There's a football game today? Really?

I've kind of lost touch with the outside world. It hasn't been hard to do. Getting out of the house has become an event of such epic proportions that it just doesn't happen very often. Ava's been congested all week but is much better after regular saline/blue sucky thing treatments. It appears that she inherited my questionable sinuses, and at some point she'll doubtless become well acquainted with my ENT (Dr. Boyers, best in town). Incidentally, I saw him on Friday because of an ill-timed sinus infection that, thankfully, was caught and dealt with before it got really out of hand. Seriously, whose idea was it to see if me being sick with a newborn was a good idea?! The universe was mocking me, I'm sure.

Today's big story: Ava decided that she didn't hate the swing anymore!


We tried it a couple of weeks ago out of desperation one fussy night, and we discovered than when she's really pissed off, she turns into what we call "Hulk Baby", and since we don't like her when she's angry we gave the swing a rest. We tried it again today on a whim.

Oh, and here's ten minutes later...


She's pondering Very Important Things right there.

Rob and I have achieved a kind of rhythm as far as Ava's eating and sleeping go. It's not so much of a schedule (yet--we hear good things about schedules and hope to achieve one at some later date). We do zone coverage at night as opposed to man-to-man. The first zone is 8:00 PM until about 1:30. Whoever got the best sleep the previous night covers this zone, allowing the other to crash immediately after dinner and get a good 5 solid hours of sleep. At 1:30ish, we switch. It seems to be working.

That's really all that's happening right now. The stuff that excites us doesn't seem very exciting when I write it out. It's hard to put into words the dozen small victories that we claim every day (She's a side sleeper! Put her on her side and she'll stay asleep! Hooray!), and the camera never quite captures how she makes a hundred faces as she's falling asleep and makes little squeaks and chirps all the while. I don't know (and I don't particularly care...) if all other newborns do this exact same thing and we just have tunnel vision about how fabulous and interesting she is. There will come a time when I will re-enter the world (March 23 when I go back to work, to be precise) and I'll become aware of how other things are going on. For now, she's the best show in town.

I blame the lactation hippie.

It's hard not to be the crazy mom. There's so much that we just don't know about what is and is not normal. Any snake oil salesman can come along and tell me that Ava is missing out on XYZ and we need to buy/sell/do ABC in order to make sure she's OK and I will bite.

Case in point: Wednesday, I met with a lactation consultant to get some pointers about nursing and such. Ms Tie-Dyed In the Wool Earthy Chunky Organic Granola immediately sets forth assessing what we're dealing with (namely, The Girls, if ya get my drift) and how we can help Ava have more milk and less formula. Before I can even say "age of Aquarius", I'm buying a new nursing pillow ("My Brest Friend"), a ten-day supply of herbal supplements to help increase my milk supply, and am on the phone with the pediatrician's office to schedule an immediate appointment to take care of Ava's tied tongue, which is a HUGE impediment to her successful latching-on and will result in her NEVER BEING ABLE TO BREASTFEED OMG WE NEED TO FIX THIS STAT. As luck would have it, we can get in at 4:30 that same day! Hooray! Never let it be said that my baby girl suffered for my lack of action.

OK, so I drag our tired butts to the doctor's office, which, fortunately, is super close to home. Two hours later, we return home with the knowledge that yes, she has a bit of a connection betwixt her tongue and the bottom of her mouth, but, in the words of our Very Wise Doctor, "if she can latch on to a bottle, she can latch on to a breast." Furthermore, in 25 years of pediatric practice, he has never corrected such a thing, nor even seen one that he thought was worthy of referring out to a specialist for correction. He then patted us both on the heads, gave me a lolly, and sent us on our way. And when we got outside it was raining, which was the cherry on the cake of that crazy stupid day. Poor Rob. He was waiting for us when we got home, and he pulled my exhaustedly sobbing self out of the car, somehow got Ava into the house, put us both in comfy pajamas and declared Wednesday over.

