Potty mouth

I’ll be 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow. I still can’t believe it. The funny thing is, Jim has done a better job of reading/remembering facts the baby’s development than I have. Don’t get me wrong, I read the pregnancy books. But I tend to focus on the stuff that’s happening to me. Like, am I really supposed to be having leg cramps this early? Why does my head often feel like it’s going to split open when I bend over to pick something up?

I think in many ways I still can’t get used to the idea that there is a real, live baby in there. And learning more about how the kid is developing might mean becoming more attached to the idea that this pregnancy is actually happening. And that scares me because I’m still terrified that something will go wrong, and I don’t want to get too invested. But of course I AM invested—it’s impossible not to be. Yeah, I’m still in my nutter phase. If you can’t tell.

Anyway, this morning Jim raised his eyebrow ominously and said “You know what happens in two weeks, right?” Big surprise, I didn’t. So he went on to say “The baby starts to HEAR things”. I knew exactly where he was going with the comment. You see, I’ve had quite the sailor mouth lately. More than usual, I mean.

Yep. I have a foul mouth. And of course I know it’s not polite. And no, my mother didn’t raise me to talk like that. But I can’t help it. I’m an emotional person, and sometimes just saying something is “lame” isn’t enough. I need to express myself in a more . . . colorful way. Now, I know better than to do so in polite company. In fact, people that don’t know me well always seem surprised to even hear me say “damn”. I’ve always given off some kind of innocent vibe, which I find somewhat hilarious. Because I’m really not. I just know how to keep things in check when I need to. Like now. I’ll refrain from spouting fully developed expletives because I know certain members of the reading audience might not appreciate it. See? I might have a bad habit, but I can still mind my manners.

So back to Jim’s concerns. While it’s true that the baby will start hearing things soon, we both realize that it’s certainly not going to UNDERSTAND anything. But I think Jim is trying to prepare me for the eventual moment (many months in the future) when the baby WILL understand or even worse, might REPEAT certain choice phrases. To quote my dear husband, “If you keep going at this rate, the kid’s first word will be the f-bomb”.

So do I try to reign it in, or should I just get it out of my system while I can? Tough choice. Tough $*%&*!&ing choice.

Open letter

Not sure if I think this is so funny because I work at an architecture firm, or because it’s truly humorous. Anywho, worth a read if you’ve spent any time with architects.

Fun with avatars redux

My homegirl RJ tipped me off to a South Park avatar creator, which is even more fabulous than the Simpsons’ version. Here is a wintery version of me and Jim.

This morning I happened to find a set of South Park-ized characters from The Office. Brilliant.

Wish upon a wishbone

Whenever Jim and I buy a cooked chicken he always saves the wishbone. It has to dry out overnight to be properly crackable, so we usually stick it on the kitchen windowsill and then battle it out in the morning. Kind of gross, I know, but worth it in the end. It’s very satisfying to break that little bit of bone, especially since I am usually the one who ends up with the longer piece.

Tonight when Jim was carving up a chicken for a tasty sandwichy dinner, I stood by waiting for the wishbone. But this time when he handed it to me, he said “I don’t know what I’ll wish for”. And I knew exactly what he meant. Because the thing we have both been wishing for for ages miraculously happened a couple of months ago. After 3.5 years, a surgery, and more procedures, doctor’s appointments, and money than I care to think about, we found out that I’m pregnant.

It’s hard to even type that word without feeling like a fraud, and as of today I’m 14 weeks along. I just can’t get used to the fact that it’s true. This last attempt was the end of the line. It was our second IVF, and we planned to adopt if it didn’t work. I had already picked out an adoption agency because even though I desperately wanted the procedure to work, I realized there was a decent chance it might not. The doctors gave us 70% odds of getting pregnant, which sounds pretty good. But the last time they gave us 65% odds and guess who fell in the bottom 35%?

Needless to say, I had my defenses up. So much so, that when we got the happy call the only emotion I could summon was pure, raw fear. Because even though we had won the fertility lottery, I knew we would have to jump through more hurdles before we could feel “safe”. What if something went wrong after everything we had been through? I could barely stand the thought. I was petrified. When we went in for our first ultrasound at 7 weeks I cried in the exam room while we waited for the nurse. That’s how convinced I was that she wouldn’t find a heartbeat. But she did. And so I was slightly sane for a couple of days before the fear set in again.

Even now that we’re past the “scariest” part of pregnancy, I still have moments when I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thank goodness Jim is around to remind me to be positive. I’ve also relied on him to tell people because it’s very hard for me to do. I remember how painful it was to hear other people’s pregnancy  announcements (I was happy for them, but very, very sad for myself) and I hate to think that I might be inflicting that kind of pain on someone else who might be dealing with infertility, unbeknownst to me.

When I do tell people or they stop by to congratulate me I usually say “We’ve been through a lot” or “This was a long time coming” because I want them to know it wasn’t easy. I feel the need to be a bit of an advocate because infertility is an incredibly difficult thing to go through, and it’s not something not many people understand. They want to be helpful, but they usually just say things like “You should try relaxing” which are completely misguided, not to mention hurtful.

Just for the record, the time surrounding my 2nd IVF was one of the most stressful of my life. To review, my dad was going through cancer treatments, I was in-between jobs, and we found out a week before the pregnancy blood test that we would have to put precious little Maggie to sleep. The IVF didn’t work because I “relaxed”. It worked because the doctors made the right decisions about my treatment. It worked because the embryologist chose the right embryo. It worked because the IVF procedure bypassed my endometriosis. It worked because we got lucky. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the ghosts of all those chicken wishbone wishes. Or the many birthday candles we blew out. Or the good thoughts from our friends and family. Or all of the above. Or none of the above. Who can say.

The only thing I’m certain of is that it will feel weird as hell to pick a new wish tomorrow morning.

P.S. Want to know how you can help a friend or family member who is facing infertility? Visit the RESOLVE website. Wish I had a catchy jingle to go along with this public service announcement. Must get the Schoolhouse Rock people on that.

Avataralicious

This is the greatest thing ever. Little old moi as a Simpsons’ character. Loves it! And Santa’s Little Helper even looks like Banjo!