Yup.

Why yes, I AM making all the turkey bacon in the house because it's the only acceptable snack food. Thanks for asking!

What Once Was Icky Now Is Not

Hello all.

So... many of you know what a bizarre week we just had, but in case anyone missed it, here is the official recap. Oh, my.

I'm supposed to be feeling some stretching out at this point, so I wasn't particularly surprised when I started having abdominal pains about a week ago. What did surprise me was that they became near-constant, really intense, and woke me up twice in two hours on Saturday night. Hm. After a phone conversation with the on-call OB/GYN at the hospital, we realized that we couldn't rule out appendicitis... so we decided at about 2 AM to pay a visit to the emergency room.

I won't give you a play-by-play of the 5 hours we spent at the hospital. A few highlights were going in for the ultrasound and finding out (from the tech, he of the six daughters) that our Sprout is very likely a girl. Squee! There was also the random white-coated guy -- who probably didn't even work there -- who kept popping in on the heels of the nurse or doctor to tell us exactly what we'd just been told, or ask us what we'd just been asked. I wonder if we should have reported him to someone. To sum up, we finally left without a diagnosis, but more knowledge:

It wasn't preterm labor.

It wasn't a kidney stone.

It wasn't a cyst.

They couldn't find my appendix, but it didn't present exactly like appendicitis.

My white blood cell count was up, so it could have been viral.

They prescribed something for pain and something for nausea (yep, I spared you some details, didn't I?), and sent us home to self-monitor.

Yeah... I wasn't getting better. By the time I made it to our doctor's office on Monday, I was shuffling, moaning, and pale (luckily, no one cried zombie -- I was able to avoid any panicking mob activity). I managed to get to my appointment (barely), and as far as Matt's parents' house on the way back (barely again). I wouldn't have made it at all, but Matt took the day off, and my lovely mother-in-law drove us in my lovely father-in-law's Avalon (so I could lie down in the back). Go team!

Our OB/GYN suspected a bladder infection or UTI. She prescribed a fetus-friendly antibiotic accordingly, which began to work its magic right away; I gradually went from zombie to fairly uncomfortable and bedridden to able to eat and drink normally, and pretty much walk around, in about 5 days. Meanwhile, Matt ran interference. He made calls and appointments, filled prescriptions, and kept me supplied with books and provisions. When he had to be away, my lovely mother-in-law Amy filled in; thank you, support system!

In any case, we were supposed to go in for a follow-up appointment and diagnosis on Thursday. We went... but our doctor sheepishly had to admit that they'd, um, forgotten to send out my sample to be cultured. No diagnosis for me. Next week, I am to sneak in during a staff meeting and leave another sample, so they can at least see if the infection is gone (seriously -- doctor's orders). So! That is the exciting conclusion of our week of drama.

If this story has a moral, I think it has to be that, as complicated as pregnancy can be (because, you see, I'm currently more susceptible to a number of delightful ailments), it doesn't mean that the main player is as affected as the rest of us. Example: we had a Wednesday ultrasound -- one that we'd scheduled a month ago -- and during all the tense checking and re-checking of measurements, Sprout looked straight at us and yawned. We're running around all zombified, and she's just not fazed at all, no sir.

Ahypothetical

Over the past week or so, the sprout has really started to move around (and do so pretty much all the time). S/he seems to have a pretty steady routine: we wake up in the late morning, demand breakfast, do some calisthenics, have a day, and stay up late watching movies and doing more calisthenics. It's certainly pretty cute to feel a little thwap from time to time, but there's a side effect that I wasn't quite expecting, too. As some of you may recall from the first couple of posts I put up, I started off by connecting to the baby-growing process via the gadgetry. In large part, that had to do with it seeming kind of hypothetical -- I mean, there wasn't really any physical evidence, Beth seemed just as normal as ever (ahem), and we needed to use a machine to even see the kid, so for all we really knew we could have been watching ultrasound data from a baby in South Island, New Zealand. (Yes, I chose New Zealand. It's far, vaguely mysterious, and full of sheep.) In the last week, though, the sprout has stopped being a hypothetical construct and started being a member of the family. I suspect this happened earlier for Beth, who isn't here to ask just at the moment, but being able to actually feel the motions that the sprout is performing (my guess? Tai Chi.) has made this process real for me, and done so all at once. (For example, the thought process goes like this: The sprout responds to meal times; well, *I* respond to meal times, too!! Yay!!) It's the first of many surprising things s/he will do, I'm sure.

And speaking of awkward grammatical constructions, we'll hopefully be finding out (to use Will Baldwin's phrasing) whether we're having a sprout or a sproutette this coming Wednesday. Just *think* how much simpler the pronouns will be!

(Lastly, this is another iPhone-composed post. Evidently, it works well when you're *not* stuck on a plane, too.)

Photo session #4

Dear bloggyreaders,

Attached, please find a series of photos in which Beth attempted to distract the viewer from her ever-more-pregnant sprout belly by emoting with great drama. (...and then took two really nice pictures at the end that I'm including 'cuz they're awesome.)

And in case you're curious, the picture in which she's holding up one finger and looking dramatically towards the future was her being the statue of William Penn in Philadelphia.

Hugs and sparkly things,

The Proto-Pater

PS - Blogger has been giving me some headaches with regard to images that you can't click to enlarge. You SHOULD be able to click these pictures to see the full versions -- most of the posts have that working properly, but if you encounter a picture that you can't click to enlarge, well, consider me sufficiently embarrassed :-).

Yes indeed...

KICK!! Beth's been feeling them for a couple of days, and I just now felt the first one. I'm way more excited than is reasonable. I also think it's that the sprout finds The Wire to be a particularly compelling show.

Of COURSE we'll be responsible pare-- ooh, shiny!

We're (probably) right around halfway through now, and as we start to put the nursery together, it's becoming ever more clear that what the sprout really needs, much more than, say, diapers, or food, is a felted ball rug.

Tell me you don't want this, too.

Amusing sensitivities, volume 1

Things I can no longer do: test funny alternative word conjugations. Trying to replace "spammed" with "spum" in conversation caused Beth to make a noise like I had offered her a bowl full of eyeballs. Noted.