Attorney Work Product

Vulcan Mind Meld

Last night when I was returning from some errands, I got out of my car thinking "I need to call Keri; I wonder if she still has that breast pump." I got into the house, checked my messages, and lo and behold, there was Keri saying give me a call, I just found my breast pump and I was wondering if you wanted it. Yay! Good Ol' Medella Pump-in-Style for me without the hefty price tag. She's also giving us a back pack diaper bag (good for airplane travel) a bunch of cloth diapers and covers, some adorable hats Sean wore when he was little, and a few other things. Hooray for hand me downs!

Workin' it

I am almost appalled at myself. This morning on the Metro, with all of the seats full, I opened my jacket and conspicuously put my hand on my belly in hopes of being offered a seat. It worked, though -- within a few minutes, the girls standing in front of me said "she's pregnant," and the woman in the seat next to me offered me her seat. We ended up chatting about her 2 1/2 year old twins, her pregnancy, day care, nannies, etc., etc. during the remaining stops. I got some helpful advice. I still feel a little guilty about it, though.

Lucky Hertle

Today, Allison became the first person (besides my husband) to feel the baby bean do its thing in there. Even though she was recently pregnant herself, she said it was quite a different feeling, feeling it as an outsider.

Pop Goes the Dina

Today was the day. Earlier this week, anyone would have agreed that I wasn't really showing. Today I got out of the shower and looked at myself in the mirror and said yup, there certianly is a baby in there! Since it was Valentines Day, I wore my new red maternity shirt, put in my red heart earrings, and (since I had been up practically all night the night before) put my hair back in a pony tail and threw some makeup on. I should have felt and looked awful, but instead I got just a ton of compliments about how cute I looked. And most people didn't say it, but I could see the next part of the sentence -- and how pregnant I looked -- on their faces. I walked into my friend C.'s office, and watched his eyes jump from mine to my belly and then back again to my eyes. Too funny. I went upstairs to personnel and the benefits director -- whom I had not told directly, although I had told her underling -- took one look at me and said "I had no idea, when are you due?" One of the other ladies in personnel gave her a hard time by admonishing her (jokingly) that I wasn't pregnant and how presumptuous of her, but she didn't really believe it. Nor should she. The belly shape is unmistakable.

I should have looked and felt awful, but I felt great. I am just so happy to be pregnant!

Pregnancy Math

You can tell those been pregnant or spent a lot of time around a pregnant person from those who haven't in a single question -- by a single word, really. If you know pregnancy, you ask me "How many weeks along are you?" and if you don't, you ask "How many months?" Docs measure by weeks, with 40 weeks counting as full term. Although you're really only physically pregnant for 38 of those 40 weeks, as it is much easier for all to measure from the date of a women's last menstrual period and assume she ovulated 14 days later than to actually know when exactly she ovulated.

Pregnant women quickly learn to be obsessed about how many weeks along they are. As of today, I am 23 weeks, five days along (or 23 weeks and four days, if I am in the doctors' office -- he and I disagree by a day as to my due date). If you divide by 4, that's one week shy of six months, right? Maybe, but I am really closer to five months. If you count back from my due date -- June 6 -- I finished my fifth month on February 6, which would make me five months and a few days pregnant. If you count months forward from my date of conception, you would come up with just a little less than five months. The week-to-month translation gets most difficult to do in the three-to-four month range -- depending on how you calculate, you could end up telling people you are four months along in two different months!

The problem is that months aren't 4 weeks (28 days) long, they are 30-31 most of the time. That's why docs use weeks. Some feminista pregnancy books will say 9 months is a myth, 40 weeks is a 10 month gestation and darn it you deserve recognition of that, girlfriend, but that's not really accurate either. Certainly, September to June is 9 months.

I am 23 weeks, five days along. That's five months. More than half way there. No matter how you calculate it, there's a baby in me, and it's coming sooner rather than later.

Daddy Dance

"Roll over," he said as he crawled into bed next to me. "I want to talk to the baby." I don't know if it was the music on in the background, Mike's voice aimed directly at my tummy, or just the baby's normal settlling in for the night routine, but the baby seemed to want to talk to Mike too. He would say something, the baby would respond with a kick or a roll. It really felt like they were having a conversation. I was just a bystander with a goofy grin and tears of joy streaming down my face.

Mike has felt an isolated kick here or there, but he had never experienced the baby's full bore dance moves before last night. Last night, his eyes just got wider and wider with every thump. Now he can understand what I mean when I say that the baby is not only kicking but also rolling and thumping. The moves were frequent and intense.

