The Thinking Minority

That is all.

The least fun of ALL games.

Still pregnant. In case you're wondering.

That's all.

Which means I'm due in 3 weeks, for what that's worth. Pretty weird.

New phenomena:
- What I'm wearing seems to determine whether I get the "Wow, you're huge!" comments, or "You look great, you're so small!" comments. The other possibility is that the people in the second category are lying, because they're always women, but that's okay (I love them for it).
- The baby gets the hiccups. Really weird.
- People, particularly Mr. B, are now concerned that I could go into labor at any second, so I have to be careful. If I say "ouch" because the kid has kicked me particularly hard, everyone in the room gets very attentive. If I flinch at work, my coworkers go into High Alert. It's very sweet, and absolutely hilarious.
- Swollen everything, all day long (as opposed to before, when I just had swollen ankles in the afternoon). Pretty uncomfortable, but also highly amusing: I can make fun patterns on myself. Being swollen means that I get "pillow lines" and marks really easily - so if, for example, I rest my legs on a chair with waffle-pattern fabric, then when I pick my legs up they'll also have a waffle-pattern. It's like being made of silly putty (silly putty! silly putty! silly putty!).

For a while now, I've been counting how many pregnancy symptoms I haven't experienced - it's a shorter list than counting the ones that I have experienced. There are all kinds of fun things to experience, like morning sickness, leg cramps, (permanently) bigger feet, swollen ankles, etc.

Anyway, here is my new, updated list of pregnancy symptoms that I have not had the pleasure of experiencing yet:

Two not-so-startling realizations:

1. As much as being pregnant sucks (well, it does.), this baby is a lot easier to take care of on the inside than he will be when he's on the outside.

2. Um. Hm. There was a second thing, but I've forgotten it. No one who has had a conversation with me recently should be surprised by this.

Happy Friday, everyone.

9 months is a long time, until it's not.

If I asked you what your plans were for next March, what would you say? Too far ahead to think about, right? I felt that way back in December: 9 months is a long time.

At 4 weeks, Mr. B and I felt like 8 weeks was FOREVER to wait to tell people. And I think being constantly sick made the time go by kind of slowly.

At 12 weeks, another two months to find out the gender seemed like FOREVER. August still seemed far away, and I was (for some reason) eagerly anticipating "showing."

Finding out that the alien growing inside me was a boy made things a little more "real." But still, I was only halfway through this thing, and it was (barely) spring - late summer was still FOREVER to wait.

Now? We've seen our first 100-degree days, so summer is here. The list of "Things To Do Before The Kid Shows Up" hasn't gotten much shorter, and yet my google countdown keeps on ticking (64 days!). Suddenly we have a childbirth class and a meeting with the pediatrician and a tour of the maternity ward scheduled and a guess-the-date-and-weight game in the works and a lot of cleaning to do to satisfy my nesting instinct and holy cow this is really only two months away...

Well, they kinda tell you...when you're pregnant, all of your other internal organs get squished. Your bladder is squished and you have to pee all the time, ha ha, right?

But no, seriously, they all get squished. Space is at a premium, so there are trade-offs: if, for example, you eat a large meal, then you can't breathe. And there is very little wiggle room (literally): when the kid kicks, he's likely to strike the bladder, ribs, stomach, and all kinda of fun stuff. And I imagine that the internal-organs-as-punching-bags phenomenon is only going to get worse...

Yes, it's all worth it. But it's WEIRD.

Ok, there are a lot of things that no one tells you about being pregnant. But what's really odd is this: you feel the kid move. All the time. It's not just that sometimes the kid kicks and you can feel it - no, you're sitting at your desk, and he's moving. You're walking to your car, and he's moving. You're in a meeting, in the shower, watching TV, trying to sleep, having a conversation, doing dishes - and he's moving. Kicking, squirming, poking. Imagine someone following you around for four months or so, poking you in the stomach. Except that you love this person a lot, so it's not as annoying as you'd think.

It's weird. It's cool, but it's really really weird. That's all.

We had our 22-week ultrasound on Monday, and from the weird and alien images, it appears to be a healthy, growing, perfect little boy!

20 weeks today!


(Yep, Livin' On A Prayer is stuck in my head. Figured I'd put it in everyone else's heads as well. Sorry.)

Our next ultrasound is scheduled for April 21st at 11AM...so if you want to take a guess as to whether it's a boy or a girl, you have until then.

I'm really not sure, so I can't help you. :-)

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Alien Growing Inside Me

18 weeks down, 22-ish more to go!


A few days ago, I thought I felt someone poke me in the stomach - from the inside. I wasn't sure, though. Then yesterday, there was no mistaking the feeling - like someone was playing the piano on my insides for a few seconds. It's odd, and reassuring, and pretty neat.

This is the weirdest and coolest thing I've ever done.

We went through our wedding guest book, to see who was the closest on the "When will they have children?" question.

(Sorry, Robtastic, but you were a bit off with December 6, 2004).

The winner, with June 22, 2008, is George! My due date is August 21, so George was less than two months off (assuming, ha, that I have the kid on the actual due date). Most other people put that we'd have kids within 2 years, and a surprising number of people seemed to think I was knocked up at the wedding itself...