A Sympathetic Appetite

For the last couple weeks of my wife's pregnancy, I've noticed an intense craving for cookies, candy, and ice cream. I'm talking about myself here. Saturday night, I made S'mores and then put the S'mores into a dish of ice cream (in case you were wondering, this was a spectacular idea).

I realize that I am still eating for one, but could there be some medical reason for MY cravings?

Thank you, Old Navy, for giving me my ego back

Last summer, I joined Weight Watchers and lost about 12-13 lbs. over the course of a couple months. I was unsustainably skinny. After I reached lifetime in October, I gained 3-4 lbs. back which was a little bit more realistic. In the end, I had dropped about 1 pant size, so I bought all new flattering skinny pants and packed away all my larger pants into a giant tupperware container for a future day.

That day came 3 weeks ago, when I was 6 weeks pregnant and bloating enough that I could no longer fit into my skinny pants. I pulled out the larger pants from the garage, and ahhhh sweet relief. Until about a week and a half ago, when I couldn't button the larger pants, so I used the rubber-band-button-extender trick and ahhh sweet relief. Until earlier this week.

My skirts are still comfortable and wearable, but now, it is a struggle to pull even my "fat" pants up over my hips. Forget about the rubber-band-button thing, I can rarely even get the pants that far to begin with. So all week, in order to save myself from going crazy, my mantra has been, "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant. I'm not fat, I'm pregnant. I'm not fat, I'm pregnant."

Not helping the crazy is when I google at what point I should be in maternity clothes. The consensus seems to be towards the beginning of the 2nd trimester (another five weeks for me). Some women are earlier, but they all seem to be on their 2nd or 3rd kids. SOME bitches are all like, "I'm at 26 weeks and just had to buy my first pair of maternity pants yesterday!" Face-palm.

But whatever -- enough of feeling like crap every morning when I want to not shave my legs (because by the way, my leg hair is growing a LOT more quickly these days). So I broke down and bought semi-official maternity pants. Official because they were in the Maternity section, but semi because they aren't full-blown panel pants (I'm not big enough for those yet).

Baruch Hashem to Old Navy and their "real waist" maternity pants. These pants have no panel, but what they DO have are more room in the hips and a hidden adjustable elastic waist. AND, the ones that fit me best are my old "skinny" pant size. Such a cliche, but I am feeling so much better about myself just because of that stupid number on the tag. Old Navy, maybe it's marketing genius, or maybe you just understand. You're not fat, you're pregnant.

8w5d

On the subject of pregnancy progress: the 8 week ultrasound was yesterday. Bill got to come to this one with me. (I'll leave it to him to post his thoughts on the experience, if he so chooses.) Strangely enough, the picture looks even MORE like an amorphous blob than it did at 6 weeks. Saw a heartbeat again, which is always reassuring. They also took seven (7) vials of blood. Feeling a little lightheaded and run down now even though it's the next day.


On not quite feeling pregnant: If you google chance of miscarriage by week you will learn that the odds of miscarrying go way, way down after you see a heartbeat on the ultrasound at 8 weeks. But I tell you, it seems like every woman who has ever had a miscarriage AFTER this point has found the same page, and they all want to tell you about their experience. It's heartbreaking. I am generally feeling really well - tired in the afternoons & evenings, chest a little sore, sometimes queasy if I don't eat often enough (or if I eat too much). So on the days when my chest isn't so sore, or I haven't really felt any queasiness, it's easy to attribute the tiredness to going to bed too late the night before and talk myself into considering the more morbid possibilities. It's also easy to attribute the increasing difficulty of buttoning my pants to the increase in White Cheddar CheezIt intake.


