Why Mike is My Hero

Everyone was cool with sandwiches for dinner last night except me. I mean I didn't pitch a fit or anything. I would've eaten one (I don't have any trouble eating lately). But I wanted tacos. So, Mike went to the store and got the ingredients we didn't have without a word of complaint. He made fresh guacamole from scratch for starters. They were amazing tacos. I enjoyed them thoroughly last night and again for lunch today. I told Mike if his babies are as good as his tacos we're all set

Big Brother Moment

Last night my mother, Isaac and I were all haning out in my bedroom and my mom asked Isaac if he ever talked to the baby and here's what happened:

Isaac: "Hi, baby. I'm going to be your brother and you're going to be a sister. We're going to name you Pip. When you grow up a little bit I will teach you how to play with contructs."

Old Wives Tales

I'm not very superstitious, but I love hearing the root of all those silly age old beliefs. When it comes to babies and their gender there's a ton of them.
For example, they used to believe that one ovary released male eggs and the other released female ones so you should lay on your left to conceive a girl. Funny when you consider the age old beliefs about good and evil as they relate to left and right. Even in relatively modern times there are theatres where the hero always enters stage right and the villain stage left. Apparently, the Latin word for left is the same as the word for unlucky. The poor, fairer sex I guess. They also say that if you put a wooden spoon under the bed you'll conceive a girl. Not sure where that gets its roots perhaps it's something to do with the feminine traditionally being connected to the domestic. They also say putting a pink ribbon under your pillow will do the trick. I think it’s just a physical symbol of your wish.
Once the baby has been conceived there are supposed to be tell tale signs you're carrying a girl. The idea that you carry low for a boy and high for a girl or that girl babies rob their mothers of their beauty are some of the sillier ones I've heard. Obviously, how the baby sits has everything to do with the baby's size, how your uterus sits to begin with and your body type. There's also the massively popular belief that girls heart rates are above 140 and boys are below. Nothing to that one, babies' heart rates are as individual and effected by various stimuli as adults are. A baby girl's heart rate is usually faster than a boy's, but only after the onset of labor. They also say women carrying boys crave salty foods and women carrying girls crave sweets. This one makes me think of the nursery rhyme "sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of." The truth is a pregnant woman's appetite and cravings are very changeable and no basis for gender guessing.
Now there are some they may have a basis in fact. Like the idea that women carrying girls have a worse time with morning sickness. While hormone regulation is very unique thing from woman to woman there is some truth to the idea that all the excess estrogen makes you extra queasy. I found that one to be pretty apt. There's also the idea that if you're carrying a girl your partner will gain weight with you. Now, Mike started putting it on long before I got pregnant, but he had a significant increase in appetite during the beginning of my pregnancy. Estrogen again, apparently it's released somehow and according to some pregnant ladies causes their husbands to experience pregnancy symptoms. It's also possible it's just new daddy stress.

More Than One Way to Say it

There's so many slang terms and phrases for being pregnant I'd thought just for fun I'd explore them.

1.Knocked up-this is probably my least favorite, but totally obvious. Although it does sound, if taken literally, like you've been beaten up when you think about it.
2.Bun in the Oven-oven=womb, easy enough.
3.The rabbit died-this is a rather out-dated one, but very interesting. It has to do with the way they used to test for pregnancy in the time before First Response. In the late 1920's HCG, the pregnancy hormone, was discovered. Doctors would take a urine sample and inject into a rabbit and wait for "results", poor bunnies.
4.In the family way-speaks for itself in a lame pregnancy and sex aren't spoken about 1950's kind of way.
5.Her eggo is peggo-pithy little rhyming quote from the movie "Juno."
6.Up the duff (or in the pudding club)-this is another old one. Apparently duff is a pudding and was at some point slang for semen.
7.With Child-um, duh.
8.Expecting-duh, again
9.Wearing her apron high-sounds like another 50's housewife who's not one to gossip, but...to me
10.Incubating/gestating-very literal
11.Harboring a uterine parasite-a modern idea of "funny"
12.Tin roof rusted-yup, apparently that line from "Love Shack" by the B-52's means pregnant.
13.Eating for two-this one is one of the most fun to say to people when you're on the smaller side.
14.On stork watch-like mother animals in Disney movies!
15.Up the spout-sounds like a take off of "up the duff" to me. Apparently it's a British expression for ruined
16.Trout in the well-they do flop around like fish in there, but I have no further explanation.
17.Preggolicious-a vivid indication that pop culture is retarded.
18.Preggers-popular with the people determined to further the disintegration of the English language. OMG it's easier to text "mom I'm preggers." than type it all out, kwim?
19.Keith Cheggars-this is cockney slang for pregnant. It's based on rhyme (like for those of you who saw Oceans Eleven-"we're in Barney. Rubble. Trouble."). Cheggers rhymes with preggers.
20.Pulling the goalie-it is what it sounds like, to stop using birth control.

