The Beginning of the End

I decided to let the cat out of the bag on Facebook today. I hadn't before because... I dunno, just hadn't wanted to, really. I wanted to tell people a couple of weeks ago, but I made myself wait for today. Exercising my patience muscle is something that doesn't happen nearly enough, which may account for my nigh-uncontrollable road rage (P.S. Utah drivers, the on-ramp is there so you can SPEED UP!!!!!!!!!) Today is also the first day of my third trimester (squeal!), so I thought it would be most appropriate to announce my pregnancy on a day with meaning attached.

Don't judge me.

Here is the note I published on Facebook (for those of you who came here from Facebook, you get to read it twice!):

Fun and Exciting News from the Magical Land of Taylor

Today is a pretty important day. For me, at least. It's not because I had a Biology test this morning (which I'm pretty sure I did well on), nor because it's the last day in June (because that's not really important to anyone unless their birthday is the last day in June, or possibly the first day in July). And no, it's not even because today is the 74th anniversary of when "Gone With the Wind" was published. Why I know that is not important.

Today, friends, is important to me because today marks the beginning of the end; or more specifically, today is the first day of my third trimester.

That's right, bitches! I'm pregnant! And have been for a while. 28 weeks, to be exact.

If you didn't already know, don't get your panties in a wad. I didn't tell a lot of people. Those of you who are only just now finding out aren't less important than the people who have already known; you're just not as observant as them. Several people know because they saw a picture of me somewhere and said, "Hey, you gained weight. In one area. A very conspicuous area. Have anything to share?"

And now, the answers to some questions you may have:

Yes, I'm serious.

Yes, I am still annoyed by most children.

No, it wasn't planned (surprise!).

Yes, we're keeping Sophie. And she's afraid of the crib, so... yeah.

Yes, I really am serious.

No, we're not getting a damn minivan.

Yes, we will be selling it if it has blue eyes.

No, we don't know the sex and aren't going to find out ahead of time.

No, we haven't decided on names yet. And when we do, no, we aren't going to tell you.

Yes, duct tape is a perfectly acceptable baby shower gift.

Yes, I'm going to be a dirty hippie and do natural childbirth. Not at home or anything like that, but no epidural, etc. No, I don't want to hear your negative opinion on natural childbirth.

Yes, I'm still serious. This is not a joke.

No, no strangers have rubbed my belly yet. I think they can sense that I'd have no qualms punching them in the face if they did.

Yes, I'm going to finish school. Yes, I'm aware of how challenging that will be. No, I don't see a problem in letting Sophie babysit.

No, I haven't gotten gigantically fat.

Yes, I have had food aversions. Mainly black olives. Barf!!

I'm due on September 22nd, which is Jake's birthday. Wouldn't that be fun!? But we'll see. I'm not going to induce if I don't have to.

I've been keeping a blog re: being pregnant... http://go-team-boobies.blogspot.com/. You will observe that I went through a mean streak early on, but that settled out and now I'm mostly just sarcastic. This blog is where you'll be able to find pictures of the progression of my fatness, and also pics of the ultrasound.

So, that concludes the Fun and Exciting News! We now return you to your regularly scheduled Wednesday afternoon. ^_^

The end!

I'm impatient to see what people have to say about it. I think there might be a delay in commenting because the people who know me well are going to be convinced that it's an elaborate joke.

I'm Stupid Sometimes

I was planning the Baby-Que for Labor Day Weekend, so that the friends/family I have that live out of town could attend if they wanted to. How nice of me!

Anyway, I got the dates wrong. I Googled "Labor Day" to find the correct dates, and I definitely looked up the wrong year. So I was planning for an August 28th Baby-Que, when in fact Labor Daybor Weekend is the following weekend. Good thing I haven't ordered the invitations yet.

However, for everyone who has asked, we've told them the Baby-Que will be on Labor Day Weekend, not that it will be on August 28th. So everyone should have been thinking the correct dates all along. Just not me. Because apparently, I'm mental.

I Miss Jake

He's been gone for two weeks now, and I miss him a lot. Sophie misses him, too. She misses his farts most of all.

Thankfully, he won't be gone much longer. And with the Interweb, we can talk pretty much every day. I have to give props to long-distance relationships in pre-Internet times; they must have been rough.

The Name Game

Over on the right side, I have listed the names that Jake and I have agreed on thus far.

Not many. I know.

We'll both get on the Interweb and look up names, suggesting the ones we like. For 99% of said mentioned names, the response is normally, "That name sounds stupid."

