I Know Everybody Hates Those "Now Go Click Here" Posts...

...but seriously, go click here and marvel at my baby's impeccable sense of timing.

(OB appointment this morning. Check. Baby sounds good, genetic blood tests passed with flying colors, round ligament pain blamed soundly on our excursion to see a certain simpering in-need-of-a-punchin' train, advised to lie down a lot more than am currently doing, which means you can peel my ass off the couch sometime in January, weight gain non-existent, belly possibly filled with helium, Big Ultrasound in four weeks, the end.)

16 Weeks, Take Two

You know, I don't care how long you've been blogging, or how many entries have been accidentally eaten by a crashed browser window, or how many times you've SWORN you'll remember to save as a draft more often, or how many times you've typed something along the lines of FUCK FUCK FUCK instead of attempting to rewrite the thoughtful think-piece that just went *poof* into nothingness, IT IS REALLY REALLY FRUSTRATING WHEN THAT HAPPENS, FUCK FUCK FUCK. GAH.

"Hilariously" enough, my browser crashed when I opened up another tab to conduct a Google Image Search for treble clefs so I could have a point of reference before drawing one on Noah's magnadoodle, which he then promptly erased. Oh, the "irony."

(He then asked that I draw Steve, but was bitterly disappointed with my stick-figure depiction, even though I think I did a pretty good job on the striped polo shirt, especially, you know, ON A MAGNADOODLE, but WHATEVER, kid.)

Eh. I think the entry kind of sucked anyway, and was mostly a lot of filler leading up to some belly photos. So...let's just say filler filler run-on sentence CAPS LOCK filler and...photo time!

So the crazy sick bloating of the first trimester finally settled down, leaving me with a perfectly reasonable 16-week belly. Unless I eat French fries. Those things still inflate me up like a bike pump. A delicious, golden-brown bike pump. I'm mostly wearing maternity clothes because hell fucking yeah, I've been waiting for an excuse to slip back into elastic waistbands for two whole years now. Sure, I can still pretty much suck that gut back in to nothingness, but why should I? You wanna fight about it?

Some days, though, it really isn't until I catch a glimpse of my profile in the mirror that I even remember hey! Right! Wow. I'm not unwieldy or too terribly uncomfortable yet, nor am I getting regular kicks to the kidneys. I still occasionally gag on a smell or taste and size up the distance to the nearest plumbing receptacle and I could sleep for 36 hours straight and still whine about how goddamn early it is, but mostly I feel pretty good. In other words, not very pregnant.

Jason has taken a turn for the superstitious and still thinks it's too early to think about names or onesies or what the hell we ever did with the crib screws. I started a half-hearted Amazon list for the stuff we gave away or broke or left behind on a curb in DC during a prolonged fit of Moving Hysteria, but I have no urge to buy anything because...what? I just peed on that stick three weeks ago, slow dowwwwn, Mabel. The conflicting ultrasound measurements and multiple due dates haven't helped either, but have instead left me with a vague feeling that this whole "infant coming to live at my house" thing is still a fluid, hypothetical event. Tour dates yet TBA, check with your local ticket agent.

But then every night, I squirt my belly with ultrasound goo and gently swirl the doppler microphone through it, and within seconds, there it is. The baby. My baby. Our baby. I can tell when it's sleeping by the slower, quiet rhythm, and when it's awake everything is faster and punctuated with a lot of static and interference from tiny flailing limbs. Every night, the heartbeat is loud and steady and reminds me of a freight train, barreling down the tracks, ready or not, here it comes.

Swag in Action

I took approximately 40,982 pictures of this bee. I do not like bees. I do not like pictures of bees. But here, look at this picture of this bee, and be grateful that I'm not making you look at all pictures where the bee is a little blurry blob because I WAS VERY OBSESSED WITH THIS BEE FOR SOME REASON.

New-found camera skills aside (I should have increased the shutter speed, since I wanted to capture freeze-frame bee wings because I had it in my head at the time that freeze-frame bee wings were the ultimate in photographic accomplishment), there's a reason I should stay away from "arty" shots and photos of boring things like flowers.

For example, my eye for composition is so keen that when aiming my camera at an entire garden of gorgeous blooms, the only one I managed to keep in focus was the dead and wilted one.

It's a metaphor, man. You wouldn't get it.

What does this button do? Oh.

That one was snapped during our initial demo of all the cameras, when we were all particularly giddy and snap-happy, even though there really wasn't much to take photos of, besides the carpet and the chandeliers and oh look! A chandelier!

Okay, clearly it was time to turn the cameras around on our own dork asses.

Tracey, by the way, performed admirably as the group's go-to photography guinea pig, and at one point had about seven different people aiming a barrage of Cyber-shots and Alpha DSLR cameras at her, ordering her to help them test out their metering modes and the Cyber-shot's creepy robot Smile Shutter function, which allows you TOTALLY PWN your bratty, ungrateful child who only smiles two seconds AFTER you've snapped the picture. Because it waits until your kid actually smiles to actually take the picture. The Sony people claim it's an "algorithm," but you and I know it's actually very small hamsters who will one day arise and enslave us all.

Anyway, Tracey handled the mommyblogger paparazzi admirably, and didn't roll her eyes too badly when I made the obvious LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE joke, since I am very Hip and With It when it comes to the kids today and their YouTubes.

Hey, speaking of high-definition video cameras! And dorks!

DORKS from amalah on Vimeo.

You stay classy, La Jolla.

And...that was my trip to California. While I'm not under any obligation to write about the event or Sony or the swag (HAVE I MENTIONED THE SWAG), hats off to Sony, man. I've had some baaaaaad experiences with accepting even the smallest gift or sample from big corporations -- sample arrives, sample gets boxed back up and shipped back on my own dollar because nooooo, I won't sign away the rights to my child's image for your marketing stock photography library in exchange for a photo printer, THANKS THOUGH -- but I'm really glad I went.

I mean, the whole point of squeezing my increasingly pregnant ass on a cross-country flight was originally just to get some quality Sweetney time <insert some mid-90s Bryan Adams here, in your head, on repeat play FOREVER>, and other than that I was secretly expecting the whole thing to suck and be all kinds of eye-rolly. And then everybody there was so nice and laid-back and I got a massage and fresh strawberries in my room and a giant bed that I took up as many inches as possible with my giant body. Plus Tracey gave me chocolate and this body cream that smells like cupcakes and I got to share a limo with PlainJaneMom (confidential to Erika: do I owe you $400? I'm a little afraid to look, frankly) and talked about my boobs with Jenny and HAVE I SCREAMED At YOU ENOUGH ABOUT APERTURE. AND THE FACT THAT I KNOW WHAT IT IS NOW.

<breathes>

Okay. That's really it about California. And aperture. I'm done now. I promise.

And now for some extremely boring camera talk, for the two of you who might be interested:

My Canon Digital Rebel, for now, probably beats the Sony Alpha, but only because I already own some really excellent lenses for it. Lenses that are just plain better than the one that comes with the Alpha, but hey. We paid a lot for them, they sure as hell better be better. HOWEVER, for someone just moving away from point-and-shoot and learning how to use a DSLR, I think the Sony is MUCH easier to use. I like the menus better, I feel like I can get to the different settings faster, and the adjustable liveview screen just flat-out rocks. (Although I'm so used to looking through the viewfinder on the Canon that I find myself turning it off more often than I thought I would, but that's probably just habit. When I first got the Canon I couldn't BELIEVE I couldn't just hold the camera out in front of me and get a preview of what I was shooting.) I'm very, VERY interested in getting a better lens for the Sony, especially since I don't have to pay extra for image-stabilization (it's built right into the body of the Sony) (image stabilization = the reason your no-flash pictures on a point-and-click camera look all blurry, Ms. 5 PM Alcohol Shakes).

(Taken with the Cyber-shot in the low-light ISO setting.)

(APERTURE!)

A Businesswoman, a Tibetan Monk & a Mommyblogger Get on an Airplane

The next night I went to bed at 9:22. Party up! Or on, or whatever it is that people who party usually say.

And then the next night was spent watching hours and hours of my life vanish into the time zone map as my very delayed flight home from California turned into an impromptu red-eye (HELPFUL AIRLINE MONITOR: Reason for Aircraft Delay: Aircraft Delayed), during which I really did share a row with a businesswoman and a Tibetan monk, although there is absolutely no punchline to that story, except that the businesswoman was very kind and filled me in on what I'd missed on the in-flight movie during each and every one of my 439 trips to the lavatory, and the monk brought along about 15 chicken snack wraps from McDonald's and you know what? I don't think those things are really designed to be kept in a paper bag for six hours before consuming.

