Things outside of being pregnant also occur...

To add some more uncertainty to my life, we have decided to move across the country. Now that Hubby is graduating (fingers crossed!) from law school, it’s his turn to bring home the bacon. Well, I wouldn’t call my salary bacon—more like four synthetic bacon bits, the ones that didn’t get eaten and stuck to the plate—but you get my drift. Since jobs ain’t so easy to find, we’re taking what we can get in loverly Colorado. I am psyched about this, but I was not psyched to have to tell my boss. She’s no Miranda Priestly, that’s not the problem. The problem is, she’s really nice, and she lets us do whatever we want (for better and worse), and I actually have my dream job. I mean, I complain about a lot of stuff, don’t get me wrong…but who wouldn’t want to play sports outside 20 hours a week as part of their job? I get to work with college kids, outside, playing sports! Did I say that already?

So, I just had to up and tell her. I got a little misty eyed, I can’t lie. I’ve wanted to coach college since I met my college coaches, and while I don’t think I’ve done nearly as good a job as they did, I’m doing it! I've actually made a few kids better! So, there we have it. I’m leaving my all-time dream job for a place the job doesn’t even exist, a place neither me or my husband has a replacement job, yet, and a place that is 2000 miles from the free-babysitting offered by two sets of grandparents.

You can’t say I’m not adventurous.

Telling everyone

Now that we have seen our child, and I am 10.5 weeks pregnant with less than 2% chance of miscarriage from this point on, we made the big announcement. Hubby scanned the photos (at the law school library, teehee) so we even had proof for the naysayers. I sweated my way through a few mass emails, dreading the responses that would come. No, I don’t have weird or mean friends, I just hate being the center of attention. Plus, it’s big news. I mean, what if I’m in that 2% that miscarry? What if it’s not beautiful and charming like me and is a total embarrassment because it can’t kick a soccer ball in gym class? Really, so many things could go wrong. But, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. Mostly we wanted to tell Hubby’s family who has been secretly hinting at becoming grandparents for some time. Hubby’s older brother has been slacking, so he should thank us for covering his ass. Since my father had me when he was 25, I guess you could say I’ve been slacking too. No more!

Ultrasound time

Holy crap, today, we saw the creature. And it’s a creature all right, it even looked [somewhat] human! Naturally we had to wait forty-five minutes to get into our appointment, but at least there were some Men’s Health magazines for Hubby to occupy himself with. The other option was to look around at the a) geriatric patients waiting for the other half of the office or b) pregnant ladies bitching at their own partners about the long wait, their sweating problem, etc., etc. I perused LLBean until that got old and I daydreamed about winning the end-of-season tournament with my team. I call it visualization, if you will.

So they led us back, finally, to the secret ultrasound room. Luckily they asked if I needed to use the restroom because I did. Then, Hubby did, so I ended up stranded in the hallway with no one to lead me to said secret room. When they realized they needed me and my womb, I was found and we bustled into the tiniest, darkest, most tech-savvy room in the joint. Hubby, at 6’4” and nervous, stood in the corner and kept apologizing to the technician about being in the way. I laid on the uncomfortable set-up with stirrups and exposed my belly for the rub down. Suddenly this crazy giant head started kickboxing all over the screen. My jaw dropped and I think Hubby passed out but because he was crammed between the trash can and the counter he couldn’t fall anywhere so I wasn’t worried. We thought it would be this black-out TV screen that looked like a snowstorm or ant colony or something, and the lady would blab to us about what she saw and we would nod our heads and agree so we didn’t look stupid. But we could actually see it, without her even telling us! I knew we were smart. Let’s hope that giant headed creature turns out okay too.

ps. that's not actually my baby. I'm holding out for UsWeekly.

doctor, doctor

Finally, a visit with the doctor. It was amazing to me how they don’t really care when they see you as long as you aren’t over 3 months “along.” And that’s only because they need to find out really when you conceived in case it was eight weeks before you thought (because you’re stupid) and you might suddenly have a baby two months early if you weren’t paying attention.

