More Things That Surprised Me About Being Pregnant

I certainly didn't think I knew everything about being pregnant before it happened to me, but I thought I had a good handle on things.  And then some general assumptions of mine about what pregnancy is like were completely blown out of the water.

1) Pregnant bellies are much more sensitive than non-pregnant bellies.  This simply never occurred to me.  I figured a belly was a belly.  However, when you gain weight, and your belly gets bigger, the additional weight is mostly located on the outside of the abdominal wall.  When you are pregnant, all of the increase is happening inside the abdominal wall -- which means that, when you press on that belly, you are pressing the baby right up against your internal organs.  It's not like pressing against a regular belly, that has the usual amount of room between those organs.  So being able to sleep on my stomach, or wear too-tight jeans, has a completely different dimension of discomfort to it than I had previously expected.  And speaking of internal organs...

2) Developing babies kick in all directions.  Again, simply something that hadn't occurred to me before.  I tended to think of kicks being aimed exclusively outward, towards the abdominal wall.  Sure, I had heard of babies kicking their moms in the bladder in the later stages of pregnancy, but my little one actually spent day 2 of noticeable kicking using my bladder as a speed bag for about half an hour.  It wasn't disastrous, but it was certainly uncomfortable.  And since then, I have been kicked in the bowels, in various other organs, and, most uncomfortably, in the cervix.  Yes, the baby can kick downward and hit that very sensitive body part from the inside -- a distinct and exceptionally uncomfortable sensation.

3) Braxton-Hicks "practice" contractions commonly begin as early as the seventh month of your pregnancy.  I had heard of Braxton-Hicks, but only in association with the last week or two of pregnancy -- I had no idea that your uterus can start "practicing" for the big show three whole months before the baby is due.  The connection between these contractions and giving birth was so strong in my mind, when the doctor identified what I had experienced in these terms, I felt like suddenly we were completely out of time and the baby would be here next week, which sent me into a complete panic for a few days.  I've (mostly) gotten over than now, but that reality check definitely kicked our preparations into high gear.

4) Along with increased gas production comes a decreased ability to sneak one discretely.  I have mentioned the fact that, along with everything else horrible your hormones do to you when you're pregnant, one of them is increase the amout of gas your body produces.  As a girl, I was a pro at either holding gas in indefinitely, or silently passing it little at a time.  No longer.  I have no idea if it's a matter of higher internal pressures, changes in external anatomy, or a loosening of the sphincter that comes along with the loosening of joints and whatnot, but it is much more difficult to manage my gas quietly these days.  Which is unfortunate, since I have to spend a signifiant amount of my days presenting in front of a class for 50 minutes at a time, where I can't simply slip out to the restroom for some privacy.  Last week, I had two audible toots escape during the first hour of class, despite my best efforts;  thank goodness my students were willing to follow my lead and act as through absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  (And, finally, the training I received in Kyrgyzstan to show absolutely no reaction when little boys threw whipper-snapper fireworks at my feet came in handy again!)

5) You will never in your life be asked so frequently and by so many people, "How are you feeling?"  As a woman, I fear that I have been amiss in not constantly asking the pregnant woman I have been in contact with how they were feeling.  For that, I apologize.  I simply didn't understand that the symptoms of pregnancy become an overwhelming preoccupation.  Even now, I'm not sure that I completely empathize with the sentiment, as I have been extraordinarily lucky so far and have managed to escape many of the discomforts of pregnancy.  At first, I found it somewhat annoying to be asked how I felt all the time, since I clearly felt just fine.  Then, I began to feel guilty, since I still clearly felt just fine.  Now I am prepared for the question, and I feel grateful that I can still answer, "Good!"  I also hedge my bets by letting everyone know that, while I have been very, very lucky so far, I am sure that I will pay for it later on.  Whether that payment comes due during labor, the terrible twos, or the teenaged years, I am sure that I will somehow have to pay heftily for an almost complete lack of morning sickness, and the ability to stay in my pre-pregnancy jeans until almost the end of my sixth month.