Like, Jake suggested Avner for a boy. He did so after watching a movie about some Israeli assassin, whose name was Avner. I said no to Avner, on the grounds that it reminded me of a pig for some reason. I don't know why, but when I hear Avner, I think of a pig. I'm not naming my kid after a pig.

I suggested Gallagher for a boy. Jake said no. I don't think he gave a real reason, other than he didn't like the way it sounded. Fair enough.

For a while, we had Naomi on the girl list. I think it's a pretty name! Jake did, too, until he figured out that if you spell Naomi backwards, it says "I moan." Then he decided he didn't like it. Sigh.

I think our short list of names is better than a really long one, though. We don't have much to narrow down. And I'd be happy with any of those names, really. That's why they're on the list: because we can both envision screaming that name at a wayward child.

Middle names have already been selected, but are not listed anywhere. They're a surprise! And I think when Jake and I finally get the names completely figured out and agreed upon, we're not going to tell anyone. I don't want anyone to judge the name I pick, first of all, and it's also another way for me to kind of keep this more personal for me. If only Jake and I know the name, and are the first ones to know the gender, it makes it more special. ^_^

I Was Going to Blog, But...

...I forgot what I wanted to blog about.

So I'm going to blog about not being able to remember ANYTHING.

I suppose it's common to pregnancy to become afflicted with what is referred to as "pregnancy brain." I'm not sure what the technical term is, or indeed if it's even a recognized pregnancy ailment. Wait! The Google will tell me.

OK, according to the Mighty Google, pregnancy brain (also called mommy brain, pregnancy amnesia, or momnesia) may or may not be real. Chemically, say researchers, a pregnant woman's brain doesn't change during or after pregnancy.

However, the lack of sleep that IS a bona fide pregnancy ailment may play a part in preggo-brain. Everyone knows that if you go for a while without getting sleep, your brain is kind of wuzzy. You just feel like your brain isn't quite on, like it's operating at half-capacity. And that is definitely happening to me.

For instance, I know everyone has walked into a room and forgotten why they walked in. That's happened to everyone at some point in their life. I'll do that, but then I'll forget where I came from, so then I'll have to wander throughout the apartment, looking for evidence of where I just was.

The other day, I went to Target for the sole purpose of getting a gift bag in which to place a gift. When I got to Target, I bought shoes, a new purse, and spent about half an hour sifting through greeting cards (for no one in particular). I left Target, and didn't realize until I was ALREADY HOME that I hadn't gotten the one thing that I had needed.

My Biology class is getting progressively more difficult, but I don't think the actual class content itself is getting harder. I just can't remember shit, so it's taking me twice as long to grasp concepts. I took a quiz the other day and misread a question: what binds to the outside of a G protein-linked receptor, and what binds to the inside? Well, I thought it meant, what binds to the in/outside of the receptor itself, and I freaked out. What does? I don't know! Did we even go over that? Do things even bind to the inside of those proteins? I thought they were just channels... blah blah blah. Then I realized that the question wanted to know what bound to the protein that was sticking outside and inside the CELL, and I felt dumb. Really dumb.

I got the answer right, by the way.

Forgetting everything isn't the only symptom of baby brain drain. I will also do very strange things for no reason at all. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I tried to flush the toilet by flipping the bathroom light switch. And just today, I walked to the bathroom, closed the door, unzipped my sweater, and sat down on the toilet. Fortunately, I didn't pee my pants. I realized that I needed to unzip more than my sweater if I was to successfully make peeps. Which I did. Yay.

Don't Touch That!

A video made exquisite by its ridiculousity.

Anyway, the Beast has developed far enough along so that s/he now responds to touch. YES! Music doesn't seem to do much of anything, nor does putting a flashlight against my tummy. But touch... drives the Beast crazy.

I can be sitting quietly, and the Beast will also be quiet, plotting world domination or something like that, and I'll just happen to put my hand on my fatness. The Beast is like, "WTF!? Aw heeellllls naw!" and will start kicking and punching and kung-fu fighting all over the place.

The Beast tires quickly, so there is only a short period of protest-kicking. But it giggles me up every time it happens. The Beast does it when Jake puts his hand on me, too, and now the Beast is big enough so that Jake can feel the wrath within.

I wonder what this means. I recall my mom telling fun stories about me when I was a kid, and how I didn't like to be held and I wouldn't sit still for anyone but Nancy. I want to make sure I remember this now, the protest-kicking, and see if the Beast reflects that in outside-the-womb life. I'd prefer a kid like that, vice a kid that is super clingy and always wants to be held.

