the gd gd

i am ready for bed. i am exhausted from dealing with the gd gd. i just want milo to be born and to be fine. he's kicking in agreement right now.

we went to meet with the gd dietician first, who was nice enough and helpful and didn't talk to me like i was an imbecile (which would have annoyed me greatly and which has happened to me more than once at this facility by other educators). i had charted everything i've eaten since i got the diagnosis, and she felt like i was already on the right track, which was encouraging.

then we met with the nurse educator - also nice but a little....hmmmm....scattered. i think she has been doing gd education too long and it has become a bit rote, leaving her focus free to direct itself to other things. she actually forgot to give me the prescription for the glucometer, which i didn't realize until we were almost back home. and despite her slightly over-the-top enthusiasm about getting a new gd patient, she hadn't bothered to familiarize herself with my history, which i had to go over in complete detail again.

when i got home, i went ahead and called my insurance company first, to figure out how i get the machine from them and to find out to whom she should call in the prescription she forgot to give me. but instead of a simple call, i ended up bawling into a kitchen towel and telling the customer service agent with whom i was speaking that she had better let me talk to someone else, sometime after she informed me that i didn't have any of the options for which i signed up last fall, my equipment wouldn't be covered because of those non-choices, and i didn't have any reason to be upset. a more rational agent got on the phone, fixed my options, and gave me directions for picking up my FREE glucometer, although they did require my return to the hospital for the hard-copy Rx.

then followed a run back to my hospital for the Rx, dropping justin back at home, trekking across suburbia to the insurance company's own inconveniently-located pharmacy, a conversation with the pharmacy tech about why they couldn't provide the specific machine prescribed, several calls back and forth to my dr's office to determine what substitute would be acceptable, and listening to another pharmacy tech tell me how she was so obsessed when she had gd that she tested herself every few minutes until her provider finally took her equipment away.

i took the gardening magazine from the pharmacy waiting room with me when i left. it had some good ideas about starting a kitchen garden. i figured i'd earned it.

it ain't easy (keeping down greens)

for reasons unclear, i find myself repulsed by green, plant-based foods. i have been in this state of perpetual revulsion since early in the second trimester. yellow veggies? dandy. red veggies? bring 'em on. green ones? no, and i'll thank you to remove them from the building.

friday's gd news, though, has been sobering, and i have determined that i must, must get some green in my diet (since apparently mint chocolate chip ice cream doesn't count). so friday it was spinach, saturday: romaine and seaweed, sunday: mixed baby greens, yesterday: iceberg (i know, i know), and today: the trifecta of cucumbers, green bell peppers and broccoli (none of them in huge amounts, but still, some). it's grossing me out. my one tiny bit of fish for the week (tuna) should not have to come in contact with something so vile as a bell pepper, and cheese deserves better than to be associated with blechy broccoli. but at least i can show the gd dietician an effort when i go in tomorrow; i graphed everything i've consumed besides water since i got the gd news - i figure i might as well get started, because i know that's what i'll be asked to do starting tomorrow.

if anyone knows who i can talk to about getting mint chocolate chip ice cream recategorized into the green food sector (hey - mint is a plant!), please let me know. also, i think in return for voluntarily going into a building in which people regularly die in order to learn how to regularly cause my own blood to spill deserves at least a scoop of mint, don't you? (sigh) must investigate frozen, sugar-free yogurt at grocery store.

*****

at last: the answer to the mystery of that pregnant glow, courtesy of the onion, bless their pea-picking hearts.

71 sleeps

when justin was little and would ask his mom "how much longer?", she would tell him the number of "sleeps" he had left so he would know how many times he would have to go to bed before the big day arrived. i just saw that the milo countdown is now under 80 - woohoo! - and since with the gd (is it a coincidence that the initials of my crappy condition are the same as a profanity? i think not.) we won't go past 39 weeks, i only have 71 sleeps left. that would be a big number if i were 5, but it doesn't seem so bad at this point.

i'm past the shock of the gd news (love those initials) and i'm dealing okay. my mom knows, but we didn't tell justin's mom or his family, and we're going to keep it to ourselves, i think. it would drive me crazy to have people saying, "do you want some of this? oh, wait, can you have it? oh, i shouldn't have asked. i'm so sorry for asking!" all the time. i think it will be easier just to say "no, thanks" and leave it at that.

my big splurge today: a tiny, tiny cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream, maybe 6 bites worth, to cool off after my mom and i got overheated working upstairs. our bedroom is in what was the attic, and we had a freak day in the 90s today (only happens a few times a year) which turned our bedroom into an oven. we survived, though, and i am now sitting in the cleanest, most organized bedroom ever in the history of the universe, on the groovy bed we bought months ago but which has been sitting in boxes on the floor against the wall ever since. my mom and i also put the air conditioner in up here, which - now that the sun has set - makes it slightly bearable.

it feels good to have so much done here - a little pre-nesting, if you will. the house is so, so clean, milo's clothes are all freshly washed and folded and in his drawers, and the bassinet is set up in our bedroom, as of about 2 hours ago. both toilets are even clean at the same time, a minor miracle. i'm ready for my boy, as soon as he's ready for us. 71 sleeps and counting down.

all the news that's fit...

so we're back online, after a couple of hours on the phone while justin, my mom and i were all together in the closet where our modem and router and computery stuff is. i was on the phone interpreting the stilted english of the incredibly patient woman at linksys who helped us fix it, justin was doing all the requested tweaking of the cables and router and plugs, and my mom was holding up the laptop. man, are those lights hot in that closet. but we survived. we did have a secured network, but someone wanted in badly enough to hack past it, apparently.