6) Maternity clothes suck.  Despite the fact that I live in the state with the highest birth rate in the entire US, it is incredibly difficult to find maternity clothes.  You are lucky to find 2 or 3 racks of clothes in the maternity section, with 2 styles of pants and 5 or 6 styles of shirts, assuming the store that you are in even HAS a maternity section.  And they do cruel things like putting it next to the petites section, or, hilariously, right next to the prom dresses.  And to add insult to injury, even in discount stores, the clothes in the maternity section are never discounted, meaning you pay an arm and a leg for clothes that have a limited window to be worn.  (Although, it has been pointed out to me that I will need to keep wearing those maternity clothes for several months after giving birth, another point I had not really considered before, so the window won't be quite as short as I had imagined.)  As for comfort, if you opt for full-coverage like I did, the top of the pants come up to your armpits, while the belly panel is cut so low it starts at your crotch, so you are forced to wear maternity shirts with them, because other shirts simply aren't cut long enough to preserve the illusion that you are wearing mormal jeans.  In my case, I also need a belly band to keep my pants from slipping down, which means another layer of elastic over my belly, and then, in our chilly March weather, a long shirt under a sweater.  The pants are constantly slipping down and taking my underwear with them, but I need to pull them up from the armpits, while simultaneously tugging my shirts down to ensure full belly coverage.  I wish the weather and my job would allow me to walk around with a few inches of cute, pregnant belly hanging out, but that's simply out of the question.  The whole process is so annoying, I have started only wearing real pants when I need to leave the house, and living in pajama bottoms and yoga pants the rest of the time.

Shopping for maternity clothes!

I am sure that there are more revelations to come in the next few months, and I will be sure to share them with you.  For now, I can simply ask, what unexpected surprises did preganncy hold for you?

A Belated Knitted Tortoise

I just downloaded some photos from my camera and discovered that I had never posted about this project that I did back in January.

My second job is for the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, and my boss, B, is an awesome guy.  So I decided that I needed to knit him something as a Christmas present, and I decided that something needed to be Piecrust the Tortoise.

I was drawn to the pattern because of the three-dimensional nature of the shell.  What I didn't realize was that the bumps were created by embroidering the whole damned thing.  Or that he would have so many pieces to put together!  Body, head, tail, front and back feet, top and bottom of upper shell, and a double-thick undershell all needed to be sewed together correctly.  But the cool thing is the body is one piece, which is then sandwiched between the upper, domed shell and a flat "pancake" lower shell, so that you could, theoretically pull his little body out of the shell.

I kinda screwed up the picot edge on the upper shell, since it was the first time I'd ever done one and I didn't understand the concept at first, but otherwise I think he came out pretty good.  The shell wasn't as bumpy as the original, but I was still pretty happy with how he turned out.

Then it occurred to me that my boss is not the kind of person who likes having random decorative thingies laying around.  But I also remembered that he has two 10-year-old kids.  He seemed to like the tortoise, but the next day I found out that my hunch about his kids had paid off.  His daughter absolutely LOVED it.  Yay!

Finger puppet fun

Sorry I haven't been posting on here much -- being pregnant has got my energy levels a little lower than usual, and my class schedule has me pretty busy this term.  But I do have a little knitting project I just finished that I thought I'd write about.

I made finger puppets for my little cousin for Christmas, and they were such a hit with the family, my mom requested I make some more for her to give as gifts to a friend's two boys.  The only patterns I have are for a mouse and an octopus, but she wanted 4 altogether.  So I thought about the variations I could make on those patterns, and came up with an elephant and a goldfish.  While the ideas came strictly from the original shapes, it was nice that they created thematic pairs, too.

