Salt and Pickles

Hi there. I’m a bad bad blogger. 

The baby is still growing and kicking away in my belly. I had one day where I was positive she was moving more sluggishly than normal and didn’t sleep much that night. But the next day she was back to moving like the jackrabbit she usually is

apparently my grandmother is convinced I’m having a boy, still. I have an ultrasound on wednesday… so we’ll see if ’she’ is still a girl! (i find myself hoping so, only because of the 3 or 4 little dresses I couldn’t stop myself from buying. i have control issues. or rather.. lack of control issues)

I’ve gone to minnesota and swum in a lake, I’ve shopped at the farmers market a lot, i’ve cooked a lot of healthy yummy meals, I’ve done far less to the loft than I’d hoped to by now.

right now we have a friend visiting.. potentially for awhile, although I got her a few house sitting gigs over the next few weeks. Will be nice to have some help with the physical labor part of getting the house in order. We’ve known each other since 1977.. so she is family. Going through a rough patch and hopefully we can help her get through it and established here in the bay area

I should really get out of my pajamas and into real clothes, as noon creeps up on me!

I no longer have a job. today was my last day, and it feels really really strange! 

I’ve known for a few years now that as soon as i was 6 months pregnant (ok, we jumped the gun by a month) I’d quit my job and take some time to myself.. and then when the baby came I’d stay home a few years and then figure out a whole new career because web development has turned out to just not be my thing.

but it still feels weird. I’d been at that job for 8 years, and I have a feeling that I’ll have a few days where I get up automatically and head to work only to wonder who the stranger is sitting at my desk. Or i’ll feel the urge to, at least. I really liked the people, the culture, the boss, the place. I’ll miss it.

but all that aside? WOO HOO. i’m going to mexico on Friday and when I get back I’ll be having lunch at Cafe Clem on sunny days, or reading books, or readying the house for baby, or learning to sew, or shopping at the farmers market & cooking great meals, or just sitting on my ass. hooray for ass-sitting. 

Yesterday was our anatomy scan. Things looked good with the baby & it’s measuring on target..  but my placenta was a bit low. Not ‘placenta previa’ necessarily,  but low enough that they’ll be monitoring it.

I really really hope it moves up.I would like a c-section to not be a foregone conclusion. We’ve already chosen our doula, damn it!  I’m fine with a C as a means to an end. but I’d like to feel like I still have a choice at this point. Even if at the end i have none.

oh and the two techs were 80% certain it is a girl.  

I haven’t thrown up in 5 whole days!! without Zofran! this is very exciting.

Also, I’ve felt like cooking lately. I’ve cooked at least 4 times in the past few weeks and that’s a huge improvement over the first 3 months of pregnancy. Not only have I cooked, but I’ve wanted to eat the outcome. 

Tonight I made a savory tart with grapes on it from The Splendid Table How To Eat Supper. It was on puff pastry (i got the good stuff, made with butter) with greens, onions, mushrooms (my own addition), grapes, asiago w/ cream, and chives. delicious. We ate all of it and most of that ended up in Hans’ belly, so he’s feeling a tad bit illin’. 

I’ve been reading up a storm on my kindle.. and researching cloth diapers because we’ve decided to go that road.

I gave notice at work a few weeks ago and I’m DAMN excited to be having approx 4 months off before the baby comes. OMG, i can’t wait. 

This weekend we’re headed to Carmel to spend mom’s day with my mom. and then we’ll come back for dinner for mom’s day with H’s mom. busy busy. 

Now that the vomityness is gone, the doppler is the only proof I have i’m pregnant. I haven’t gained any weight (and in fact lost some at first) due to said vomityness.   

I am totally going to go read now. I’m a fireball of exciting times! 

So, even if all you crave are a few crisp juicy pickles and lovely fat green olives (the really neon green gorgeous kind that can be found at Whole Foods right now and taste like butter olives) . Don’t do it. Do not decide to eat only pickles and olives for dinner.but if you do, once you’ve finished puking up the lovely green.. eat a bagel and all will be right with the world again. 

tomorrow we are flying to Baltimore. I don’t really want to fly anywhere, but we have a family obligation (and that part will be fun) so fly I will. I hope to get an aisle seat and a few barf bags.  

If we don’t have a vanishing twin, and both decide to stick around. We’ve been house hunting. .. which is horribly sad because we love our gorgeous loft and haven’t even been here a year yet. But going up and down two sets of loft stairs with two babies wouldn’t be fun or easy.

well i had more to say but Godzilla the cat just settled down on my chest, which basically puts him right in the way of my seeing my computer screen.

my travel bag tomorrow: saltines & books.