because my mom is here, i haven't had any time to catch up on blogs, but i look forward to doing so tuesday.

yesterday was so nice - we went down to justin's cool youngest aunt's house, about an hour south, and justin's mom's family had a little shower for us. i was blown away - everyone has been so generous already, with hans, and here they are, doing even more. i feel so blessed. one very groovy thing we got yesterday was the diaper champ - i could turn that thing over all day. love how it works. another groovy thing was a pre-assembled scrapbook my mom gave us; all the pages already have cool papers and cut outs and the whole design layout on them - all i have to day is slide in pictures and either write on the pages or use the cool stickers that came with it. this is truly excellent because it is the only way i will ever have the time to create a scrapbook. after we got home, we unpacked all the lovely presents and put them away, and then justin and my mom and i walked to our neighborhood sushi joint for dinner and then for a tour of homes on sale in our neighborhood, which was gratifying as it suggested that the value of our own home has gone up significantly in the last two years.

friday, though, wasn't quite so fun a day. we left my mom home alone to sleep in while we went for the three hour glucose test, and then a couple of hours after we got home, my ob called with the bad news - i had gestational diabetes. it felt like a blow to the gut. i kept thinking i couldn't possibly have it, which was apparently just a fantasy. the good news, if there is any, is that i am only just over the minimum, which means i am considered borderline. but the fact is that on top of all the things about which i was worried - milo's and my increased chances of developing diabetes later, potential c-sections - the one thing i missed is that this thing increases our chance of (...drumroll please...) STILLBIRTH. that's what sucks the worst. we did get up and go get the baby gear from our friend's attic as planned and set it up, but it felt like we were doing it in mud. very slushy and sluggish and difficult to see. i don't want it to be this way.

but it is this way, so we have to deal with it. luckily, my hospital has a big perinatal diabetes specialty, so i am already in the right place. i meet with one of the clinic's nurses and a dietician on wednesday morning, after which i will begin to test and monitor my blood sugar and follow a strict diet. next monday, i meet with the gd clinician and then next wednesday with my ob. my ob is certain that i would do anything to ensure this baby's safe arrival and so is confident i will control the gd with diet. and he does have a point - it's occurred to me that following a regimented diet and tracking my blood sugar will give me something specific, concrete, controllable to do to ensure milo's safety, while up to this point i haven't had anything so definite and ongoing i could do to ward off another disaster. and a tiny little place in me is pleased that the gd bullshit will at least ensure milo will come out by 39 weeks, and any fewer days i have to worry about what's happening in utero are a gift.

must jump in the shower now - justin's weekend ends in an hour, and my mom and i are going to take him to work before doing a little holiday sale shopping, to be followed by some flower planting and some laundry doing. happy weekend to all.

Connected again.

Some creep was, probably, screwing with our settings to piggyback his own connection. If I ever find out who it is, I am so going into his fridge and drinking all of his beer.

Good call, Bronwyn!

Ahhhhhh.

too bad, so sad

woe is me. we have no internet connection at home. something's wrong with our wireless network, and we are too ignorant to understand what the problem is or to have a clue as to how to fix it. if anyone has any suggestions of what to check, i'd be grateful. otherwise, i'll be offline until tuesday, as i am taking friday off to spend with my mom and will be home through the holiday weekend.

can one get the DTs from computer withdrawl?

maybe i should rub my face in johnson's baby shampoo

the crying continues, even through the crappy new singles debuted by the american idol finalists last night (who picked those songs???). i got teary at the sight of our newly decluttered living room last night. if kleenex made adult-sized bibs to catch adult-sized pity-fests and marketed them to pregnant women, they'd make a fortune (you know, bigger than the one they already have).

i also cried over all the kind responses to my whining, offering clothes and support and braxton-hicks advice. luck has not seemed like much of a resource since hans died, but i feel truly lucky to be connected to this community.

and in case you've worried, i did find two shirts (out of the 30 or so i tried on) the other night - at 40% off! - and catherine is sending me more, so i will not go naked or be confined to the house. also, the braxton-hicks continue, but they're not regular, and they clearly are most present after i've exerted myself, so i'm giving up marathons and competitive weight-lifting for the duration. see? everything is going to be fine.

now if i could just stop being convinced every other minute that something is wrong with milo...

i'm going home to exert myself only the tiniest bit (must mop the floors one more time before my mom arrives tomorrow) and then i plan to ingest all two hours of the sure-to-be-anti-climatic idol finale. i'll be the one sniffling on the couch when the camera shows their parents' tears of pride and joy.

nicaragua

My pal, Darren, is a whiz with his digital camera and the video editor. Below, if you're at all interested, find a lil photo/video montage he did of our recent trip to Nicaragua: starting in the colonial city of Granada, then climbing Volcan Masaya, and then relaxing on the Laguna de Apoyo.

The video at the end is of the various modes of transportation it took us to reach the laguna from high atop the volcano and the spectacular mirador of Catarina, the highlight of "los pueblos blancos". In all, I think that we went by foot, by chicken bus, a taxi, a moto (think moped with a back seat) and finally, by "hacer botella" (hitch hiking) on top of a truck bed of volcanic rock!