The Baby-Que

Well, I've moved from triple to double digits in regards to my pregnancy countdown. 99 days! 'Tis a glorious day, indeed.

I went to my sister-in-law's baby shower on Saturday. I had to go straight from the hospital where I had been at clinical since 6:30 that morning. Understandably, I was a little out of it. And I arrived just in time to miss all of the stock baby shower games. You know those games. The melted-chocolate-in-the-diaper game, the clothespins-for-saying-"baby" game, and so on.

I hate those games.

I'm planning on having a baby shower on Labor Day weekend. Jake should be back from his summer vacation by then, so he'll be able to partake. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Forcing my husband to attend the baby shower is a little cruel, and a bit unorthodox. Unorthodox, yes. Cruel, maybe. But it's not going to be a normal baby shower; it's going to be a Baby-Que.

I don't have many friends out here on account of just having moved here in January. When I say I don't have friends here, I don't mean that I haven't met nice people here. I mean I haven't known them long enough, or don't know them well enough, to be like, "Here, come to a party for me and make sure to buy me stuff!" All of my really close friends reside in Florida or Texass, and I can't just frolic down to those places (those warm, humid places) to make sure my friends buy me baby stuff.

Jake, on the other hand, has many many friends and family here, 95% of whom A) didn't believe I was real until they met me, and B) didn't believe that Jake was procreating until I showed them my fat tummy. The ones who actually believe Jake and I about a baby are verrrryyyy excited for us, and I really want to include them in the baby festivities. So after much deliberation, we've decided to throw a Baby-Que.

It will be unisex.

There will be cheezburgers.

There will be NO baby games.

We're probably going to have it at Jake's mom's house. We'd have it in our apartment, but uhhh it's not exactly a good party place - it's kinda small, no yard, tiny balcony, etc. But Jake's mom has a large backyard and a grill. So yay!

The only drawbacks to having it at Jake's mom's is that there will be no alcohol. Now, I don't care much for myself, but a lot of Jake's friends are... not exactly alcoholics, but they sure do love their drinkies. Another drawback is that I was thinking about a couple of "baby shower" games, but they are very lewd. Like the draw-which-position-you-think-the-baby-was-conceived-in game. Funny, in my opinion, but probably not in Jake's mom's opinion.

So no alcohol, no lewd games. But it's not going to last that long, and I think even the most hardcore drinkers of Jake's friends can go for an afternoon without beer, or scotch, or whatever they drink. :P

The Diarrhea Chronicles - Volume 1

Not MY diarrhea... the dog's diarrhea.

I'm currently pregnant with my first human baby, but I've had a fur-baby for a little over three years now.

Her name is Sophie. She's a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. I got her from a breeder in the UK when she was 8 weeks old, and she just turned 3 in March. She's a generally well-behaved dog; a little whiny, but apparently, that's a Staffy thing that they all do.

So anyway, I'm posting about Sophie because ever since I moved to SLC, she's had horrible, chronic, explosive diarrhea. It. Is. Awful. She's always had a sensitive tummy, and I kept it under control by always feeding her the same food and the same treats. She's not allowed to have people-food. The only thing she's allowed to ingest that is not her pre-approved dog food/treats is grass. She's a grazer. She doesn't eat grass when she feels sick, she eats it because she likes the way it tastes, or something. I don't know. She's weird.

Diarrhea. I figured she was having intestinal upsets at first because she was adjusting to the move. I mean, we drove across the country in less than a week. I can't blame her for being a little upset, mostly because she suffers from carsickness. She's better now, but she used to throw up if she even saw an open car door. She's endured a couple of semi-cross-country drives in her three years of life, though (as well as a transatlantic flight from London to Tampa, FL), so she's learning to cope.

Well, Jake and I moved into our apartment at the beginning of March, and Sophie has had several diarrheapalooza nights since then. And guess who gets to get up and let her out?! Yep. Me. She sleeps in a kennel at night (her "house," as in, "Sophie, go to your house," and in she goes), and the kennel is downstairs in the living room. At 2am, when she needs to poo viciously all over the lawn, she will bark and whine. Jake doesn't even wake up, but I can hear ONE of her poo-cries, and I'm wide awake.

So I will get up and take her out. And she'll crap herself silly and immediately become happy. Inside we go, and she goes back in her house, and I go back to bed.

An hour and a half later, more poo-cries. So I get up, let her out to shit, bring her back in, go back to bed.

An hour and a half after that... poo-cries. Repeat. All. Night.

