Hello everyone! Now that I am past my halfway point in my pregnancy, I can no longer be a delinquent about writing.  To give you a brief synopsis of my preggo experience thus far, it has been (thankfully) uneventful.  I never had any nausea in the beginning, but I did feel like I wanted to sleep for the first 3 months straight.The biggest news is that we found out last week that we’re having a boy!   He would not show his face, but displayed all of the features of his lower half quite proudly. Is mooning the camera an inheritable trait?  My goal is to not get squirted with every diaper change.  We will have to do some research into this product we’ve heard of: the peepee teepee.

I’m not sure if it’s the pregnancy hormones or what, but I started crying reading the Sunday comics yesterday (no, not because Family Circus is painful to read or Zippy the Pinhead makes no sense).  There were a few Memorial Day-themed comic strips, Doonesbury and Opus, which got me really choked up.  It’s not like I don’t get exposed to news of deaths in the Iraq war on a daily basis (NPR), but seeing visual estimates of the magnitude of deaths of young soldiers (both comics showed this) really struck me. Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant?  Maybe it’s because I think of little Genghis getting sent off to war?  Or maybe it’s because I think the soldiers should get to come home?  I’m not sure why, but hopefully all the troops know that there are people thinking about them who want them to come home safely. 

We now have a pediatrician! Or a set of them actually.  We picked one of the group practices in the area. Many of my friends from work take their kids there, so this seems like a good sign.  They had a 1 ½ hr orientation (including powerpoint slides) Friday night to introduce the practice members, how the office works, how to take care of a newborn, when to call, etc. We also got party favors from the orientation - ok, not exactly ‘party favors’, but a nice packet of info about the practice and a mini-diaper bag with free samples in it. Very useful info and it’s one of the last big things on the list that needs to be completed for Genghis’s arrival.

With my new-found love of crushed ice, I’ve been a frequent visitor to our local snowcone stand.  It’s on my way home from work and they make a great peach snowball (think snowcone in a cup with a spoon).  Pre-preggers, I would eat the ‘kiddie’ size, but now I’ve graduated to the 16 oz version of the snowball and could usually eat more. Yum. 

I’m at 35 weeks and now will have weekly OB appointments.  Apparently, I’m at the point where they wouldn’t try to ‘stop’ my labor if it started.  Wow, this makes Genghis’s arrival seem even more real.  The type A part of me wants to know exactly when he’s arriving, so I can make sure I’ve completed my ToDo list before the big day.  But I also know that this is not a realistic expectation, so I’ll just have to chill out and wait. 

I still seem bigger every day.  I can’t see my feet and have clothing issues.  I got one last wearing of my pregnancy business suit this week but I don’t think I’ll be fitting into it again.  I can’t see my feet and had to get some assistance for footcare (toenail clipping and painting) as it’s hard to get to them consistently without getting really out of breath.  I’ve never been flexible, but now that I have jumbo-baby in between my hands and feet, I can manage to get them clean in the shower but that’s pretty much it.  My Braxton-Hicks ‘practice’ contractions are getting more noticeable.  Still nothing to stop my day, but my uterus is definitely more powerful than before. 

TinyD is also getting beefier – when he wiggles, he can get in some pretty strong shots to my liver, bladder, and other organs.  He also changes positions, which makes me look like I have a square abdomen on one side.  I assume this is from his tiny butt, but who knows.  He’s clearly been headbutting my bladder for weeks now.  As big as he seems to be getting, when Travis held up a baby sock to my belly for a size comparison, we realized he’s still a little dude. 

This weekend, Travis and my plans include figuring out what baby stuff we’re missing.  We have a lot of clothes and baby towels, thanks to generous family and friends.  We meet a pediatrician later this week and Travis has made a nice spreadsheet outlining our health insurance options for TinyD. (i.e. add to my policy? Add to Travis’s? Get a family plan through my work?).  My cheapo employer only pays for individual health coverage, so the question becomes quite legit when it may cost of $400 a month out of pocket for health coverage for Travis and Genghis. 

I have pica. 

For anyone who doesn’t know what this is (and doesn’t feel like googling it), pica is the eating of non-food objects caused by iron-deficiency anemia.  All pregnant women get anemia eventually, mainly because the liquid part of the blood increases at a much faster rate than the number of red blood cells in the blood. 