Elephant and mouse

Octopus and goldfish

All of the finger puppets start on a cone-shaped base.  The mouse simply adds big ears and a tail, and then you embroider on the face.  I made his nose a little too big, and I set his ears a bit too low, but I still think he's cute.

For the elephant, I made a trunk by starting with a wider strip than the tail, put in a few rows of ribbing for the bend, slowly decreased, and then finished it off by casting off the final stitches to make a wide end instead of a pointed tip like the mouse tail.  The ears have just a few more rows than the mouse ears, making them a little wider, and I sewed more of the base to the head to make them more stable, and turned them wrong-side out for variety.  Then I added tusks by copying the decreases from the mouse tail to make them pointy.  And the eyes are just embroidered.

For the octopus, you start with the cone shape, and then instead of decreasing for the tip, you increase to make the round head and stuff it.  Then you knit 8 separate legs, sew them on, and finish with an embroidered face again.  In the original, you make the finger cone the same color as the octopus, but I decided to do his in blue this time.

The inspiration for the blue cone was the fact that there weren't going to be any legs to hide it on the goldfish.  I followed the same pattern, then knit a wide-based tail that increased, and three triangular fins.  I wanted the tail to be frilly, which I have done on a neck ruffle, doubling the stitches every row for a few rows.  However, the yellow yarn I was using was a finer gauge than the rest, and I couldn't seem to make it work right when I doubled the yarn, so after 4 or 5 tries I just did all the fins in garter stitch.  Then I embroidered on the lips and the eyes.

Personally, I think they all came out pretty good.  But I'll have to wrack my brain to come up with more animals next time!

Christmas knitting

As usual, I was a busy knitter for Christmas this year.  I made presents for several people, and had a lot of fun doing it.

I started with an addition to the knitted nativity scene I started for my mom last year. I got the original patterns from Running Jack Knits, and adapted them this year. The wise men were just variations on the pattern for Joseph.

Full wise men set

I started with this guy. I obviously made his skin dark brown, and his beard black.  Then I did a robe in brown and white yarn, which came out a little too long because I was using two yarns at once and didn't think to asjuct the pattern.  I knitted a long, flat piece in white, which I then wrapped around his head as a turban and sewed on.  I skipped the sleeves on his clothing, and made a gold bottle by knitting a very small tube in the round, and then decreasing and finishing the top few rows as I-cord.  I then stitched the bottle to his hands.

Balthasar, the Arab Wise man



The next one I decided to make in shades of purple, with beige skin and a white beard, and I just switched to purple yarn to finish his head, instead of making the hat a separate piece.  I made his cloak pretty short.  He ended up looking like a wizard, so I did some gold embroidery on his hat, but I'm not sure it really helped that much.  For the box, I made it like some of the baby booties I have knit before: I did a small garter stitch rectangle, then picked up stitches around all 4 edges and worked them in stockinette stitch for a few rows to make the sides, and finally finished by knitting in garter stitch from one short end, picking up the side stitches by using K2TOG at the edge of each row, and I think I closed the end with a kitchener stitch.  It ended up a little big, but it works.

Melchior, the Persian wise man

 For the last wise man, I went with beige skin and a brown beard, orange clothes, and a green and white striped cloak with a braided white belt.  I knit a miniature hat with a white rolled edge and an extended pointed tip, but it ended up pretty big for his little head.  When I sewed it on, I added a lot of extra stitches to try and shape it the way I liked it.  I made him a silver bottle, which started the same as the gold bottle, but I wrapped the yarn a few times around the neck instead of doing I-cord, for variation.

