Not the swine flu

After getting fully vaccinated last week, yesterday I came down with something. After conferring with the doctor this morning it looks like it's just a cold. There's no fever, so they don't think it's the flu (either kind) but if I do come down with a fever they will be getting me a prescription. For the next few days it's rest and lots of fluids for me. I have been around people who had been exposed to swine flu, but the time between when I saw them and when I started to feel nasty wasn't enough time for me to get sick. The doctor said that I might be having a reaction to the shot, but not to worry. So everyone, don't worry. Mom and Gloria I'm looking at you specifically.

The Madness of Infertility

I think this is an amazing essay that so accurately describes what it's like to be infertile. The author explains how she's jealous of a panda bear who manged to get pregnant while she and her husband still struggle. It's the best example I've seen of how you can be jealous of ANY pregnant being, even one trapped in a zoo. I also like that the author is in her 20's. So much is written about infertile women in their 30's and 40's that the younger ones tend to get forgotten. One of the final straws with the first doctor we saw was when he told me "You're still young and have plenty of time" during a visit. I later realized that it was the third January in a row we'd had an appointment with him. Just because I have time doesn't mean that I haven't already spent too much time dealing with stupid heads. (For the record the time between first appointment and positive pregnancy test with the new doctor? 4 months.)

And the answer is...

It's a girl. We also got the test results back from the ultrasound and blood work a couple of weeks ago and everything looks good. I also had my cervix checked and everything looked great. My mother spent at least 2 months on bed rest with each of her children due to an incompetent cervix (three months hospitalized with her hips above her heart and unable to get out of bed with the last one) so I was very paranoid about my cervix. I might have high fived Matt about because I'm not like my mother. But it was done with love and appreciation for the time she spent in bed with me and my brothers.

We are super excited and can't wait to meet our little girl. Based on what we've seen in the ultrasounds so far she's definitely energetic and has problems sitting still. The technician today had trouble getting a recording of her heartbeat for more than 3 seconds before she moved again. Only time will tell if she's really the OCD/ADD combo that we're expecting.

Last Chance to Guess - Hopefully

Tomorrow we go in for another ultrasound, and hopefully are able to find out the sex of the baby. I do know someone who had a baby that never cooperated and they had to wait till the baby was born. I'm praying that baby doesn't have a twisted sense of humor, but I'm not holding my breath.

Last week I spent a couple of days with my family in the Bay Area and then a couple of days working in San Francisco. It was good to see everyone, even if the weather was worse than El Nino. I also managed to get out of my dad's house with none of the reserved baby clothes from the basement. If I wanted to I could dress the baby from birth to 12 with nothing but the clothes in the basement, so this was an epic feat. Roughly the equivalent of climbing Everest.

For the most part I'm feeling better. I'm still exhausted and going to bed early, but everything else seems to have calmed down.

Not so much with the talking

I was aware of baby brain as a concept, but I thought it was something along the lines of being forgetful. Apparently I am suffering from a version which makes it impossible to use the right words. It's not gibberish, just clearly not the right word. Recent examples include...
"Putting all your birds in one basket"
"I need to clean the dog poop off my car" (I meant bird poop)
"Have we ordered the signage for the blow"
"Furbulous" (ok, maybe that one ventures towards gibberish)
I've also developed a habit of being completely unable to type my own name. Awesome.

I think part of it is baby brain and part is just being overwhelmed. Last week my company decided to reorganize. Not unexpected, just really poor timing. This meant my boss was laid off, effectively immediately, and I am taking over his responsibilities. I don't get to hand any of mine off to anyone else, I just add his. I'm trying not to panic, but I've never missed tequila as much as I have in the past week.

Our little elf

The top one is WAY zoomed in so you can see the profile. My mom thinks it looks like Matt, but I think that's just because it has hair. And it totally looks like a little elf.

Babies On The Brain

Today our interim president at work became the proud daddy to a new baby girl named Emma. He hand his partner used a surrogate and she lives in San Diego, so he's out there for the birth. San Diego's an excellent city to be born in, if I do say so myself. Contrary to popular belief it does not make you an instant surfer.

I am doing well as I'm about to enter my last week of the first trimester. Most of the nausea has passed, but this week I did learn the hard way that I shouldn't take the trash out anymore. Teddy was kind enough to get out of the way before I threw up on her.

This weekend I'm planning my first trip to the baby store to start figuring out what we need. Any recommendations that people have for baby gear I would appreciate. Matt's keeping a spreadsheet of all recommendations (along with a spreadsheet of baby-related spreadsheets) because he's way more organized than I am. Next week I have my next appointment and ultrasound so we get to see how big the baby's gotten. Last time it looked like a gummy bear, so we'll see what it looks like now.