It's Alright

It's Alright
Indigo Girls

It's alright, 40 days of rain/ My skin stretched out from the growing pain/ It'd be nice to have an explanation/ But it's alright

Okay, perhaps we haven't had 40 days of rain here in Seattle, but it has been a mild summer so far.  Yesterday LB and I took Olive on an early morning walk in the drizzle, which she loved and we found pretty refreshing, too.  It's been nice to feel more like moving around recently, instead of wanting to spend all of my time sitting and sleeping.

I've started having "round ligament pain," which is shockingly similar to pain after abdominal surgery.  When I cough or try to stand up quickly, I get sharp pains just above my pubic bone, which then cause me to clutch very gracefully at my stomach, or just grimace as I try to appear nonchalant.  According to the midwife, though, that pain is showing up right on time.

We had our first appointment with the midwives yesterday.  The new clinic we're going with has 4.5 midwives (one works half-time), and we'll be rotating through all of them.  When The Bean arrives, one of the midwives will be on call, so the plan is that we'll meet and work with all of them, and hopefully like them all, or at least be willing to tolerate all of them at delivery.  (I'm starting to think delivery sounds too passive.  Someone must have come up with a better word for this process!)

So, midwife #1 was a very cheerful, upbeat woman.  She is also shorter than me (uncommon, since I'm only 5'1"), and she reminded me of a hobbit.  So, let's refer to her as "Hobbit."  Hobbit introduced us to the clinic, and reviewed the test results from our OB appointment last month.  She was great about having LB there, and didn't stumble over words like "partner" at all.  This is important to me.  Hobbit did the usual physical exam (and why is it that now, when my breasts are more sore than they have ever been, that they get poked and prodded every month?), and pulled out the doppler.  Before she turned it on, Hobbit warned us that sometimes the heartbeat can be hard to find, and she doesn't worry until 13 weeks, which we are not at yet.  So, on with the cold goop and she's looking for the heartbeat...crackle, crackle...oh, there's my heartbeat, sounds good...crackle, snap...Hmm.  Let's try the other doppler.  Sometimes one works better than the other.  More cold goop...pop, crackle...That's your heartbeat again...Well, I guess this baby's just hiding really well today!

LB points out that someone in this family has to be shy, and since it's neither of us, perhaps The Bean is trying to fill that role.  I had really been looking forward to hearing the heartbeat, especially since that's pretty much the only sign I'm getting these days that things are going well, but I guess we'll wait until next month.  Hobbit didn't seem concerned, and although she offered us the option of going in today for an ultrasound just to check it out, I can't justify that extra expense when LB isn't worried, too.  So, I'm looking online for other people who didn't hear at heartbeat on the doppler and the baby was fine.  Luckily, they're out there, so I'm starting to feel better.

LB and I were waiting until after this appointment to tell the rest of our friends about The Bean, so of course last night we made our big facebook announcements.  Taking a cue from Butch...and Pregnant, we went for the simultaneous status update, accompanied by the changing of the profile picture to one of our ultrasound shots.  So now, I guess it's official!  It's been fun to see the shocked responses roll in, from everyone who didn't know we were trying.  We also went and told a few non-facebook friends in person, so LB's mom doesn't have to keep the news a secret from her neighbors.

All in all, I suppose, it is alright, just as the song says. 

The Bean Song

The Bean Song
a camp song

My dog Jelly likes to roam/ One day Jelly roamed from home/ He came back so squeaky clean!/ Where, oh where, has Jelly been?/ Jelly bean, Jelly bean, where, oh where, has Jelly bean?  (Underlined words can be replaced with any kind of bean: lima, string, pork-and, your choice!)

I pride myself on being good at keeping secrets, and have never been the kind of person to slip up with my own secrets (birthday presents?  great big changes at work?  I'll never tell.) or those of others (found a better job? trying for a baby? I'm like a vault.)  I love secrets like a six-year-old loves them, I love the challenge of keeping things to myself, and I love the thrill of knowing that there is a day in the future when I get to tell everything.
 
We have just scratched the surface of telling folks we know about the Bean, which makes it far harder than I expected to keep the secret from the rest of our friends and family.  Until we started telling people (which began with LB's cousin the day we got a BFP), it was easy.  Today, though, keeping this news from everyone has gotten harder and harder.  I don't know if it's because we finally have an appointment to find out more about the Bean, or if this is harder because it's about US, and not someone else, but I keep having to bite my tongue to avoid telling people!

LB and I would like to have an ultrasound picture before we tell people, so right now we're using that as our reason for waiting  Then, we'll probably just tell family, and wait until the 2nd trimester (all the way in July!) to let friends know.  For now, though, we wait.  And I try not to call attention to the fact that I'm not drinking, and hope that my ever-expanding cleavage doesn't cause my shirt to explode suddenly!