To which we both say: WOW.

Gershwin Baby

I've been trying to remember to turn the clock radio on to "sleep" when I crawl into bed to read at night, so that the baby can get an hour of soothing classical music at bed time. Last night, the first song was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and the baby just went NUTS! I had to stop reading and just sit there hand-on-belly in awe. Kicking, and rolling, and seemingly in time with the music. I seriously counted 10, maybe fifteen distinct movements during the course of the song. Note to self: bring that Gershwin CD up from the family room and stick it in the clock radio!! This baby has good taste.

Bullet Proof

This morning, we were joking around, and Mike poked me in the belly. His first reaction: "Ohmigod, I'm so sorry!" -- he had momentarily forgotten about the baby (which just goes to show, I'm really not showing all that much). His second reaction: "Oh my GOD, your tummy is bullet proof!" There's certainly no Pillsbury Dough Boy give when you poke me in the belly, that's for sure. Everything feels mighty tight.

Pathetic

Five months pregnant. Four hours sleep. Another bus-induced loss of breakfast on the street. This morning, I was determined to sit on the Metro.

So when I got on and saw there were no seats, I made a bee line for the end of the car, where I could lean against the door and slide to the floor. Which I proceeded to do. Two stops later, the nice gentleman sitting in the seat next to me noticed what I was doing, got up, and offered me his seat, which I gratefully accpeted.

But I still felt the need to explain, "Thanks, I'm five months pregnant." I wanted the guy to know I had an excuse for being that pathetic!

Boobie Power!

Sudden boobie growth is a pregnancy sign that most people who have not gone through pregnancy don't know about. But it is a powerful signal to the people that do know. Before I had read up on pregnancy, I had no idea. Once I knew, however, I was very attuned to the boobies of the women I knew who were trying to conceive. Of course, that was the sign on myself that spurred me to take that first pregnancy test. And I pegged my friend D.'s pregnancy very early on (she denied it when I asked her directly at the time -- told me she was wearing padded bras -- but recently confessed to me that I was right after all).

When I was out to dinner with M. & G. just before Christmas, we told them about the baby and M. said "I knew it! Your boobs are huge!" Last week was the funniest, though. I went to a book group meeting, and I hadn't made a meeting for several months due to work conflicts. I had decided to tell them about my pregnancy, so as soon as Heather asked "How are you doing?" I answered, "Pregnant!" Heather and Stacey -- the two Moms in the group -- both said they knew the second I walked in the door. I was ratted out by my Boobies.

A Wife's Place...

Yesterday, I was just a whirlwind of homemaking. I did about 4 loads of laundry, paid some bills, cleaned our bedroom, did the grocery shopping, bought some file folders for my home office and a coat rack for the living room, and cooked a big batch of chili for Mike to eat for the week, as well as a big batch of split pea soup from scratch for me to eat for the week. I also made fried eggplant sticks that I noshed on all day (I had a hankering), and made Mike both a plate of carrot sticks and dip and a large sandwich for lunch. And, of course, cleaned up after all that cooking. At the height of my kitchen adventures, when I was elbow deep in chopped onions with three different burners going on the stove, Mike walked into the kitchen and pointedly looked down at my feet.

If you don't count the socks (and Mike's feeling was they don't count), there I was: barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Oy.

Weekend Update

This is a picture of me taken this day (click image to enlarge):

On Friday, I wore the same skirt with the other shirt, and I was told by Karyn "you look very pregnant today." So maybe it is starting to get obvious. I'll do a true belly shot in the near future (I am kind waiting for my waist band to disappear completely so that you can't tell where my normal fat ends and baby begins!).

Yesterday, I went shopping with Ada, who is a few weeks ahead of me into her pregnancy. We looked at baby furniture (I feel no closer to picking a crib, but I definitely have more info now), then bought a few maternity outfits at Sears. We were both feeling very pregnant, that's for sure! Then I came home after being so proud of my big excursion and ended up practically collapsing asleep at about 8 p.m. Woke up to go to the bathroom, tried to call Mom, but quickly fell back asleep. Later, I learned that lunch hadn't agreed with me afterall -- in an episode that should probably take a spot in the top 5 worst vomiting jags ever. At the time, it made my vision white over from the pressure, which was pretty darn scary. This morning, I saw the battle scars (in the form of dozens of little pin-point burst blood vessels around my eyes). I think I need to stop bragging about how my morning sickness is basically over. I am jinxing myself.

Oh, and Mike's working on the layout of the site -- we know some of the colors are off (like for the links and such) but that should be fixed sometime this week. Then we can go public!