I'll do it all night, too, because I love this dog. I mean, come on, how could someone NOT love this face?

I don't know, but I sure do.

She's really lucky that I love her as much as I do, or I would have thrown her out the window a long time ago.

Twice now, she's had diarrhea during the day while I'm at school. Inside her house. All over her bed. So when I get home all tired and ready to just sit down and take a load off, I instead am hit with a bitchslap of dog poop odor as soon as I open the door, and I have to spend the next hour or so cleaning the kennel, the bed, and the dog herself.

I had to do all this yesterday, and I still have the scent of feces in my nose.

However, as bad as it is for me, I'm sure it's worse for her. I mean, chances are, if you're reading this blog, you've experienced explosive (or near-explosive) diarrhea in your life. I think the diarrhea is worse for the person who has it shooting out of their butt than it is for the person standing nearby. So I started thinking that maybe - just maybe - Sophie's diarrhea isn't being caused by post-moving anxiety.

While I was scraping dookers off of her kennel, Jake called a nearby vet and made an appointment for today at 2:45. The vet is within walking distance, so around 2:15 or so, Sophie and I are going to trot on down to the vet and have her butt swabbed.

Now, Sophie loves walks. And she loves the vet. But I don't think she loves butt swabs. Two outta three ain't bad, though.

I don't know what I want or expect from the vet. OK, no, wait, I know what I expect. I expect them to give me probiotics to add to her food, and I expect them to not take me seriously when I say I've already been prescribed probiotics by a vet in Augusta and said probiotics didn't work. I expect to take their dumb probiotics anyway, and try them anyway, even though I know they're not going to work.

I'm really afraid that they're going to do a butt swab and discover that she has some kind of horrible intestinal condition that will require surgery and therefore a buttload (GET IT?!) of money to fix. Or, I'm afraid there will be some kind of intestinal condition that has no fix at all, and I will be condemned to mop up dog diarrhea for the next 10 years.

So yeah, I am filled with trepidation. And for those of you who are like, "Cleaning up dog shit is just practice for cleaning up baby shit later!" I say to you... Fuck You. Not the same thing.

25 Weeks

So, I'm 25 weeks pregnant today. Technically, I've only been inhabited by a fetus for 23 weeks, but some genius determined that the two weeks preceding ovulation somehow count towards your final pregnancy tally. So, 25 weeks pregnant, but the Beast is only 23 fetus-weeks old.

When I was in the Air Force, I was unfortunate enough to go to tech school with - and later, be based in the same unit as - a total and complete retard who really should have been weeded out of the gene pool for the overall benefit of mankind. I'm sure everyone knows one of "those:" the people so stupid that you're amazed they haven't choked on their own tongue by now. For the sake of his privacy, we shall refer to him simply as Airman Dippy.

Airman Dippy managed to dupe some poor, equally-as-stupid girl into marrying him. They promptly had stupid unprotected sex, and concieved a stupid child (that later became a stupid obese infant). Since we worked in the same office - and since having a baby is a big deal for stupid and non-stupid people alike - I got to hear all about his pregnant stupid wife and their impending stupid baby arrival.

You may have noticed by now that I'm not a very nice person inside my head. I am, however, a very nice person in real life, on the outside, where it shows. When most coworkers would tell me about their children and show me pictures of their (oftentimes hideously ugly) babies, I would always manage some kind of polite response and listen kindly to stories of vomiting babies or toddlers that wrote on the kitchen cupboards with feces. I even managed to NOT vocalize my suggestions for duct-taping or stapling errant children to furniture, or when I did, I made it sound like I was kidding.

For the record, NOT kidding.

But anyway, I digress. My point is, I manage to be social and polite with 99% of people, but I couldn't bring myself to be polite with Airman Dippy anymore (I'd been stuck with his stupid ass for about 4 years at this point, and I was tired of pretending not to be enraged by his continued survival). It wasn't a secret that I didn't like kids in the first place (still don't!), or that I found him repulsive on every front. He still wanted to tell me about his baby who, being his offspring, would no doubt be at least 50% as repulsive as him. And every time he started to tell me about Baby Dippy, my response was always something along the lines of, "Dude, I do not give a shit about your stupid baby."

One of these conversations that I didn't give a shit about evolved into an argument that I thought he had won. He said something about 10 months of pregnancy, and I said, "It's 9 months, genius. Humans gestate for 9 months, not 10," to which he responded, "No, pregnancy is 40 weeks long. There are 4 weeks in a month. 40 divided by 4 is 10. So 10 months."

