Merry Christmas!

 

with love from Lina, Saby, and Spampy

Sunrise Planet

This morning I was sitting in front of the TV, eating a tasty scrambled egg and english muffin breakfast I made for myself (and which subsequently gave me horrible gas-e-ola) when I stumbled upon what may perhaps be cable television's manifestation of ZEN. Something on Animal Planet with "Mayan ruins of Tikal" caught my eye and I flipped there, something called Sunrise Planet. Within moments I realized that this was a show where you simply do nothing but watch the sunrise. From early hazy pre-dawn, for one hour innumerable cameras record the happenings at what is already a spectacular location, and you simply see and hear the sunrise. Birds... howler monkeys... rustling winds... insects buzzing... flapping wings... splashing frogs, fish and ducks... it is a ambiance tape gone visual, and it was absolutely transfixing.

I want to kiss the person who came up with the concept.

I promptly emailed my husband, mother and sister and asked them to get me the DVD set so that I could watch it while in labor. Or during any other circumstance that requires some serious zen.

Spampy is Confirmed

Today was my first prenatal visit. Dare I even say, "OUR" first pre-natal visit. Because the overwhelming #1 news today is that Spampy baby is a real baby, my copilot in a real pregnancy, in my real uterus. I saw her/him on the ultrasound, a little tiny bean shaped thing inside my bigger bean shaped womb, with a beating heart you could see but not hear. (She's shy!)
This is a wonderful relief, because despite reassurances from kind folks near and dear, I had a nagging thought that perhaps I wasn't pregnant... maybe I had, against all odds, bought a bad batch of EPTs, and was suddenly done with the dormant period of a virus causing disfiguring breast growth that I had picked up while crawling through the backyard in Kerala. (Just saw a show about the Plague, and they say it and other unknown diseases are lurking in corners of the world still underdeveloped... and for the paranoia in my head, rural Kerala fits that bill.)

Hallelujah, that is not the case.

So, there seems to be absolutely nothing extraordinary about this particular pregnancy, and the midwife said everything looks good. She is a wonderful hippie sort of chick, with a headband and short gray hair, who has a great sense of humor and has already gossiped with nurse Jane about how handsome Saby is and what a cute baby we'll have. (his HealthWorks magazine was there in the room, so during my pelvic exam my handsome hubby smiled at me from the magazine rack.) And Spampy smiled at me from the ultrasound, and as a result, I'm smiling my freakin' head off.

There are no words, profane or otherwise, for how excited I am! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My little secret

Put this mentally into the background as a soundtrack for this post:
whatever that Madonna song is that goes, "ooooooo, ooooooo, somethings coming over meeeeee... my baby's got a secret."

My little secret is that I'm working at Motherhood Maternity part time in the good ol' Dayton Mall, and I'm knocked up. They do not know it yet. It seems to me that there would be reason for suspicion... I do NOT have an absolutely canny ability to calculate the due dates of women who are 4-12 weeks pregnant... I am dating their in regards to my own. I do not HEAR that the Palmer's Skin Oil is fabulous, I absolutely freaking know it. (I'm a greasy goddess who smells exactly like vanilla cake right now, as a matter of fact.) And I am NOT just bullsh*tting about the joy of the prospect of having a baby in July. I'm totally (secretly) sharing it.

So apart for waiting for my 3 months to go so that I can get a discount (conveniently timed for perhaps a tiny belly bump of something other than KFC?) I am surrounded during the times spent at the mall by mostly happy mommys-to-be, indulgent grandmothers, and children ranging from indolent to adorable... it's a great gig. And it pays more than Kohls :-)

The Waiting Game

Once the excitement of seeing a positive pregnancy test (or in our case, three) wears off, you have the joy of breaking news... or, if you so choose, the smug secretive goodness of waiting to share your good news with others. Both are great. You spend a week or two reading up... feeding your excitement by buying books about names and birthing methods, looking up insurance, standing in front of a mirror trying to determine whether your tummy is actually poking out a bit or whether you ate too much chicken in a frenzied protein feast...

and then the wait begins.

You know you're pregnant. Your friends know. Your family knows. But, apparently no part of your body other than your hormones have received that memo. Oh wait... except your BOOBS. Your newly gigantic, voluptuous, slightly tingly and tender boobs. But then again, they only found out because they heard the hormones talking about it in the bathroom. It's like a rumor. But they're moving forward as if it were an official notification from the office of the CEO. I'm hungry, indeed. But I'll put a 10 spot on that being psychological... as if any hunger pang that is not immediately sated with crackers, granola bars, fruit, or in moments of weakness, KFC Big Box Combos will result in a Niagara-like explosion of projectile vomiting that will put all past cases of Hyperemesis Gravidarium (super bad morning sickness) to shame. They say eat 6 small meals a day. I am as a result constantly eating, showing how much sway "they" truly have on my life.

So any morning sickness? No! Too busy eating to have time to vomit... be nauseous... or now, to even have heartburn (which was my one symptom that made me take a EPT). I guess it's a blessing, but I may end up running Dayton into a food shortage.

So having gotten done with all the exciting things that go along with finding out you're going to have a baby in the next 10 months or so, I've fallen into a surreal symptom-less lull where all I can do to pass the time is watch my boobs continue to grow...

and of course EAT.

Luckily, I've got three jobs with which to pass the time between snacks. More on that later.

Oh, and I go to the midwife next Tuesday for my first, official, prenatal exam. Yaaaaaaaaaaay, midwives!

Tentative welcome addendum

Add Ameeta, Yazmin and Marena to the list of happy voyeurs. I shall do my best to comply.