Yesterday we went to Rodeo Beach at the marin headlands. 

It’s a pretty beach, but you don’t really realize how much so til you get up close and personal. The sand is a reddish gray color (or that’s how I am remembering it today) and farther away from the water it is fine and granular like regular sand. As you get closer to the water it becomes more like tiny small pebbles. Like the size of a seed bead, if you ever work with beading. some are bigger than that (nearer to the top of the sand) but mostly they are tiny. but definitely larger than grains of sand. They aren’t granular, they’re tiny tiny pebbles.

We walked down the beach some. and after the last-post-mentioned almost-puke, we found a little cut out area of the cliffs that was free from wind. We sat down and as we looked at the tiny pebbles under us, we noticed they were made up of shades of green and orange and red and of course, requisite grey/black/brown sand-colors.
We lay on our bellies picking out greens & oranges and realized that that beach is made up of tiny pebbles of jade and carnelian. (H already knew about the carnelian, as he’d been there with his geologist group from his office. he’s a civil engineer)
we brought home a small bag of tiny jade & carnelian pebbles. who knows what I’ll do with them, but it was so lovely to have our face down near the ground and see all these wet shades of blue, green, orange and red.. which when you were looking from a height (say standing) just melded into a reddish gray color so you had no idea the beautiful range of colors in front of you.

This morning I got up to go to brunch with a friend, and as I was sitting on the couch I suddenly gagged and grabbed a napkin (pardon me, this is gross) and puked a very small amount into it.
The thing about my recent gagginess is that if there had actually been something that wanted out, I don’t think I ever would have made it to a bathroom. Do most people have MS this way, where it just suddenly is THERE .. and if so, how do they deal with meetings at work if it hits? yikes.

I came home from brunch and napped the afternoon away. I really should get out of bed now.

This morning I set the alarm for 8:55 (yes, i sleep late). I woke up a bit groggy and dozed back off for 3 more minutes. When I woke up, I looked at my phone and it distinctly said 8:58
But I’d fallen back into a dream and had an exchange that was definitely a good 20 minutes long. With conversation, flow of movement, social interactions, etc.
I don’t have anything to say about this, since I don’t really know much about dreams and reality. I do know that I find that really interesting.. the difference between subconscious ‘time’ and real time

When I’m at acupuncture, I almost always fall asleep. sometimese it’s just threaming (thinking/dreaming) with some level of consciousness.. sometimes it’s full sleep. I always dream.
I always wake up with a start almost exactly at the hour mark .. convinced that M has forgotten me and I’ve been in there for 3 hours. I panic for a moment, and then realize she has other clients. There is no way she’d have forgotten about me, since she needs the room. But this happens 80% of the times i go visit.

Well, right after work I head for the snow. I am desperately glad of this, since i can’t fucking think about anything but embryos and peeing on sticks and what ifs. And I can’t make myself step back from the google.

Ok, have a lovely weekend

I realize, looking over this journal.. or just listening to my own dialogue. It hasn’t occurred to me that I wont’ have a baby at the end of this. I mean, sure it’s come into my brain as a possibility but it’s not something i believe. I believe we will have a baby at the end of this.

I don’t know if this will make it all the more heartbreaking if we don’t .

We have discussed what we’d do if there were no baby at the end. I think we’ve decided not to adopt. Another long wait full of hope just sounds like more than we could take.

We decided I’d still quit my job.. take some time off, and find a new path. And we’d try to travel once or twice a year. Hans originally suggested that we take a big chunk that maybe would have been a college fund and travel for a year or so, but when i looked skeptical and mentioned how much he loved his job. well..that was amended. (Although I’m guessing he could take a few months off as sabbatical) So.. travel a few times a year, more skiing.. None of these would truly make up for not having a kid, but it would make our lives full. I would also work on creating things. Jewelry, take sewing classes, maybe glass blowing/bead making classes.

but again, the not adopting isn’t in stone. If IVF doesn’t work out, we may be right at the beginning and planning from scratch. I don’t know.

Speaking of IVF. dude. I’ve got two estrogen patches on my belly … and in two days, i’ll have 4. Having this much estrogen roiling around in my body is making me a sourpuss. I’m groucherrific and when Hans touches me or hangs out near me in a way I don’t like, i seriously throw a toddler-like tantrum.

today is acupuncture. or as i like to call it - my weekly nap. I usually take a long time to fall asleep if i’m taking a daytime nap, but in acupuncture I’m asleep within 5 minutes. It’s awesome.