Saturday, August 31, 2013

Achievement unlocked

Swollen feet and kankles. (I have no idea who the heck is gonna be interested in his post but...)  At only 4 months this surprises me. Should it? Maybe it's because I stood for 36 hours on a concrete floor in an un air conditioned factory over the past three days.

The funny thing is, because I normally have very long and spindly feet that never seem to fill out my shoes, and seriously finger-like toes, and skinny ankles that I'm self conscious of, I feel like this swelling is an ok thing.  They actually kind of look like normal people feet for once, save for the fact that my ankles didn't want to bend readily by he end of the day yesterday. It's neat. 

This is all very new and interesting to me.  I'll take he good with the bad.   

Did you guys ever see that funny paparazzi shot of kim kardashian's super swollen pregnant feet in ridiculous cruel shoes?  Hahaha.  Man o man. That was gross. 


Thursday, August 22, 2013

I kind of can't wait for snow and winter hats.  

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

So I'm gonna have a baby in six months and now I have this crazy urge to sign up for business classes and work on my career? Of course.  

Sunday, August 11, 2013

I too can participate in the novelty of cooking outside

in un-baby news, we bought our first grill today!

We started off the day by riding the train to Logan Square for breakfast and the farmer's market with my mom.  Yes, the farmers market is stupid expensive, but I love knowing that everything I'm getting there is going to taste pretty perfect.  Namely the tomatoes.  I would gladly pay $50 for one funny looking farmers market tomato than pay $1 for 50 of those mealy, crappy grocery store tomatoes.  Seriously. Once the season ends it's really hard to go back to mass produced produce.

Anyway, today our haul was a couple big tomatoes, peaches, michigan blueberries, 2 corns and some flowers.  All of these things are bringing me great happiness.

And the corns seemed too exciting to boil, so at 35 & 36 years old, we went to home depot and bought our very first grill. I don't know why it never really occurred to me to get a grill before.  I suppose because we don't eat meat?  Duh.  But I never really stopped to think - You can grill things other than meat.  Duh!

It's a little bitty grill, but it's still a grill and it was still fun to (watch Zach) use. Even in the rain.

This looks like a sad face with big lips:



And although the rain kind of put out the heat before the corn could get toasty, we're still pretty pumped. Today I made a seasoned butter for the corns. I'm thinking maybe tomorrow or Tuesday I'll try those seasoned potatoes wrapped in foil.  I feel like a whole new world could be opening up here.  Please send recipes.  Thx!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Good morning

Zach says he's practicing his animal shapes for the baby. If this was intended to be a frog we're all ready!


Thursday, August 8, 2013

Aaand he looks great!

I say he because I am just positive it's a he. I haven't been told or anything but my brain says he. So now that that's out of the way, look!!  Do you see this little hand??  Isn't it crazy?



I totally get that other people's ultrasounds don't look like much, but if it helps this is a front view and that's his little right hand waiving.  The face looks a little alien like, and his profile honestly looks a lot like Beavis at this point, but I have faith that it will all come together and he'll look cute (though probably still with a large head) like his dad as a baby (who also had a large head) when we meet him in February.  

Little fingers!  We made it to 12 weeks!!
Beyond nervous.  

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Maybe that sounds a little negative?  I don't want to come off as negative about this.  I'm not.  Maybe just super guarded.  No.  Definitely super guarded.  I don't know when I'll feel safe.  I assume confidence will come in stages.  Tomorrow morning we have our 12 week ultrasound.  This is the point where, if baby is still okay, we are ushered into the "safer zone." I'm nervous as heck. But I'll breathe a little easier after this milestone. And then I'll wait a few more weeks until I get the little reassurances of feeling him move in my belly, saying "It's ok mom. I'm still here and everything's good."

In the meantime it's probably a good thing that I have a crazy demanding work day.  Really, I shouldn't have stopped to write this.  But sometimes sanity should come first. 

Friday, August 2, 2013

Without ceremony, but not at all unimportant

Oh by the way, I'm pregnant.  I don't know how to announce something like this on a blog. I feel like this is the kind of thing that deserves well thought out and crafted words. But Im kind of out of practice at writing and that task just seems really daunting right now. My thoughts are complex, and at eleven weeks I'm not quite ready to blast it out to the world . But I figure this is an ok enough spot since readership is pretty low. You'd think this is the kind of news I'd want to shout from roof tops, but eh, not yet.  There's a deep fear instilled in me from a previous loss.

Last November we lost twins at 10 weeks. And God if anything deserves to be properly written about it's miscarriage. I felt so alone during that time even as stories of others' losses came out of the woodwork. Things I would've never known if I hadn't been privileged enough to be inducted into this shitty club.

I don't understand why something so incredibly common is such a taboo conversation topic. I felt it every in the reaction of every friend i mentioned it to who'd never had it hit home before (or at least who wasn't aware it ever had). People got extremely uncomfortable and didn't know how to react.  And then, without fail, I felt embarrassed and ashamed for putting them in that situation by bringing it up. Some day I would like to see that change.  It sounds completely cliche but women need to know they aren't alone. They seriously need reassurance that they didn't do anything wrong to cause it to happen. People need to know that it's just something that happens. A lot.  A lot more than you think it does. And by not sharing all of my thoughts and what the experience was like in a timely and honest way I feel like I'm doing women a disservice by swallowing my experience like so many others.  

Maybe I'm still afraid to share all of that because of the deer in headlights reactions I'd gotten used to getting.  At this point who wants to hear about what it's like to admitted to a hospital where they put you under and speed the process along for you?  Who wants to know all the details about how a miscarriage is not (as they depict on television) something that happens in a day, but rather over the course of weeks.  It's a violating, gross and extremely painful process. I certainly don't feel like reliving it today.
 
But I don't know.  Maybe someday I'll understand why it had to happen. Maybe some day I'll tell the whole story. Today I feel like I just need to keep looking forward, at least treading water, and holding on to hope like a seatback cushion after a plane crash, knowing that I made it through something awful but it's nothing to be ashamed of and that I am about to move forward to other, much much happier times.  It will always have an impact on who I am but it doesn't define me. There's so much more ahead of me.

ORD-->SEA

This is my fifth time on a plane in two weeks.  Flying is so difficult when you're pregnant. At this point it's mostly due to the fact that I've got a nose like a dog.  Only unlike dogs (who from what I can tell usually love disgusting smells), to me, disgusting smells just smell disgusting. Super disgusting.  Vomit inducing disgusting.  And airports and airplanes are chock full of disgusting smells.  From the food courts to the food people ate 4 hours ago, to the laundry detergents they use or don't use, to their hair or their breath or the farts they think you can't smell,  it's just awful. The absolute worst part is when you're sitting on the Tarmac in a plane when they've shut off the circulation.  Why for the love of God do they do that to us?  Just saying.

At least this time I'm flying for fun.  Not for work. We're going to Seattle for the first time.  I'm so excited to see some hills and green stuff and fresh air.   Though I don't know how likely it is, this is what I want to see: