Thanksgiving with Family

After some delay, I'm happy to post a few pics from our wonderful Thanksgiving week.

Here's a picture of us with Cindy, Paul, Rachel, and Jessie--our house guests for the week.

This is a sibling picture I like:

And now some pictures from the big day. First, the dramatic turkey reveal.

The spread . . .

The grown-ups' table:

The kids' table:

Some final Thanksgiving stats . . .

Total number of turkey eaters: 13

Total number of Canadian citizen turkey eaters: 6

Number of Canadian residents eating turkey: 1

Weight of turkey: 22 lbs.

Weeks pregnant (wife, not turkey): 22.5

Number of televised New England Patriots games watched that week: 2

Number of clogged kitchen sinks in house on Thanksgiving day: 1

Number of garbage disposals purchased on Black Friday: 1

Number of cats: 1

Number of dogs: 1

Number of iPads: at least 3

It was a real treat having our new(ish) home filled with family for the holidays, and we look forward to hosting more family gatherings in the future.

I'll end with this picture because I like it. Here we have Carin and Deanna at Bonnie's Thanksgiving party later in the weekend.

Week 22.5 Ultrasound Pics - A Whole Lotta Limbs

I'm behind on my blogging. I hope to post some Thanksgiving pics soon, but first, here are some photos from our latest trip to the doctor. This ultrasound session was very cool, though the pictures are a bit harder to make sense of than before. Now, our little guy is large enough that we can't get him all in one photo, so you'll notice that the shots below tend to focus on one part of the anatomy at a time. For example, le foot ...


Happily, everything seems to be in order. Carin's doctor checked to make sure all the organs and extremities were looking as they should, and in his irresistable Israeli accent, repeatedly declared, "'Es pehrfect" -- much to the delight of my in laws who were with us at the time.

Here are a couple more slightly confusing images, followed by my non-expert interpretations of what is being shown:





Which, as I understand it, translates to the following:






In other news, Carin is looking very beautiful and pregnant these days, and she is feeling our boy's movements in a non-ambiguous way which I will let her describe herself in her own posts. More pictures soon, I promise. Until then . . .

First legitimate (?) pregnancy-brain moment

There's been a lot on my mind recently, but with the family in town for Thanksgiving, I've been too busy to blog. So instead I will share a recent pregnancy-brain moment that I had, and I'm sharing it now before I change my mind.

Every so often, I have to fly up to Silicon Valley for the day for my work. We have another office there, and there are certain meetings where it's just better to be in the same room with people. When we were living closer to LAX, this was a bigger pain, because that airport just takes a lot longer to get in and out of (parking off-site, security, rush-hour traffic on the 405 etc.). But now that we are close to Burbank airport, it's a lot smoother. If I take the 8:05 flight there, I'm in the office by 9:30. If I take a 5:30 flight back, I'm home by 7:15.

Last time I flew up (mid-November), I booked the later (6:50) flight home, and it was delayed over an hour. I had to eat dinner alone in the San Jose airport, which was depressing (because of the business-traveller douchebaggery of it all (a category I feel I can't escape whenever I'm travelling up there for the day)) and by the time I got home, I basically rolled right into bed. So for this past Tuesday, I booked the 5:30 flight back.

Or so I thought. I got to the airport early enough, and the monitor said that the flight to Los Angeles was 6:05. Strange, not 5:30 like my boarding pass said. But Southwest does sometimes change the flight times slightly, and since we book business travel through an agency, those changes don't always get communicated. 30 minutes later than I thought, not so bad. At least it wasn't delayed.

So I'm waiting at the gate and I even was able to snag one of the awesome super-comfortable leather wide chairs in the SJC airport. Then they start boarding (still no delays, w00t!), and I give the guy my boarding pass, and instead of dinging like everyone else's, mine buzzes. Like, Family Feud big-red-X buzzes.

Southwest Guy: Um, Carin? (calling me back as I'm already a few steps past him)
Me: Yeah?
SG: You're going to Burbank.
Me: Yes? ... OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.