Caspar, the Indian wise man

The hardest part was the camel -- I couldn't find a camel pattern that looked like it would come out to the right size for this set, so I started with the donkey pattern, and just winged it.  It starts from the butt, so I added a bunch of increases to one side of the tube, and then decreased back down, and was pretty successful with the hump.  I tried increases on one side and decreases on the other to make the long neck bend, but it didn't really go the way I wanted it to.  I then did the head, with more shaping to get the big nose, and I think that worked out pretty well.  I then picked up a few stitches on either side of the head to make the ears, did two long, fat I-cords for the front legs and just sewed them to the sides (this yarn was very forgiving for that kind of thing), and pretended he didn't need back legs.  A few pieces of yarn threaded through the butt and braided together made a cute tail that you can't see.  I did a lot of stitching to get the neck curved the way I wanted it (again, thank goodness for knobbly yarn), made a little seed stitch blanket that I just sewed onto his back, and used a single strand of the same yarn for the harness and reins.  Scale-wise he's a little big for the wisemen, especially his head, but I'm still happy with him.

the requisite wise man transportation device

My next gift was something small and easy for my cousin's little girl, who is just about two.  I have made the mouse and octopus from my Toys to Knit book before, but I think I like my yarn choices a little bit better this time around.  According to my mom, these finger puppets were a big hit with my family at Christmas.

Finger puppets

The last item was a quick project so that I would have an extra gift for my dad, and I am honestly quite disappointed with how it turned out, but it's all my fault.  I found a web site called ODDknit with patterns for fossils, and decided to make the trilobite for my dad.  He has one on his desk, and they are one of his favorite fossils.  However, my first mistake was choosing my yarn badly; the grey I picked for the body of the fossil was slightly speckled and very matte, so the trilobite body pattern doesn't stand out well.  I am okay with my use of thick-and-thin tan yarn for the rock, which adds texture.  But the biggest mistake was how I picked up the stitches.  It was very difficult to see the pattern as I was trying to pick the stitches up around the edges, so that was a pain to begin with.  Once it was done, I realised I had been holding my knitting the wrong way as I picked up the stitches, a common problem for me, so that if I now started knitting in the round, the square edges of the swatch that are supposed to end up inside the rock would be on the outside.  I basically started knitting by taking the yarn in the opposite direction I'd been working in, but that left me with an odd outline around my trilobite, instead of the smooth transition from fossil to rock that should be there.

crappy trilobite

I am honestly tempted to try it again with different yarn, and picking up the stitches correctly.  Maybe for my dad's birthday or something.

There is one more project I am still working on, but I'll show that to you guys when I'm done with it.  So, what did you knit this year for Christmas?

The Unexpected

Maybe I haven't paid close attention, but before I got pregnant, I only knew about a few typical symptoms of early pregnancy.  There's morning sickness, of course -- which I knew didn't have to be limited to mornings, and didn't necessarily have to end after the first trimester.  And then I knew your boobs got bigger and very sensitive.  And I knew that during the first trimester, women tend to be very tired in the afternoons. 

Well, I got incredibly lucky with the morning sickness -- I had 3 or 4 incidents where, out of the blue, I would suddenly think I might throw up, but after a minute or two of some serious burping, I would be fine.  But my mom didn't have any morning sickness when she was pregnant with my sister, and I tend to take after her when it comes to women stuff, so I had been prepared for that.  My boobs didn't get a lot bigger, but they were definitely sore.  And I sure did want a nap in the afternoons!

But there are a bunch of other symptoms that no one warned me about.  In fact, in some cases, I wouldn't have even known they were connected to my pregnancy if it wasn't for my copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Thirst
I knew that you needed to stay hydrated during your first trimester, but I had no idea how thirsty I would be all the time!  It got to the point where I made sure to walk around with a water bottle in my hand at all times, so I wouldn't be constantly looking for a water fountain.  I looked like some kind of eco-conscious fitness fanatic.

Peeing
Yeah, it seems like a logical conclusion that, if you are drinking all the time, you will be peeing all the time.  But I seemed to be peeing out twice as much as I was putting in!  I expected to have a tiny tank at the end of my pregnancy, but not at the beginning.

Gas
Yup, not only would I look like a water buffalo soon, I get to start smelling like one right away.