And now I am back on the East Coast, where I remain solidly on West Coast time, going to bed at 3 am and feeding my child breakfast at 11ish and not updating my blog at all, just like all those California bloggers. With their laid-back attitudes and bean sprouts and whatnot.

(Last night I hallucinated that I heard the garbage truck outside at 4 am and shook Jason awake and ordered him to chase after it with our trash and mixed recyclables, which he did not, and my point is, everything coming out of my mouth at this point is a big, steaming, sleep-deprived lie.)

ANYWAY!

I went to California, and all I got was a lousy four metric tons of fancy digital imaging equipment.

We had to move our PILES O' SWAG to the floor because they were substantial enough to mess with the hotel's wifi signal.

I have to admit that I am generally a cranky old bastard when it comes to anything that stinks of Bloggers! We Here At <Corporation Name> Really Get and Dig What You Do PR tactics. (A lot of those PR tactics tend to be something like GIVE US VALUABLE MARKET RESEARCH AND FREE ADVERTISING IN EXCHANGE FOR...UH...THIS T-SHIRT! THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY IN YOUR SIZE! NO? HOW ABOUT ONE OF THOSE SQUEEZY STRESS BALL THINGS?) And I got the sense that several of the other attendees were expecting to be similarly annoyed by the whole thing, but then the boxes of cameras and camcorders and lenses and camera accessories starting piling up and everybody started ripping things open and the air was full of bubble wrap and packing peanuts and we all looked at each other, frantically trying to get unspoken permission from the crowd to OMFG SQUEEEEEEEE????

For some reason, I think the view from my hotel room helped improve my usual curmudgeonly demeanor.

At one point, I returned from my 230,293 trip to the lavatory and noticed that almost everybody had been given silver travel coffee mugs. EXCEPT FOR EVERYBODY AT MY SIDE OF THE TABLE. And our eyes got big and ugly and Bilbo-Baggins-like because WE DIDN'T GET TRAVEL MUGS. WHERE'D EVERYBODY GET THOSE TRAVEL MUGS! GAR! SWAG! MINE! NOW!

(The travel mugs were still in the process of being unpacked and distributed. I did indeed get a travel mug, although it's hard to look at, since the polished metal only seems to reflect the blackness of my soul.)

The best part of the trip, hands down, was the fact that Sony did not just hand us complicated A/V equipment and expect us to like, read the manuals. They also gave us the gift of KNOWLEDGE, by bringing in someone who could explain DSLR cameras and aperture and ISO to us in a way we could understand. Also known as drawings on a chalkboard and makeup analogies. (You know how your makeup looks awesome in the bathroom mirror and then looks like ass outside? THAT'S WHITE BALANCE, LADIES.)

(Me Ra, by the way, will be speaking at BlogHer this summer, so if you're as camera-challenged as I am was, she's TOTALLY worth the price of admission, for real.)

It was jaw-droppingly awesome for this blogger/influencer/opinion-maker, who prior to this weekend had never taken her fancy camera out of the green box mode, but who now desperately needs like, seven different lenses and a wireless flash and sent her husband the following email from the conference:

HI GUESS WHAT! I KNOW HOW TO WORK OUR CAMERA NOW! I KNOW ABOUT SHUTTER SPEED! AND ISO! AND APPERATURE! APPEARATURE? APPATURE? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT BUT IT'S THE THINGIE THAT CONTROLS THE SIZE OF THE THINGIE THAT LIGHT SHINES THROUGH AND I THINK MY LIFE IS CHANGED FOREVER.

(Yes. I send emails in all caps sometimes. I also call people sometimes just to scream into their voicemail when I am very excited about something.)

(HI GUESS WHAT I AM AT THE MALL AND I GOT THE GREATEST PARKING SPACE IN THE WORLD! I WILL PROBABLY NEVER LEAVE BECAUSE IT'S JUST THAT GREAT! CALL ME BACK, WHORE!)

Did it just get really smelly in here?

So...at some point I do plan to post something other than camera phone photos. You know, maybe some photos with some of the new cameras that really demonstrate just how far I've come as a photographer and as a person. I will. Just as soon as I get over my current bout of hyper-perfectionism ("well, this photo is lovely, but I just didn't really fill the frame with my subject as well as I'd like") and go back to not really caring about whether Noah is really "in focus" or "not covered with yams."

This was the sign on the inside of the bathroom door at the hotel's meeting room. I spent a lot of time looking at it (fetus vs. bladder = rock vs. small defenseless insects), and pondering just what are these "other alcoholic beverages" that are not 1) distilled spirits, 2) beer, 3) coolers, or 4) wine. Cough syrup? Xanaxaritas?

I still have so much to learn about so many things. Including how to get all the pretty photos off of my new cameras, and how to stop staring at the camcorder in bafflement because you don't a tape in it. So how does it record? Where do the videos go? Does it involve some sort of gnome? Does this mean I will be significantly less likely to accidentally record over the birth of my second child like I did with my first? Huh!

Eggplant Will Make Your Baby Addicted to Cigarettes & Other Important Lessons*

After digging around in my archives for Noah's first-trimester glamor shots (damn torso-only ultrasound shot! is no help! NO HELP AT ALL!), I stumbled across this entry. My first thought was, "wow, I used to make fun of people who weren't me? what a passive-aggressive little bitch I was!" And then my second thought was, "wait, I recently told the Internet about the time I peed my pants at work, I am sooooo going back to those message boards right this minute."

And so I did, but it was for research. For science. In search of the answer to a very burning science-y question: Has the Internet gotten one lick smarter in the past three years?

What about the radiation from photocopiers? Doesn't that pose a threat? I think I conceived on Monday and have been using a photocopier for eight hours in each of the last two days with the top up {I was copying large books, so I couldn't close it}. Could this harm the initial cell formation of the zygote as it is traveling to the uterus?

Fuck that, I think I conceived ON TOP of the photocopier. Could this cause me to give birth to a radioactive fire-breathing dragon of some sort?

PS On an unrelated note, I have some kind of embarrassing photocopies that I need to destroy, so is it safe to use a paper shredder while pregnant? What if my uterus gets caught in the blades?

r u suppose to cramp at 6 weeks

y. like ttly norml, accordin to my bff jill.

i used it all and did it all during my pregnancy. so long as you have fun and dont hurt yourself or your baby, go ahead and be a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, my new official expert and poet laureate for the Zero to Forty column.

If this is your first pregnancy, and you don't know if you your at risk for pre term labor, I would wait until your in the second trimester before having orgasms.

But I thought I was supposed to be a freak in the sheets bed! MAKE UP YOUR MIND, ANONYMOUS PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET!

I definitely don't think a pregnant woman has any business going to a rock concert. Not because of the noise but because of all the smoke from cigarettes and marijuana. Anyone who's been to a rock concert knows you almost always end up with a contact high especially if you're sitting close to the pit (it's not as bad if it's an outdoor concert). Not to mention if people start getting out of control and you get trampled.

This poster's nickname is LinkinParkChik3. Good Linkin Park nicknames get taken hella fast in the pregnancy forums, as I'm sure you all know.

My sister was told by a friend to not go look at double wide homes, has anyone heard of this?  Something about famoutahide?  (Don't know correct spelling, just heard it's this?)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!  She is 8 months pregnant and she is looking to buy a double wide in the next 3 months, she don't know if she should go with her husband to look at them anymore.  Last time she got dizzy and really hot she said.

So I originally thought that THIS, RIGHT HERE, may be the greatest message-board post in the history of message boards, but then I learned that 1) I needed Google's help for the correct spelling of formaldehyde too, and 2) FEMA gave a whole slew of Katrina victims formaldehyde-tainted trailers and they caused a shitload of health problems, and 3) I am a giant snobby mean ass, and should stick with the self-mockery from here on out. Amen. Cough.

*Eggplant contains NICOTINE, people. Nicotine! STEP AWAY FROM THE ALTRIA-BRANDED FROZEN EGGPLANT PARMESAN DINNER BEFORE IT KILLS US ALL.

You Tell Me.

Well?

So I made a guess, and my doctor made a guess, and they were indeed the same guess, but after an unhealthy amount of time examining the blurry genitals on random strangers' ultrasounds on Google I am now second-guessing that guess. Maybe. A little. Eh, I think I'm right.