You guys. I was at the gate for the flight to LAX! BY STUPID LUCK (and also Southwest's crappy on-time record), my original flight to Burbank that actually was still scheduled for 5:30, had been delayed to 6:15. I sprinted down to the other gate, and they hadn't even started boarding yet.

I heard that pregnancy supposedly shrinks your brain. That probably isn't scientifically totally correct, but I don't want to look it up, because I really want to hold on to this excuse so badly.

Week 19 and Week 20 pictures

Our first Halloween in our new house required a second set of pumpkins to be carved after our first pair fell victim to the California heat. We're very happy with how they turned out, and we had a lot of fun on Halloween night greeting about a dozen parties of mostly adorable trick-or-treaters.

A couple days later (19 weeks, 3 days), it was time for mother and fetus to step into the voting booth. Though I realize it defies logic, I will still contend that my underage son was partially responsible for Barbara Boxer's convincing victory. Note: strategically placed "I Voted" sticker.

Week 20 finds more of our beautiful roses in bloom. I still can't get over how big and perfect they are.

And finally, here are some pictures of the mother-to-be, looking very maternity-ish and bumptastic this morning at 20 weeks and 4 days. Nowadays, when I hug her, I hit the bump first. It blows my mind how totally pregnant she is. Here are a couple pretty pics. The front view:

... and the side view:

Too many choices

I think there is sometimes a danger in being too educated. My friend has an amusing blog on the topic of too much education and not enough employment, but that's not the point of this post. I want to talk about the way that too much education can hypothetically paralyze you from making a decision.

Wow. When we got married, you should have seen the spreadsheet I made in preparation for visiting possible venues. It was very elaborate. Color-coded. And this was all before we even went home to see any places! (In our slight defense, we had to pick a place in a visit home that lasted less than a week, and we lived 3000 miles away.) Getting married - yeah that takes a lot of work, but in hindsight, there were only 4 major-money decisions we had to make - venue, band, flowers, and photographer. All the other "low-cost" stuff was in the noise. At a wedding, who cares if you have a program or place cards that color-coordinate with your bridesmaids' dresses? Having been a bride, and also having been a guest, I will tell you: no one. It looks good in pictures, but history proves that's about all it's for.

With preparing for a baby, yes there are major-money decisions involved. Furniture, strollers, high chairs, etc. But it seems like I have a good lead on some free furniture, and the rest of the stuff I'm getting from my brother. (Thanks bro!) So I don't really need to worry about the bigger ticket items. Then this leaves all the little stuff. And OH MY LORD there is a lot of little stuff. Monitors and bouncy seats and deluxe diaper bags and smaller diaper bags and diaper pails and portable diaper pads and sheets that don't shrink and bumpers that won't kill your baby and nipple covers and breast pumps and all the other stuff that confounds my eternal hope for minimalist ownership (mainly due to lack of closet space).

Holy cow, the choices. I can't deal. I just want to go to someplace like JustBuyThisForYourBabyAndBeDoneWithIt.com and buy one of everything that I won't already have from my brother and then I'll be done with it. But this goes against the core of my being as a scientist, a researcher, and (if I'm being honest) a Type A personality.

We (well, Bill, but only because I have been crazy busy at work) spent hours researching which fridge to buy. And you know what? Turns out all fridges built in these modern days are pieces of crap that don't last more than 5 years if you get one with an icemaker. (And really, what's the point in getting without ann icemaker). My point with this is that we did a lot of research and it really didn't matter, because in the end, we bought the one with the ice-holder IN THE DOOR! More shelf space, yo.

Now, with baby crap, Bill has already told me on multiple occasions that he will go along with whatever decisions I make. He said the same thing for our wedding, but that did not exactly come to pass. However, this time, I'm pretty sure he means it. He could really care less about what sheets we (I) pick out.