Stuffy Nose and Nosebleeds
Considering the time of year, I started thinking I had a cold, but a very mild one.  Then I noticed it seemed worse in bed, so I thought maybe it was allergies.  Then when I'd blow my nose in the shower in the morning, I'd often see a spot of blood, which is really strange for me -- I have never had a full-blown nosebleed in my life.  Turns out, all my mucous membranes are swelling and softening right now, as my cervix starts prepping for this kid to get here.  It's bad enough when my nose decides to get involved when I eat spicy food -- now it's got to try copying my cervix, too?

Popping Ears
Even though T has a CPAP machine now, I am still in the habit of wearing earplugs every night.  I noticed that one of my ears started making popping noises when I would yawn or swallow.  I worried that it was an ear infection, but there was no pain or pressure.  Shouldn't have worried -- apparently, my eustacian tubes are trying to copy my nose and cervix.  Not very original.

Being a Klutz
I had heard of pregnancy brain, but not pregnancy hands.  I find myself dropping things more often than usual, which should mean that my reflexes are bad, but somehow, I can often catch them as they are falling.  So I'm like some kind of klutzy Catwoman.

The Dreams
I had heard of pregnant women having strange sex dreams, but I wasn't prepared for the fact that ALL of my dreams have been weird.  I'm someone who has a lot of vivid dreams to begin with, and I tend to look to them to see what is stewing around in my subconscious.  But these days, I just assume that my subconscious is playing Mad Libs, because nothing makes sense to me.

Did you have any other unexpected symptoms when you were pregnant?

Homemade Christmas Present Idea

I have been neglecting this blog since I got pregnant, but I thought I would post something I made recently, in case anyone needed a quick, inexpensive Christmas present idea.  I made these as a housewarming present for my sister, who is a rhino keeper at the North Carolina Zoo.  You can choose whatever you'd like for your theme.

I was trying to come up with a practical housewarming gift that she could use, and I thought of kitchen towels.  But I decided to personalize them by using fabric markers.

The whole process was pretty simple.  I went online and looked for free clip art of rhinos (I went for free clip art because I wouln't be violating any copyright laws, and I thought I could find simple line drawings that would be easy to transfer to fabric).  I found 4 .jpg images of 4 different species of rhino:

white rhino

black rhino

Javan rhino

Indian rhino

The pictures had a lot of detail, but I thought I could get the outlines traced simply.  Then I picked up flour sack kitchen towels (a pack of 5 at Shopco was under $5) because they were plain with a smooth fabric.  I went to Michael's and got an iron-on transfer pencil, fabric markers, and picked up a plain apron that they also had in the fabric section.  At home, I had the rest of the items I would need: pins, an iron and ironing board, the printed rhino pictures, and some sandpaper.  I also printed out a simple sun from my Word clip art to use as my test subject on the fifth towel, which would be mine.

Supplies

The process was pretty simple, if a little time-consuming due to the amount of detail in the pictures I had chosen.  I would hold the printed picture up to the window on our back door so that I could trace the design from the front of the paper onto the back with the transfer pencil (if you have a light table, it would do the same job without making your arms tired!).  Then I would go over the tracing again at the table, to make sure I had a good, heavy pencil line.  This required a lot of sharpening of the transfer pencil, to make sure I had a good line all the way around that didn't get too thick.

 

Next, I would cut out the paper design with a tab at the top, and use the tab to pin the design on the fabric, printed side up.  Having the printed design visible on the front made it easy to see exactly where it would be lined up.  I followed the directions for the transfer pencil, using a hot, no-steam setting on the iron and running over the design for a few minutes until it transferred, being very careful not to shift the paper while I was ironing.  With the pin holding it in place, it was easy to carefully turn up one corner to see if the lines were dark enough, without shifting the paper, and then go over it some more if necessary.  I used the white rhino twice, once on a towel and once on the apron, which just required going over the lines on the back of the paper with the pencil a second time, to make sure the design would transfer to a new piece of fabric.

