December 4th, 2003

Well, it finally happened. I finally stopped feeling sick all the time about a week before Thanksgiving. Just in time to start gorging myself on turkey and fixings. Kurt made the most delicious turkey ever on the grill. I can’t believe how good it came out. So today at the Doctor’s I got a congratulatory, “Hurray 4 pounds up!” instead of the “Hmmm, just one pound,” comment. My blood pressure is at 98/50 which is right in line with what it should be. They took blood but she didn’t say anything to me about how irregularly I’ve been taking my iron pills, so I’m pretty pleased about that as well. We heard the baby’s heartbeat, too, which is always cool but was overshadowed a bit today by the ultrasound we had done.

We told them we didn’t want to know the gender, so nothing should be given away by the photos below (and if it is, don’t tell us!):

My favorite picture is the one that shows the feet. They’re so adorable and perfect looking. The baby was really moving around a lot during the ultrasound, and the video shows it doing some karate chops (already a student of Sophia Fu, perhaps?) and sucking and all kinds of really sweet things. Everything looks to be in order, we counted fingers and toes, and we are very pleased and excited about the whole thing, of course. Thanks to my friend Chris Goodwin for scanning the pics and sending them to me with lightning speed so I could share them with ya’ll.

So I had my first major pregnancy brain lapse yesterday. I had just gotten my haircut and was trying to decide about lunch. I wanted something small, because I’d had a big second breakfast. So I took the High Street exit and figured I’d get some fries or something at one of the fast food joints. It was a little warm and pleasant (unlike today which is unforgivably, horribly cold) and I suddenly remembered that Burger King has delicious Icees and a cold coke Icee sounded like just about the best thing under the sun right then. So I resolved to pull into Burger King and order fries and a coke Icee. Unfortunately, the drive through line I’ve just pulled into is longer than I’d like. I sigh. I wait ten minutes or so. I inch my car around the restaurant. I look in the window and see a girl of about eleven with a Frosty. She opens it up and starts spooning big chocolate spoonfuls into her mouth. I watch her for a few minutes. She’s not at all self-conscious and never notices I’m watching her. I pull around some more, and find myself (finally!) at the speaker window for the drive through.

Someone asks me on the cracky tinny speaker if they can take my order. I realize I’m at Wendy’s then, and that Wendy’s and Burger King are not the same, and that I cannot get an Icee at Wendy’s. So I order large fries, thinking, I’m not even that crazy about Wendy’s fries anyways, and glance over to the Burger King parking lot, next door. The drive through line is a LOT shorter there than it is where I’m currently sitting. Gah. What to do now. Forget about the Icee? Go over and wait in their line and get and Icee? The Icee is the piece I actually really wanted, too!

So I decided that I’d go and get the Icee anyways. So two drive-throughs and 20 minutes later I had my lunch : fries and an Icee. Icee was delicious, fries were mediocre.

In other pregnancy news, my fingernails are growing out of control. I’ve cut them three times this week. I do remember this happened last time. If I were the sort of person who liked to do stuff with their nails this would be a great time to grow them, get them painted and manicured, and show them off. Alas, I find nails any longer than stubs to be highly annoying. I’m also getting occasional cramplike pains in my lower abdomen and I assume that’s my uterus streeeeeeeetching or whatever. This week several people have looked at me and exclaimed, “Oh! you’re showing! Just last week you didn’t look pregnant at all.” Of course just as many have said “You’re pregnant? I had no idea?!” when overhearing the first batch. I find it hard to believe people can’t see this tremendous bulge I’m carrying around, but I’m sure that it’s far more noticeable to me, the one carrying it, than to others. Once or twice I’ve woken up in the night with difficulty breathing, but it’s not gotten too bad yet. Sleeping positions are becoming an issue, and I’ll need another body pillow like I had last time, I’m fairly certain. All in all, things are going well and I’m feeling quite good. It’s also really comforting to be at the halfway point. 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go!

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