So in my endless quest to find the "perfect" crib set, I will probably devote (waste) hours of time pondering the following questions that Baby Bargains and Google told me I should be concerned with:

• Will the (hopefully 100% cotton) sheets shrink? (Probably, if the package says machine wash cold, gentle cycle)
• Does it come with a diaper stacker, which I don't want? (Probably, and they're a waste of money.)
• Is the blanket unnecessary? (Probably it will cause your baby to overheat and die of SIDS)
• What's up with the bumpers? And the bumper ties - on top only? Top AND bottom? (Not that it matters, since bumpers will also kill your baby either way.)

And while we're on the subject of crib sets, I always imagined I would love something gender neutral (use it for more than one kid!) without cutesy animals. Something modern and sophisticated and calming, more for my enjoyment and decorating tastes than the kid's, since there will be enough visual stimulation for the kid in other ways. Something not unlike this:

But since I've actually started browsing the 1001 matching crib sets in earnest, I've discovered that I melt into goo every time I see a cute blanket involving smiling monkeys and/or lions. Mainly monkeys. Tell me this doesn't turn your heart to goo:

People, I am not generally a "melt into goo" kind of girl, so this portends big change.

(Of course, if the blanket is made with part polyester than YOUR BABY WILL OVERHEAT AND DIE and what kind of mother ARE YOU ANYWAY.)

So, in summary, don't read about which stroller to get as you are lying in bed trying to turn your brain off from the day. No good can come of that.

In other news, what's new with me? Not much really. During the 1st trimester (and beginning of 2nd), not much changed, except for my wasteline. What else has changed recently:

• My bra size. Multiple times. I probably need new bras yet again (I've already purchased new ones TWICE), but I am in denial. What even comes after DDD? I find it extremely annoying. Bill is thrilled.


• Yes I am starting to feel some stuff from the inside in the past week or so. Mostly when I poke my belly or if I am in a weird position (like lying on my belly reading). Only one time was unprovoked: at 18 weeks to the day, I was taking a little rest on the bed, and I flipped from my back to my side. A second or two later, I felt something else flip too. Weird! Then today in a meeting I felt like maybe there was some action going on, but also, maybe just some weird stomach thing from having an unhealthy snack of a coworker's leftover halloween candy.


• I've surpassed the "ate a big lunch phase" enough that strangers recognize that I'm pregnant. That's kind of neat. So far no inappropriate comments or touching.

Also, why are there no cute maternity winter coats? My wool houndstooth knee-length coat from Ann Taylor (outlet!) is the one true love of my winter wardrobe. The closest I can find to cute is a red peacoat from Motherhood Maternity. I'm trying to convince myself I like it, and I'm worried if I wait too long, they'll sell out, and then I'll be stuck with something boring. I think my standards are too high.

Week 18 pictures

We have a hodge podge of pictures to share today. Here is Carin and the pirate ship pumpkin she carved at 18 weeks 1 day pregnant:

Mandy visited us on that day.

You may recall we painted our living area a few weekends ago. Here are some pictures of our newly orange living space:

The orange color of the walls makes the beige elsewhere in the house look less bland and more, dare I say, intentional.

Now, below you will see an illustration of a lesson we recently learned. In Los Angeles, if you carve your pumpkins a week in advance, they might not make it until Halloween. Yes, the dots below are flies. And the black inside? Not shadows. Mold.

The newly trimmed tree in our front yard. (Click here for before pictures.)

Carin at 18 weeks 6 days:

Week 17 Ultrasound Pics (or: Is it wrong to post pictures of my son's penis on the internet?)

At 16 weeks and 6 days old, this is what our fetus looks like:


We could see a spinal column and rib cage, and we could even hear a heartbeat. Cool stuff.

We were also told we might be able to determine the gender on this visit. Carin's regular doctor was in surgery yesterday, so we met with one of his partners instead, who told us, "Well, you can't really say for sure until 20 weeks, but let's check it out and see what we can see." She was clearly trying to hedge her bets, telling us that even if we saw something (or the lack of something), we might find out we were wrong in a few weeks. So, disclaimers aside, we looked. And it seems we saw ... well ... boy parts. See for yourself (and click for closer view):


Again, if you are confused by the image above, I've added some scribbles to clarify this strange upward view of our little one.