Dear Baby,

Thank you for being all alive and perfect and stuff.

I really really love you a lot, like, wow,

Mama

PS LITTLE KICKING LEGS WANT TO CHOMP NOM.

All This PLUS Free Super Saver Shipping!

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Do you need this? OF COURSE YOU NEED THIS. Your next OB appointment isn't until WHEN? You haven't had visual and/or audio confirmation of your baby's continued survival in HOW LONG? Oh Jesus. We don't want to alarm you or anything, but we hear there's some legislation pending in a few states regarding fetal neglect, or something. You are terrible, terrible mother unless you buy this right now. I mean, you had one for your FIRST BABY, right? What, do you not LOVE this baby as much? Are you like, fucking UNGRATEFUL, or something? You think $115 is expensive, or something?  But can you really put a price on PEACE OF MIND?

I mean, GOD.

Product Features:

Spend hours at a time MARVELING at the sound of your own digestive tract!

EAVESDROP on nearby cellular telephone conversations!

Actually RESENT the presence of your own stupid 90 bpm heartbeat which can be picked up in 2,349 different areas of your abdomen!

PANIC! At the disco, in your bedroom, on your living room couch -- the stylish travel case and detachable shoulder strap makes this doppler completely PORTABLE!

OBSESS over your recent lack of morning sickness!

FRET over your distinct lack of a bloated fat ass!

MASH THE HELL out of your boobs to determine diminished soreness!

DIAGNOSE yourself with a missed miscarriage -- all in the comfort and privacy of your own home!

Spend an extremely ILL-ADVISED hour reading about missed miscarriages at a random pregnancy message board!

CRY!

Wander aimlessly around the house in your sticky, ultrasound-gel stained UNDERWEAR!

Get your husband to join you in your despair and obsessive searching for unparalleled FAMILY TOGETHERNESS!

Relive your adolescence with late-night BARTERING sessions with God!

Move doppler wand ONE INCH UPWARDS AND TO THE RIGHT to finally find your baby's whoosh-whooshy heartbeat!

Experience the unparalleled RELIEF and REASSURANCE that can only be achieved through the finest in at-home doppler technology!

But, you know, that was about three hours ago, so you better CHECK AGAIN because the baby totally could have died since breakfast!

(Order now and receive DOUBLE the ultrasound gel! Trust us, you'll go through it and will be forced to use that old gross bottle of cherry-flavored lube in no time.)

My Boobs. Did You Miss Them?

So I'm dreaming about the baby pretty regularly now -- shockingly nice, normal dreams where he (he is always a boy, apologies to the hair-bow hopefuls) is indeed of the human variety, although I did have one dream where he was born with a full set of teeth -- and weirdly, every dream eventually includes breastfeeding. I say weirdly, because breastfeeding always seems to be really easy in these dreams.

DING DING DING! BIZARRO WORLD!

(I know the loyal, long-time readers hate it when I spend half an entry recapping three-year-old plot points, but I cannot help it! It's something of a compulsion with this pregnancy, to neatly file everything into Then and Now columns, and I'm entirely too lazy to dig through the archives for links.)

(Plus every time I go into the archives I get delete-happy because can you honestly BELIEVE what a fucking longwinded know-it-all neurotic twit I was back then? God.)

(BACK THEN! HAR HAR HAR HAAAAAAAR COUGH.)

Anyway, the Cliff's Notes version of Mah Boobs:

I have fibrocystic breast disease. It's been relatively quiet lately, but during my early 20s it was a constant source of annoyance and cancer scares. The cysts would occasionally fill up with blood, meaning they very closely resembled malignant lumps during exams and ultrasounds. And even though we sort of KNEW it was really a benign cyst, it's not exactly the sort of thing you fuck around with, so off to the aspiration races I went.

I once went to a doctor who...I don't even know what his problem was. He spent the entire procedure trying to talk sports with Jason while impatiently jabbing at my right boob with a needle, and then proceeded to randomly aspirate cyst after cyst without removing and reinserting the needle, meaning he was, essentially, tearing through my breast tissue while hunting for cysts. (Hi! Were you eating? Nom nom, suckas.)

After it was over, I sat in the car and sobbed and sobbed because it hurt SO MUCH, and then reached up to examine my boob and HOLY LIVING FUCK, he'd left the very lump I'd gone to see him about in the first place.

I called my OB/GYN from the parking lot and started shrieking at the receptionist because HOLY LIVING FUCK, after all of that, he'd aspirated the WRONG CYST.

We drove to the office for a quick ultrasound to confirm, and yes, I was right. He'd roughly aspirated a slew of clear, obviously harmless cysts and left the solid-looking suspicious one completely alone.

I was referred to an actual breast center that specialized this sort of thing and that doctor actually got the right fucking cyst and was extremely gentle during the whole procedure. The cyst was -- surprise! -- benign and I've never had anything else aspirated since.

But the damage was done. My right boob is a mass of lumpy scar tissue from the botched aspiration, and while I should have known that there would likely to be milk duct damage as well, it wasn't really something I thought much about at the time.

So. Flash-forward to Noah's birth and our subsequent attempts to breastfeed. My milk took a really, really long time to come in, and my supply was nowhere near adequate for the 10-pound chunker I birthed. He was born with the appetite of a six-week-old, I swear to God, and I imagine I would have struggled to ramp up a decent supply even WITHOUT the gimpy right boob.

But no matter what I did -- and believe me, I tried everything increase my supply -- I was, at best, working with a boob and a half. The more fenugreek I consumed and the more I pumped, the more painfully engorged my left boob would become -- it was even showing signs of OVERSUPPLY, projectile milk and everything -- but the right side could eke out an ounce or two every few hours, and Noah had absolutely no patience for that nonsense.

I felt like a big. Fat. Stupid. Failure. I remember paying my co-pay at the pediatrician's office the day after we brought Noah home and just. Bawling. Right there in the waiting room. Our dog had a broken leg and our baby had just been slapped with a FAILURE TO THRIVE diagnosis and we had to get his weight back up or he'd go back to the hospital and it was all my fault. All of it. My fault.

We didn't have any formula at home and I had some bottles I planned to use once I went back to work but I couldn't remember where I'd hidden them and Noah's first week of life is kind of blur, but I remember the crying. There was so much crying. Mostly from me.

Looking back, it all seems so head-slappy obvious that nursing exclusively was just not in the cards for us.  I was damaged goods! Hello! Domperidome ain't gonna squeeze milk out of non-existent ducts, babycakes. So nurse on the good side and follow up with a formula chaser, GOD.

And that's what we did for awhile, although it was always treated as our temporary stop-gap solution. The lactation consultants continued to give me advice that would lead to the end of the bottle, because THAT was the goal. Not like, feeding the damn baby or coming to terms with the obvious problem. "We'll get him off that formula junk yet!" one of them told me, six weeks in, just when I'd finally managed to get Noah to stop rejecting my boobs altogether. They openly admitted that the surgery I described would "likely impact my supply" but kept telling me it was something I could overcome if I just tried hard enough.

(You know, as this is all coming back to me today, I am sort of filled with this overwhelming desire to drive by their office and pelt the windows with rancid Similac.)

Then I went back to work. The gimp boob dried up almost immediately (and OH, what an attractive rack I had there for awhile!), and the other one wasn't doing so hot either. I'd assumed that because Noah's daycare was close to work and I had an office with a door that I wouldn't have any problems nursing him during the day or pumping regularly at work.

(Head! Slap! Obvious!) Even though I had a completely enviable set-up at work, I still needed to do...like, WORK. Huh! I'd get called into a meeting right when I planned to pump. I'd get stuck behind a deadline and would get to daycare late for a feeding, meaning my baby was screaming and the caretakers were frustrated. Noah wanted eight ounces at a time -- I'm guessing I could give him four. Then maybe two. Finally, when he was about five months old, he pulled away one morning in a pissed-off fury and would never latch again. There was nothing left.

We were done. I still felt like I hadn't done enough. If I'd just pumped more or held on just ANOTHER COUPLE MONTHS until the freelance work came through I could have kept going. I still got comments and emails from people telling me I should have tried X, Y and Z and that there's no way my milk dried up and I was using that as an excuse and spreading terrible misinformation across the Internet because milk only dries up if you stop putting the baby to the breast, don't you know that?

A recent post that dared to even MENTION bottles got one of those "you should just breastfeed" drive-bys. Ay yi yi, and so it begins.

