October 22nd, 2003

So I’m assuming most of you have already heard/figured out/know that we’re expecting our second child at the end of April of next year. We’re pretty excited about it. Well, when I’m not completely sick I’m excited about it. In some ways, I don’t really feel I have much right to complain about feeling sick all the time, though it does cross my mind that if I had had a more vivid memory of being this sick the first time around I might not have agreed to another bout. At any rate, I feel guilty for complaining about feeling sick all of the time because 1 – it’s not like it’s a permanent condition, there is a definite end in sight and 2 – it’s not that bad. I don’t know how people with permanent chronic recurring conditions like migraines or arthritis or asthma deal with the unendingness of it. Yes, I am tired all the time. I wake up fatigued. My husband hopefully asks me in the mornings if I am tired and I say yes, and puzzled, he tells me “but you slept 12 hours last night!” This annoys a bit, of course, but I try not to be too shrewish about it. Believe you me, if I had a way to be not tired all the time, I’d be all about it. I feel a little guilty complaining too because it’s not like I’m terribly horribly ill. It’s not like I haven’t kept a scrap of food down in three months or that I’ve vomited more than a handful of times. Still, there’s something that just grinds you down about being nauseous all the time, even if you aren’t sick enough to throw up. It’s getting rather wearisome. Last time, I stopped being sick almost to the day of entering my second trimester. I am in second trimester now (week 14!), and feeling none too great at the moment, but I still have hope that in another week or so the heavy duty hormone dumps that are making me so sick will ease up a bit. I don’t remember having a certain time to my morning sickness last time around. The nausea was constant, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but ever a faithful companion. This time around I am actually nausea free at certain moments, but sick like clockwork at others. Evenings, in particular, seem to really hit me hard.

When we first told Sophia she’d be having a baby brother or sister she would smile and solemnly agree, “Yes!” but in the last couple of weeks she’s been given to start sobbing and saying “No! No, I don’t want baby brother or sister.” I imagine the pendulum will swing a few more times before the sibling arrives and it should be an interesting ride.

The good news : my hair looks great. No, really. It looks sleek and shiny and full and resplendent, same as it did last time around. I’ve taken to wearing it down, and people invariable compliment me on it. It’s quite delightful. My skin looks better too, though it’s not as milky white flawless as it was last time around. Between my first and second checkups I had gained no weight, although this week I’m feeling a definite belly bulge, and there’s some clothes I already cannot wear. We heard the baby’s heartbeat last checkup and it was just as emotional as it had been when we heard Sophia’s. It such an intangible thing, a fetus, but it becomes so real when you hear that rapid little swish swish swish. We have decided to be surprised (again) by the gender of the child. Since, for us, there’s not really a wrong answer to the gender question, it doesn’t seem to really matter whether we know in advance or not. Kurt has been great too, he has been almost singlehandedly taking care of Sophia which is something we usually divide and take turns with.

I’m sorry for the lack of updates. With the move at work and the extra effort and energy required to do that plus my feeling sick and not really able to talk about the foremost thing on my mind yet plus being generally quite busy and behind on all sorts of fronts due to extra time at work and extra time at home spent sleeping some things just got left undone, and blog updates was one of them. I’ll try to be better about writing, but I have lots and lots of things I need to do (I have not had a chance to shop for my Halloween costume yet!) so no promises.

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So when I did my RIAA member list purge of the CDs on my wishlist, I left all the Polygram Records albums, because Polygram is not listed on the list. I admit to being surprised by this, but pleased nonetheless. However, the RIAA radar, an excellent searchable database, has Polygram listed as offenders. I’m not sure why, the list they link to (and presumably used to generate the database) doesn’t have them on it. Polygram was recently bought by Seagram, another label not listed in the set of evildoers. So, what’s a person to do? If anyone has any information to give me on whether Polygram is or is not an RIAA member label, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

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