Assuming this gender diagnosis sticks, I'd like to officially apologize to my future son for putting pictures of his manly bits on the world wide web for all to see, and I'd like to tell him that generally, this is not a good practice for him to engage in. Do as I say, son, not as I do.

As for expecting a boy, we are surprised but very happy. We both had our money on girl--due, in large part to a few girl-related dreams and an uneducated hunch. But then, as future parents, I suppose we must learn to expect surprise. Our paradigm has shifted, but we are ready and enthusiastic. We've already received our first mohel recommendation. This is getting more real by the day.

Pictures from the Swiss visit

These are pictures from when Cindy and Ilan visited last weekend from Switzerland. They made LA the first stop on their round-the-world honeymoon. Fun was had.

Carin is 16 weeks 1 day pregnant in these pictures.

Lunching in Santa Monica.

The requisite tourist visit to the Hollywood sign.

Week 14 in Photographs

It's been a busy week. Carin has been working medical resident hours due to the latest thingy going on with the thingy at her job (she has explained it to me and, yes, I do listen to her, but don't ask me to articulate what's going on to you; the explanation involves a certain phase of a project and uses words and abbreviations I don't understand). Tuesday night we had a comedy of errors when she was supposed to pick up a chicken for dinner, but then never left work, but then never told me she never left--until she finally did and I was able to order a pizza that she then never picked up. Funny stuff. It's okay though; we're still married.

As for me, I've been busy picking up all the domestic slack, recovering from a cold, trying to get on the substitute teaching lists of more schools, dealing with mundane-yet-time-consuming house issues---and, oh yeah, trying to write. I have also, as you can tell from the photo above, been applying blue tape to walls.

Yes, we are about to enter the weekend of the big paint. We're finally attacking the living room and hoping it won't attack back. Due to budget cuts, we've slimmed down our house TO DO list for the moment (or, to be more accurate, our TO BUY list. We still need to get that new fridge before we entertain on Thanksgiving, but non-ghetto window treatments and a tiled bathroom shower will have to wait a while. As for replacing our Craigslist bedroom furniture or getting anything resembling a headboard for the bed...we just chuckle about that now and say, "once the writer money starts pouring in..."). But, as I said, at the moment we are focused on the big paint. If we successfully conquer these 500 square feet of wall framed by an abundance of tape-worthy molding, I'll be sure to post pictures.

As for pictures, I know you aren't visiting the blog to see pictures of our living room. So here is the lady of the moment, looking bump-erific at 14 weeks, 5 days. First, the front view:


And, now, are you ready? The 3/4 side view. Bam!


Beautiful, ain't she?

(Remember, parents, you can see a larger version of each photo by clicking on it)

Now, I'll end our photo odyssey with some pictures of a botanical nature. Our guava tree has finally started to yield some ripe fruit. Here is the tree:



And now, some pictures of the fruit.






Yumm! Actually, eating these guavas straight up is kind of a mealy unpleasant experience, but we did have great success last week with making them into juice. We added some pineapple juice and a bit of honey to sweeten things up and then some more juice (some of Dole's delicious Orange-Peach-Mango and a dash of lime) to give it a smoother texture. We hope to repeat the experiment this weekend with the bowl of fruit of above, which has been sitting in our fridge waiting for us to give it some love. Hopefully, they won't go bad first.

But before we can get to our weekend of painting and guavas, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to work. So, I'll say "adios" for now. More blogging at a later time.

Week 13 Ultrasound Pics

We had our big Week 13 ultrasound yesterday, and everything looked as it was supposed to. I could definitely see arms and legs and a little person squirming around on the monitor. It was very cool. That said, the photographs that we took away from the ultrasound were not too inspiring. Our child looks something like a blob. An attractive blob, but still ...