I wish I could tell you that it doesn't still sting a little bit. That I don't still feel a little bit defensive about it, but OBVIOUSLY  this entry tells you otherwise. The "just breastfeed" business makes me especially stabby, because there is no "just" from my bust, okay, sweetcheeks?

The closest thing I can compare it to is the time I had to put my cat to sleep. In my head, I knew I'd done everything I possibly could have done for her. I knew it was time and the right thing to do. But I was still haunted by feelings that I let her down and could have done more; that in the end I just plain gave up on her.

And then I went and got another cat, knowing full well that it might end the exact same way. Why? Because it's worth it, duh.

These dreams, though. Almost every night. Cute baby boy, nursing like a champ, while I ask Jason what my big fucking damage was last time. (I dream in 80s movie lingo a lot too, yes.) This is easy!   

I've done research this time about damaged ducts and breast tissue, and even found some breast-surgery sites that suggest your ducts will sometimes heal themselves and regenerate with each subsequent pregnancy and lactation. That's a really nice thought. And it would really great if that happened, but I'm not counting on it. I can still feel the hard mass of scar tissue under the surface, and there's almost a full cup size difference between right and left. Just like last time.

I do plan to breastfeed again. I also plan to supplement again, to make up for ol' gimpy here. I hope, since I'll be staying home for awhile longer, that I'll also be able to nurse for longer. Or not! These babies do come with that pesky will of their own, after all. I mostly I plan to cut myself some goddamn slack. It's on my iCal and everything! October 2008 Through Sometime In 2009:  GIVE SELF A BREAK FROM SELF; REMEMBER TO NOT LEAVE NEWBORN AT TARGET. It appears my subconscious likes this plan.

It might end the exact same way, sure. But even that will still be easier. And it will still be worth it.

A Story That I Will Never Ever Tell Anyone, Except Perhaps the Entire Internet

I just left a comment on a friend's blog -- seriously, like five minutes ago -- and the comment involved one of Those Stories. Those Stories are the stories that are too embarrassing to tell on my own blog. Obviously, I don't have many of Those Stories, because I don't have much shame. It's been well-established that I am a thumping idiot who regularly assaults the very idea of human dignity, so why hold back further evidence to the blog's thesis? That's just not how I do things around here. I am way scientific.

Occasionally I meet people and realize that wow, it IS kind of awkward when I'm all, "So what's your dog's name?" and they're all, "I remember the time your dog jumped into your toilet! That was hilarious!" But I usually get over that, and chances are even if you DON'T read my blog you've heard the toilet dog story, because I like to tell that one at fancy dinner parties.

But! Anyway! My point is, at one time in my life I had standards and would not stoop to completely humiliating myself just for the sake of a blog entry, and 1) that time is past, having ended sometime around the whole "pooping on the delivery table", and 2) I had a really, really boring weekend.

So. Flashback! I'm about 30-odd weeks pregnant with Noah. I am sitting innocently in my office, tapping away on my computer for totally-for-sure work-related reasons, when a coworker stops by to chat. She says something funny. Not like, HAW HAW HAW stop-I-can't-breathe funny, but funny.

And I laugh.

And I pee my pants.

And I don't mean a little achoo! related leakage. I mean the absolute worst-case scenario of breathtaking incontinence. It's soaking my clothes and my chair and I can feel it running down my legs and pantyhose and oh my God, it's making a SOUND as it's dripping onto the plastic mat under my desk.

So I did the only thing I could think to do, given the circumstances. I kept talking to my friend as if nothing had happened at all. Only LOUDER, just to drown out the suspicious drippy noises.

About 10 minutes later she left and I dove at the door and slammed it shut, and then spun around to confront the horror. What to do what to do what to do?

SO YOU'VE GONE AND PEED YOURSELF AT WORK:

1) Crank up the air-conditioning unit, sit on it.

2) Attempt to formulate plan.

3) Survey contents of office in terms of absorbency. Tissues? Useless. Secret stash of horded restaurant napkins? Yes! 300 back issues of various financial newsletters? MacGuyver says HELL YES.

4) Paper the damn floor like you're preparing for the damn PuppyBowl.

5) When ass is sufficiently chilled and dry-ish from sitting on the air conditioner, strip off pantyhose, shove in purse, and poke head out of office and make a mad dash for the office kitchen.

     5a) If kitchen is occupied, sit down in nearest chair and pretend to contemplate nearest Chinese takeout menu with GREAT INTEREST.

     5b) If kitchen is vacant, make a beeline for the storage cabinet and grab several rolls of paper towels.

6) Dash back to office. Weep, for yes, this is what your life has come to.

7) Re-paper the floor and create an ample paper-towel cushion for chair.

8) Oh, you have to pee again? OF COURSE YOU DO. Maybe someone will give you an M&M if you make it to the potty like a big girl this time!

9) The next day, smuggle in sponge, scrub brush, antibacterial spray, Woolite and bottle of Febreze to work in your purse.

10) Stash extra paper towels in bottom desk drawer for remainder of pregnancy.

Whew. That felt good to finally confess. I feel like I really helped some people today. Good work. And I'm one step closer to that lucrative banner campaign from Depends.

However, to any of my former coworkers: Uh, no! That's totally not my chair you're using now. I...uh, heard they got rid of it. Yes. They sent it upstate to live on a farm. With the other chairs and the puppies.

11 Weeks

So I have only thrown up twice this week.

Quick! Let me know you've read that sentence (use some hand signals, or just cough kind of pointedly) so I can delete it. My blog has become a passive aggressive ASSHOLE, and has somehow artificial-intelligenced itself into my digestive tract so anytime I mention feeling relatively okay it decides to punish me.

(Shit. I bet it's reading that paragraph right now. Quick! Pretend we're talking about something else.)

...and then I was like, OH MY GOD, there's a llama in the backyard! But it was only the hydrangea.

Dog butts: for when you cannot think of an appropriate segue.

So I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 11 weeks, and starting to feel like I might just make it out of this thing alive. Last week was definitely the worst -- I threw up pretty much every night, was unable to eat dinner, and then woke up every morning with crashing blood sugar and ravenous hunger, but was always faced with three smaller beings who insist on being fed first, even though SOME OF THEM eat food that smells like rancid-cold-cut-and-mackerel salad, I AM NOT SAYING WHO.

Whut? Can't I horf cat fud in peace over here?

(By the way, since I am a crumbly emotional mess these days, I feel the need to counter all my dogthing-mocking with a declaration of love for the hamsterdog. She may need a diet, probably a bath and definitely a less disproportionate headsize-to-body ratio, and my GOD, must she have an aneurysm EVERY time the mailman walks by, but she really DOES get plenty of love and affection and clearly, way too much ham.)

My next OB appointment isn't for another week and a half, which means the reassurance from my last visit is starting to wear off and I'm fighting the urge to call and invent a pressing reason why I need an ultrasound RIGHT NOW, since "I only threw up twice this week!" or "I dunno, I think I feel a little less gassy" won't really cut it.

I rented a doppler last time, and ended up accidentally keeping it (and paying monthly rent on it) for close to 18 months, and then stupidly sent it back when I was one damn payment away from owning the damn thing outright. (Every once in awhile, though, I get a $10 check from them, presumably from people who stumble upon the referral number I posted ages ago. So I'll probably break even in about 23 years, provided I keep my Google Page Rank up.)

Needless to say, I am not allowed to rent another doppler ever.

Oh, and about this. I still don't know. Your comments certainly got me jazzed for the idea of a big birthday reveal moment, but then a minute later I get distracted by something and change my mind. Jason is firmly in the find-out camp, but is willing to go along with whatever I ultimately decide, probably because he KNOWS I won't really be able to hold out and will eventually cave, so it's safe to indulge me for now. So...realistically, I'm guessing we'll find out, unless the baby is modest and keeps his legs crossed for the next few ultrasounds.

(Yeah, I said his. In a way, I think the whole issue is moot, because I'm fairly sure it's another boy.)

Still fairly sure it's a Wonderpet.

The belly at dawn, as compared to the belly at night, with a day's worth of bloat. Ah, dignity. I must have left it in my other pants. The ones I can't button, no matter what time of day it is. Stupid pants.

I Didn't Spare My Family Any Morning Sickness Details Either

Oh hi. I'm busy. Very busy. Very busy with various digestive quandaries, including: seriously, how hard is it to make a damn slice of toast in the morning, especially since you KNOW that's all it takes to stave off the vomiting, you frigging dumbass? and also: hmm, since I just threw up a still-eerily intact prenatal vitamin, does that mean I have to take another one?