Ironing the transfer

When it was done, the pink transfer lines on the fabric were still often a little faint, so having the picture to refer to made tracing the correct lines a little easier.  I would then pick the color of marker I wanted, and very carefully trace over the transfer lines on the fabric.  Smoothing the fabric over a piece of sandpaper before I started helped keep it from sliding around and bunching up as I worked.  I did need to keep an eye on the tip of the marker, which would eventually start to wear down and shed, making my lines less crisp.  But I could just pull off the loosened fuzz once near the end of each picture and that seemed to work just fine.  I would then go over the main outline of the design one more time with the marker, to make those lines a little heavier than the details.

Finished rhinos with front and back of paper showing

I even found, with my test design, that it was easy to color in the design with a second color, which didn't try to bleed outside the outline.

My colored-in sun

I let them dry completely overnight, and then, even though the markers said it wasn't necessary, I ran the iron over the designs again for a few minutes to try and heat set the colors, so they wouldn't fade in the wash.  To be safe, I ironed the backside of the fabric to make sure the iron didn't smear the ink, and put a piece of paper between my ironing board and the design, but the ink didn't transfer to the paper.  I haven't washed mine yet, so I don't know how well this process worked.

Heat setting the ink



So there you go: an easy, homemade Christmas project!  Even with the amount of detail involved in the rhinos, I got all five transfers plus my sun done in a long afternoon.  I imagine if you had a simple design to work with, it could all go very quickly.  It does require a steady hand, but that is all: no natural artistic talent is required. 

Me and Princess Kate

The fact that the royal couple, William and Kate, are expecting a child is all over the news these days.  I feel a little bit of a bond with Kate Middleton, because we were thinking about kids at the same time, and now we're both pregnant.

I remember reporters asking the couple, on the day they announced their engagement in November of 2010, about whether or not they would have kids.  I remember that Kate quickly looked down and away, while Prince William fielded the first question, and my heart just broke for her.  As the interview continued, she said something about hoping they would have a large family, and I imagined that she was thinking the exact same thing that I was.

T and I had gotten married in June, and people immediately started asking us about kids.  I was 35 and while T and I had always talked about having kids, I was worried that it might not be possible for me to get pregnant.  While Kate was only 28, I imagined that she had the exact same fears as I did, especially considering the weight of an entire nation expecting her to produce a royal heir.

Then the waiting game began.  For both of us.  Once they had been married, tabloids were constantly looking to see if Kate was drinking water instead of wine, holding something in front of her tummy to hide it, any sign they could imagine of a secret pregnancy.  We couldn't start trying right away, because we had decided on a scuba diving honeymoon in February 2011, and you can't dive if you're pregnant.  Then they day after we got back, I was laid off from my job, and our plans were put on hold again.  In the shock of my layoff, we missed the COBRA window, and had to wait another year before I could be added to T's health insurance.  Even when I found a new job, it was part-time, with no benefits.  And then, very fortunately, in October of 2011, T got a new job with good healthcare benefits, we were both on his insurance right away, and we could get started.

Almost.  Since I had been using an IUD, I had to wait two months after it was out before we could have unprotected sex, just in case.  A friend had started just a few months before us, and she got pregnant with her third child quickly.  I thought, ok, in 2-3 months, we'll be all set.

But we weren't.  Every 28 days, like clockwork, there was my period again.  Once we hit the 6 month mark, we went back to the doctor.  They did a bunch of tests, mostly on me (T got to have some fun with a little cup), and while there was some concern about the shape of my uterus for a little while, we both passed every single test they did with flying colors.  I finally had a conversation with a nurse, as she gave me my last set of test results over the phone, where she said once again all of the numbers said I was very fertile.  I asked, if that was the case, then why wasn't I pregnant yet?  She said there was a possibility that we were dealing with "unexplained infertility," and that I should make an appointment to meet with the doctor and see what would come next.