Good times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-_HDwmWaYc

big crymommy

pity poor milo - he has a loon for a mother.

exhibit a: when the cavs lost to the pistons yesterday in game 7 of the best-of-7 series, i bawled like...well, you know. this is the end of the playoffs for us, while detroit will almost certainly go on to win the nba championship. and over this, i cried my eyes out.

after i dried my face off with my shirt (because i'm classy like that), i considered that i was sad because this was the end of cheering for z. because no one can pronounce "zydrunas ilgauskas" (the name of the cavs' 7'3" starting center), he is known popularly as "z" or "big z." when milo's gender was still unknown and we called him the little zygote, we in part shortened it to "little z" in honor of our favorite center. all season, as we watched the cavs, when big z would score, we took it as a sign of little z's success, and we cheered for both z and z. now that big z's season is over, to what will i superstitiously attach my hopes for little z's success?

exhibit b: i have cried off and on all day today about having nothing to wear. i am truly in dire straits. i can live with alternating two pairs of pants and two skirts (leaning heavily on one pair of pants in particular) but i am out of tops. i have outgrown almost all of them. i have two shirts left i can wear with any dignity. even my beloved maternity tees, which i have paired with jackets and cardigans for all my pregnancies, have failed me now. i am getting too heated to keep a jacket on, and they are too casual and too small and too short to wear without a jacket.

part of the problem is that i bought my warm-weather tops early in my first pregnancy, while this time around i'm hitting the heat at the end of the pregnancy. everything is exactly opposite this time, seasonally speaking, and i am unprepared. the other problem is that i have resisted buying anything new, since i am in the home stretch of my final pregnancy, which is nice and financially prudent and all but may leave me only able to leave the house when wrapped in a bedspread - or not able to leave the house at all.

justin offered to take me shopping friday, but we have a full day of glucose testing and produce shopping and baby gear transporting and parent feeding. also, justin hates to shop; he'd rather have his eye gouged; i know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loves me to have offered to go shopping, but it would be painful to both of us. so i'm going to leave work in a few minutes and bravely try to find something to cover the hump + flap combo i'm sporting. wish me luck. i need it desperately. if i don't find something, i may cry even more.

*****

has anyone had braxton-hicks contractions this early (approx. 28 weeks)? i thought it was supposed to be more of a first pregnancy thing, and not this early in any pregnancy. i had them with hans, but starting at about 33 weeks. i've been having them all afternoon, mildly, and it's just weird. they're certainly not the real thing - at least i know the difference now - and i'm not spewing any liquids or other goo, but it makes me feel weird. i don't want weirdness. i want only normal occurrences.

getting deported from the traveling nation

looking now at my last post, it seems a little creepy. i don't call justin "daddy" or think of him as a father figure to me. i'm nearly eight years older than him, for pete's sake, which actually helps to balance out some societal, patriarchal tendencies in male/female relationships. i was referring to telling milo that his daddy was home, not mine or ours.

although i do sometimes affectionately call him "my baby daddy."

it rocks to have him home, sleeping athletically next to me. (seriously - how ambitious does one have to be to tear apart the bedcovers the way he can, and does, and is doing even now? one of the few nice things about him being gone is the ability to position the bedcovers where they best serve me and to know that they will still be that way when i awake. how many times did i wake up last night because i was cold, to find the covers half on him and half on the floor on his side of the bed? i lost count. i will gladly trade secure covers for having him next to me, but it would be nice if he quit being such a cover-hog.)

when justin got home yesterday morning, while he was still wound up and before he crashed from complete exhaustion, he talked about how excited he was by the thought of traveling with milo, of climbing volcanoes with him (even if it means carrying him the last part of the trip, when his little legs grow weary) and seeing monkeys in the wild and cooling off in the heat of the day with a splash in the hotel pool. we talked about milo's first luggage (after he outgrows diaper bags) and when he would be old enough to choose what to pack in his own tiny backpack to carry for himself.

and then i thought - um, when are we going to have sex when we're on the road with milo? and why hadn't i thought this problem through before now? before we had the sex that led to kids might have been a good time, don't you think? at home, while a challenge, i think sex can still be had. that's why milo has his own room - so he can be napping in his crib while we get it on in ours. but on the road, we can hardly put a toddler or even a ten year old in a hotel room by himself.

look, there is more to life than sex, and yes, sex will be different when we have an actual living child. i know these things. but sex on the road is important to me. sometimes on sleepy mornings (like this one) we lay in bed and count the countries in which we've had sex. with the counting comes the recounting (ahem), and the recounting is good. it's a very important part of our private, mental travel scrapbook. hotel sex is part of what makes our relationship tick. clean white sheets that will not be made up or changed by me, in a room where the phone will not ring to interrupt us and where there are no baskets of clothes on the floor within sight waiting to be folded, and when there are no scheduled events that must be attended immediately after - these things make for a good time.

justin has a plan in which we take along one or more grandparents on our travels - grandparents which will stay in a separate hotel room with our darling child and will stay with said child at night while we go out. i think that idea is absolutely brilliant, and i want to execute it often. but i don't always want to take one of our parents along. i want to have some travels for just us, our little family. and there are some trips we take, and on which we will take milo, that will have to be tempered if we take a grandparent. i'm not sure any of our parents would put up with eating gallo pinto three times a day for a week, or going without hot water - or plumbing, even - for very long, and even the most flexible of them may not be able to tolerate our intentional avoidance of a schedule or itinerary for more than a day or two.

it will work out, i suppose, but i'm bummed about travel right now anyway, since my traveling days are over for the time being. i can't fly any more, but we had planned some weekend road trips in june, some last babymoons, that are now cancelled because justin will be working weekends starting weekend after next. understandably, justin is not up to driving away anywhere today, and next weekend my mom will be here. seeing as how we invited her and all, we can hardly pick her up from the airport, drop her at home, and tell her we'll be back sunday night, i suppose.

