Pregnancy = TBI ?

(I took this picture with our computer.  It's 8:00 at night and I am back to being pretty tired most of the day, hence the overdone "AWAKE" expression on my face.  Surry.)

Not to make light of serious traumatic brain injury, but I'll be honest, I'm behaving more and more as if my brain has been permanently injured.  I may just update my blog with the multitude of things I do that I will forever insist are all due to pregnancy.  Should these types of things continue to happen after I'm done being pregnant, I will insist to the end that being pregnant permanently altered my abilities---mental and physical.

Today I reached my arm out to open a door and hit my head on the door frame simultaneously.  I wasn't even mobile.  My feet were firmly planted.  A person would almost have to intentionally move the top half of their body forward too quickly before even moving their legs in order to hit their head in the way I did.  I'm certain it's worth it, though.

It's a...

Girl!  Or, at least we're 90% sure it's a girl.  She was being a little modest during the ultrasound. The sonographer had me lie on my right side, "empty my bladder", lie on my left side, and finally walk around for a few minutes.  Apparently the walk helped enough for her to give us a 90% (the highest she's allowed to give).  So she could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's a girl.  

My favorite part was seeing her little mouth and cheeks move as if she was chewing.  It was so cute and babyish.  She had her right arm over her head for the majority of the ultrasound, which was also endearing somehow.  It was really comforting to see that she was moving even though I couldn't always feel her.

Anyhoo, it's time for dinner!  Later skaters.

I might need to start wearing one of those id bracelets for when i inevitably get lost and can't remember my name, let alone how to get home.

If the whole idea of pregnancy causing mild (and hopefully temporary) stupidity is a myth, than I could be in trouble.  This morning I put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher.  I then turned and began walking toward the trash can.  I stopped a couple of steps short of it, turned around, walked back to the dishwasher and put my spoon in it.  For some reason I was originally planning on throwing it away.  

Boy or Girl?

We have our ultrasound at 10:45 this morning.  We HOPE to find out if it's a boy or a girl, and of course that everything is coming along normally.  Since I can't use my overabundance of sick days for my maternity leave, I decided to take off the whole day today.  Yesterday I told my students why I wouldn't be there today.  My second period wanted to guess whether I was having a boy or girl, so I passed around a voting sheet.  They were split right down the middle, fifty-fifty.  The rest of my classes were all slanted to boy.  Or maybe all but one, I can't remember.  The winners get candy tomorrow.  So, I probably won't send out any candy to you reading, but if anyone would like to venture a guess, have at it.  Now is the time because hopefully it will no longer be a mystery by this afternoon...Stay tuned : )

style.

Don't you love it when you see a young child who's parent obviously allowed them to put their own outfit together that day?  It's almost always part costume.  The socks are generally a focal point.  And confidence just seems to waft all around the little fashionista/fashionisto.

Signs

Stevie Nicks is haunting me.  

For the last couple of weeks, I walk into a store or change the station on the radio and find Stevie singing in her uber-raspy voice---one day it happened three times, and it was the same song each time.  Today NPR was talking to a woman about her parrot.  I lost interest and switched the station.  Of course it was Stevie.  Sometimes when the same song, or comment from people I know, or the same book title-- or anything really-- keeps coming up in my life repeatedly I wonder, is God trying to tell me something ?   A lot of times I find some relevance or meaning.  But this...I'm having trouble connecting to anything in my life...

Did she make you cry?

Make you break down?

Shatter your illusions of love?

Is it over now?   

Do you know how...

To pick up the pieces and go hooome?

Rock on ancient queen

Follow those who pale in your shadow

Rulers make bad lovers

You better put your kingdom up for sale.

Hmmm...I got nothin'.

On a totally different note, I can feel the bun moving now!  This is a very exciting development. All of a sudden a couple of days ago I just started feeling these little patters on and off.  The signs all keep pointing to being pregnant. I guess it really is true.  Still hard to believe.

And one more thing:  I have found out about two other people (who shall remain nameless) being pregnant in the last 24 hours.  Anyone else have an announcement?...

Home sick

Well, I am home and I am sick.  I caught the cold that many of my students have been trying so hard to give me by coughing and sneezing in my face for the last two weeks.  I woke up at about 3:30 this morning coughing uncontrollably.  I called Gabe (he was downstairs on the couch where I had banished him for his own good) up and requested some tea.  The coughing finally let up after about a half and hour.  By that time I was wide awake, so I called the district substitute line and typed up some sub plans until about 6:15.  I "slept" for about 20 minutes, got up and dragged my sorry self to school.  This is not so big of a deal considering the drive to school takes all of three minutes.  Once there, of course two of the (closest) main copiers were down, and my computer decided to not let me print off an activity sheet for no good reason.  I managed, met my sub and left just as kids were coming in.