I didn't intend to go insane and be That Mom. Really. At no time did I insist that My Child Needs Immediate Attention. It just worked out that way. Thank God we found a doctor who takes things like this in stride and is able to keep a straight face and reassure me that, really, there's nothing wrong with our kid and we can relax about her nursing. She's fine.

Good lord. This post-partum hormonal thing sneaks up on you. I mean, I knew that stuff would get to me in new and exciting ways but I had no idea how quickly I would go from "I'm fine, we're cool" to "OMG WHY IS THE WORLD SO AWFUL?!" So now we have some rules about how my errands are managed; namely, no same-day add-ons. If something new comes up, it can wait until tomorrow or next week or whenever.

This morning I took Ava to the lab for some bloodwork--just a follow-up for the PKU that they performed last week in the hospital. Routine stuff, kind of unpleasant as they do what is called a "heel stick" and it's probably 30 seconds of aggravation for babies and two days of anxiety for moms (even moms who are working very hard not to be high maintenance). Again, she's fine, resting comfortably, and I celebrated the completion of the blood draw with a diet Coke and a fancy cupcake.

I was talking to my friend Tina today about this hormonal thing that's happening. I feel good and I don't feel overwhelmed (read: this is something I'm pretty sure I can handle). But the second anyone asks "So, how are you doing?" I get a bit teary and pherklempt and I have to take a second to get on top of it. Tina recalled feeling the same way--super tired, but generally OK until someone asks if you're OK and when you start to think about just how much Everything has changed you feel overcome by how amazing and different and hard and wonderful it all is and how it all changed in one exhilarating minute (must stop, getting weepy...).

Rob's back at work and that's been an adjustment for everyone. His first day back was Wednesday, and that made for a long Tuesday night and a tough Wednesday morning (even before the hippie). We had a better night last night, as Ava decided that sleeping after each bottle would be acceptable to her. That made a huge difference, as when she sleeps, everybody gets to sleep. I'll still take a nap in a little while, but it doesn't feel like such a necessity today ; rather, it's kind of the way my naps used to be back B.A. (Before Ava) when I was just lazy instead of justifiably tired ;).

Oh, and the herbal supplements that Sunshine Von Acid Trip recommended seem to have helped with the milk supply. Go figure.

One Week of Ava

Whoa, that went fast. First, a picture from this afternoon:


We have a lot of pictures that look like this. When she's wrapped up like a little burrito and asleep in her crib next to a rolled-up blanket so she doesn't roll over, this is when we have a chance to get a camera in hand. We have one shot of her with her eyes open...


Yeah. Kind of hard to tell, but they're dark dark bluish-gray. And how about that proud papa?

We're doing all right, I think. She sleeps in 3-4 hour stretches, and the longer naps tend to happen during the day. She's a bit of a night owl. We'll work on that when she's a little older. For now, we're at her beck and wail and it's not so bad. She's on formula for the most part, with 2-3 bottles of breast milk a day. I'm going to meet with a lactation specialist this week to see if we can't get some help increasing that--I'd like her to have more milk than formula.

We have awesome friends. They are bringing us dinners this week, and the first one just arrived. Katie and Bob and their kids just stopped in with what looks to be some tasty chicken and salad and a bottle of wine. I've missed wine!

Ava saw her pediatrician on Friday. He was recommended to us by some other super cool friends (Tina and Jay) and we really like him. He answered our questions (most of his answers were, "yes, that's normal") and told us what to look for as far as common issues that arise with newborns. Ava was down a few ounces ("yes, that's normal.") and was given a clean bill of health. We go back to him in a month.

That's about it. Rob has one more day at home and then it's back to the grind for him. We're not really looking forward to that--it's been so great to have this week together. We've divvied up how we'll handle night feedings (anything after we both go to sleep is mine; anything after 5AM counts as his alarm clock). We'll see how that goes. That's been the theme for this week--we'll try something and see how it goes. So far, we've been right more often than not.

