Dancing

I continue to suck at regularly blogging. I think of all these great things to blog about everyday on my drive home but I never end up getting on the computer once I get home. So now, as I sit to blog during my lunch hour I feel I have nothing to tell you all about.

I am currently in the second trimester bliss. I hit 21 weeks yesterday which still seem surreal to me. I had my level II u/s this past weekend and everything looks great. It's still definitely a boy - and in that boy way he kept showing us his penis (obviously this behavior is innate). I feel him move but not as regularly as I would like. Damn anterior placenta gets in the way. I still use the doppler for those times when I haven't felt him in over a day and start having my minor freak outs. Love the doppler!

As for my belly - I love it! While at home (promise, I don't do this at work) - I tend to lift my shirt up and marvel at my belly. R is great and seems to like the belly although she commented the other day about getting a comb to comb my belly fuzz. Pregnancy has caused me to develop a fine peach fuzz all over my belly - it's so gross (even to me). R is quite anti-hair and is bothered by it (although she says she's not). She keeps telling me to shave but I have issues with shaving my belly. I can hardly keep up with my legs and underarms, I'm not shaving my belly.

I do think R is also somewhat weirded out by my tummy. She's resorted to straight girl hugs. You know the type of hug in which each person's feet are several feet apart and you lean in to hug the person. That's compared to lesbian hugs in which people actually touch more than just shoulders. The first part of me that touches R is my belly which is pretty firm and I think it grosses her out. She's never been one to like pregnant bellies or to ever think of touching one - god I hope she gets pregnant so we can see how she reacts to her own body. I think it'll be hilarious. Speaking of which - we're currently doing the period dance to help R's period show up - it needs to make an appearance by the weekend so that she'll make the August IVF cycle group. So put on your headdresses and start dancing - we need all the help we can get.

amazing things are happening

The coolest thing happened last night. Sure I've had other stuff to blog about this week - like the crazy dream I had (maybe I'll write about that later) but last night R finally got to feel the baby. I actually don't feel him too much. My placenta is anterior and I guess it acts as a barrier between his kicks and my uterus thereby making him more difficult to feel. I do have inconsistent flutters and the occasional little thumps.

I've been worried that R might not get to feel him much, especially after she read the blog of someone who is 30-something weeks who also has an anterior placenta and whose husband doesn't really feel the baby kicking. I feel I have an unfair advantage in that I can feel the little guy and she can't. Well last night while watching TV after dinner the baby was super active - the most he's ever been. I started feeling some significant kicks in the right lower part of my abdomen (right under my appendectomy scar). I put my hand there and I actually felt something from the outside. Immediately I made R put her hand there and she felt them also!!! It was the most exciting thing ever! Much more exciting than just me feeling him. Not that it's a surprise these days but it totally made me tear.

For those of you that read R's blog, you know that we had a big garage sale this past weekend. R had made fun of me on her blog for being too attached to certain objects that I haven't used/worn in years. However I am proud to report that I did not buy back any of my own stuff. I did keep some jewelry that didn't sell (R wanted to give it to good.will) but I didn't buy it back or discourage others from buying. The same is not true for R. We have several fish aquariums in our house. We were selling our little 20 gallon aquarium and stand. Whenever anyone would show interest in the aquarium, R would get all funny, especially if she judged them not to be "fish" people. She was under the impression that non-fish people would not love her little aquarium the way she loved it. She was thrilled in the end when it did not sell. Unlike everything else that did not sell, it did not make the good.will trip. The empty aquarium is now back in our garage and R couldn't be happier.

First L&D trip

I've again been MIA and again it's mostly because we were out of town. My SIL got married and we attended the wedding in Jackson Hole, WY. The wedding was great - a big party! The best part was R in her purple bridesmaid dress. She looked beautiful! Her younger sister even did her make up - it was a whole new wife for a night and she was stunning!!!

This week R's grandmother has been staying with us. It's been great having her here and we've had a busy week playing tour guide. It's also been amusing as grandma doesn't like to turn up her hearing aid too much. It usually goes like this:

R (in a loud voice) - "they're building a new aquarium there"
Silence - as is no reaction
About 30 seconds later - Grandma - "wow there's a lot of construction, I wonder what they are building"
R - " an aquarium"
Grandma - "What?"
R - "an aquarium"
Grandma - "oh"

Grandma also got a special Saturday night treat - an ultrasound of the baby. I have been having several episodes per day in which my entire abdomen gets hard. It's not painful but rather a weird sensation in which my skin feels tight and my abdomen gets hard. It started having mid week and continued through Saturday (it hasn't happened today). On Saturday I also had some very mild cramping. I told R about this and she made me call the advice nurse. I didn't want to use my doctor privileges and thought I'd call the regular advice nurse. When the poor advice nurse asked about my history and heard about the miscarriages and being on heparin, she quickly became overwhelmed. She put me on hold while she called the doctor on call. Turns out the doctor on call was one of our RE's. He only takes regular OB call about once every 1-2 months. Upon hearing it was me, the doctor told the advice nurse to have me call him directly. He reassured me that what I was feeling was normal but he also offered to check my cervix to make sure it was long and closed. Grandma, R and I piled back into the car and headed to L&D - my first L&D trip at 18wks!

My cervix was very long and very closed according to the doctor which was music to my ears. He then did an abdominal u/s. The baby was moving all around. We also got another view at the genitals - definitely a boy! I've gotten used to the fact that I'm having a boy. I still eventually want a daughter but I'm ok with this being boy. I'm starting to feel him and it's cool thinking that my little boy is kicking me. I know grandma loved seeing the ultrasound and we love every peek at our little guy!

