HBO is the new beer

About a month ago I decided that since I had to give up beer and my later-night social life, I could justify getting HBO for the rest of this year. Right around when I found out I was pregnant, I started watching the first season of True Blood on DVD, and I got so hooked that I couldn't deal with the new season starting on HBO without me watching it. And I loved the escape in story that the show provided. 

What's struck me the most, though, is how all of this just makes me feel like I'm in high school. Take any Friday night; it's like everyone else got word of the party and I, for whatever reason, am not involved, so instead I lose myself in a story. And I found that I actually missed that experience--being so wrapped up in great story-telling and getting invested in it and distracted by it. 

This all being said, the finale to season two is on Sunday night, so I'm not sure what I'll turn to after that. Send good book recommendations my way! Or other TV series to put on Netflix. When I first ordered HBO, I also signed up for a free trial month of Showtime for the sole purpose of Anil and I watching the third season of Dexter "on demand." When I started watching Dexter through Netflix, Anil refused to be involved as he knew he'd be instantly hooked and didn't want another TV show to have pull over him. But he relented when I got the second season, and then we were both rabid for the next one. So we burned through those shows in a week. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN'T DRINK BEER OR STAY OUT PAST 8 PM! 

It's been pretty fun though, I have to admit. Lest we all forget, I was an instant English major in college because I love love love stories and characters and great writing. And I'm bringing Anil around to the complicated protagonist--the one that isn't clearly "good" or "bad." I call it the "Tony Soprano complex." Anil always hated watching The Sopranos, not just because you could always hear Tony breathing and chewing (and breathing while chewing), but because Tony was just a bad guy, as Anil saw it. And yes, he was bad--he killed people, etc. But he also had mommy issues and went to therapy. So he wasn't one-sided; he was deliciously complicated and surprisingly interesting. We would talk about how the bookworm in me is used to being curious and observing that kind of twisted protagonist or narrator as opposed to needing to like or respect them. So with Dexter, I worried that Anil would have a problem with the whole protagonist-as-sociopathic-murderer thing. But no! Anil wanted to name our child Dexter if it was a boy. The character is so likable and, well, he only kills bad people, so how turned off by him can you be? And like True Blood, the show has moments of surprising humor, which I think helps lighten the mood and prevents entrenching the viewer in feeling as dirty as the characters are, as I sometimes felt during less savory episodes of The Sopranos (but not that one where Tony and Christopher chased that giant guy into the snowy woods and got lost--that was great). 

I hope our daughter loves books and stories as much as I always have. Who am I kidding though--what chance does she have? My mom read to me throughout my childhood, and I'll absolutely do the same, for my own enjoyment if nothing else. I still vividly remember getting my first hard-cover "chapter book" (as we called them) for my 6th birthday--The Boxcar Children. I don't think I could actually read it myself then, but it was heavy in my hands and felt very important. You can bet that I'll be keeping that tradition with our daughter. I'm already thinking about all the fantastic children's books that we can read together, even the ones that she'll want me to read over, and over, and over, and over again, until I can recite them in my sleep. And I will, because that's what my parents did too (sorry guys--I know you're going to buy her Fox in Sox just so I'll know what it's like to read it to a toddler 28 times a day).

Maybe we'll be reading books before the kids go to sleep, then feverishly catching up on our DVR-ed HBO. Or maybe we'll have more of a social life again by that point; there's always hope. 

catching up!

What's that, Internet? Oh, I have a blog? And people actually read it? And you're saying, if I don't actually write things on it, then it kind of defeats the purpose? Okay... point taken.

To finally follow up from last week's adventurous ultrasound appointment... we're having a baby girl! Anil and Sara are having a daughter. Doesn't that sound crazy?! 

We're sooooo excited and have been planning and registering for things in pink, yellow, and light green. It's been a ton of fun, despite the overwhelming nature of Babies R Us. Fortunately we can temper that with a local store in our neighborhood that's small and super helpful. Both have registries we can manage online, which is so convenient but also makes them easy for me to obsess over. Being able to go online for Babies R Us also means we don't have to drive 30 minutes to the suburbs again. And it's not just about "getting stuff"; figuring out what we want/need in the context of a baby girl makes it that much more real. It's made us start thinking about how to rearrange the apartment, and that makes us think about how things are really going to change in more ways that just furniture.