We don't have a baby, but at least we have a plan.

It's frustrating, but I think we made the right choice. I had a very frank discussion with my OB, and then with Rob, about where we are. At 40 weeks 2 days, I'm not dilated. There is good news, in that the contractions on Saturday/Sunday did bring about some positive changes (I'll leave the details out...). However, if we were to decide to proceed with an induction at this point, there's about an 80% chance that I'd have at least 24 hours of labor that would result in a C-section. I've been hoping to avoid a C-section, just because there has been no reason thus far to go in that direction. The baby is healthy, there's plenty of amniotic fluid, my blood pressure is very good, and neither of us is in any particular distress. I'm not going to lie; I'm hurting and there really is no time when I'm comfortable. I'm exhausted and I have no energy because I don't eat or sleep enough. But that's not distress--that's just late pregnancy.

The plan is to give it another week (OH MY GOD ANOTHER WEEK WHAT THE HELL?!) to give nature a chance to take its course. I'm back at the perinatalogist on Friday, and again on Monday for fetal assessment (check fluid and heartbeat, rotate the tires, etc.) and then to the OB on Wednesday for one last look. At that point, we are going to go to the hospital, either for an induction with a better chance of natural delivery, or for a C-section with the knowledge that we gave this as much time as we safely could. Dr Jameson will not let me go past 41 weeks, because that's far enough past the due date for new and horrible complications to arise.

This was a tough choice. I do love Dr Jameson, because she gave the information and likely outcomes and made sure that we had the knowledge we needed to make our decision. And then once we made the decision, she proceeded without judgment. We could have decided that my discomfort was enough of a factor to change our minds about the C-section and we'd have our daughter in our arms by Saturday night after a labor that probably would be very hard on me. Tempting. Very tempting. But the whole point of this is to have a baby who is healthy, not a delivery that is convenient, and with that in mind, we're willing to give this a bit more time. Not an infinite amount of time, but another week feels like the best path for us.

Ideally, I will go into labor naturally sometime before Wednesday. It could happen. Rob is predicting that my water will break on Sunday afternoon, about 3:30--right before the Chargers game (Christ, we're still talking about football?!)--and we'd be OK with that as well. We could also still end up with a C-section. We'll deal with whatever outcome we get, because in the end, we still get to come home with our girl :).

It's going to be a long week, though.

She gets her own birthday; I get to keep mine.

I did have high hopes for a 2008 tax deduction, but it doesn't look good. This morning, it was made abundantly clear that she's going to be a January baby, and we won't be winning any "first baby of the year" awards either. And that's fine. She's healthy and active and will be here in her own time. I'm kind of relieved that we won't have to worry about getting across town to the hospital in a panic tonight when the crazy New Years Vegas party is in full force. Sure, we kind of scrambled to get everything ready, but we're so glad we did. It's hard to wait for her to get here, but it would be harder to try to do all of the scrambling with a sleeping/crying/wet/hungry baby in the house.

There's not much else going on. We're going to celebrate an early New Years with some friends tonight--the ball will be dropping at Jay and Tina's at midnight sharp, east coast time, so that the kids can enjoy it as well. We often laugh at how the parties in our circle have evolved over the years. They're much calmer and usually (but not always) quite a bit more dignified now, but no less fun.

Happy New Year!

Hello My Baby, Hello My Darlin', Hello My Ragtime Gal

You know the song, don't deny it. In the cartoon, the guy finds the frog in the cornerstone, and the frog starts singing.


The guy gets dollar signs in his eyes and takes the frog to a booking agent where the frog sits in the box and gives an indifferent croak. The guy tries to make him dance


And the frog does nothing.

How does this relate to us? I have come to the conclusion that this child is a reincarnation of Michigan J. Frog. For hours a day, she is jumping around, moving, poking, and doing high kicks. And this is reassuring to me because it means that she's OK, so I'm not complaining.