No longer a husband

First off, I wanted to thank all of you who commented on my last blog. Knowing that I'm not the only one who has experienced disappointment at finding out the gender is helpful. All of your comments have been very sweet. Thanks.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I used to moonlight in a small town about 2 hours away from where I live. I would work from Friday evening through early Monday morning and cover for the 3 pediatricians in the town - meaning I'd cover the answering service, see all the babies in the nursery and in the hospital and see any consults that the ER had for me. While it meant being away from home 1 weekend per month it was great money and it allowed R to quit work and start grad school while I was chief resident. Once I started my current job (private practice in a large medical group), I gave up my weekend moonlighting job because it was too much with my current schedule and financially we were doing better.

During my weekends in the small town, I would stay with one of the local doctors and his family. They are very nice (and very religious) folks. The doctor is also the one who hired me and could decide that they no longer needed me. Since we needed the money, I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize my job (did I mention it was great money - pretty much equal to R's previous job). So I never mentioned that R was a girl. They knew all about her, I didn't lie - I just never used any pronouns so they didn't know my spouse was a wife. Luckily R's name is gender neutral and after being closeted in med school (very conservative environment), I'm good at speaking in gender neutral terms. I just never corrected them when they used the term "he" or "husband".
R and I always got a kick out if, especially since they knew about some of the infertility treatments (I had to keep the lupron in their fridge). R assumed they thought I had an infertile husband who didn't work and made his wife work weekends so he could go to school. Considering they are very Christian and have very traditional gender roles, we were always amused.

So I went back up there this weekend. Although I hadn't worked there in a while, they really needed someone because one of the doctors is off in a far away land trying to bribe people to believe in his God with medical care. (Sorry but I have major issues with medical mission work - these people already have their own cultural beliefs and who are westerners to come in and impose their God on them in order for them to receive much needed medical care). So get to my point (3 paragraphs later), I worked up there and again stayed with same family (minus the husband who is in Africa). Much to my amazement, the wife mentioned something about "will R try to get pregnant"? Holy good god - I had no idea what to say to that. I got all flustered which is very amusing considering I'm totally out at my regular job and in my everyday life. It was like being in high school all over again and coming out. I quickly made some comment about R having infertility problems as well and changed the subject. After 1 1/2 yrs of her referring to R as a man, how did she figure it out? I'm still so confused. The irony is that I'll probably never see them again because I have no plans on working up there again. Oh well, now they know, he's really a she.

Finding out

Earlier last week R told me she didn't want to find out the sex of the baby. What??? This is from my wife who needs to know everything. She goes on line to find out what happens on TV shows (mostly Survivor) before she watches them. Our friends have nick named her scoop because she always has the inside scoop on things and all of a sudden, she doesn't want to know? It totally threw me off. Had she said that she didn't want to know from the beginning, I would have been ok with that but now it was too late, I was mentally prepared to find out. We tabled the conversation with her saying, "well just give it some thought".



The next day I had my OB appointment. This was my first appt with the actual OB (the 12 week appt was with the nurse practitioner). We weren't scheduled for an u/s, it was just a routine appt - we had a plan to try to convince our OB to scan me. We had never met this OB (I had recently picked her out based on a recommendation from a colleague) so we had no idea if it was going to be a hard sell. While in the waiting room I asked R if she really wanted not to know the gender and I was relieved to know that she had come back to her senses and absolutely wanted to know.



It turns out it wasn't that hard to convince our OB to do an u/s. R made a light hearted lesbian comment and viola, we had an instant sisterhood bond with her (she's also gay) and out came the u/s machine. It had been 4 weeks since we last had seen the baby and it's amazing how big it's gotten. It's so cool to see it moving around. As for gender, we got some great crotch shots. The OB said she couldn't quite tell which really confused us b/c it was pretty obvious that we were seeing boy parts. On one shot (of which we didn't get a picture) there appeared to be the 3 lines of a girl but on all the other angles, there was clearly a penis. I couldn't resist and made the comment "first penis I've ever had in me" which was mostly only funny to me. So in the end our OB concluded that although it looked like a boy, she wasn't quite sure. The boy parts could be umbilical cord parts but I'm not buying it. I'm working out of town this weekend and had one of the OBs at the small rural hospital that I'm working at scan me but we couldn't tell on their 1840's u/s machine.



Because this is a blog and I started this blog to be able to express myself without fear of judgement, I'm going to share my thoughts with you all. I hate to say this and know that I sound like such an ass for even thinking this (especially after all that we've been through) but I was initially a little disappointed that it was a boy. I think my desire to have a girl stems from my really close relationship with my mom, I want that mother daughter bond. (It was just me and my mom until I was 10, then she married my dad (really my step-dad but I don't know my bio dad) but he was a chef so he worked most evenings, so it was still just me and my dad. My little brother is 13 years younger than me, so that wasn't really a factor). I have all sort of irrational fears about being able to love a son as much and also about raising a man. I wished we had more male friends (regardless of the gender of our child) as I want our kids to have strong male role models. I'm starting to get over my disappointment and realistic thoughts are setting in... yes I'll love him no matter what, yes I'll be a good mom to a boy, yes somehow we'll teach him to pee standing up and yes, somehow we'll hopefully raise a good man.