Gabe has taken out the trash, the recycling, loaded the dishwasher, done a couple loads of laundry, gotten me softer kleenex and gone to work for a meeting, promising to return with my favorite orange juice that I just happened to have a coupon for.   

Daly has slept.

I am now surrounded by a mountain of crumpled kleenex, my nose is far redder than normal, my hair is stringy, and could I smell at all, I'm sure I would notice my breath which has to smell awful by now after hours upon hours of breathing through my mouth.  And yes, I have brushed my teeth.   

One week from today hopefully we will find out if I'm having a boy or a girl.  I'll be sure to post what we find.  

In the meantime, stay healthy everybody!

YAHOO!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!

Prego update (there will probably be a lot of these...)

We had our second baby-doctor's appointment yesterday and met my doctor for the first time. We both really liked her.  After pushing on my belly a bit, looking over my blood tests, and asking and answering some questions, she congratulated us on the fact that I'm having a "very normal" pregnancy.  Very welcomed words.  We did not have an ultrasound, but we did get to listen to the bun's heartbeat.  This was a big relief, as I've felt so normal it's hard to believe I'm actually pregnant.  I've gotten used to telling people I'm "pregnant", and used to thinking of myself as a "pregnant" person...but actually believing there is in fact a person growing inside of me seems a little too strange to be real---and somehow different from saying I'm pregnant.  It's like pregnant is just my new state of being: I'm pregnant.  Like I'm 5'8" or have blue eyes.  These things don't have consequences, they are just facts of my life.  So it's hard to wrap my brain around the idea (and reality) that in just under 6 months I won't be pregnant, but --God willing-- I will have a person to show for it. Strange.  And completely wonderful and exciting, don't get me wrong, but also bizarre.  

I gained 8 pounds since my last doctor visit.  This proves to me that it can't just be bloating from gas.  

I watched about a dozen different 3-5 minute videos online this morning dealing with labor, delivery, what happens right after and so on.  I now know all about APGAR, antibiotic goop that goes into your baby's eyes right after birth, what exactly is happening when your water breaks, vitamin k shots, why baby's don't drown in water births, and that hippies appear to experience the least amount of pain during childbirth.   It's convinced me to look more into their hippie ways when it comes to childbirth. From what I can tell so far, these are some of the hippie recommendations: dim lights, have husband constantly massaging your back ---um, OKAY, keep your eyes closed a lot and listen to music you like, and maybe rock back and forth on your hands and knees. And keep telling yourself, and those around you that your body was designed for this.  None of that seems very extreme or out there.  I'll forego the incense burning next to my bed and the summoning Mother Earth of course, substituted with some serious praying I imagine. 

 And does anyone have any input regarding water births?  Because from where I'm sitting, that looks like the way to go.  The lady I watched for the water birth video barely grunted or frowned during the two pushes it took to deliver her baby.  My hospital has a jacuzzi in every room...I'm not against (at this point) delivering my first child by sea.

We met the king.

Last night I got a hankerin' for gyros.  It turns out that the "Gyro King" is located just three short miles from our house. So we got it together, and found the king.

Things I liked about the restaurant:

1.  Definitely qualifies as a "hole in the wall"---this means it has a gritty authenticity to it, where the message is, "Our food is so good, we don't have to care what decorates the walls or if all of the tables and chairs match, or if we get the floor swept everyday, or not.  In fact, it's so good, we can have two televisions, that's right, two, facing us behind the counter at all times so we can stay up to date with the Greek shows.  In fact, while we're taking your order and ringing it up, we'll probably keep right on watching our Greek television shows.  Don't worry, you'll get your food."   I like this very much.

2.  Because of the television watching during the order taking, they brought us two orders of baklava instead of the one we ordered.  And they were delicious.

3.  Real Greek people working (a family-including one very bored adolescent boy and one slightly less bored teenage boy) with accents so thick you can barely understand them.

4.  The patriarch of the family is the cook.  And don't expect him to smile at you, either.

5.  The food was very good.

Things I didn't like:

1. The small hair (that I chose to believe was a arm hair) I found on the edge of my hommos.

2.  The second small hair (another arm hair) I spotted on my lettuce once I was finished with my meal.  

I chose to believe Gabe when he told me not to worry because my stomach acid would destroy any hairs that I didn't see before eating.  This allowed me to eat my meal, but until I fell asleep last night I definitely felt like there was a hair stuck on the back of my throat.  There wasn't, it was all in my head, but I could have sworn it was real.  I woke up alive this morning, so it seems I'm no worse for the wear.