But the moment that I put someone else's hand on my belly, or that she's on deck for an ultrasound that is supposed to track her movement, there she goes, collapsing into an indifferent crouch, doing her best "No, really, I'm just a frog" imitation. Yesterday, the tech at the perinatalogist's office actually commented on her lack of movement, and said "Hmm, looks like we'll have to zap her." I'll say that again: "LOOKS LIKE WE'LL HAVE TO ZAP HER." What?! She brings in this device that can only be described as a miniature cattle prod, puts it on my belly, and pushes the button. I jump, baby jumps, Rob looks on in horror because they are evidently electrocuting his wife and child (it really wasn't so bad, just startling). And all of this because Speck only performs for me.

I've spent months trying to get other people to see this show. There have been nights where I slept 30 minutes at a time because she was so active. I've had to walk out of meetings because I couldn't sit comfortably because of the movement. And the second anyone looks at it, or I give in and say "OK, come here for a second" and try to let someone else get in on the action, she goes back to her peaceful slumber. People look at me like I'm nuts. Rob thought I was making it up until he snuck a peek one night (when Speck obviously wasn't looking) and caught sight of a couple of backflips for himself.

*sigh*

Everything is good. Probably too good, in fact. Her heartrate is still strong, she's in no distress, my blood pressure is really good, plenty of amniotic fluid. My OB took a measurement of my belly, and said "I don't know where you're packing this kid!" because while Speck's a normal size, I'm running a bit small. She's got another patient who's also 38 weeks who is "big as a house" and can barely move around. So I'm lucky there. And I'm taking comfort in reminding myself that she can't stay in there forever.

Can she?

No baby yet.

In case you're checking. But things are happening. At the perinatalogist on Thursday for the weekly fetal assessment, we determined that I'm having contractions. Not the Big Important "BOIL SOME WATER! GET SOME TOWELS! " contractions, but the kind that mean that things are moving in the right direction. My OB said on Wednesday that we'll most likely not have any excitement for at least a couple of weeks or so (I feel like I've been in "couple of weeks" mode for a month now...), but the contractions are a good sign.

It snowed this week! Twice, in fact. And not the usual insignificant Vegas flurry that makes everybody freak out for an hour and then it's back to normal. No, this was an event that began around 11AM and continued through the night. I left work around 4, and it took me over an hour to make the 10 mile drive to Dad & Florence's where I ended up staying the night. Here's what our backyard looked like that night.


WEIRD. This was the most significant snowfall that has been seen here since January of 1974, and I have pictures of that one as well, as it was my first birthday. Truly, I've come full circle as far as snow is concerned. Naturally, the snow from this latest blizzard is almost entirely melted. But it was cool to watch.

I have three days left of work and then the university closes for Christmas and New Years (or "the holiday", as we PC State Employees are required to call it) and I'll officially be on maternity leave until March. HOORAY! This last week was tough--I found myself wishing I'd taken these two weeks off because it's just such an effort to get there. My fabulous assistant (see pic of bride below...) is trained and ready to cover for me. This next short week will consist mainly of me cleaning out my desk, clearing my internet history (me? surf? what? never!), and just tying up the loose ends. It's so strange to do all of this; it's like I'm moving out of the house all over again.

That's the latest, then. We're starting to focus on the process of Getting To The Hospital when it's time. We have a code that I'll text to Rob if he's at work when it happens so he can hit the door ASAP. Our bags are packed (this was also handy on Wednesday because I had jammies and get-ready stuff with me when I crashed at Dad's...). The hospital is kind of a schlep across town, so we're hoping that when Miss Speck decides to show up, it's not during rush hour (unless Woman In Labor with Imminent Baby Coming qualifies me for the carpool lane). We're not taking the laptop with us, but we'll have our phones and will keep people updated as best we can.

No one you see, is smarter than she.

