis are coming, but we are powerless to stop them.

Godspeed to all.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Changes in living...

I just received an email from my best man, Ryan who asked, "what did you guys do this weekend?" After relaying the story of our weekend, he responded with his. Both lame, neither going out for anything but a meal and he wrote,

"Wow... are lives are pretty different from back in the day, huh?"

Wow, is right! We spent many hours together almost every weekend, drinking, eating, hanging out. Now we need to make plans to do something 2 weeks in advance and sometimes that doesn't even work out. In the past 2 months outside of family and co-workers, I have spent about 1 day with friends. I don't regret the missed opportunities because I have something bigger to look for, a baby!

I have come to realization that I am not a wild child like I was nor can I go back to being one, I am slowly turning into somewhat of a responsible adult. 6 months ago is was easy for me to have a few drinks a night (Sabrina would as well) and continue on with work, school, and life; remnants of college days, where drinking everyday was not a big deal. Now, my only cares and worries have transformed my previous life into wanting to take care of my wife and our investment. I no longer drink anywhere near as much as I used to (I can now make a 30 pack of beer last over a month and that is with the help of guests who come over.)

I also failed to realize (or wanted to ignore) how much alcohol played a role in our daily lives and how I am glad that it no longer plays the same role. It has changed and incredibly for the better. Now it really is nice to have a couple of drinks while watching a football game because it is actually relaxing, not stimulating as it used to be!

My point of all this rambling, is that my role life will never be the same as it used to be and that is a difficult concept to handle. My wife, our house, and our life is slowly becoming the prototypical "hard to leave home" scenario. If we have problems leaving home now, how will we do it when we have a baby in tow, most likely we won't...but, I hope we try...

"Why, my head would squash like an eggplant!"

Last night, we were lazily watching t.v., sprawled out on the couch, and a cat came crawling into the mess of legs, looking for love. Mike lunged for the cat, grabbed him, and pushed back into a sitting position, dragging cat to his chest for some forced love. And by pushed, I mean pushed off my abdomen with his elbow!! At first it just hurt, and I grimaced, and he gasped, "Oh, I'm SO sorry! Did I hurt you?! I didn't mean to!" and then, "Did I hurt the baby?!"

Okay, that was the last thing on my mind. But it suddenly scared the shit out of me! In truth, my first reaction to that last question was, "No, no, it's fine, you got me way higher than that." But as I rubbed where he pummeled, either the spot was psychosomatically moved lower into my abdomen, or I misjudged how high the spot was in the first place. I was suddenly rubbing a spot 6 inches to the left of and 6 inches below my belly button. And though I said nothing to him, I panicked inside. I tried to picture the baby, and how big it is, and where it could be arranged, and how much amniotic fluid there is to protect it, and how big my uterus is now, and if the head could have been in that precise spot. I think I've gotten over it, as I have felt some little jiggles in there that are probably baby moving. (For now, let's hope it's not rigor mortis.)

But since then, I've been trying to imagine just how big the baby really is. I know that it's about 6 inches long, and it weighs several ounces, less than a half pound. So how big would its head be? Like a quarter? No, bigger than that. Like a Barbie head? Yeah, that's about it! But not as long as a Barbie, more like Skipper, Barbie's little cousin (or friend or whatever, what do I know? I wasn't allowed to have Barbies because my older sisters ripped all their heads off.) So I was imagining Skipper's head in my belly, except not that tough plastic like Skipper, but soft bone that is barely ossified, rice-paper thin skin with blood vessels popping out of it, and I was imagining what would happen to that little head under Mike's monster elbow. And it was a little disconcerting.

And that led me to many morbid thoughts: how would I even know if we squished the thing's brains out? Would my body know? What would my body do with the baby? What if the head wasn't on that side, but we squished its legs or ankles, and it'll never learn to walk?

But I'm not so scared now. I'm sure it'll all be fine. I think.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Finally!


So this is what our baby looks like!

It's weird. I'm happy, but I'm also, oh I don't know... So that's it! We've seen the baby. And now we won't see it again until March, if all goes according to plan. If we do see it again, it's because something's wrong, and we don't want that.

So it's like Christmas morning, after all the packages are torn apart. You are left feeling inundated with new things, but somehow dissatisfied, or unfulfilled.

The baby was also pretty stubborn--it turned towards us for a brief time, and the technician grabbed these shots while she could. But then it flipped over, and wouldn't present for any more pictures (I guess it's got a little of my sister in it, too!)