In other news, my biggest "Whaaaaa??!!" moment of the week was finding out that my feet might grow up to a size, and not necessarily go back after I give birth/reduce from swollen whale status. I'm trying not to be devastated by the real possibility that the handful of fabulous shoes and boots that I've amassed over the years of being a very consistent size 7 might not fit me again. It's absurd. I feel like I'm on some lame version of "What Not to Wear," having to re-imagine and purchase an entirely new wardrobe, except no one is handing me a bank card filled with cash. Someone did not get that memo.

taking bets

I'm almost four months along, and Anil and I find out on Monday whether we're having a boy or a girl. So I'm taking bets--what do you think we're getting? It's a win-win situation as far as we're concerned. In the past couple of days, my bump moved noticeably up--at least to me. About four days ago I realized that I could feel it when I bent over, and it felt more crowded up there after I ate dinner. (The other reason for these feeling might be all the over-indulgent eating I did on vacation, but I swear it looks higher!) The old wives tale is that the positioning means it's a boy, but I imagine there are plenty of people who could say otherwise from experience. My family is very prone to having girls--when we have Thanksgiving at my aunt's house in Richmond it looks like Oprah's studio audience on all-ages day. So who knows! My only fear is that since we have the ultrasound on the earlier side of the "window," they'll say it's a girl because they can't see everything yet, so we'll end up with a lot of pink for what will turn out to be a boy. I mean, if he wants pink when he's old enough to voice that opinion, fine by me, but it's a funny way to start :). Just kidding--I'm sure they'll look closely. We're going back to Beth Israel for the ultrasound so they can double check the hydrosalpinx, so I imagine I'll get another fairly new resident who will take a good hour to do the ultrasound, and we can sit back and watch the whole time. Maybe I should bring popcorn. 

The big 3-0 (and +1-0 in a bikini)

    

For the week of my 30th birthday, Anil and I went to Florida. We stayed with my parents at the start and end of our trip and spent the middle of the week on the Gulf Coast. It was intensely sunny and hot, but the water was warm for swimming, which is what we were craving after a dismal start to the summer in Boston weather-wise and the cold oceans of New England beaches. It was so nice to get out of the city, away from work, and just relax for days on end.

Here is a photo of my bikini and bump ensemble. 

This is about 10 pounds into pregnancy, and it was actually liberating to rock the bikini. I could eat whatever I wanted (we sampled three key lime pies over three nights) and not worry about looking slim in my bikini the next day because, hey, I wasn't going to anyway! And yes, I think I was the whitest person on the beach. I got paranoid about getting sun on my face on the second day when I remembered that there's this "mask of pregnancy" thing that lots of women get through sun exposure, basically making the freckles you get from the sun last until a few months after giving birth, and apparently in geometrical patterns. Anil loves my sun-induced freckled so he was all for it, but I slathered on the SPF 55 until I could be an extra on "True Blood." And I still got a tan (though no parallelograms of freckles), which tells you how hot the sun was!

Our first attempt at my birthday dinner didn't go so well, though you'd think this sign out front could signify nothing but a winner:

The Banana Cabana, while fun and kitchy, is not so much the place to take a pregnant woman for her 30th birthday, when she can't sit back and have a beer to laugh when the waitress asks if the woman with a mullet at the table next to us was "breaking the seal". So we did a redo the next night. We went to another island restaurant, but this one was right on the beach. We watched the sun set from our table and ate way too much, all as it should be. Here's a photo of us. I hope you can see Anil's sunglasses tan. 

And last but not least, here is Anil, on our last morning when we finally succumbed to the all-you-can-eat for $5 pancakes and sausage special at the beach cafe next door, trying to match me pound-for-pound in pregnancy weight gain. Fortunately for both of us I'm still winning that race. 

the right way to negotiate with a pregnant wife

I have this bad habit of throwing things in the general vicinity of the bathroom trash can, things like tissues and empty toilet paper roles, as opposed to placing things accurately in it. See, it's hidden between the sink and tub, so I figure the shower curtain should act as enough of a backboard that if I aim for it, whatever I'm throwing will usually make it in the trash can. Apparently not, though. So this is how Anil asked me to amend my ways, and I think he deserves points for his phrasing:

ANIL: So, I'll do everything to help you while you're pregnant and for the rest of your life, but will you do one thing for me? Make sure what you throw at the trash can makes it in? 

And yes. Yes I will. Because he went to Whole Foods last night and made dinner because I'm supposed to be eating fish, but I suddenly can't deal with smelling it long enough to buy from the counter at the store nor can I stand cooking it. 

3 1/2 months and popping

I think I'm transitioning from a pot belly to an actual bump, so I thought I'd share the pop. 

On the left is me at 5 weeks. See? I was skinny when this started! 

Then on the right is me two months later, last week, at 3 months or 13 weeks. Fun, huh?

      

If you look closely, you can see my prideful smile transition into one of amused acceptance about the state of my belly, and you should definitely take note of the transition from belted jeans to drawstring shorts. It was a sad day when I realized that I wouldn't get to wear my favorite belts for about a year. 