Join me in singing the theme to Flipper, because that's what our little Speck has become. She has flipped over, demonstrating that she has inherited my internal compass and innate sense of direction. Today's visit to the perinatalogist was different from previous ones. It began with a quick, rather low-tech ultrasound to check on position, amniotic fluid, and whether she is practicing her breathing. Position? Good! Fluid? Good! Lung function? Good!

They also hooked me up to an industrial strength Doppler for 20 minutes to monitor her heartrate and determine whether she is experiencing any stress or distress. If there is evidence of either, or any issues with the position/fluid/lungs, they start talking about scheduling an induction or Cesarean section. Today, there was no indication that anything is wrong (great!) and it looks like I'm going to be pregnant for a bit longer (um...great.). I'll go back weekly for this ultrasound/monitoring for, well, the next 3-4 weeks.

Her newly-established orientation means that while there is no longer a head periodically wedging itself amongst my lungs, new and exciting shapes have begun appearing on my right side where her arms and legs are pointing. So, last night, for example, we should have known something had changed when a "limb-y" shape (according to Rob, who saw it live) emerged from under my ribcage instead of the usual "head-y" shape to which we had grown accustomed.

So what's next? We have three bags to pack: one for baby, with a couple of outfits, some blankets, and some extra space for the diapers and other swag we've been told to hoard at the hospital; one for me, with comfy clothes for coming home, various and sundry specialized undergarments, and travel-sized toiletries; and one for Rob, with a change of clothes, snacks, magazines, and other Rob-friendly items that will help him pass the time between our arrival and the baby's. We need to get the car-seat installed, because they won't let us leave the hospital with the baby unless that's done. We have a few things left to buy. And then we wait patiently for this little girl to decide that she's ready for a change of scenery.

Stalked by the paparazzi

We're starting to realize that Miss Speck is not a fan of having her picture taken. People go to a lot of trouble to record every facet of her development, and she just doesn't cooperate. Like today, for example. Very important milestones needed to be confirmed, and she did her best to make everybody beg for it. She rolled around and flipped and put her arms over what they were trying to look for. But we did get some good shots.

Work with me here...
OK, if you squint a little you can see a big blob that is her head, looking at you (kind of scary, we know). The one little floating circle on the left is her right hand, and her other arm is folded over her chest. She spent most of the exam with her arms up around her head like that, much to the chagrin of the sonographer.

Another head shot. Top of her head is to the right, and the pointy part on the left is her chin. Her nasal cavity has formed, as have her eyelids and ears. Evidently, this is a good picture. We'll take the tech's word for it. She's beautiful :).

Profile! How cool is this!? The white spot above her head is her hand, in a gesture of drama and exasperation (she is my kid, after all...). Look at that little button nose. CUTE.


Another profile, and she's looking away now. You can see more of her torso, and that black spot is her heart. The tech looked at her heart quite a bit, and all four chambers are pumping furiously (136 bpm today...). The sonogram machine has a function that adds color to highlight bloodflow, so this one was all lit up blue and red. Super cool, that.


This is her right foot. The smaller blob behind it is her left foot. She crossed one behind the other like I do. Awww...

So that's where we are today, at 22 weeks. Speck has 10 fingers and 10 toes, and we also got to rule out spina bifida, which is what happens when the skin doesn't cover the spine (there's more to it than that, but visible spine with no skin is a big indicator of Bad Things Happening). Today was also really cool because I could feel her moving around while watching her move on the TV screen. It's just overwhelming. She weighs about 1 pound 1 ounce, and she's about 8 inches long. She's still measuring right where she should. We also re-confirmed in no uncertain terms that she is most assuredly a girl.

I'm back at the perinatalogist in 10 weeks. While I'm bummed that we won't have any new episodes of the Speck Show until November, this means that there's nothing that they're monitoring us for, no issues that we're anticipating, no reason to hurry back. She's healthy and growing, and there's nothing more that we would wish for.

Kick Me!