On nesting: We finally cleaned out our garage. Technically it's a two-car garage, but since we moved in (nine months ago) it's been a one-car garage plus all our junk we don't have room for in the house (suitcases, Disturbing Leonard DVDs, sporting equipment, gardening tools, etc) in a pile where the other car would go. Some prior owner hung the original kitchen cabinets in there, and there was a completely useless built-in workbench that was blocking the 2nd car from pulling in, but other than those, there was NO organization system. We'd been planning on hanging shelves and pegboard, but kept putting it off. We didn't intend to wait until it was 100 degrees in the valley to take on this project, but last week, "NO PARKING 6 AM - 6 PM on Thursday [today]" showed up all along our street due to some planned paving activities. I could park a street over, but I didn't feel like fighting for a space with all the other displaced cars, nor lugging my laptop that far, so last weekend we (Bill) cleaned it out. Now we are in the process of hanging the shelves and pegboard, and then loading up the shelves and pegboard.


We also finally got our patio table put together, so we are one step closer to that reality too. (Still need an umbrella base though.) There are a bunch of other projects on the list that suddenly have become a bit more urgent:

• retiling the shower (actually, getting someone else to retile the shower),
• painting the living room
• clearing out junk room #1 (yes we have a junk room #2, also known as the "gym" -- a term I use verrrrrry loosely) so we can make it into a nursery
• painting the junk room nursery
• mounting a tile backsplash in our kitchen (this one I actually want to try to do, and I know a person from whom I can borrow a tile saw)
• building built-in bookshelves in our living room. There is a nook which would make this a really easy job, if only I owned a saw. And knew how to support the shelves correctly so they don't bow under their own weight or the weight of our massive photo albums.

Because suddenly 7 months seems like it's going to come tomorrow, and when that happens, I'll barely have time to wipe my own ass, let alone mount a tile backsplash.

Landocalrissian Folman

For a while, we had a plan. When Carin got pregnant, we would name the fetus "Landocalrissian." This would not be the actual name of our eventual child, but we thought it was a fun idea as a placeholder for the still gender-less fetus . We were inspired by an article in the Poughkeepsie Journal from 2008 featuring one Landocalrissan Butler (note misspelling). It drove home the point that, yes, parents sometimes give their kids unfortunate and hilarious names.

But now that Carin is actually pregnant, Landocalrissian Folman just doesn't feel right as a name for our little embryo. Something about it seems ... well ... forced. So we're still searching for a good fetus name (and an actual name, but that's another story). Our current placeholder is "Baby BaFolman," and I've come up with a song to go along with it to the tune of Raffi's "Baby Beluga." The song makes Carin laugh.

I suppose I should come up with a more profound first post to this blog, but I'll save the profundity for later. I'll just say, as an introduction to this pursuit, that I hope the blog will be a good way for Carin and I to share our experiences with our family and friends. Being on the other side of the country (even the other side of the Santa Monica mountains) can make staying in touch a challenge. This won't replace phone calls and visits, of course, but here you will find a few more details, a few more stories, a few more pictures. It will be here if you're interested.

Right, honey?

(I ask my wife, because the blog was her idea. I support it fully, and I'm happy she invited me to join in--but I am a notoriously inconsistent blogger. My own blog has lain fallow for the past year. It's hard to predict how much I'll be adding to the discussion, but for now, let's just say I'll try to chime in when I have something to add. Until then ...)

7w1d-ish

Lesson # 1: Never send the hungry pregnant lady to the grocery store on the way home from work.

or, alternately:

Lesson # 1: Always send the hungry pregnant lady to the grocery store on the way home from work.

My cart was a model of contradiction:

• Thomas' English muffins (original style)
• Skim-milk mozzarella cheese
• Pizza Sauce
• Zucchini
• Cinnamon Life
• A handful of Lean Cuisine frozen lunches
• 1 box of frozen Stouffer's french bread pizza
• White Cheddar Cheez-Its (nom nom nom)
• Frozen Pink Lemonade
• Fit Pregnancy magazine

The Cheez-its, lemonade, and Cinammon Life were all busted open within minutes of arriving at home. The Fit Pregnancy magazine is still sitting in the wrapper hours later.

So, wait a second. I'm pregnant?! Way to bury the lede.