we plan to go to florida for a tour of the southern wings of our families about a month after milo is born, but that will be, you know, with milo. we also plan to go to spain in december, grandmothers in tow, but that's 7 months away. i will not be going anywhere else before milo is born. unless i go visit justin's family or our friends who live in suburbs, i will not even leave cleveland. this realization makes me feel penned in, a little panicky. is it possible to have claustrophobia on a global scale?

daddy's home!

i just checked the flights, and justin's plane is on the ground in cleveland. he was in the second row, so he should be off the plane and down trying to find someone to unlock his bag in baggage services (because it made it home without him yesterday), and then he'll be on the train and calling me to pick him up any minute.

when i woke up, and realized the morning light was just about right for the time justin should be getting in, i said, "milo, daddy's coming home today!" after being quiet all night, he started kicking, and hasn't stopped since.

any minute now.

all by myself (don't wanna be)

the good news is that justin is back in the country.

the bad news is that while his two buddies got the last two seats on the first flight from houston, justin hasn't been able to get a seat on any of the rest of the flights home. so the laundry will remain undone another night (i mean, c'mon, it's not like i'm going to start doing laundry when i'm all mopey) while he employs plan b (or more like plan x): fly to vegas, wait out a 4.5 hour layover, and then take the red-eye home. it was that or start trying to get home from houston again tomorrow, and the flights aren't looking swell, so at least he'll be home and in bed, sleeping it off, when i leave for work in the morning, and then maybe he'll feel human again by the time i get home tomorrow evening, and we can start our weekend together.

i'm trying to decide whether to go home, lounge on the couch and watch the finale of "will and grace" (in which i'm not particularly invested) or go lounge in a theater seat and see "art school confidential" - thrilling prospects, both of them. if justin made it home at 5:00 today (plan a), we were going to go see david in "night bloomers" but i don't feel like going home and changing into play-going clothes (not that i have anything remotely appropriately arty in my not-so-vast array of maternity clothes) and going without him.

if i were my mother, i would either (a) go home and spiffy up and go to the play anyway or (b) seize the opportunity to do all the laundry that has piled up. i am so not my mother.

my mom is coming to visit, a week from tonight, for the long holiday weekend. she has actually asked (asked!) me to leave the weeds that have sprung up in my flowerbeds in the monsoon we've had for weeks on end for her to weed. she loves to weed that much. i think it's the one thing she misses, living in a condo. i am so unlike my mother, but i am oh so glad she is the way she is.

but about justin - it's good to be able to hear his voice on the phone, but it sucks to not be together another 12 hours. wow, that sounds pathetic, doesn't it? it's pathetic but true.

in other evidence of how pathetic i am, on the way to work this morning i was flipping through the radio stations and landed on the also-pathetic scott stapp, singing his heart out on "arms wide open." milo was squirming, and i had been talking to him, and all of a sudden the lyrics penetrated my morning-brain, and i started to bawl. i cried all the way to work at that stupid, cheesy song. in light of how i feel about milo, awful cheese suddenly becomes meaningful. so, so pathetic.

the thing is, i love him so much already. (milo, not scott stapp.) if i love him this much already, how will i be able to survive loving him him after he's born? and if i'm this pathetic now, how unbearable will i be then? the mind boggles.

With Arms Wide Open

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face
With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Well I don't know if I'm ready
To be the man I have to be
I'll take a breath, take her by my side
We stand in awe, we've created life
With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I'll show you love
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
If I had just one wish
Only one demand
I hope he's not like me
I hope he understands
That he can take this life
And hold it by the hand
And he can greet the world
With arms wide open...

Written by Tremonti/Stapp
Published by Tremonti/Stapp Music(Adm. by Dwight Frye Music, Inc.)/Dwight Frye Music, Inc. (BMI)

raindrops keep falling

sucky item #1: i failed my glucose screen today.

okay, one doesn't fail a glucose test, as though one could study for it somehow. it's not a reflection of my character or intellect. what i should say is that my glucose screen reflected a high blood sugar number, a 158. just when things were going so well...

so next tuesday through thursday, i will do the big 'ol carb load, and then i will go in friday morning for the three hour test. in the mean time, i will cross my fingers. hard. if you're so inclined, please feel free to cross your fingers or whatever appendages you have free for me, too.

i'm trying to remain calm, but i am a little freaked out. look, i should have lost some weight before i got pregnant again, i know. i think i thought i was immune. i didn't have any problems the first time. no one in my dad's family (the lard ass side) has diabetes, despite their weight. the only person to whom i'm related who has diabetes is my maternal grandfather - who's 91 and developed it at like 87 or something ridiculously late, and everyone on that side is genetically programmed to be fit, so it's not an obesity thing.

my ob says only 15% of the women who get a high initial screen go on to be diagnosed with actual gestational diabetes, which is encouraging, although my luck with percentages related to pregnancy has been thin. if i do turn out to have it, i'll do whatever i have to do to control it, for milo's sake, but it does make me worry about the long term, and the increased likelihood i'll have of developing type ii diabetes later. ugh.


sucky item #2: justin's new days off are wednesday and thursday.

starting 1 june, he'll have the suck-ass schedule of 6am-2pm on sundays, mondays and tuesdays, 1:30-9:30pm on fridays and 11:00am-7:00pm saturdays. i am in a very foul mood.

the schedule won't matter once milo's born and i go on leave - until i start back to school, approximately two weeks after milo's born. and once i go back to work, 12 weeks in - oy.