Speck has made her presence known. They tell you to expect a flutter, or some other really light delicate sensation. Night before last, I'm laying down poking around my belly hoping to feel something, and I guess she got tired of being nudged around and she SHOVED up against my hands. Scared the hell out of me. Once we established that she was indeed still safely in utero, we came to the conclusion that our offspring may turn out to be a bit, um, active. Pray for us and anything that is breakable in our home...

For the record, she's poking me right now, and has been all day.

This morning I had another OB check--heartbeat (hers, 156 bpm), blood pressure (mine, 112/60), weight (mine, no comment but still within reasonable parameters). Right now, she's about the size of an average banana. She's measuring right where she should, and we're feeling very smug about our ability to make such a perfect child. Remind us of this feeling someday, perhaps after we catch her borrowing a car without permission, or some other such shenanigan that may or may not have had a precedent set by one or both of her parents.

This weekend we'll be in San Diego, and we're really really REALLY looking forward to getting out of town. Between the weather (hot, sticky), work (crazy), school (Rob, and he's seeing the light at the end of that tunnel) and preparing for our Blessed Event, we're a bit frazzled.

That's about it. I'm back at the peri next week, so there should be pictures and much gushing from us :).

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice

Biggest news yet! Well, biggest news since actually finding out that a baby is going to happen...

In case you haven't noticed by the new decor, we have determined with 99% certainty (per the doctor) that Speck is a girl. Rob is already considering what convent she'll be moving into when she hits puberty, and I believe he's also eyeing the door on the soon-to-be nursery to see how hard it would be to take it off the hinges.

As the tech so eloquently labeled it, there is an absolute, unequivocal absence of certain key elements. So there we go. We're having a daughter.

We do have other pictures as well. The actual ultrasound lasted probably 45 minutes. She took a ton of measurements. Speck (we'll still call her this...) has 2 functioning kidneys, the right sort of stuff going on with her heart (aortas and veins and such) and good bloodflow through the umbilical cord. She's measuring right where she should for 18 weeks 2 days and she weighs 9 ounces.

This is her profile. She was moving around quite a bit, so we didn't really get a good clear shot of too much that translates well into still pictures. Plus, she had the hiccups. OMG so cute.


That's her foot. Awwww...

OK we're taking a leap of faith with this one, and we'll believe what the tech said about this being a really good picture of her face. I can't tell. Somebody give me a Mother of the Year award for not being able to identify my child's face.

So that's what happened today. Naturally, we would have been thrilled either way because right now all signs are pointing toward a healthy baby. I maintain that all of my friends who didn't find out what they were having are nuts because finding out today was no less of a surprise than it would have been in January.

So everyone who voted for "girl" in our poll, rock on for being right! And for the record, I knew she was a girl too. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. It's another good day :)

No news, but progress is being made.

Last week's appointment was a check up--more for me than for Speck, actually. We checked the heartbeat, which was solid and steady. Most of the time was spent on how I'm doing. For the last 4 months we've been focusing on Speck's health and it was weird to be thinking about my own again. Blood pressure is important right now--if it's too high it can be an indicator of something being wrong, and it can also be a risk factor in itself for all sorts of bad things. Mine is good. She also measured my belly, which can be affected if Speck is growing too large. While we want a good-sized healthy baby (not too big, mind you...), if the baby is growing too quickly it can be a sign of gestational diabetes. We want to avoid that :). But all is well. We didn't find out the sex, as she just used a Doppler to find the heartbeat. I'll have a series of ultrasounds at the perinatalogist this week and we *should* know after that. They make no promises and therefore we don't either.

In other news, we did make our first Big Purchase, as far as equipment goes. We bought a stroller and car seat.

Very exciting, right? Judging by the shape of the box, we're predicting that Some Assembly is Required. Let the fun begin!

Second Trimester! Hooray!

According to babyfit.com, when you hit 14 weeks you're officially in the second trimester. This is a significant milestone, as many (not all) of the early risks of Something Bad happening are not quite as likely. Speck is now between 3 and 4 inches long and weighing about an ounce. I ended up not having an ultrasound this past week, but I did get to hear the heartbeat.