Way to go me (and Google) I was hoping to make an even 20! I hope everyone learned a little something or at least had a good laugh, I know I did.

Michael Takes A Pregnancy Test

I thought I'd share the story of the day I found out I was pregnant. A little background information first though. I have always loved children and I vividly recall telling people when I was starting middle school I wanted ten children so there'd always be a baby in the house. Well, by the time I reached adulthood I had decided pregnancy was not for me and any children I ended up with were going to have to be adopted, but I was in no rush for that. I'd even come to peace with the idea of never having any kids at all.
January of 2008 I had to have emergency surgery to remove a fibroid from my uterus. (Uterine Fibroids are benign tumors that grow within the muscle tissue of the uterus. Uterine fibroids can cause symptoms such as excessive bleeding, pain and disfigurement which can persist until menopause if left untreated.) It was just one of those things, one minute I was fine and the next I was not. Anyway, I won't go into it too much here, but when the fibroid first appeared (a couple months before it had to come out) I missed my period for the first time in my life.
So, fast forward to this February: I've just started working a midnight-8am shift at a new job, Mike and I are not in a good place and I'm late. When the time came and went I figured I'd miscounted because I'm very regular. When it was clearly not an addition error I mentioned to Mike that I was late, but not concerned (at least about pregnancy). He asked me to test and I refused explaining that if it was negative, which I was sure it would be, it would prove I had another fibroid.
So another week went by and I felt increasingly crappy. I chalked the fatigue up to my horrible work schedule and figured I was nauseous because I was eating at weird hours and not enough because I was sleeping all the time. I even fainted once, but I blamed blood sugar. So, I promised I would take a test over the weekend if it hadn't come.
It hadn't come by Friday, February 13th and I got home from work around 8:30am ate "breakfast" and went to bed. I woke up around 4:30pm having had some terrible dream I can't remember now and decided it was time. I went into the bathroom knowing I couldn't hold it long enough to find the test so I peed in a cup and than started looking for the test. I was banging around sleepy and angry for a few minutes. Mike heard the commotion and came to check on me. He of course found the test in less than a second and headed it to me, which only made me more pissed off, so I said you do it and handed it back. Then I went and got back in bed.
It's important to note that 1)I'd only ever seen a positive pregnancy test once in person and it was a prop on a movie I was shooting 2)The test was a First Response Rapid Response meaning it only takes one minute to show a result, but is less sensitive to HCG. (I've done extensive research on pregnancy tests, how they work and probability of false positives since than. By the way girls it's 0% they only give false negatives.)
So, exactly one minute later Mike came into the bedroom with a blank expression. I could barely look at him. It went something like this: "Well?"
"Well, you don't have a fibroid." He starts to smile.
"What! No. You're shitting me."
"No, I'm not."
"No way. You're shitting me."
"No it's definitely positive. The line was pretty dark. Good job producing HCG." he's laughing now.
"Show me. I don't believe you."
He goes and gets the test from the bathroom which looks like this (the lighter line is the control, the darker one was the test line):

I'm pretty sure that's when I started crying.
That's how we found out. Completely bizarre, I kept thinking "I can't get pregnant. I don't get pregnant, other people get pregnant." Among a whole host of other things. Even when you're careful sometimes as they say in Jurassic Park "nature finds a way." It happened. And here we are 24weeks later over halfway through and I've got a one pound little person kicking me from the inside. (:
So, I guess that makes me double wrong, first about the fibroid and than about ever being pregnant. Katie 0 Universe 2...