we were just messaging back and forth, and i realized our relationship has survived far worse than a shitty schedule (and how). we've always made whatever shuffles we had to make to have as much time together as possible, and we'll do it again. but it still makes me want to cry.


on the bright side item #1: the cavs beat the pistons again!

we're up 3-2 in the series! this wasn't supposed to happen. it's the upset of the century! (well, the century so far.)


on the bright side item #2: justin will probably be home by this time tomorrow night.

and not a moment too soon, i say; this laundry piling up around here isn't going to wash itself.

lebron james es fantistico

laura - gmail is timing out...

i just caught word that the cavs beat detroit, in detroit.... estupendo!

just checking in to say hey! and yeah! we just took a quick tour of la plaza de revolucion, formerly plaza de republica, formerly plaza de democracia. later, we enjoyed our last tres leches, at a chinese restaurant of all places. for anyone not in the know - tres leches is the absolute best cake known to man. or, atleast this fat man.

lots to write about, least finally climbing the volcano!!! early morning tomorrow, will catch up later.

who let the air out?

on my way to work this morning, the whole world started to rumble, and i got that horrible sinking feeling. i pulled the car over to the curb, climbed out in the rain (will it EVER stop raining?), and found the culprit - the front passenger-side tire. flat as a pancake.

while i waited on the AAA guy, i called home and left a voicemail for justin, who i figured would be checking our voicemail online at about that time, to tell him what a fun day it was turning out to be. then i read the new york times sunday lifestyle mag he left in the car and ate a stick of monterey jack string cheese and talked to milo about disguised refrigerator doors and manhattan real estate prices and children at dinner parties (by his kicks, i'd say milo is pro kids at adult parties) as i read about them.

the nice man in the truck with the flashing lights showed up five minutes late but changed my tire in less than five minutes, and as i toodled down the interstate, pissing people off by going 45 mph on my spare, my friend jim called to see if i was okay. justin had gotten the voicemail and instant-messaged the friend most likely to be already out there instant messaging at 10 in the morning and asked him to call me. it's nice to feel connected, even when we're 2037 miles (give or take) apart.

and now they're in the closing stretch

*****the third trimester*****

yes, i know that many of you consider 28 weeks, not 27, the beginning of the third trimester. but with all due respect, maybe you need to take remedial math. if you're a 40 week-ist, then divide 40 by 3; you'll get 13.3333333333 (and so on), which technically put me in the third trimester 2.3333333 days ago. if you go by the nine month plan, then the third trimester began yesterday, three months from the due date. either way, i'm already in the third, so i was actually being conservative not counting it as the third until today, so stuff your "what to expects" and any other books that say 28 weeks where the sun don't shine.

on the one hand, i'm terrified of the 3rd trimester lasting one day longer than milo can survive inside. on the other hand, i feel a huge sense of relief that the end of this pregnancy is in sight!

i'm doing my glucose tolerance test tomorrow morning, and i'm actually looking forward to it, if you can imagine such a thing, if nothing else because it means going to work later and spending less time with my psycho co-worker, who comes in very early and leaves very early. in a few weeks, i'll have weekly checkups plus twice weekly non-stress tests, which means i may get to the point that i only see her an hour a day until the birth. maybe i should reconsider my decision to not get pregnant again after this...

milo is kicking the laptop hello to all of you.

2 to 2!!!!!

trying very hard not to use the word "holy" in conjunction with assorted swear words in a manner that would be offensive to many, but WOO-HOO! the cavs just beat the pistons by two points in a nailbiter that was a nailbiter the whole game, bringing the series to tied at two apiece. this wasn't supposed to happen - detroit was supposed to sweep everyone on their way to the championship. they beat us by 37 points in the first game of the series, but here we are, tied. damn!

the best part - i watched the second half with justin. he couldn't find a bar with the game playing, so we sat online and chatted throughout, with me updating him. it's clear i don't have a future in sports broadcasting, but i kept justin entertained and updated. it was like watching it together. and while we typed back and forth, milo kicked against the laptop. a pretty fantastic evening for a woman home alone in her red fuzzy robe.

in which the tv gets turned off

i feel like such a big girl. although i went to sleep with "sex and the city" reruns on, when i woke up to go to the little mothers room at 1:16 am, i turned off the tv, and i slept until after 6 without it. next up - going to bed without a bottle.

i kid - i'm not taking hooch, or anything else in a bottle, to bed with me. but my desire for alcohol is growing. we have several bottles of vinho verde in the cabinet downstairs that would be oh so refreshing this time of year, don't you think? i wonder if justin could bring one of those into the hospital.

and oh - last night, at a birthday party for my sister-in-law, the cake (i realized, too late) was soaked in amaretto. don't think for a second that i left a crumb on the plate. i was reveling in my little cheat until the more youthful people present started joking about amaretto being a little old lady's drink. well, i'm old, dammit.

feliz dia del madres

happy mothers day, laura. te amo.

happy mothers day to all of you who read. you´re all in my thoughts.

word to your mother

happy mother's day to all the mothers who can honestly say their child has never, ever misbehaved.

(hey, there has to be some upside to losing a baby, even if it's just perfect child bragging rights.)

