So, it's a... (preg mentioned)

Boy!

Everything looked good in there, though Bruiser refused to move the way the persistent u/s tech wanted. Thus, while we saw four chambers in the heart, they need to see if next month he'll give us a better view of his ticker and his profile.

He was unabashed about letting us know what equipment he's carrying, however.

I can already sense his father's influence.

Otherwise, I'm fine. Good b/p. Bad weight gain. So it's bye bye huge bowls of chocolate ice cream. Hello fruit. It's cool; I've been feeling a bit of sweet overload. And I'm no longer craving bacon. So hopefully I can get back on track.

Not that I really care. I've decided next spring, I'm going to start training again, either for a sprint tri or a 10 K or mini-marathon, whatever feels best. That and nursing should take care of this baby fat.

It finally seems real, seeing that strange cross between a cute kitten and Skeletor sloshing around in that sea of white noise...

A warning to the IF brethern

Dears, if you are one of the three people on this planet who have yet to dive into the bizarro sea of Farcebook, don't do it. I have been to that ocean and I can tell you: everyone there has children or is pregnant.

Even me.

It would have been devastating six months ago to see all sorts of people I knew from years back, even, I must stress the ones who due to a terrible medical condition had been told they would likely never be able to bear children, have offspring. With a few, actually quite surprising exceptions (that cute dude with the big bucks never bred? Weird...).

You have been warned.

A conversation

Q: "So, are you decorating the nursery? Do you have a theme?"

A: "Yes, our theme is 'we don't have any fucking money.'"

IFers, we live on another planet. I couldn't care less about a nursery. We couldn't really manage to pay for a redecoration to last a year or two anyway. I just want a child.

Update (for lack of a better title)

Things have been fine for the past week or so, in that lovely chartreuse period of late spring before summer's sauna kicks in. Our garden, after a marathon yard work session, is looking good. Spinach and lettuce are cooking, as are some tiny beets and some fast-growing peas. My anxiety has passed, at least until our next ob appointment in a week and a half. We've had some amazing spring storms and way more rain than usual.

I've been feeling good. Sometimes a bit tired, sometimes really slow and fat and winded compared to my old chop-chop self, but generally good. Evenings are spent watching hulu in two overstuffed chairs we've dragged into our tiny third bedroom (aka "the study" where the computer sits). My husband drinks beer--he is after all working 60+ hours so that we can have a nice pile of cash for October and beyond--and I eat ice cream.

I should be hard at work on my dissertation, but I seem to be finding a hundred little (often income earning) things to prevent me from working on it. Part of me feels deeply apathetic, or at least ambivalent. If I'm no longer all that hot to go into academia, why bother to write a book no one will read and no one will care about, not even me?

But then again, maybe I should just bite the bullet and finish the sucker--I'm almost halfway there and haven't touched it really since last summer--so that I can force people to call me Dr. Or maybe I can just get force people to call me Dr., without the work.

The Worry Gland

I've been experiencing waves of anxiety off and on for the past week or so. Part of it comes from exhaustion mixed with a sudden lack of things that absolutely have to get done now. Part of it is just part of me: I grew up with two anxious parents who sparkled with nervous energy at times. And part of it, I swear, is biological.

I feel like my anxiety is flowing from a special, newly awakened organ or gland, something that ensures I consider all the wretched, horrible options. I've noticed I'm more easily threatened or startled, more easily shaken by an extremely remote possibility. I'm not worried about what might happen to me per se, but what might happen to Bruiser inside me or outside me, to my husband, my parents, my neighbors, school girls in Pakistan, etc. Seriously, I'm reaching a whole new worry dimension.

Is this some kind of Braxton-Hicks contraction of the maternal mind? An involuntary movement preparing me for when the real worrying fun starts?