Was Kate going through all this at the same time as me?  I don't know.  Listening to an announcer this morning on the news, he theorized that Will and Kate intentionally waited until the Queen's Diamond Jubilee was out of the way, and then until the home they will be moving into in April was in good shape.  But he made it sound like getting pregnant is the equivalent of turning on a light switch -- and, as you can tell, it's not always that easy.  Perhaps they were waiting, maybe they were also counting days and using ovulations kits, or perhaps she was going through some of the same tests as me, wondering if she was ever going to have the child that a whole country was waiting for.

Faced with "unexplained infertility," I started to prepare for the worst.  T and I had given ourselves a year to get pregnant, and then we were going to assume that the Universe didn't want us to have kids.  We only had 2 or 3 months left on that deadline.  So I started mentally preparing for it to be just the two of us, and the two dogs, from here on out.

And then my period didn't come.  And when I peed on a stick, two lines appeared.  I called the doctor, who said the pee stick was proof enough, and set up a 10-week prenatal appointment.  This didn't seem like enough proof, so I peed on a second stick, just to be sure.  And then came the weeks of trying to convince myself that I was really pregnant.  I didn't have any morning sickness, just felt extra hungry and tired, and couldn't tell anyone yet, because we wanted to tell my family in person when we were going to see them at Thanksgiving.  We did get to see an ultrasound at the first visit, but it was just a little blob with a flickering heartbeat.  We couldn't even hear the heartbeat, because of its position.  It still wasn't quite real.

We flew to North Carolina for Thanksgiving, and finally told my mom, dad, and sister over dinner.  Everyone started calling friends and family, and suddenly, with the news spreading like wildfire, it started feeling a little bit more real. 

Then, yesterday, I went in for a screening designed to check for spina bifida, Down's syndrome, and a condition known as Trisomy-18.  I told T he didn't need to take the time off work, because we had our regular prenatal appointment on Wednesday, and I thought it was going to be a pretty routine test.  But the ultrasound to check for the baby's nuchal translucency (the thickness of a fold of skin at the back of the neck, used to diagnose Down's syndrome) was far more than I expected.

Right away, there was a little profile on the screen, looking exactly like a baby!  All of my expectations for this came from movies -- mom and dad both look at the screen, holding hands, and then look at each other lovingly.  But in all of those scenes, the baby is just sitting there.  This little one was moving all over the place!  It was kicking and wiggling around, responding to the push of the ultrasound probe.  I could see tiny hands going up to the face, several times.  At one point, it flipped over and turned its back to us, like it was tired of being bothered by the papparazzi.  And while I was lying there, amazed that this little creature was actually inside of me, I didn't have anyone to give that long, significant look to.  It was just me and the tech, who was very friendly, but was pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing.  She found the heartbeat right away, and for just a few seconds it filled the room.  At the end she took a few pictures and handed them to me, and then we were done.  Once she left, while I waited for the genetic counselor to come back in, I took a picture of the last frame that was showing on the screen with my phone, while trying to keep it together and not cry, and sent it to T at work.  Based on the little blob just a few weeks before, I simply hadn't been prepared for that!

And then I got home, to the news that Kate was pregnant and in the hospital with a severe form of morning sickness.  And there was that little bit of imaginary kinship again.  I'm sorry that she got my morning sickness on top of her own, and I know that she is a few weeks behind me.  But we'll be going through this pregnancy together.  And hopefully she'll have that same sense of absolute wonder the first time she sees her little one dancing around inside her.

And now it's not just real that I'm pregnant, but it's becoming more real that I am having a baby.  I know that sounds like the same thing, but there is a difference in focus -- as someone who is pregnant, the focus is on me.  As someone having a baby, the focus is on it.  And so last night we finally picked a nickname for this little one -- Peanut.

My cell phone pic -- Peanut's profile on the upper left