*****

when justin's not home, i suddenly hear all the creaky noises our 130-year-old house makes. it makes them all the time, of course, and i'm not bothered by them when i'm home alone but know he will be home that night. but whatever - i left the tv on to drown out the creaks, and woke up once to an exercise video infomercial and later to rap videos. at some point in between, i dreamed jack white of the white stripes and the fifth-year student on which i had a massive crush my entire freshman year of college were jockeying for my attention, while i inwardly exulted that my plan of appearing uninterested in either had worked! i wish i had stayed asleep long enough to see who i picked; i was leaning toward jack white because he was slightly less desperate than the other guy, but you never know. i tend to prefer guys with clean hair, so the other guy may have won by default.

i wonder if i will notice the creaks when milo is here. will i be even more sensitive to them? or will my preoccupation with mz leave no brain cells left to devote to the fear of intruders?

*****

justin made it safely to nicaragua and e-mailed this morning. i've posted part of his e-mail over on our travel blog, if you're interested in following along. he and two of his buddies went with the primary goal of climbing a volcano but i'm sure a secondary goal of consuming much beer. i think achievement of the secondary goal is already well underway.

*****

although mz certainly seems to appreciate them, the peanut butter cups i've eaten are not an ideal breakfast for a growing fetus, so i'm off to round up something better for both of us. i think there could be some scrambled eggs in our immediate future; we need a good breakfast over which to celebrate the cavs defeat of the pistons! we're back in the series, rasheed wallace, so keep your trash-talking to yourself!

on my own

justin is en route to houston with his buddies, hoping to connect to managua tonight. so i say, let the junk food eating and clothes on the floor leaving begin! no, really, i'm quite sad.

we had sushi for breakfast at the west side market this morning then went to see his mom to deliver her mother's day presents. she broke the news that her husband wants to sell their house in the outer suburbs and live in the fixer-upper he bought across the street from us in the heart of the city last year, intending to either rent it out or turn it over after he finished remodeling it. she thought it would be imposing on us, but listen - the very fact that they are so concerned about our space is all the reassurance we need that they would be thoughtful about the closeness. it would be awesome for milo to have his grandparents so close, plus they have a great dog (which means milo could go visit winston the dog and we wouldn't have to have our own dog at home). we'll see what happens, but we've decided to do everything we can to encourage it. justin's stepdad has a long ways to go before the house is ready to be inhabited, so we have plenty of time to work our persuasion.

after we saw his mom, we bought justin some new convertible-to-shorts travel pants, since his old ones have hans-green paint all over them and could be construed as a bit disrespectful in a country where the average wage is $2/day yet everyone still manages to appear clean and pressed at all times. then we rushed home and packed him up in record time and gave him a quick around-the-edges haircut before rushing him to the airport.

i miss him already, but i'm consoling myself. i went to target to get a few things (always an excellent elixir), and although i didn't buy myself the chocolate cake i intended, i did buy a bag of peanut butter cups and a bag of their cereal snack mix dipped in chocolate, then powdered sugar, then drizzled with more chocolate. oh, and a box of cheez-its. because justin is working hard to lose weight, i have to be responsible and finish them all before he comes home in a week, but for his sake, i'll do it.

i plan to work on my goodies while watching the cavs beat the pistons (i hope) today and monday and (please god) the rest of the games in the series (if we don't get swept). it won't be the same watching the cavs without justin, though. it's one of our favorite things to do together that doesn't involve (ahem) adult themes. but at least i have milo to keep me company. he seems to understand my need for company this afternoon and is giving me tons of kicks. or maybe it's the peanut butter cups. either way.

travis's send-off

the cemetery is exactly the sort of place you'd want to be buried. it has an arching, wrought iron sign over the entrance, which is surrounded by old trees, with no gravestones in sight. it takes a slow, careful drive through the trees on a narrow road that curves up a hill to get to where the graves are, on sloping terraces that gradually climb to the top, where alex was already resting, waiting for travis to come keep him company. crabapples in full bloom and rhododendrons just budding surround the upper part of the cemetery. a hand-painted sign details the rules of the cemetery, which appear to be treated with a humanely relaxed attitude; azaleas and weeping willows and japanese maples and more rhododendrons engulf some of the gravestones. other blooming shrubs, more recently planted, politely grow next to other stones, biding their time until they, too, can become the dominant features of the plots they adorn.

when they arrived, catherine carried a giant bouquet of red and blue and purple balloons and steve carried travis's tiny white casket. he laid it in front of alex's stone, between bunches of spring flowers wrapped in crisp white paper already waiting there. sam and a friend played an intricate game of tag requiring a particular twisting of the ribbons on their balloons, some rule only they understood, while catherine discreetly shot pictures of them.

catherine's mom: it's easy to understand why she and catherine are close. i knew as soon as i saw her that she must be catherine's mother, and i said so, and she hugged us as though she had known us forever. she seems to me to be the best combination of kind and understanding and no-nonsense and real. she read a poem for travis she had written.

there were tags with alex's and travis's names and dates which we tied to the tails of our balloons, and then we sent them sailing. only one got caught in the trees, and it soon freed itself to chase the others. the sight of the balloons with their long trailing ribbons and fluttering tags at their ends reminded me of swimming tadpoles, which made me think of our tadpole. i silently asked travis to say hi to hans for me.

afterwards, a friendly woman who looked much like catherine approached me and introduced herself as julie. i thought she added, "her sister," which made sense to me. we hugged and she introduced her husband and we talked briefly. i thought to myself how nice it was for catherine to have such a pleasant sister.

we got in our cars and followed catherine and her family down the road to their house, a white farmhouse with crisp red trim, a white flowering tree in front - i meant to ask what it was - and a big fenced-in area for the horses. inside, catherine's mom prepared to go to the grocery store and someone requested proper beer. catherine's sister commented she forgot what it was like, living in pennsylvania, to be able to buy beer at the grocery store. "oh," i said, "you live in pennsylvania?"