Here is the wide shot:


Basically, you are looking at the baby's back, which is why it isn't too interesting. The face and limbs are in front where you can't see them. Hopefully, my doctored version of the photo will make things clearer. This is what I think you're seeing:


By the way, I believe the CRL stands for Crown to Rump length. Wouldn't it be interesting if doctors still took this measurement at adult physicals?

Okay, now for the glossy close up:



Takes your breath away, doesn't it? Or it looks like a zoomed in picture of a blob. Again, I've tried to make things clearer with my photo doctoring (not to be confused with actual doctoring, which I am not qualified to do). Here is what I think you're seeing:



Hope you enjoyed the photo spread. We're just happy that it looks like everything is proceeding as it should be, AND that we finally get to spread the word to our family and friends. Secret secrets are no fun. Thanks to our immediate families for keeping their lips sealed for so long.

Now, Mom, go tell all your friends!
(if there are any you still haven't been able to reach in the last 24 hours, that is)

Wait a second. Or five.

Say you had a small container of Trader Joe's chocolate-covered peppermint patties in your fridge. Say the container falls out of the fridge, and during the tumble, the lid pops off and all of the patties (roughly one-third of the container) fall on the floor. Say you aren't totally the best about keeping the kitchen floor super clean. The chocolate is cold and hard, not melty. And your pregnant wife runs in from the other room to pick the patties up off the floor within a very short period of time. Your pregnant wife can still eat those patties, right? WHY WON'T YOU LET YOUR PREGNANT WIFE EAT THOSE PATTIES? 5 seconds! 5 seconds!

The Pregnancy Closet

This coming Friday is my next ultrasound, the one where they check the nuchal translucency. I will be 12 weeks and 6 days along, according to my due date. I had some blood drawn last week, and the blood draw in conjunction with the ultrasound constitutes the first trimester screening, where they calculate the risk of there being some anomaly with the baby like Down's syndrome, etc. G-d willing, everything will be fine, and then we can start telling people. And more importantly, our moms can start telling people. Bravo to our moms for holding it in, by the way. We know it's been tough.

Roughly two weeks ago, the doctor's office called me to tell me that they found that I was a carrier for cystic fibrosis. Oh! There is zero family history of it, so it was surprising, but I didn't freak out. But when the nurse told me on the phone, she said to me "Now DON'T. FREAK. OUT." and I replied, "I'm... not." I guess it's normal to freak out in this situation? She tried to launch into an explanation of how it all works, but through years of college and graduate education in biomedical engineering, I have more than just a layman's education in genetics, so I cut her off because I had already done the Punnett square in my head.

And so there are two ways to look at it. I knew that even if Bill was a carrier too, our kid would have only a 25% chance of having CF. Or, more pessimistically, our kid would have a 1 in 4 chance of having CF. Wouldn't you buy a lottery ticket if you knew you had those odds? Those are pretty good odds. (By the way, it has subsequently been determined that Bill is not a carrier.)

I first learned about CF from this movie. I actually have a memory of watching it at the Gumperts' house in East Windsor during Passover when I was nine years old. I used to think that the life expectancy was not past the teen years, early 20s if you're lucky, but according to wikipedia (so it must be true), it's now like 37 years old. Not quite as bad. Hooray for medical advances! I happened to get all this information about being a carrier as I had just started reading The Art of Racing in the Rain, which was amazing by the way, and you should totally read it. In the opening pages, a beloved dog is dying, and I was in tears in the first few pages (shut up, I'm pregnant). So it was hard to imagine having to deal with the inevitability of outliving your child the way you deal with the inevitability of outliving your pet.

This is all to say that in the past few weeks, I've been thinking occasionally about what would we do if some test result should come back in an outlier sort of way. It's an incredibly personal choice, and author Ayelet Waldman speaks elegantly and eloquently about her and her husband's choice in a similar situation in an episode of Fresh Air from 2009, which I also happened to listen to earlier this week. And as we quickly (yet oh-so-slowly) approach the date that we finally get to step out of the pregnancy closet, it's making me suddenly want to not tell anyone at all, because what if something else goes wrong later? Then any difficult decision we make at that time gets to stay private, and we don't have to explain it to people whose business it isn't.