That last question is actually rather complicated, since prenatal vitamins have gone ALL KINDS OF FANCY now, and I am now required to take TWO pills everyday. One being the run-of-the-mill multivitamin, and the other being a space-age omega-3 DHA capsule, and only the fishy-tasting DHA pill seemed to come up undigested but the two pills are sealed together in the little foil packets so I cant just take another DHA pill and aaaaahhhhhhh mah baby needs its brain pillz! Or could I maybe get away with a My First Flintstones? I do love the taste of purple.

I was describing the new generation of prenatal vitamins to my sister-in-law this weekend, and she was rather appalled. "So babies are already smarter than their parents by the time they're BORN?" she asked. "That's bullshit. I wouldn't stand for it. Mothers are entitled to being the smart ones for AT LEAST six extra months or so."

She's got a point. However, my family does have a lot of hopes and dreams riding on this next generation.

And how is that going, so far?

(You know, I still vaguely feel like I belong more on that couch than behind the camera. None of those kids even bother calling me "Aunt Amy" because I was always the young and cool one. I got free passes to Sesame Place and never knew what the going rate for birthday cash was so I always overestimated and I'd totally let you use my head as the center support beam for your Ultimate Fort. But now I am just another Old Person Barking High-Pitched Commands At Toddlers While Teenagers Silently Wish For Death.)

In less bershon-y moments, here's a sequence I call "And Suddenly, There Was Cake."

Oh, and PS:

Was not included in grandbaby photo. Was not given any cake. Hate this family. Going to poop in sumbody's luggage.

Baby Legs and Everything In Between

I had my first dream about the baby this week. I was frantically ordering baby gear from Amazon at the last minute (note to self: we already have a swing and a crib aquarium, but we do need BATTERIES. you cannot parent without BATTERIES) when it was suddenly time for my scheduled c-section, and then suddenly someone handed me the baby. A big fat naked baby boy, who nursed easily and awesomely, and was just about the cutest thing ever, although he looked nothing like Noah. And oh my GOD, his thighs. I couldn't stop squishing them. I loved him completely, and was sorry to wake up and remember that October is still a long time away.

I had baby dreams all the time when I was pregnant with Noah, but never NICE dreams. They always involved the baby not being human, or us being woefully unprepared for his arrival (I still remember one where we were desperately trying to buy a carseat, and I lost the baby in an endless sea of racks of Washington Redskins sweatshirts.) The baby was always a boy, even before we knew we were having a boy, although I wonder if that was just another shade of anxiety, since I was pretty scared about having a boy.

I woke up and told Jason that we're having another boy, and he harrumphed and said he'd believe it when he saw it -- why is it that mothers (or fine, JUST ME) get all hand-wringy about daring to have a gender preference and fathers are perfectly okay with wanting one or the other? (Jason wants a girl. He claims it's because he doesn't want "us" to get tempted into having a third child in order to have a girl, like DUDE. I don't know where he gets this "we" and "us" business because I am perfectly happy with being the sole princess in a houseful of boys, but Jason is suddenly going ga-ga over the little striped tights in the girls' clothing section.)

(Okay, I do love the tights too.  But Noah has this pair of barely-worn baby Pumas that KILL. ME. Oh! And this little corduroy blazer and a pageboy cap! Plus, I just plain love baby boys.)

(OKAY! I would love to have a daughter. I don't care! I just don't want to throw up any more! I am easy to please!)

We're getting the nuchal translucency screening done in about two weeks and my doctor dangled out the possibility that, thanks to his new-fangled fancy 4D ultrasound machine, that we MIGHT be able to get a pretty decent guess at the sex. (Mr. Google tells me the 4D ultrasounds can correctly identify boy or girl parts at the end of the first trimester about 85% of the time.) Part of me is like, YEEHAW, SPREAD 'EM, FETUS, while another tiny part of me is wondering what it would be like to NOT find out this time.

On the one hand, I don't feel like Noah's birth was any less OH MY GOD MY BABY! because we knew he was a boy and were even 99.99999% sure of his name. Hell, we even knew what he was going to look like. And since I did have a slight preference for a girl (for dumb reasons that I've already covered), I felt like I needed to know ahead of time to make sure I wouldn't have that twinge of disappointment when a boy popped out. (Totally lame fear, I know, but clearly I had MASSIVE doubt in my mothering skills and instincts last time.)

On the other hand, I don't have a preference this time. The guessing game is sort-of fun even if it drives me nuts with the relentless pointlessness of it all. (Yesterday at Noah's mock preschool therapy thing another mother had me and another pregnant woman hold her three-month-old, since in her culture there's an old wives tale that says how infants react to a pregnant woman can predict the gender.) (Verdict: he cried when I held him [boy, and therefore his rival], settled down when the other mother held him [girl, and therefore his sweetheart]). I doubt I have the self-control to not find out since it's just so EASY, what with the ultrasound machine being six inches from me at every prenatal appointment from here on out.

On the other other hand, since I know there's a very good chance this pregnancy will end with a shockingly anti-climatic scheduled c-section, maybe not knowing the sex is my way of injecting a little bit of excitement and drama into the proceedings.

What do you guys think? Any experience with both finding out vs. not finding out? Totally worth it or just still sort of OH MY GOD MY BABY! either way?

And...um...how the heck would I break this to Jason who is completely and totally unaware this crazy idea is rattling around in my brain and thinks we're definitely going to find out, and how would I go about changing his mind by 9:40 am on April 9th?

Stuff, and Then: Surprise! MORE WHINING!

THINGS MY CHILD WILL SAY IN FRONT OF ME, BUT NOT IN FRONT OF ANYONE ELSE, INCLUDING THE &$@* VIDEO CAMERA, WHICH MEANS ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF BLOG IT'S LIKE HE NEVER SAID THEM AT ALL:

1. Hmmm. I know!
2. ONE MINUTE!
3. Dog! Dog! Where arrrrre you?
4. Won, Too, Tee, ready or not here I come!
5. Oh mah gawd!

WORDS MY CHILD CAN READ VIA THE REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS, BUT ONLY IN FRONT OF ME BUT I SWEAR, PEOPLE, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP:

1. Oops
2. Egg
3. Noah
4. Hot
5. Ass

NUMBERS MY CHILD LEAVES OUT WHILE HE COUNTS TO TWENTY:

1. Four

NUMBER OF TIMES IN THE PAST THREE DAYS I HAVE TACKLED MY CHILD, DIPPED HIM IN CADBURY CREME EGG FONDANT AND SWALLOWED HIM WHOLE:

1. 567,987,001

I expected pregnancy to sort-of suck. I mean, honestly, it sucked last time too. Although I would probably never let myself use that word, since I still remember walking through the pregnancy and family planning section of the bookstore years ago, a massive dose of Clomid coursing through my system, and seeing that book called "Pregnancy Sucks." And I blinked and sniffed and thought, "Ungrateful bitches."

I keep saying that I feel better this time than I did with Noah, although Jason is often there behind me, shaking his head, because he thinks this go-round is just as awful. I'm not throwing up as much, that's for sure -- maybe four or five times total so far, with at least three of those times being more the fault of a skull-bashing migraine than traditional pregnancy nausea.

I didn't get migraines last time, though. Definitely not. And those of your who have ever suffered from migraines, pregnancy-related or otherwise, well -- you know. Migraines are more than a headache. They manage to hurt both before and after the actual head pain. You feel them in your shoulder blades, in your eyeballs, your stomach. Light hurts. Sound hurts. Movement hurts. After it goes away you're left exhausted and shaken and terrified that it will come back because you just can't fathom living through that kind of pain again. They have colored my entire world in dark, dismal hues that I can't see past right now.

I used to get migraines a lot -- in high school and my early twenties, mostly, when I was in the thick of eating disorders and jacked my blood sugar all up for the sake of size zero jeans. I never had a single headache once I got pregnant, though. The nausea was bad, I lost weight, I got slammed with anxiety attacks because OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH A BABY OH SHIT, but no headaches. And even at my sickest, I really did have a deep and profound appreciation for pregnancy and all the glorious suckitude that came with it -- even if I rarely admitted that yes, wow, this sure can suck sometimes.