2.5 weeks ago, after a beautiful Saturday at Zuma beach, I peed on a stick. I was assuming a negative because of lots of personal medical reasons having to do with timing and medications, etc. But I peed on a stick anyway, because it's a thing that I did like every 3rd and 4th (and sometimes 5th) weekend of the month. (Hot tip from Kim: they sell pregnancy tests at the 99-cent store.)

So. I'm waiting for the shower to heat up, and lo, there was a second line. At the risk of incurring the wrath of Kim, I will admit to being surprised. (But go read Kim's blog to find out what REAL surprise is. Remind me to hook up a link once she knows I'm pregnant.) Surprised because I had been through an odyssey in the past 18 months of endometriosis surgery, medication that effectively put me into menopause (for ~10 months when it was supposed to only last 6 months), and subsequent drugs to attempt to kick start my body's natural rhythms. If I had gotten pregnant this cycle, it would mean that this was the first spontaneous ovulation that my body experienced in roughly 13 years.

Not surprised because yes we were trying. Trying to the point of basal metabolic thermometers and the like. So when the second line appeared, I called Bill in urgently from pruning our roses outside:

Me: I need you to look at something in the bathroom.

Him: What is it?

Me: Just, it's important.

Him: What's the matter

Me: Just come inside. ....[We walk to the bathroom.]... Do you see a second line?

Him: Huh. ... ... ... Is that a second line?

Me: I don't know. Is it? ... I took one a week ago. That line wasn't there last week. Maybe I threw it away too soon. Maybe I didn't wait long enough.

Him: I think that's a second line.

Me: Maybe I wasn't pregnant enough last week. Shit. I drank 2 glasses of wine last Sunday night at book club. [Later realized I also had 1 glass the night before that with some friends after seeing Inception. And ALSO 1 night before THAT at Shabbat dinner with Mike and Kim.]

Him: Huh. Do you feel pregnanty?

Me: I thought I was just PMS-bloaty. But these are bigger than PMS boobs. Can you run to Target and get the good kind? Get a 3-pack.

The more expensive kind confirmed it, and then the very next morning I left for a week-long business trip in Wisconsin. Can I tell you how frustrating it is to find out you are pregnant and then 12 hours later have to leave your husband for a WEEK? Anyway, I was traveling with 4 coworkers, one of whom is also pregnant and was very willing to chat it up about her pregnancy. Convenient! But also close-to-impossible for me not to be like, "and I'm pregnant TOO!!!!!! WEEEEEE!!!!" She and I flew back on Friday night on a separate flight from the other 3, and in all our chatting, I guess I was Captain Obvious because she made a comment to me that was more or less "I know your secret but I'm not outright asking."

So the next Monday (now 10 days after the home test), I went in for blood test 1 of 2 (to establish a baseline of the hormone level). Tuesday night there was some light spotting. Dr. Google told me not to worry if the spotting was light. Only be worried if I started cramping really badly (I wasn't cramping at all) or if it got heavier and/or red. Wednesday was supposed to be confirmatory blood test 2 of 2 (to make sure hormone levels are increasing rather than decreasing). When I went in, I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention the spotting. They were all, "We'll tell the doctor right away! DON'T. WORRY." Me: "Um, I'm...not?" I really wasn't. I had slept just fine the night before. I was just kind of hoping it would earn me an earlier ultrasound. It TOTALLY DID!

So I saw the teeny teeny tiny baby nubbin and the doctor pointed out the faint heart beat and made some measurements to find out how far along I was (at that point, 6w1d), and that is the story of how I found out I was pregnanty.

p.s. If you know us and you have magically found this blog without our telling you about it, please do NOT share this news with anyone. Including cryptic posts to our facebook pages. Including cryptic posts on YOUR blog or facebook page. (I'm looking at you, Shmeith Shmerman.) I'm only 7 weeks in. G-d willing, we will be telling people around mid-late September, at the end of the first trimester.