I even had my first person ask me how far along I am! I was working at Patagonia on Friday and poking out more than usual because I was wearing tight JCrew tank tops--nearing laundry day I had to get creative and tried on my range of tanks from three or so years past to find a suitable layering combo that both covered my belly (bottom layer--fyi last year's and this year's are longer) and was a dark color (top layer). So that was fun. 

Oh, and here is Bailey's reaction to all the excitement so far. This is also his reaction to the word "treat," "walk," and his name. 

medical scares and happy endings

I wrote this almost a week ago then forgot to actually post it… oops.

When they did my first ultrasound at 8 weeks, the radiologist said that I had a cyst on my right ovary--one that measured just large enough to warrant concern. The worry was that as real estate gets more crowded in my belly, the cyst could make my ovary torse, or twist. If that were to happen, I’d need emergency surgery, possibly later in my pregnancy when, again, space is tight and maneuvers are complicated. Obviously that's a stretch of a possibility (ha, no pun intended on “stretch”), but because of the possibility, the protocol is to do a laproscopic surgery early in the second trimester to remove the cyst. Better safe than sorry. 

We thought this would possibly happen in September, so since June I've been happy to just put it out of my mind and pretend it wasn't happening. Anil, not so much. During my 12 week ultrasound we had the radiologist look at the cyst again, and it was still there, and my doctor said that we'd think about doing the surgery in August. I freaked out a bit because this was much sooner than I’d expected and made it feel, well, like it would actually happen. I was not at all happy about having surgery for the first time (unless you count my wisdom teeth when I was 17... I don't) WHILE being pregnant, and that this would happen after our vacation to Florida, in mere weeks.

The next step was to go to Beth Israel (BI), the hospital where Anil works and where my OB-GYN is affiliated (where I’ll eventually have this baby!), and get another ultrasound from the radiology department there. I thought it was just another hoop to jump through, and Anil said that it was probably just to get me into the system at BI so that my OB as well as the surgeon could access the images and the info. The ultrasound place I went to before was separate from the hospital. I wasn’t seeing it as a second opinion or an opportunity for a different diagnosis.

But, lo and behold, the senior resident there pretty quickly asked if we'd thought about it being something called a hydrosalpinx. [All I ever think to call it is a hydrocephalopod and I'm pretty sure that's a dinosaur or something...] If it was this thing that is, in fact, a medical term and not a mythical creature, it would mean that I didn't need surgery! So we crossed our fingers as they poked around and did some measurements, then they called the attending doctor in to get her opinion, and she said, without fanfare, it's a hydro-whatever. Anil asked how sure she was of it, and she looked at him like he was an idiot. I think that meant she was quite sure.

The one funny thing I have to mention about all of this is that we were now in a teaching hospital, with residents. Residents like Anil, and residents like the people we hang out with on weekends. So it was strange at first for me to accept that I was going to be examined by people we kind of consider peers, but the truth is that they’re peers with a whole ton of medical training, and I’m old enough that my peers are also professionals in their own right. It's still a funny dynamic though. And, do you know what this time of year means? Residency programs do turnover in July. Senior residents graduate, and new interns quake in their boots. We could tell immediately that our team consisted of a senior resident who was helping a new radiology resident to do my ultrasound. For the external belly one, that was fine. He took a while and looked around a lot, but that meant I got to see lots of images of the baby, who looks relaxed, as if someone was thoughtful enough to deliver a La-Z-Boy chair to my uterus. 

But I knew they’d also be doing the other kind of ultrasound too, to get a better look at my ovaries. And Internet, I’m not going to state flat out what that entails, but if you’ve had it, you know why I’d be unhappy about a new resident using me as a learning opportunity! Fortunately the senior took over for that one.

 

I met with my OB a few days later and got the all-clear! In case you’re wondering, a hydrosalpinx is, I found it on Wikipedia. In my words, it’s a pocket of fluid on a fallopian tube. It requires no surgery and no further worry! Interestingly, it’s often a cause of infertility, but obviously that’s not the case here. If it’s inhibiting the right side from working, the left did just fine in getting the cupcake into the oven. So that’s another thing this week that we’re thankful for. This is hugely exciting and reassuring news.

And it speaks, I think, to the importance of second opinions, even though I wasn’t consciously seeking one. I even told Anil on our way to BI that if he wasn’t in the medical system himself, if I was doing this with less of a trusty and well-informed guide, I would have sought a second opinion myself, when duh, I later realized that my OB was doing just that for me. She’s a fantastic doc and we’re lucky to be working with her.

 

And, just to respond to the new swine flu and pregnant women scare, I can at least say that Anil had the virus two weeks ago, and I never got it. We’re on a pretty good streak here.