Early blood tests came back--chromosomal issues (like Downs and some other particularly unpleasant conditions) have been ruled out. I go back to the perinatalogist in August for more tests to determine if there are any spinal issues. At least I think that's what will happen. Quite frankly, they have thrown a lot of information at us, most of it scary, and we just kind of nod our heads and look thoughtful until we can get home and figure out what exactly was said. Based on the good results we've had thus far, we've decided to be conservative as far as further testing goes, especially the more invasive stuff.

Florence's daughter who lives in Canada sent our first official baby gift.

It's super cute and is evidently all the rage as far as baby toys go. As I was trying it out (it's very soft and pleasing to the touch...) I found a squeaker, which immediately got the attention of the dog. I learned at once that baby toys and dog toys are quite similar, and we may have to come up with some sort of strategy for making sure that Gracie keeps her nose on her own toys. This reminded us of a moment right after Rob moved in when Gracie found an autographed baseball on a low shelf and immediately claimed it as her own. Hilarity ensued.

Rob has decided that he's going to pass his love of San Diego sports on to his child (fine with me--I've seen my share of baseball games and I'm willing to relinquish my position on the couch).



Really, how cute is that stuff? I'm all pherklempt about the booties.

The Scary Doctor was Not So Scary...

...but the genetic counselor thing was a bit freaky. We're sitting there all content and only just a little bit worried about stuff--the usual, lately--and she starts talking about chromosomes and testing and risks and she drew a little diagram of my family, genetically (she left out the loop that originated in the Ozarks...), and of Rob's (again, no flourishes) and we determined that we're not related to each other (as I suspected we were not). What we learned today is that at this point, Speck is chromosomally complete, and all that's left from here on out is growth. So they can test for all sorts of scary genetic conditions and tell poor unsuspecting expectant parents that there's a 1 in 3000 chance of this or a 1 in a bajilillion chance of that. There is some blood work that they're waiting for the results on, and when that comes in, we'll figure out just how much we want to know.

And then they took pictures and we heard the heartbeat, strong and steady. Hooray!

So here's Speck at 12 weeks:

In this one, Speck is turned away so here's a good shot of the spine and back of the head (head is on right).

Nice profile shot here. Good looking kid. That's the umbilical cord on Speck's belly.

Speck is facing us, and she was nice enough to label where the face is. Speck has eyes and a brain, all of which should come in very handy at some point. You can see the two halves of the brain on the right, and the eyes are just to the left of that.

And this last one....here's the money shot. Speck offers up a full moon. It was easier to see live, but rest assured, it's there. The little white horizontal smudges on the left are legs.


It's a good day. We go back to this doc in 6 weeks.

The Long Hot Summer Begins

It's supposed to be 106 today. That's the official airport temperature, which means that it will be well over 110 in most other neighborhoods. Let me just say that I am so thankful that I'm not 8-1/2 months along and puffy and miserable because of the heat. When I'm 8-1/2 months along, I want to be puffy and miserable because of too much holiday food. I'm looking forward to holiday food, because none of it is on my "Do Not Eat" list like most of my summer favorites are. I was just having a conversation about this yesterday. Things like sushi, deli meats, tuna salad and other nice cool foods are all off limits. Don't even get me started on beverages... I've been known to get home from work when it's 115 outside, stop at the fridge, grab a beer, and head straight for a nice cold shower. Cold showers lose their appeal when there's no beer involved, let me tell you.

In other news, my peri appointment was rescheduled for 6/25. They wrote it down wrong (for today, which, had we known about it a week ago, would have been perfect) . They had to scramble a bit but they made it work. So we're twice rescheduled with them and we're fairly confident that there will be no more screwing with our appointments. Here's hoping. If you're curious, the website for the facility is www.cmfm.net. I'll be seeing Dr. Wold, and I have it on good authority that he'll take good care of us.