Don't worry, family: as long as everything comes back okay on Friday, you'll still get to tell.

It just a weird experience for me to have to come to terms with taking that leap of faith that things having to do with the pregnancy -- having to do with the health of the baby specifically -- will be okay. A leap of faith that there won't be some screening test in the middle of the 2nd trimester that comes back positive. That there won't be some freak occurrence of the umbilical cord wrapping around the baby's neck in utero at month 8 and causing a miscarriage. That the baby won't be critically deprived of oxygen during delivery. And I'm not saying that these are things that I am actively worrying about or that are keeping me up at night, because they aren't. I'm sleeping just fine (except for the waking up early to pee thing). It's just that all these leaps of faith won't really be answered until I'm holding a healthy (G-d willing) baby next spring. I mean, I guess if we're being realistic here, this worry regarding the health and welfare of your child never ever goes away, right mom?

Also, a girl can only wear so many flowy cardigans before people begin to gossip, and if I'm not wearing loose clothing, (I think) I'm definitely showing. So if I keep it a secret much longer, people who see me every day are going to think I'm weird. Plus it's pain in the ass to wear flowy clothing all the time. Can't I just wear stuff that lets me show already?!

I'll finish with two stories regarding people knowing & not knowing at work:

1) I was complimented on my outfit last week. A caramel, ruched, jersey top with a cowl-neck, and a black jersey skirt, topped off with my black flowy cardigan. It looked really professional, but was seriously so comfortable that it was like wearing pajamas. But then I pulled back the cardigan to point out to the complimenter how comfortable it was. Mistake! The complimenter asked me if I was pregnant. I was taken by surprise, and we were alone, and she is quiet and trustworthy, so I admitted that yes I was, but asked her to please not tell anyone yet. She has a kid, so hopefully she'll keep it quiet for a few more days. But also, who asks you like that if you are pregnant? What if I had just had a big lunch?! It was suggested by a third party (who knows my secret) that maybe it's a culture-thing. As an engineer, I work with a lot of international people who maybe have different concepts of these sorts of boundaries.

2) Later last week, I was in a room with three other women. We were waiting for a lot of other people to arrive. Let's call these women B, T, and M. B and T both have 2 kids, and M is ~7 months pregnant with #2. B, Mrs. Inappropriate, says to M, "Wow, you're ready to go, huh!" Then conversation picks up as to whether it was pregancy #1 or #2, and they're all comparing notes as to how long their labors took for #1 vs. #2. A few snippets of conversation later, B says to me, "Good information for you to know, Carin!" And in my head, I'm all, "What what WHAT!" but my back was turned at the time getting something from the sideboard, so I was able to conceal my saucer-eyes. So then another one of them asked me if I was pregnant, and I was like "Um... nooo?" I said it more like I was trying it out, like what would happen if I lied? But the bonus is that if you say it that way, it sounds like you are the sane one, and they are the crazy one (which B sort of is anyway). Well I guess I was wearing flowy clothes that day because none of them seemed to think that response was amiss. And then they all started kibbitzing, like "Not unless we know something you don't hahah!" Me: "hahahah!" Inside my head: "Fooled! For now..."

The Week In Photographs

This is a picture of Carin at 10 weeks 6 days. Notice the adorable little baby bump.


Below is a picture of a new art installation in our front yard, an environmental post modernist piece entitled "Arborial Revenge on a Summer Morn." As with all these photos, click on the picture to see the larger version.

This is the view from our kitchen window on the morning we discovered said artwork.


This is our Rosh Hashanah dinner from last night. I post this only on account of it being ridiculously delicious.


And finally, a picture of Carin today, on Rosh Hashanah, at 11 weeks 5 days. Again, note the adorable little baby bump (it's subtle, harder to see in this photo). Also note that Carin is standing in front of our new picture wall. It only took 10 months in our new house to put these pictures up, but they make us very happy.