This time, I am happily and completely anxiety-free. Dude, I WANT this baby. Jason and I both WANT this baby. Badly. We are, simply put, so fucking excited about having another squeaky little newborn here. Another year of fat baby thighs and rapid-fire milestones and we cannot wait to hear what this little being has to say when s/he starts talking, whenever s/he chooses to start talking.

In the meantime, though, I am impatient. I want the BABY. The CHILD. The little THING in my ARMS.

The migraines -- and I've had at least a dozen of them so far -- are worse than labor. Worse than the morning sickness. They take me away from Noah and turn me into a shitty, lazy mother who leaves the TV on all day and slacks on her writing deadlines and gets short and irritable with anyone and everyone. Some days I'm okay. I get a little caffeine and watch my blood sugar and use a cold compress at the first little twinge in my eye sockets. But then there are days when we're out of easy breakfast options and Noah needs to get to some activity and we're running late and I suddenly feel my stomach lurch and my shoulder blades hurt and I know I should go lie down and take it easy but I can't, I just can't. 

And then Noah cries because we have to leave the park and I've yanked his arm too hard and scared him and Jason comes home and I yell at him to shut up and leave me alone when all he tried to do was talk about his day and make a suggestion about dinner and then because I've been in bed for hours I can't actually sleep at night and spend hours and hours pacing the house and watching crap TV until Noah wakes up exactly 20 minutes after I've managed to fall asleep.

The only pregnancy-approved painkiller option (besides Tylenol, pffffffft, I spit on you, aspirin has always been my drug of choice) would be narcotics, which my doctor doesn't want to prescribe unless the headaches continue beyond week 13, and honestly I don't really want narcotics either. Codeine, Vicodin...I don't mess with that shit when I'm NOT responsible for a vulnerable, developing being. I wouldn't fault anyone for turning to them, however, and I am not trying to be some kind of pregnant martyr, but they just aren't for me.

My parents are here this week, to help me out and care for Noah while I "rest" and "take it easy," although it's already translating more into "frantically digging myself out of the professional black hole I've made for myself over the past few half-assed weeks."

I wish I were writing funny stories about oh my gawd! Pregnancy Brain made me walk out of the house with no pants on! Ha ha ha! I wish I could look at my round belly with a sense of awe and wonder instead of, "Oh. It's just bloat. Whatever."

I wish I felt better. I wish I felt like a better mom right now. And a better pregnant lady. And less like an ungrateful bitch.

But pregnancy...well, it's not the baby. I get that this time around.  I get that my attitude towards the whole messy gestating process does not mean I have the same attitude towards the baby. They're more separate this time, since last time I couldn't really fathom anything beyond pregnancy and the hypothetical idea of a newborn who would grow up into...a kid? A person? Pshaw! Crazy talk, that.

Maybe I have my priorities more in order this time? It's not about me and a big show-offy belly and prenatal massages and piles and piles of itty bitty clothes? It's about just one fleeting step in the process of being a family? The pain of struggling to build that family is still fresh, but doesn't sting as much, because I've already been blessed worlds and worlds over.

It's a miracle and a gift and exactly what I've wanted for ages now...but it's also kicking the living shit out of me. I have three weeks to go until the second trimester, I think, I hope. I also hope it will suck less.

Yeah, pregnancy sucks. But I am one grateful bitch.

The Baddest Mommy on the Block

I had my first official prenatal visit this morning, during which I came about 30 seconds from getting a THIRD ultrasound, except that my doctor happened to flip back a page in my chart while the machine was warming up. "Oh!" he said, "We saw the heartbeat already, so we don't need another one just yet."

Dammit. I got a pap smear instead.

So, I really do like my doctor, although I also occasionally want to stab him in the ears with a fork, or maybe one of the handy Ortho-Tri-Cyclen pens he keeps in a cup on his desk. Like today, when he asked me how I was feeling. Which, you know, BAD. AWFUL. Like, I-have-only-told-the-Internet-half-of-it bad and awful. The migraines, the insomnia, the fact that I made my two-year-old cry yesterday (twice) simply through the power of my drained-of-patience angry-mommy voice.

(I'm not counting the time I simply screamed at him to STOP CRYING! STOP CRYING RIGHT NOW! because...come on. He was ALREADY crying. I'm sure I didn't help the situation but HE TOTALLY STARTED IT.)

(Don't let the sarcasm fool you, of course. I could totally die from the guilt right now, especially since I yelled at him AGAIN in public today when he wouldn't get on the elevator we'd been waiting 10 minutes for and I believe something along the lines of "you are going to GET IT" came out of my mouth and oh yes, I should just go ahead and have five more children. I'm the BEST AT THIS EVER.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh. Right. The doctor's office. I was toddler-free and everybody was finally asking me how I was feeling, like I was a person who mattered, and I broke down and told my doctor how terrible I feel and how I can't get out of bed during the headaches and I'm throwing up in the shower and I can't sleep at night and...dear Lord in heaven, please tell me you can write a prescription for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, PLEASE DON'T TELL ME TO EAT SMALL MEALS AND TAKE SOME TYLENOL AND...

"Good! Feeling bad is good! That means everything is healthy and great! You might want to try eating more small meals during the day!"

Needless to say, I did not walk out of there with a prescription for anything. I did get an offer from a nurse to walk me back to my car, because I looked so very positively green.

And yes, I finally had the conversation with my doctor that so many people have been inordinately curious about: VBAC or scheduled c-section. (Seriously. The pee had barely dried on the test stick and suddenly everybody wanted to know whether I'd made my "decision" yet.) I hesitate to even bring this topic up, because yes, I've seen that website. Yes, that one too. And probably that other one as well. I find much of the information from both sides of the debate to be horribly biased, and both arguments tend to rely heavily on scare tactics instead of real data and OH YEAH, it's just not that big of a fucking deal to me either way.

Before I had Noah, I thought his manner of birth was terribly important. This led to a series of blog postings that I am now terribly embarrassed about, because I let people work me into such a STATE about it. Scheduled c-sections are awesome! Emergency c-sections are hell! All c-sections are unnecessary! And around and around my naive little head went.

A recap for anyone just joining us: My doctor suspected that Noah was on the big side, and knew for a fact that he was not in the ideal position. (He was facing forward, or sunny-side up.) He suspected that I might need a section, but he is overall very anti-intervention. So I wasn't induced or scheduled and went into labor on my own. And it was pretty awesome, actually, and I felt powerful and damn impressed with myself during it. And then the complications started piling up -- nothing particularly major, but enough. Meconium. Fetal distress. Irregular heartbeat. I pushed and pushed and Noah didn't budge past my pubic bone. His heart rate became more and more worrisome with each contraction. So I had an emergency c-section, which revealed that the umbilical cord had been wrapped tightly around the neck of my 9 pound, 15 ounce baby who had little marks on his head from pressing against my freaking bones.

I know that doctors in this country are awfully trigger-happy with pitocin and c-sections. I have no doubt that many sections could be avoided and I will never, ever understand celebrities who opt for completely unnecessary MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY because they're afraid of an episiotomy or whatever. (Ladies! Slicing open your gut really fucking hurts too! Imagine that!)

But in my case, I think the decision and the timing of that decision were appropriate. I have no regrets over my c-section. I was nursing within 10 minutes of delivery. My recovery was a breeze. I was up and about in no time and my scar is small and smooth and practically invisible. (Seriously. I tried to show a curious friend recently and it took me five minutes to FIND the stupid thing.)

I'm extremely happy that I got to experience labor and pushing and if I had managed to deliver vaginally, I would probably attempt an even lower intervention birth this time -- probably with a midwife and a birthing center and no epidural. I know I could do it.

But..I won't.

Of all of our (minor, run-of-the-mill) complications, the only one that's likely to repeat is the high birth weight. And even that isn't a sure thing. Then again, an ultrasound from just days before Noah was born put him in the eight-pound range, a full two pounds under his actual weight. And he never measured particularly "big" at any point in my pregnancy. So no matter how many measurements I get, I know there's no guarantee that I won't end up with another linebacker baby who is just not gonna come out that exit, sorry, at least not without a significant risk for us both.  So even if I do attempt a VBAC, I would choose to do it at a hospital, with an epidural (to avoid being put under in case of an emergency).

My doctor droned on and on about the benefits of a scheduled c-section. Benefits that frankly, I couldn't give two shits less about. Convenient for childcare! (Right, because it's not like we have two sets of grandparents so chomping at the bit for this baby they'd gladly move in now and stay through 2009.) You won't have to go through labor! (Right, except that I thought being in labor was kind of awesome, in a way, and am totally not scared of doing it again.) Your recovery will be faster! (Right, except that I am apparently half cyborg and recovered really damn fast last time.)

