Thoughts on Thursday: We get a baby!
Now that the big baby secret is out, I can finally start blogging about it! You can expect that I will blog about every minute of this pregnancy and in general behave like the only person to have ever grown a human. #sorrynotsorry
While I’m keeping a journal of sorts for the baby, I’m hoping the blog can house more detailed but mundane observations as well as things I don’t necessary plan to tell the baby. For example, the baby’s journal will contained glossed over stories about how mommy’s jeans don’t fit and the pee on the stick is barely dry. The blog will contain the more truthful things like: Dear baby, why are you making me threaten to strangle your father on a daily basis?
So I suppose I should start at the beginning. Okay maybe not exactly at the beginning. Two weeks after the beginning? Let’s go with that.
On St. Patrick’s Day morning we had a house guest. The presence of a house guest tends to disturb our puppy’s delicate schedule and in general throws her into a tizzy. By that, I mean that she forgets she is potty trained and shits wherever she pleases. On this sunny morning, that place was my office. My newly redecorated, sparkling office. And do you think Josephine could make a neat little pile of poo in a corner? No. Hells to the no. Josephine pooed all. over. the. room. Obviously, this displeased everyone but husband was particularly pissed. (Not at the dog, just at the shit. For the record.)
So anyway, as we’re scrubbing shit out of the carpet and husband is bitching and I say something brilliant like, “Hey! Soon there’s going to be a baby in this house and its going to shit all over everything, all of the time! So you might as well get used to it!”
Ten hours later, there were two lines on the pregnancy test. Go figure.
After 10 months of test after test only having one line, I nearly lost my marbles.
Here’s me loosing my marbles:
(Side note – I was wearing a ball cap the day Zac proposed to me too. Apparently it is inevitable that hair my hair be dirty and hidden under a hat during all significant moments of my life.)
Maybe I should back up a bit, to before I lost my marbles…
Trying to make a baby is a funny thing. Notice I said funny, not fun. Because you think its going to be fun. Because, well, you know… But then the first test is negative and oh well, we’re just getting started. Then its negative again the next month, and the month after that and before you know it you’ve become a dog.
Yes, a dog.
Because despite swearing you were going to be a patient person about this whole thing, your entire thought process now revolves around humping and peeing on sticks. Very expensive sticks. Until you’ve peed on so much cash that you just except that you’re in this for the long haul and order a box of 100 pregnancy tests from China or Taiwan or Vietnam or some far flung place where they’ve managed to make these things for a dime a piece. (And because God thinks that’s funny, they will mistakenly be shipped to your parent’s home address, which is still on your Amazon account.)
(And may I just throw out there that I don’t want to sound like I’m bitching about this process in anyway – 10 months in retrospect is not that long – we got very lucky. Some couples go through hell and back to get a baby and they will forever have my respect. But like I said I want to record this whole journey and a very frustrating 10 months was a part of ours.)
Eventually, if you’re lucky enough to have a clear cut problem (and I say lucky because, no problem = no attention from your doctor until you’ve suffered through the endless hump-wait-pee cycle for at least 12 months) you can add migraine and mood-swing inducing medications and invasive medical exams to your already “fun” process. Because nothing says, “Come make a baby with me!” like a hysterical woman clutching her bottle of Excedrin. The advantage to this is that your new bff’s at the doctor’s office can tell you if you even have a shot this month, thus saving you from wasting your pee sticks.
Interestingly, this may also keep you out of AA meetings. Prior to medical intervention preventing me for thinking every month could be “the month” I would inevitably go out for a quiet dinner and end up hammered because, well, good God what if this is my last change to DRINK! So in the first 6 months or so of “trying” I basically became a drunk with a desperate hope for a baby. (If you send me hate mail saying that my drinking was keeping me from getting pregnant I will hunt you down. So don’t even think about it. I assure you it was not.) After that, when I knew my wino days weren’t going to be limited in the immediate future, I stopped behaving like a college girl.
Until that fateful month when we finally had a chance… The same month I quit my day job. Obviously that had to be celebrated. Bad idea. Do not take a woman who knows her wino days are – very likely- limited out to dinner. Definitely do not take her to the nicest place in town. She will drink more champagne than you can comfortably pay for and then she will throw up on you. I promise. This is the only outcome to this situation.
Anyway…back to that two-lined pee stick…
We knew we had a chance. We’d done everything we were supposed to do, exactly as we were supposed to do it (including the binge drinking) and then we waited. And then came St. Patrick’s Day which was about 3 days before the earliest my doctor had advised I pee on anything. But I’d spent most of the afternoon curled up in a lawn chair watching husband build furniture. We normally tag team those efforts but instead I was whimpering over cramps that I was sure had come to tell me another round of hump-wait-pee was on the schedule for April. We exchanged “meh, oh well” looks and didn’t talk much about it. Since the addition of doctor visits and medications, our frustration had died down quite a bit and we’d settled into a mode of “it takes as long as it takes”. What’s another month.