"yes," the sister said. "johnstown."

"i know someone who lives in johnstown-" and then it hit me. this wasn't catherine's sister. this was sisyphus julie! that's what she was telling me at the grave site, when i thought she said she was her sister. i felt like a dork, but justin had heard the same thing, so at least i wasn't alone in my dorkiness. and no one could blame me for thinking they look like sisters, honest.

we looked at the pictures of travis the hospital had taken and i went back to the computer to see the ones catherine's father had taken. so tiny, but with big feet, like his brother alex, and perfect hands and long legs and a rosebud mouth. so hard to understand why he wasn't still pulsating and growing when he looked so perfect. it seems so absurd that catherine is in the business of justice, for pete's sake, yet something so unjust could happen to her.

justin and i both had to come back to work this afternoon and so had to say goodbye sooner than we wanted. at the door, steve and catherine and justin and i talked about the dumb things people say when a baby dies, the "better place now" and "all for a reason" things, the things that make us want to become violent. they chose to bring travis to the cemetery themselves today, and to lay him to rest without a minister, because they wanted some control over what was said. they did a good job. they made today the way they needed it to be and told convention to take a hike. it was such a beautiful day. but i hope they never have to plan another one like it.

bachelorette

i hate those "-ette" and "-ess" nouns, the ones that make women secondary, lesser versions of men. "poetess." "authoress." and especially, "bachelorette." not that i want to be called a "bachelor," either; the word gives off a whiff of pants worn too many times between washings.

so i won't say that i'm about to be a bachelorette; instead i will tell you that justin is headed to nicaragua on saturday and i will be living in the manner in which i lived before we co-habitated, only with a fetus on board and with fewer clothes on the floor. or so one would hope.

justin was more than a little nervous about leaving me at home at the 66% mark of this pregnancy, but i encouraged him to go. it will be his last chance for child-free travel for a long, long time, so he should savor the opportunity - not that we both don't look forward to carting milo around the world, but it will be a very different form of travel than the one to which we are currently accustomed. we can hardly impose the "only pack as much as you can carry yourself" rule on young z until he's at least, oh, 6 or 7, can we? no, really, i'm asking - can we?

other than being nuts, i'm in great shape, and so is the babe. there's nothing for justin to worry about, and it's not like he won't be checking e-mail or calling daily. no one is going to take away any of his fatherhood stars for missing ONE prenatal checkup, despite his fears.

of course i will miss him, but i do look forward to some time to myself, especially since i'm out of school for the summer and actually have a little time to squander. i plan to go see "american dreamz," for one thing, since justin would rather have his eyes gouged than see hugh grant on film. i'm going to plant the karl rosenfeld and sarah bernhardt peonies justin got me in advance for mother's day. i might buy a chocolate cake and actually bring it in the house, since the dieter won't be around to be tempted. i'll probably invite the girls over for a sleepover so we can have pillow fights and drink tea with our pinkies extended. okay, i will not be doing that last thing, but it will give justin something to dream about.

*****

to everyone who offered support in my time of mental need yesterday, i thank you. and i did kick that test's ass, dammit. or at least i hope i did. i at least got a "b" and am hoping for a curve to bump it to an "a." i do have a little wiggle room, though, since the paper i got back yesterday (20% of my final grade) received a 100 and had lovely comments from the instructor about theoretical soundness and historical reflectiveness and so forth. so yea for me.

my pants smell funny

this morning i threw up on the pants i first had on, so i went to the basement where my other decent pants were supposed to be hanging on the drying rack, but they had fallen to the floor and so weren't completely dry, plus they picked up basement floor crud. i dusted them off and dried them, but they still smell like...a litter box. and we don't have cats. or any other animals. that i know of.

i managed not to throw up on my shirt, but then i sat down to change my pants and realized my shirt is too small. if my belly expands another centimeter, you'll be able to see my underwear between shirt buttons when i sit. it hurts my vanity to outgrow a maternity top.

so that's my day.

except that's not really it. i've started having nightmares again, and daytime visions, too. my professional opinion is that it's a combination of shock over catherine's new loss and the transition into the final trimester causing the system breakdown. i keep waking up at night from the nightmares, so i don't get enough sleep. being sleep deprived causes me to be more vomiticious. the combination of sleep deprivation, post-puking-syndrome and shell-shockedness puts me off balance mentally, and i get more paranoid and anxious. the anxiety combined with the caffeine i've reintroduced to my diet (to cope with the tiredness resulting from not getting any damn sleep) are causing milo's heartrate to climb, which terrifies me - which just starts the whole fucking cycle over again.

i have got to get out of this hamster wheel.

all day, after i finally got myself dressed and to work (late), i've been convinced milo's movements have decreased. i've felt him, but it's not as strong as it was. i have a final in about an hour, too, which is not helping improve my general outlook. so i left early (i am a star employee!) and came home to listen to milo, who is fine. his heartrate is in the 140s, and even though i don't feel him as much, i certainly hear him with the doppler, practicing his breakdancing. it then occurred to me that i'm not feeling as much outward kicking because he's changed positions, which is clear based on the all-new place i've found his heartrate, so i was feeling somewhat consoled. and then i went to put on my prenatal yoga dvd, just to do the relaxation section, before i face the exam - but i can't for the life of me find it. i have absolutely no idea where it is. the only alternative i could think of was to write it all down. so there it is.

i cannot do 13 or 14 more weeks of this, that's for sure. sedation may be in my future.