We all have our things that we care deeply about. Our secret little judgey list of The Way Things Should Be Done. I've got them too! Serving wine at the correct temperature, for example. Drives me batty, all this overwarm red wine. But birth plans? No. At least not anymore. I look at Noah, at all the little moments where I can either be a great mother or mess it up completely, at all the things that are worth worry and guilt and stress, and the manner in which he exited my body isn't anywhere on that list. It's like this old, weird worry from another dimension, or a past life.

I will probably schedule a c-section. I will probably schedule it on the later side, leaving the possibility of letting labor happen if it's meant to happen, provided we keep on top of the measurements and provided I give even the smallest slice of piping hot rat's ass about any of this by October.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my emergency c-section child needs me to go wipe his butt. God, this is ALL THE EPIDURAL'S FAULT.

I'm leaving comments open (eyes the room suspiciously), but...let's all remain calm, okay? I have really and truly seen the websites you're itching to link to, I've done my homework and so help me, if anyone mentions anything about dead babies I will close comments, ban your ass and snatch you bald headed. Thank you. I love you. Mwa.

My TiVo Suggests Tylenol PM

Whenever a great big natural disaster or big tragedy-laden news story hits a blogger's general area, they inevitably get worried comments and emails from readers -- particularly if they haven't updated in a few days -- emails of  the "are you okay? is your house okay? is it on fire? washed away by molten lava? and I saw on the news that someone was shot at a mall that I think is near your house and they didn't give any names and omg, YOU WEREN'T SHOT AT HOT TOPIC, WERE YOU?" variety.

So let me just put your minds at ease: Yes, I have stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in the past, but I am in no way connected to the recent bust of the high-class prostitution ring here in DC. Thank you all very much for your concern.

MY ALIBI IS STILL PRETTY HEAVY ON THE SHAME, HOWEVER

So Friday night rolls around. We put Noah to bed, Jason is starting a fire and I'm settling in on the couch, ready to be a giant pain in the ass re: what DVD we will watch, because I hate everything in our queue and especially the three DVDs that came in the mail this week and I don't want to waaaaaatch theeeeem, I want to watch something difffffffferent, preferably something that isn't even out on DVD yeeeeetttt.

This is when I notice that the TV is already on.

"Oh GOD," I say, "is this The Ghost Whisperer?"

Jason turns away from the fireplace and says something like, "Oh, is that what this is? It's just what was...you know...on."

"Eh, let's watch last night's Lost before we pick a movie to argue about." I slowly aim the remote the TV, and...

"Wait! Uh. I don't...I mean...I'm not sure I feel like watching Lost right now."

By this point my own prime-time detective-show-worthy wheels were spinning, and I remember turning off the TV before dinner, and that the TV was firmly locked in NOGGIN toddler mode, so if Jason just turned it back on and left it on whatever channel it was on LIKE HE CLAIMED, we'd be watching Wow Wow Wubbzy right now.

"YOU WANT TO WATCH THE GHOST WHISPERER! YOU WANT TO WATCH IT ON PURPOSE!"

Jason vaguely threatens me with the giant tube of Duraflame matches but concedes the point, and that's how we ended up watching Jennifer Love Hewitt's three-foot-long hair and eyelash extensions on Friday night.

"Why is this show shot like a daytime soap opera, with the smeary Vaseline lens and everything?"

"My lands, man. We certainly are learning A LOT about your TV viewing habits tonight, aren't we?"

"Wait...are you crying?"

"Shut up. My eyes are watering. It's a pregnancy thing."

"You're totally crying."

"WELL? THE MOM GHOST IS REALLY PROUD OF HER DAUGHTER, OKAY? AND SHE COULD TOTALLY SENSE HER MOM GHOST'S PRESENCE RIGHT THEN AND THAT WAS A NICE BIT OF CLOSURE FOR HER."

"This is a pretty terrible show."

"I know. We should totally record next week's episode."

AND THEN! IT WAS SATURDAY!

Saturday night I did not sleep. At all. I stayed up for awhile obsessively listing the Things We Need To Buy For The Baby Before October OMG October! -- sample items include plain white onesies, pacifiers, an infant tub, bottles and holy crap bottles are different now because of the leeching plastic and I know we sort-of knew about the leeching plastic with Noah but stopped caring after I broke all the glass bottles we bought but now we totally have to care about the leeching plastic with this one and do you realize how fucked we are if it's a girl? we have nothing for a girl! everything is blue! the carseat is blue! the extra sheets for the Pack-N-Play are blue! I might be forced to put lacy headbands on her and YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT LACY HEADBANDS.

After realizing that Jason was asleep and not listening, I went downstairs and watched the Grindhouse double feature until four five in the morning, and was overly interested in seeing when the cable would made the switch for daylight savings time. At 1:59 am the clock and channel guide jumped forward to 3:00 am and I sat up and fucking CLAPPED FOR THE CABLE BOX, like I was celebrating my own special little New Year's Eve, or something.

SUNDAY WAS PREDICTABLY BLEAK

I sat on the couch all day and watched 13 straight hours of Hell's Kitchen reruns while bemoaning my lack of sleep. At one point Jason turned to me and asked, "Did I hear you refer to this baby as a do-over last night?" 

"Probably. Sort of. At least in terms of the leeching plastic."

The time change effed Noah up completely, as he refused to nap all day, but then did a faceplant into his dinner and fell sound asleep at 5:30 6:30 I don't even know what time it was either. There were four contestants left on Hell's Kitchen at the time, though, if that helps.

HEY, LOOK AT THE TIME! MONDAY WAS OFFICIALLY YESTERDAY

Once again, I cannot sleep. I start to doze off, then wake up to pee. My skin itches and all my limbs keep falling asleep. And the thinking! God. I cannot turn off the goddamned thinking.

Noah is getting a cold, however, and keeps demanding that I go in and wipe his nose.

I am happy to oblige. There is just nothing good on TV right now.

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner of Champions

So things have taken a turn for the queasy over here.

I'm not actually throwing up or anything (stretches a wan, weakened arm across the tiled bathroom floor to knock on the wood floor outside the door), but am instead walking around the house randomly gagging on air and smells and thoughts of smells and air that is full of smells and smelly smell smell smell.

The Coke keeps The Headaches at bay (I switched to Coke after discovering that coffee dry heaves taste like pine trees), and I'm about to tuck a sleeve of saltines into my (elastic) waistband and get a big dorky watch that beeps every 20 minutes to remind me to eat one. This was advice I got last time: keeping something in your stomach will actually keep you from puking.

I tried this last time. And the weirdest thing happened. I THREW UP. Food in, food out, taking the upward escape route. This (combined with some advice regarding "real" ginger ale vs. Canada Dry that we WILL NEVER SPEAK OF AGAIN) lead to a bit of Post-Traumatic-Assvice Syndrome that plagued the rest of my pregnancy. By the time we got to the c-section business, I was cowering in the corner, pleading for the Internet to leave me and my internal organs alone, pleassssse, there's Canada Dry in the fridge, just take it all and let me beeeee! I want to liiiiiive!

This time, the queasiness intensifies whenever I go too long without snacking. Snack snack snack. A couple weeks ago, this was awesome, what with the cookies and the brownies and the non-stop parade of cravings that felt so damn good to satisfy and I was probably about five minutes away from dipping pickles in vanilla ice cream or deep-frying some mini-marshmallows.

Now...it's pretty much saltines. Crunchy, salty, paste-y saltines. Mmmm.

In the interest of fairness and full-circle assvice redemption, I gave this theory another shot. Did I already say something about never speaking of this again? THIS TIME I MEAN IT.

***
In Child v.1.0 news, Noah has developed the habit of pressing his index finger on his lips while saying, "Hmmmm," and then excitedly pointing upwards and declaring, "I KNOW!"  Then he runs out of the room.

It may be the cutest thing ever, except that it is driving me absolutely bonkers, because WHAT DO YOU KNOW, CHILD? WHAT?  

And Angelina Can Bite Me

So the baby is only about four millimeters long right now.

But it's a really HUSKY four millimeters, okay?

Shut up.