There are a few different non-food things that are typically eaten in pica: 

1. ice, which I’ve been eating a lot of, chomping away a few times a day. 2. laundry starch, which I have no desire to eat

3. dirt or clay, which I also haven’t sampled and am not tempted by in the least (the extreme handwashing and paranoia about contaminated food doesn’t really jive with eating a fistful of dirt from the garden) 

No one knows why these are the things anemic people with pica want to eat. It’s not like there’s a bunch of iron in dirt or laundry starch.  Guess I better keep taking my prenatal vitamins.

I haven’t done so well with writing lately.  Things got a little busy at work. I’ve been in
Washington DC at a conference called Digestive Disease Week, where gastroenterologists from around the world converge for a week  of science, sight-seeing, and free coffee-drinking.  Last year, 16,000 gastroenterologists and surgeons attended.  I was really glad it was in DC, since I can’t travel any farther, even if it did necessitate the pre-conference scientific poster-making and other general frenzy.  I also got to drive back and forth from DC to
Baltimore as I still had to work Monday and Tuesday.  The scientific stuff at the conference was really good and people asked questions about my scientific posters and not just my belly . So….. I resolve to write more often.

Travis and I have been going to class together.  Unlike college, med school, and grad school classes, ‘peparing for baby’classes are more fun, easier, but a bit scarier.  The whole childbirth/babycare/parenting thing is new and a little anxiety-provoking.  The classes have been helpful in helping us plan and giving us a more realistic idea of what having a baby is going to be like.

We started childbirth classes – the first one is ‘Prepared Childbirth’, which entails learning about labor and delivery, the stages of labor, and breathing and relaxation exercises.  Travis saw a birth for the first time and I think he has a more realistic idea of what labor is like, and what his role will be.  Having neglected to read the instructions carefully, we were the only couple there without 2 pillows and a blanket to sit on.  Fortunately, I have a cardigan and someone loaned us a pillow for the floor exercises.  It was like showing up to math class with no paper and pencil.  We were more prepared for week 2, and got to practice more breathing exercises.  The class only allowed a 30 minute lunch break and we were told to bring food as there wouldn’t be enough time to go out and buy anything.  Hard core baby education.

I started infant care class last week and took copious notes, as Travis was away.  I was the only attendee without a husband or birth partner.  Some people even brought their moms to class.  The class was great and had lots of good detail about care and feeding of newborns, starting with what a newborn baby looks like (good to know if you’ve never seen a newborn, who looks like they’re covered in cream cheese and strawberry jelly, with funny shaped head, swollen eyes, blue hands and screaming - the cuteness comes later).  I know a lot more about baby food now thanks to class, and managed to keep from telling everyone there how gross baby food actually tastes.  Travis is joining me this next week for class.

Believe it or not, med school didn’t teach me that much about babies.  I learned how to deliver babies and about the 9 million things that can go wrong, hurting mom and baby. Fortunately, all these things are rare.  I also learned how to examine a newborn and check its reflexes and how to make it stop crying for the exam (put a gloved finger in baby’s mouth and they’ll suck and stop crying- much easier to hear the heart without the crying). But pretty much nothing of practical use for actual care of a baby, hence the classes at HoCo.    

Travis is back from
Turkey, where he went for work this week.  Genghis agreed not to make an appearance until after he was back (and hopefully not for a few more weeks after).  We now have a very soft rug from Turkey, I have a new purse (from the Turkish rug store), and 2 of the world’s largest Christmas ornaments, including one that shows Santa and his reindeer flying over the Hagia Sophia, one of Turkey’s famous mosques. 

In addition to meat and sparkling water, TinyD craves cupcakes and brownies.  I’ve done more dessert-baking since becoming pregnant that the whole time Travis and I have been married.  I’ve become a huge fan of Betty Crocker boxed cake mixes and the icing that comes in the tubs.  For some reason, making, frosting, and eating cupcakes is more satisfying than baking a cake.  I also like adding extra leftover icing to the cupcakes that I eat.  Yum! 

I’ve also made a lot of brownies over the last few months.  I always end up drinking a lot of milk when I eat brownies, so this makes them good for me, right?  My favorite boxed brownies are even better when I make my mom’s ‘Symphony Bar’ version.  Symphony Bars are the snooty form of Hershey’s chocolate. To make Symphony Bar brownies, just put half of the brownie mix in the pan, lay the 2 giant chocolate bars in the pan on top, then cover with the rest of the brownie mix. The cooking time is the same and the brownies are very tasty.