That’s really my style though I guess: take care of yourself as long as you can and then I guess we can get you in for an appointment. Luckily I’m not having annoyance-flashes this week as I was last, because my doctor and her office would have sent me on a rampage. I don’t think you want people on a rampage in the hospital…After waiting for 50 minutes, and filling out four pages of forms I had already completed during the bloodwork from hell visit, I got a ticket for one free hour of parking and to meet my doctor (after peeing on something first, naturally). She is a very nice lady, laid back too, which, again is my style. But we had to spend an hour going over my medical history and plugging it into the computer. Being a nerdy, somewhat nervous doctor who clearly didn’t do much typing, that hour turned into more like an hour and a half because of all the deleting and retyping that had to happen. Next time I’m getting a secretary in there. Just shorthand that stuff: healthy, check. If I wasn’t desperately waiting to hear the baby’s heartbeat I would have probably said a polite thank you and left early. Of course we couldn’t hear the heartbear anyway, after all that.

Annoyingness

I am off on a spring training trip to Florida. No, I am not a member of the Red Sox, sigh. I am taking a college team down south where we can wear t-shirts and shorts for a week and play games outside because it isn’t 30 degrees and sleeting every afternoon. Yes, the sunshine and t-shirts will be magically refreshing and I get away from the office for a whole six days. The problem is, everyone is so annoying. I mean annoying. Sure, they’re college kids. I’m so mature I always find them annoying (yeah-haha), but this week it is like a summer camp counselor’s nightmare x 100. It’s like their stomach flu and gaping blisters filled with sand and jellyfish from the beach are actually a big deal. Please. Pop those bitches yourself, and stop eating stuff that makes you sick. And also, quit complaining about having to get up early. You sleep until 11am every other day of the year. And one more thing, if you ask me if we can go out to dinner one more time I am going to kill myself. God help us. Or rather, God help those around me.

Night sickness

And so they say morning sickness is a lie. A lie in that it does not happen just in the morning. I have been lucky to avoid such nonsense as the morning sickness, and trust me when I tell you I am knocking on wood. However, my feelings at night time are not so fortuitous. While I am usually starving by the time I get home from work around 9pm, I am also not at all hungry. Something in my body tells me not to eat. This is when I can be found lying on the couch in a semi-coma, staring at the tv. I don’t want to get up because I am light-headed from being so hungry, but I don’t want to eat anything either because absolutely nothing sounds appealing. Not only does nothing sound appealing, the thought of eating something just makes me not even a bit hungry in the remotest. Picturing what I would eat to quell the hunger is almost as good at filling me up as actually feeding myself. However, when I am distracted by the stupidity on television and forget that I don’t feel so hot, my stomach grumbles again and the cycle continues. At least sleeping is not a problem, because I can usually retire early and sleep it away. Well, sleeping isn’t a problem yet. I’ve read all about how that’s coming.

Blood testing

I finally got through to my doctor and her people that we’ve had blastoff! Of course, again, the office seemed a little discombobulated; I called to schedule a first appointment with a doctor, including an ultrasound, and the lady on the phone said “What do you need an ultrasound for?” Well, um, Doc told me to call and get one so…I have no idea, help me out lady. I finally called back later in the day and got a different receptionist who hooked me up.

The first step is donating about a gallon of blood for testing. The tech stuck in that needle and then had to wiggle it around to hit the vein. Oy! I would rather have her pull it out and try again five times than pull it half-way out and just jam it around at different angles for a few minutes. Man, it hurt. Normally I don’t mind but it was bad. I do like watching the little tubes fill up though—fascinating! Next, some more pee. I definitely feel sorry for the lab techs who have to deal with the cups of pee. I get why they have to put labels on them, but it doesn’t make it any less obvious that it’s hard for women to aim…