Almost to week 12…

Week 12– the “magic” week to some people–starts Saturday.   Today, at 11 weeks, 5 days, we heard the HB again, nice and strong.  Despite reassurance, I immediately started to have one of those sneaky second-guesses… what if the doctor mistook my HB for the baby’s HB?    Why would I insist on thinking that?  My doctor has been practicing since the late 70s, and she seems very competent.  I’m just a paranoid freak, and I guess I better get used to that.

In other news… we are liking our dishwasher quite a lot!  It’s very nice to have dirty dishes out of the way while they are waiting to be washed.

I finally saw Waiting for Guffman, the only Christopher Guest film I’d never seen.  It was HILARIOUS… and of all the people who might read this blog, Maria Flores, you better rent that movie tonight if you’ve never seen it.

We’ll be seeing my folks at a wedding in Maine this weekend… I’m still not in the mood to tell them.   So it’ll stay a secret a while longer.  And in case you are wondering, there really is no belly to speak of yet. I only gained a pound so far.

dishwasher or no?

Our friends are selling their dishwasher– portable, apartment sized, countertop… Initially we were excited to get it, but then we had to buy an air purifier for the apartment and our summer appliance allowance (which we didn’t even think we had) seemed a bit small. So right now we are in limbo. They’ve posted it on craigslist, so we no longer have first dibs.

What would you do? Do you love your DW? Hate it? Think its a bit of a waste?

By the way, all is well in my uterus, as far as I can tell. At our last appointment (with an OB, not RE) we heard the heartbeat on the doppler, which was very nice. Our next appointment is not until July 3. I hope we don’t go crazy in the interim. I won’t bore you with all the details of how I imagine things are going wrong…. I just want to be calm and grateful that I’ve made it this far! I’m working on it!

bad blogger

I’m sorry I’ve been a bad blogger.  Sometimes I just don’t know what to write about.   I started to get self-conscious about blogging about the pregnancy, especially b/c all of the things I could have been writing would follow the same roller-coaster: SCARED and RELIEVED, SCARED and RELIEVED.   I’ve had a lot of scares– severe backaches, more spotting than any pregnant woman ever wants to see, loss of symptoms, etc.  However, we’ve had 3 great ultrasounds.  The last one showed the baby measuring ahead a few days.

I had more spotting last night and this morning.  No matter how often I hear that it “can be normal,” I can’t ignore the fact that it has never been a good sign for me.  They offered to have me come in today for an u/s, but I said no.  I mean, they can’t do anything to save a failing pregnancy, and we have an u/s scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) anyway.   Not to mention our RE is 1 hour away, and we had things scheduled this afternoon.    Am I panicked?  No.  I’m just waiting, and I don’t know exactly what I’m waiting for.  I’m expectant without knowing what to expect.

On another note, our move went as well as it could go.  Most things escaped unharmed, except for a small dent in the frige, and a new stain on the back of our couch.  (OUCH.)  Mess with my couch, mess with me.  I love that thing (pictured above with my glorious kitty).   Things are great at the new place in general.  It’s LOVELY to have my laundry on the floor where everything else is.  A little less lovely is the dude who smokes on his porch downstairs.  Ick.  I hope he doesn’t take to smoking inside in the winter.  Then I’ll have to get brave and say something.

All is well, for now.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but everything looks normal and healthy for now!  We’ve never, ever, gotten this far in a pregnancy, and it’s sort of hard to fathom that everything is still on the up and up.  Why this pregnancy?  Why now?  I’m just happy.  Bebe’s heart is beating away at 148bpm, and bebe has grown!

Will post on the impending move sometime soon . . . right now I better start gathering up the random items in this study.  Why is it that even after packing “everything” my room is still scattered with stuff?  Purses, facecreams, pencils, photographs, etc.  I have a SERIOUS aversion to packing boxes that aren’t easy to label, like “BOOKS” or “FILES.”   I haven’t even attacked the closet in this room. Yipes!

back into that room tomorrow…

Last night I was tossing and turning worrying about my ultrasound tomorrow.  I hope I exhausted myself enough so that I actually sleep tonight.

I’m trying awfully hard to be hopeful.  But some of my more pronounced symptoms have left me.  Like the sore breasts (all gone).  Not a terribly good sign.  I’ve still been a bit queasy, but (argh) that happens to me when I’m nervous too, so I’m not sure what I can attribute that to.  I did throw up once last week!  That kept me happy for at least a day.

I’ll post tomorrow or the next day with the results.

Keep your everythings crossed for me!

MEPA (Multiethnic Placement Act)

For those of you who missed it, there was a write up on MEPA in today’s NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/us/27adopt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

This was also a featured topic on NPR’s Talk of the Nation today, but unless you are already very well-versed in domestic trans-racial adoption, it wasn’t too enlightening & sounded a lot more like an on-air debate.

roller coaster

And now I’m happy.  Apparently the blood was from my cervix (what? shoving a hard bit of plastic up there with a pill twice a day can irritate a cervix?).  We’re a little shy of 6 weeks, and we saw the heartbeat flicker.  Thanks so much everyone (Kellad) for sending luck my way.

I have never, in all 4 previous pregnancies had a remotely “good” result.  Sometimes they were neutral, which always meant bad.  Usually they were bad, which meant very bad.

So tonight I’m glad.  My first good experience in the dark little room.

Going into that dark, dreadful room

Well, the betas from yesterday were great.  My progesterone was fine.  So I was on cloud nine last night.  This morning I had some bright red spotting, and I just feel like it’s probably the beginning of the end.   I’m going in for an ultrasound this afternoon in that dark dreadful room where I never get good news.   Wish me luck.

two kinds of days

Lately there have been two kinds of days: “maybe this pregnancy will work” and “this pregnancy is going terribly wrong.”  It’s not even 8am, and it’s the latter sort of day.   There are lots of reasons for me to worry:  I haven’t really had any morning sickness to assure me that I am indeed pregnant, the bb tenderness is not as painful or consistent as to assure me that I am indeed pregnant, and I think I may have had the tiniest trace of spotting this morning.  I hope not, and I know I am scrutinizing things all too much, but I just have a bad feeling.  Tomorrow I go in for another round of hcg and progesterone bloodwork– if those numbers come back strong, then I’ll be feeling somewhat reassured for at least a little while.   I feel like calling the doc just to tell him I’m a nervous wreck, and I am having a hard time getting through the day.   But I don’t think that is exactly what they are there for.

So, that’s today.  I’m having lunch with a friend, and the movers are coming out for an estimate.  Hopefully this will keep me distracted.

packing

I’ve met a few people in my life who actually claim to enjoy this process . . . but most people will agree that it is quite difficult. It’s not so much the actual labor that goes into it, which takes a lot of time and patience, but for me it’s tough to see how much stuff I’ve let myself accumulate. It’s even worse to know that in this move I’m not reducing quite as much as I should be. The number of books in this house is positively alarming.

Since we’re both planning to teach college english, it’s not too hard to imagine why we have so many books horded on our shelves. But why must we have 4 copies of somewhat obscure books, like Melville’s Typee? I have notes in mine, he has notes in his, one has a cool cover, and the other it part of the NorthWest Newberry editions. All must be kept, of course. Multiply this by hundreds and you’ll start to see the scope of our dilemma. Anne Fadiman has a wonderful essay on this in Ex Libris. I can’t be quite so erudite as she, but I can tell you it’s one mell of a hess around here.

Odd that I should like UNpacking so much more… perhaps I can slim down our book collection on the other end of this process.

The movers come tomorrow to give us an estimate. We’re hoping that if we move enough of the little stuff ourselves our final bill will be less upsetting.