Because What I Really Need Is Another Outlet For All My Whining

The past few days have been a cavalcade of smack-you-in-the-face headaches. They start around noon, showing up just in time to kill my appetite for lunch (Noah ate cereal out of the box and several Kraft Singles for lunch on Monday, and I will not apologize) and then build into a full-on migraine within a few hours, meaning I spend the afternoon either in bed or in the bathroom with my temples pressed against the cool floor tile while I fight the stomach-churning dry heaves.

Poor HeatherB showed up on Monday in the thick of it, in an unfortunate clusterfuckery miscommunicated visit, and I literally sat there and mouth-breathed on her for 10 minutes before finally admitting that I needed to go back to bed before my skull cracked in two.

Then everyday Jason gets home and asks if I've taken anything, and I meekly reply that I tried some pregnancy-approved Tylenol, and then he rolls his eyes and chucks the bottle of Excedrin at my aching head, which actually makes it feel better, probably because of the precious non-pregnancy-approved aspirin and caffeine granules coating the bottle. Mmmm, osmosis.

Dear Quasimobryo: Mama doesn't WANT to pickle you and make you all wimpy and small, but you really need to knock this shit off.

HOWEVER. I MAY ALSO ACTUALLY BE SUPERWOMAN.

Because! Despite being 100% out of commission for the majority of the day, I am proud as punch to unveil SIX GODDAMN WEEKS' WORTH of content over at my newest venture over at Alpha Mom: Zero To Forty, a weekly pregnancy calendar. It's really meant to be one of those week-by-week newsletter things, only...not (as?) boring and full of warnings about how two doses of Excedrin are ALL IT TAKES to produce a child with webbed toes and a propensity for fire-breathing.

As the disclaimer in the sidebar reminds you, however: "The column is well-researched but not written by a health care professional.  Consider it your internet BFF pregnancy guide."

This is what well-researched looks like, by the way:

(Look at the crib leg! LOOK AT THE CRIB LEG! The crib! In the room! Where it will one day be reassembled once I remember where I put all the screws! And then I will put a BABY in there!)

New installments will be published every Wednesday, with occasional other pregnancy-related articles and diatribes going up...uh...occasionally. Because that's just the sort of profeshunal writer I are.  In the meantime, you can start with the first entry here, and read up until Week Six. 

(Please also to ooh and aah over the kickass banner and illustrations by Secret Agent Josephine, who I swear to God, whipped the entire thing together in less time than it takes me to draw a stick figure during a game of Pictionary.)

(It's 11:51 and I do not yet have a headache. Do I dream? Should I brush my teeth? Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach and maybe a pepperoni pizza?)

thump thump thump thump thump

And more thump thump thump thump thump.

Translation: we saw the heartbeat. Um, whew? Yes. Whew. We even got to see it in 3D. It was...lumpy.

Everything looks fine, if a little on the petite side.  Quasimobryo measured at only 5w6d. Which...is exactly how far along we thought I was LAST Monday. An entire week of progress, gone! It's like crossing off every time on your to-do list, only to flip it over and discover it's a two-sided list. Or waking up, showering and getting dressed...and then waking up and realizing it was all a dream and you have to get out of bed AGAIN.

So my due date got pushed back ANOTHER week, to October 22nd. Ish. If this keeps up I will be pregnant until 2009.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going out back to go all Office Space on that fancy fertility monitor with a baseball bat. Oh, I'm kidding. You know I'm just going to go take a nap.

The Hunger

Okay so I am emerging again from my near-narcoleptic state to post another damn run-on sentence entry and you know what I think I posted a lot of run-on sentence entries when I was pregnant before so I wonder if I should go ahead and make "punctuation aversions" an official pregnancy symptom on my still-to-come, just-hammering-out-a-few-final-details pregnancy calendar blog over at AlphaMom, because hey! It's my pregnancy guide and I CAN INVENT WHATEVER SYMPTOMS I WANT. FARTING. THAT'S A SYMPTOM. ALSO EXCESS EAR WAX, WHILE WE'RE AT IT.

What the fuck was I talking about? I got thrown off by all that punctuation. Oh, right, differing pregnancy symptoms between this one and my first, like the complete lack of puking (I really do believe I did have a stomach bug two weeks ago, although I'm sure the rising pregnancy hormones didn't help things any) and only the barest waves of post-prenatal-vitamin queasiness, which I cannot lie is freaking me out a little because last time I was so unbelievably miserable I lost over 10 pounds the first trimester, while this time I am eating us out of house and home and THIN MINTS THIN MINTS THIN MINTS! Followed by NACHOS! And then I want some PEPPERONI SLICES! And then more 85% off clearance rack Valentine's Day candy! And then I am STILL HUNGRY NOM NOM NOM I think I shall make some cauliflower and broccoli gratin (with ham!) and then eat the entire thing straight out of the casserole dish while sitting on the kitchen floor and eying the box of Tagalongs, because YOU ARE NEXT, MOTHERFUCKERS.

And yet I am still really very nervous about Monday's ultrasound, because I am unsure where the line between "crazy pregnant lady" and "fat whore pig who was just waiting for an excuse" lies. I am more comfortable with puking than with gnawing on the refrigerator handle, is all.

So if anyone has any experience with different pregnancies = different symptoms, particularly of the morning sickness variety, I sure would like to hear about it. My boobs would also appreciate it, since they are tired of me mashing on them to make sure they are still vaguely sore because otherwise I have nothing to BELIEVE IN ANYMORE. EXCEPT FOR THE DOUBLE-STUFF OREOS.

(Oh! And while I do like to imagine that my readers are the sort-of types who always have fabulous parties to attend on Oscar night -- perhaps parties where you dress up as obscure indie-film characters and everybody wears elbow-length gloves on principle -- but if you ARE going to be watching them at home this weekend, we're throwing a virtual Oscars party over at Mamapop [virtual = a swinging sexy time for the social anxiety disorder set!] and I would love it if y'all would stop by and join me, Sweetney, Mrs. Kennedy, Her Bad Mother, JenB and a slew of other hilarious people, either for just the red carpet fashion snarkfest at 7 pm or for the awards at 8 pm or both or just to hear the running list of Foods Amy Consumes During the Telecast and Then Cries About Because Now They Are Gone and She Can't Eat Them Anymore.)

Sapling

Wow, so I feel like I need to apologize for the sporadic posting this week but I should probably spend the time it would take to type an apology to actually post something worthwhile but there's this thing that keeps happening every afternoon, right when Noah goes down for his nap which is finally my time to write something worthwhile...I get on the couch...with my laptop...and...yawwwn...oh...wait...

fuckkldrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

First Look

I am thinking of changing my default publishing settings here on the ol' weblog. "Publish Now" should really mean "Publish in Five Hours, When Amy Will Inevitably Need to Eat a Few of Her Words."

After mentioning how ever-so-calllllm I was on Friday about the lack of a doctor's appointment in my immediate future and blah blah cramping tra la laaaaaa, I was on the phone with my doctor's office several hours later procuring myself a first-thing-Monday-morning ultrasound because of the constant, painful cramping.

Carry toddler upstairs to bed? That's a cramping.

Go 10 minutes without a big swig from the water bottle? That's a cramping.

Bake yet another batch of brownies while standing upright? You better believe that's a cramping, fat ass.

He mentioned stuff I already knew: drink lots of water, lie down and rest as much as possible, is probably completely normal as long as there's no bleeding. But he also felt that it was worth getting a look in there as soon as possible, just to be sure.

I almost canceled the appointment several times over the weekend since the math suggested that it was way too soon to see anything useful, like a heartbeat or some tiny jazz hands. But in the end, I went, because CANCELING A FREE ULTRASOUND? Who the fuck does that? Sensible people, maybe.

And...yeah. It was way too soon to see very much at all, although we were able to confirm the existence of a single (whew) beanish and lumpy-headed embryo, right where it is supposed to be (double whew). Quasimobryo appeared to be about 5w6d old, just a day or two shy of the visible heartbeat stage. I go back next Monday.

For today's entry the role of Quasimobryo will be played by some random image Amy found on Google.

Checking the angles for a resemblance.

Content with his continued status as "the cute one without a tail."

Knocked Up and Over

So. I take it y'all read the news?

Yeah. When I wrote Monday's post, I was already pregnant. When I preemptively snapped at anyone who DARED to make the puking = pregnant connection last week, I was already pregnant. I just didn't KNOW that I was already pregnant. Really! I would have told you, Internet. Honest. You know there's no secrets between us, baby. Shh. Don't be like that.

I really did take a test last week -- the very last test stick in the house, which somehow managed to survive last month's two-week rampage of peesticking and di