100 and counting

we spent most of the day yesterday working on milo's room. after we lost hans, we let it sit for a little while, then we packed up his things, dividing them into things that were and always will be his and things we'd use for another baby, and made the room our den. we left it as the den until we started the major spring cleaning and musical chairs game of furniture moving, when it became the transitional room for everything in flux - a glorified storage room, if i'm honest.

and now, it looks like a child's room again. we still have much to do, but it's no longer storing things that don't belong in there, and all of the baby things we saved as well as the things i've bought in recent months have had the tags removed and are folded and in their drawers. it's nice to see the frog clock we bought when i was pregnant with the tadpole ticking away on a black easel on top of the bookcase and to see the little books in a row underneath. i love opening the top drawer in the chest and seeing the little tin holding all the tiny socks and booties and counting the newborn-sized onesies and the size small onesies. i keep taking out newborn diapers and making justin look at how *small* they are, and he cups his hand under them and marvels that milo's bottom will fit in the palm of his hand at first (unless milo inherits his paternal grandmother's family's genes...).

after i took justin to work today, i bought foam corners for the twin bed in milo's room, which tends to take out knees, and two pairs of little knit pull-on pants to wear with his onesies when we're hanging out at home. i also bought a new vaccum (i might have burned out the old vaccum's motor when i let the cord get caught in the roller), and a new mop for the wood floors (because they're nasty and i can't get down on my hands and knees to do it any longer without groaning in agony for 24 hours afterwards) and a tub scrubber with a telescoping handle ('cause bending over the tub ain't happenin', either). we're both starting to worry that if we let the house get this cruddy when we don't have a child as an excuse, how bad will it get after milo's born?

the next major phase is in three weeks, when my mom comes for a visit. we plan to get our gear out of storage from our friends' attic - the stroller, the carseats, the swing, the changing thingy, the highchair - and paint the chest of drawers and changing table, and wash all those little onesies and pjs. i can't wait.

and yet.

while there are only 100 (or fewer!) days left, there are still as many as 100 days left. anything can happen. unbelievably, it has happened, again, to catherine and steve. our losses have not made us immune. we may deserve a healthy, live baby, and milo may appear to be healthy and normal and be unable to stop kicking the bajeebus out of me - but there are no guarantees. it's sobering.

all i can do is hope.

no, no, no, no, no

i just learned catherine and steve have lost the beast. steve posted before leaving for the hospital, probably just leaving now as i write this. how can this be? surely there is no god.

i'm sending them all my love and wishing it wasn't true. i hate that they will be going through all that will be happening today, let alone what is to come. please hold them in your thoughts.

the 60 second update

ultrasound went beautifully, saw everything we couldn't see last time. fingers, toes, heart chambers, lips and nose all accounted for. measuring right on target. and from the look i got, i'd say: justin's eyes, my mouth - a damn good-looking kid, even if you account for parental bias. i mean, objectively, he's just stunning. wait until he's born - then you can see for yourself how objectively right i am.

trust me.

*this* close

in honor of our upcoming rounding of the corner into the last 100 days of milo's gestation, i gave in and put up a ticker. i've always resisted because i don't really do cute, but i thought a rope, and a finger pointing to how close i am to the end of it, made for some nice, really motherly imagery. unfortunately, due to our choice of template, you can't actually read how many days are left, but i'd have to pick a lighter-colored template - and re-do every bit of customization and linkage i've done - and that ain't happening. it took over a year just to do the pathetic little i've done, and you have no idea how challenged i was by pasting the ticker code into the template. very, very sad. so if you actually give a damn how much longer milo has to bake, just run your cursor over the box the ticker's in, highlight it, and squint real hard. it won't kill you. humor me.

all my husbands

here we are already at 25w1d. tempus fugit, baby! we have an ultrasound tomorrow, officially because we didn't get a complete look at the heart, nose, and lip last time, but mostly because i need to see what's going on, dammit, and the ob has a little sympathy. not that i'm expecting any clear views, if the way milo moved around like an eel last night while i tried to doppler him is any indication, but i'll take any peeks i can get.

speaking of milo, i've become obsessed, not just with my milo but also with a certain actor with the same first name who played "jess" on "the gilmore girls." i did a little poking around today and learned that milo/jess is a vegetarian and has been dating "rory" in real life for quite a while, so good for him. we really need to get on with season 3 and beyond so i can work through the rory/jess storyline and get over him already. if not...let's just say he could be my next husband.

and speaking of candidates for future husbands, now that ace (a prime candidate if ever i saw one) is gone from american idle pasttime, i find myself rooting for elliott to win. i think he's undervalued, and it's time people wake up and vote off paris or chris, who've both become unbearably boring, and show elliott some love. i'm telling you - you get that man a few sessions with a hollywood dentist and america will suddenly be wondering where he came from and how it missed him before and pat itself on the back for recognizing talent when it sees it.

as to the husband i've already got, bless his heart for sticking with me through thick and thin. monday night was one of those thin moments - ugh, it was so ugly, i don't even want to get into it - but after it was mostly over, he totally sold me on why we should be together. in some ways we're kind of mismatched - there's a nearly eight-year age difference, and our backgrounds and politics couldn't have been more different when we met, and don't even get me started on his taste in music - but we keep finding common ground on which to stand. if we keep at it, that little patch of ground might grow big enough to make room for milo on it.

or maybe milo himself will make the patch big enough for all of us.

29 forever

justin has officially reached the age at which many women pretend to stop aging! be sure to wish him a happy birthday - he just loooooooooooves that kind of attention!