The head, arms and legs were measured, as well as girth or a waist measurement, and its heart, umbilical cord, kidneys and lips were measured. I think that's what I found frustrating today, and I think that's leaving me with an unsatisfied feeling. The whole thing was so clinical that it wasn't even exciting! I don't understand how an ultrasound technician could be so uninterested in the emotions people feel when seeing their baby for the first time. From the moment she fired up the machine, all I wanted was to see our baby. But we looked at every imaginable organ in very fine detail before I got a glimpse. Sometimes I would see what appeared to be a face off to the side, and she would comment that some stupid unrecognizable structure that she was focusing on was the vena cava, or whatever. So I knew that I wasn't seeing the face, I was just seeing some hollowed-out section of baby that I wasn't at all interested in. I just wanted to see my baby! And after 10 minutes of looking at everything I didn't want to see, we saw perhaps 60 seconds of baby. And then it turned away, and she turned off the machine, and that was it. And we have video of that wonderful minute of seeing the baby, though it's blurry and I can't even tell if the kid is cute or not! But I just might watch the video every day so that if I ran into my baby on the street, at least I would recognize it.

Poor Mike just thinks I'm impossible to please, and I'm sure he's right. No matter what I think I want ('I just want to hear the heart beat!', 'I just want to feel it!', or 'I just want to see it!'), I'm never quite satisfied. I'm left wanting something more.

Like my baby.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Say cheese!

Tomorrow we get our first glimpse of baby (named Phillianna by my sister and mother, since a boy will be Phillip and a girl will be Anna.) Not only will we get some pictures to take with us, but we will be able to record the whole thing on a VCR tape which they nicely label for us. That kind of scared me; I don't trust our VCR to not eat the tape, and if it's our first home movie of Phillianna, I don't want to risk anything.

I also want to make a correction to Mike's post yesterday. I feel pretty confident that I've been feeling the baby for a short time now. Last Friday was the very first time I felt something that felt a lot like ligaments stretching, except it wasn't around the sides... it was right smack in the middle of where my uterus apparently rests. Then on Saturday I felt some weird sensations, but nothing that was noticeably like a baby moving. I've been waiting for what other people described as the butterfly feeling, or a fizzy feeling, as if someone opened a can of coke inside me. But the thumps that I've been feeling have been much more like gas bubbles in a place they don't belong, or like ligaments stretching, or, believe it or not, like being pinched! It felt more like mysterious nerve pain than a butterfly. But, yesterday, I did feel a butterfly feeling, and that was what I was waiting for. I believe the rest of the feelings were baby, but they were annoying feelings, not pleasant Oh-there-it-is!! feelings.

I'm kind of starting to have I-love-my-baby feelings. I don't know how I could love something I never met. It's very strange to feel, and hard to explain. I already feel protective of the baby, partly I suppose because of genes and instincts and Darwin and all that, but it's also kind of selfish! I feel like I am protective of the baby in a I'm-not-wasting-the-past-four-months-so-you-better-keep-on-ticking kind of way. I wouldn't do anything that might hurt it, but mostly because I wouldn't want the headache of starting from scratch. See how selfish that is?! It is like I really don't love this particular fetus as a real baby that already has its hair color and its personality. It could be any old fetus--I don't really care what kind, as long as it comes out alive so I don't have to start over again. That sounds awful.

So maybe it's because we're going to see the baby tomorrow. Or perhaps it's because I can feel it. I've actually started to feel love for the thing. Will Phillianna be an active baby like its daddy, or lazy like its mommy? Will it have my tiny nose or Mike's big ears? This much is assumed by us: it will have curly (or at least wavy) hair and it will be on the larger side of average (as an adult of course).

Anyhow, I suddenly have all these thoughts about what kind of a child we have created. It hadn't occured to me that it was strange not to wonder those things from the moment of conception. I think I've been trying not to get my hopes up about this particular baby. After tomorrow, I think I will be officially in love with this baby, and if anything happens from here on out, I'm in big trouble.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Finally

This week marks some first's for us.

Yesterday, Subby finally felt the baby for the first time. The typical butterfly feeling which made her ecstatically happy and tickly at the same time appeared while she was in a meeting. I was glad to hear the news since for the last few days she has been saying, I think that was our baby, no I think that was our baby, well the baby finally said hello.

On Friday we get our first glimpse of the little bugger. Again I will be so happy for Subby since she has had a lot of doubt as to whether or not the baby was even alive inside her belly, but this will be the end all, eventhough a heartbeat was heard (multiple times) and she felt the baby. I will be happy, like the usual guy is, as long as the baby has 2 arms, 2 legs, and all it's toes and fingers.

I hope the week ends with as much excitement and anticipation as we have built up in our heads over these last 4 months. Even that is hard to believe, 4 months...