But after dinner that night I was done with wondering about what secret message the cramps held, so I peed on the damn stick. Three days early. And I didn’t tell husband I was going to.
All things considered and given all the past one-liners, I just didn’t even expect to see anything. I really, really didn’t.
But then I did.
And it wasn’t even questionable. Two lines, clear as day.
(You’re welcome for that logo stamped image of something I tinkled on.)
So I started screaming for husband, who came running yelling “Where?! Where?!” I’m still not sure what he was looking for. I assume he thought there was a spider or a fire or an intruder. All of these would illicit the same reaction from me. Josie came running too.
They both stared at me in disbelieve as I yelled, Oprah-style, “TWO LINES!! TWWWWOO LIIIIEEEE-IIINNEESSS! YOU GET A BABY! YOU GET A BABY! I GET A BABY!!! TWO LINESSS!!” This then morphed into me yelling, “It fucking worked!! It fucking worked!!” I’m so eloquent. And appropriate.
There was much cheering and hugging and even a few good howls from Josie who had no idea what the hell was happening, but was clearly happy about it.
Then I promptly washed my hair and did my make up so that we could take decent looking photos for baby’s journal. Oh yes I did. At 9 p.m. on a Monday. Because I wanted the pictures taken in the moment. (Little did I know it would be the last time I had the energy to wash and dry my hair for the next 8 weeks.) Then we put our jammies on and had an impromptu family photo session in bed.
We kept telling Josie she was going to be a sister and she wiggled her little butt all around and seemed genuinely excited. Then she tried to eat the pee stick.
I asked her to try to use her words. We don’t like her to express herself by biting or chewing. So she took a deep breath and said…
And so there began the first trimester. Alternatively known as 8 weeks spent in bed, whining and sustaining two lives on nothing but sprite, saltines and over-priced bagels from Panera because they are the only ones that don’t result in dry heaving.
And now…some frequently asked questions that I’ve already answered 1,000 times…
When is baby due?
Thanksgiving Day! We’ve already started talking to baby about considering a delayed arrival so that we can still Black Friday shop.
Will you find out the gender?
Yup! Hopefully in late June!
What do you think it is/What are you hoping for?
I for one think its a boy and I’m very excited about that. Husband agrees. We’ll be perfectly thrilled if its a girl, of course. But I’m putting my money on the weenie.
Do you have names picked out?
Not that I’m telling you : )
This bit is up for debate. Yes, we have names picked out. Ten months of working on this baby, remember? It’s long been named. But I’m a bit hesitant to share our name choices publicly because, quite honestly, I don’t want to see someone make a stink face or tell me that someone by that name bullied them in 2nd grade or some whore by that moniker slept with their boyfriend in college. We big-puffy-heart the names we have picked out. So I’m learning towards keeping them on the down low until a tiny person is legally sporting one of them. I dare you say something about it then ; )
Are you going on a babymoon?
I don’t know if this is standard questioning for new parents now or if this one stems from our obvious travel addiction. Until yesterday, the answer was a firm no. We’d had a summer vacation planned and cancelled it. To be honest, I had zero desire to go anywhere. Feel free to judge me – but what the hell kind of vacation doesn’t include alcohol? Also, I get tired quickly, become cranky often and get overheated easily. These are not the qualities of a good travel buddy.
But then… husband and I decided we’d become a pair of bitches and we better have ourselves a little getaway before one of us runs away.
So, we started brainstorming about an easy, laid back spot to spend a few nights. So at the end of the month, we’re heading the the Sundara Spa in Wisconsin Dells. Can’t say I ever thought of the Dells as a relaxing adult getaway (don’t get me wrong – I love the place with my whole heart – just doesn’t come to mind when I think quiet and relaxing) but it looks promising, so we’ll see!
How are you feeling?
Fine, thanks!
These days I’m feeling much more myself. I just require more sleep and more food!
Are you going to breastfeed/cloth diaper/grow your own produce/teach the baby French/baptize it/have it circumcised/let it sleep with you?
I…uh…we…well…I…milkshake?!? Does anyone have a chocolate milkshake?!?
Cubs, Cardinals or White Sox?
Cardinals. For sure. Although we went to the Cubs-Cards game on Monday and if baby had any idea what was happening, it’ll probably come out a Cubs fan. And who could blame it? Even I want to cheer for the team with 17 runs in 9 innings.
COMMENTS