Song of the Soul

Song of the Soul
by Cris Williamson


Love of my life, I am crying/ I am not dying, I am dancing/ Dancing along in the madness/ There is no sadness, only the song of the soul/ And we'll sing this song/ Why don't you sing along?/ And we can sing for a long, long time/ 

The day went like this:
6:15 take temp, still down (damn.) POAS: BFN (damn.)
8:30 plant plastic eggs around the neighborhood for the little kids to find
10:00 go egg hunting with the under-4 crowd, have a great time at the reactions of the kids to EVERY egg they find.  "I found one!  I found another one!  And another one!  I found another one!" repeat for 20 minutes, all along the block
12:30 make sandwiches for baby shower, before leaving stop at the restroom, CD1 again (damn.)
2:00 baby shower is attended by both month-old twins, as well as their 9-month-old cousin.  (cute, but damn.)
4:00 leave baby shower, break into tears from stress of PMS, BFN, and being surrounded by adorable children who are NOT MINE all day long.  LB proposes shopping therapy.
5:00 shopping therapy works, we return home with infant t-shirts and burpcloths to decorate.

Six hours later, LB has created the worlds most adorable onesies, and I'm feeling better and have finished a swatch for my next knitting project.  This one will not be for a baby or an expectant mom, rather, it is a stash-culling project using yarn purchased years ago.   See, if we're going to be spending more money on OPKs, HPTs, and the like, I can't be spending our extra money on crafting supplies (onesies clearly don't count).  Cycle 2, here we come!

My Baby's in Love With Eddie Vedder

My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder
by "Weird Al" Yankovic

Well, my baby's in love with Eddie Vedder/ She's got a thing for that Eddie Vedder/ Tell me, what can he do that I can't do better/ Now my baby's in love with/ I said I said I said my baby's in love with Eddie Vedder/ Head over heels for that Eddie Vedder/ I can't believe it, now she's knitting him a sweater/ 'Cause my baby's in love with Eddie Vedder/

LB, I should mention, is a fantastic knitter.  I knit, too, but not with the skill she does.  Lately, with so many friends expecting, LB has been a baby-sweater-knitting machine! (And a very cute machine, too)  Last night, we delivered a sweater dress to some friends whose daughter was just born on Thursday, and of course, got in some baby snuggling time while we were there!  She is ABSOLUTELY adorable - chubby cheeks and the cutest cross-eyed gaze...very hard not to walk off with her :)

This Saturday, we're attending the baby shower for our friend who had twins three weeks ago, and LB has two more sweaters to deliver.  I'll try to snap a picture before they are gifted away.   This week we're both on spring break, and enjoying being at home and having time to get things settled in our (still new) house.  After 4 years of one or the other of us finishing a Masters degree and never getting our joint spring break, it's nice to really get some couple time this year!

Come, Sisters, Come

Come, Sisters, Come
camp song

Edge of the night, a campfire's light/ Come, sisters, come/ Magic of song, a place to belong/ Come, sisters, come/ Warmth of a fire, warmth of a friend/ Come, sisters, come/  

Last night, LB and I had dinner with some "couple friends" of ours (as in, friends who are a couple and, in the words of one of the women last night, "somewhat normal" :-P).  They are currently expecting their first child, and were thrilled to hear that we have finally started trying, too!

It's nice to have other people to talk with, who have done the same thing.  In fact, through the evening we discovered we're doing exactly the same thing, down to the method of insemination - good to know it's worked for some people!  All in all, they were full of supportive words and encouragement, which was nice to hear, and possibly even more excited than we are that we're in the 2WW. 

It's also CD 39, making this one of my longest cycles ever (topped only by my student teaching quarter), so every time I go to the restroom, I'm steeling myself for my period to arrive.  It's kinda crazy-making, and this is just our first try!  I'm enjoying reading the blogs of other women TTC or expecting, and that is providing a welcome distraction from analyzing my chart or predicting what my temperature might be in the morning. 

Shop Around

Shop Around
by Smokey Robinson 

My mama told me, you better shop around/ Oh yeah, you better shop around

 Today, LB and I went shopping for baby supplies for a friend - yet another friend - who just had a baby.  Twins, actually.  So we took the grand tour of Babies 'R Us, which is always translated in my head as "We are babies."  Eventually, we got out of there with a couple of pacifiers for the boys, but the whole ordeal is murderous when you're wishing for a baby and a reason to buy half the store for your own house.  LB and I have taken to wandering the baby section of Target, as well - just to scope out what we want to start stockpiling once this process works.

I'm getting stressed out by this whole waiting thing, and it's making me cranky.  What I wouldn't give for a time machine to fast forward these next seven days!