I was taken aback, mostly because I was surprised at his advanced level of mathematical comprehension. This guy being able to do division was like coming home and finding your cat singing Nessun Dorma in front of your bathroom mirror. Inconceivable.

I was willing to give Airman Dippy the argument, mostly because of his pregnant wife and the fact that an obstetrician had probably given him the 40-week-10-month information. I didn't care enough to look it up, so I just left it as a score for him.

However, now knowing what I know about pregnancy, I have decided that he was wrong. It's not his fault; the general count of 40 weeks is wrong. It's dumb to count those first two weeks. The count should start on the day of ovulation, really. Why include two weeks before you've even had THE sex? There's no baby before ovulation, nor is there even viable available baby-making materials.

I suppose it's an easy way for calculating where you are in your pregnancy. An equally as easy way, though, would be to find the LMP date and just jump to two weeks after that. Hey! Ovulation date! Spermie time!

I tried to explain this concept to Jake, but he seemed very uninterested in a who-cares-the-baby-is-coming-at-the-same-time-either-way way. I guess he's right. But don't tell him I said that.

Fat Tummy Slideshow

I haven't been posting many pics of my tummy... in fact, I haven't been taking many pics of my tummy. I think I should increase the frequency of both. In the meantime, I made a slideshow. Enjoy!

Slacking Again

But in my defense, it's been a busy month-ish since my last post.

I started a CNA (Certified Nursing Asst.) course about a month ago, and I finished the coursework about two weeks ago. However, the state of Utah has a 75-minimum hour requirement for Nursing Assistant certification, so I get to go to the classroom and sit for four hours a day. I've been taking the homework from my other classes with me (Biology, and Math for Health Sciences), which I suppose will be beneficial when grade time rolls around. But right now, I just want to stay home in my PJs and shlump on the couch. I'm entering the pregnancy phase when NOTHING is comfortable, for several reasons.

First of all, my back is killing me. KILLING ME! I can't bend over easily anymore, so if I drop something, I usually spend a few minutes deciding whether it's worth the pain to pick it up. Usually, it's not, and Jake will come home to a whole plethora of stuff littering the floor. I do pick up anything the dog might decide to eat or destroy, so at least that's something...

Second, I can't really sleep. At all. It's partly the back pain, partly the getting up all night to pee, and partly just can't-sleep-itis. I complain about it, and everyone says, "It's Nature preparing you for having a newborn!" Well, thanks Nature, but you're not helping. If I knew I wasn't going to eat anything for the next week, I wouldn't prepare by starving myself. >:P

Oh, speaking of food ingestion, eating has become somewhat unenjoyable. Everything that I really want to eat... I can't, because it's "bad" for the baby. I want to know how hazardous half this stuff really is. I was Facebooking about being excited about having sushi last week, and I got all kinds of shit for it. "Raw fish? You're going to give your baby salmonella." OK, first of all, there exists cooked sushi (and I loves me some California rolls). Second of all, outta my face. I'm willing to bet pregnant Japanese ladies eat raw sushi all the time, and there's certainly no shortage of Japanese babies. Hey! Maybe eating raw fish makes people really good at putting together electronics.

And I love tea. I grew up in the South, so sweet tea is a part of daily life. Yummmmmm but no. Wah. There's caffeine in it. You know what? I drink it anyway. There's a "safe" amount, according to doctors. Besides, I did some Googling, and the only studies I could find about the effects of caffeine on fetuses involved amounts of caffeine that would be dangerous for an adult, let alone a developing baby. So according to these studies, as long as I don't mainline caffeine, the Beast should be OK. I still try to mix up the tea (green tea, by the way, for the Vitamin C) with water, orange juice, and other good-for-me beverages, so I don't feel too bad about it.

I've been craving nothing but sugar. I had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast today and yesterday. SO GOOD. When I eat fruits/veggies, it's mostly sweet, like strawberries, cherries, raspberries, etc. Apples, yum. Salad, not so much, UNLESS the dressing is sweet. I try to eat healthy stuff, but I never finish it once I prepare it; I'll put a bite in my mouth, chew a little, and then think, "This tastes like hatred. I'm getting a cookie."

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Jake and I went up to Estes Park, CO to witness the marriage of two of my bestest friends, Tanya and Hutch. It was a small ceremony but beautiful nonetheless, and I was the MOH, even though my dress barely fit over my big fat tummeh. No champagne for me for the toasts, but one can toast just as well with water. I needed the water anyway. When you're at 7,000 ft elevation, the air is SOOOO dry, and it sucks all the moisture right out of you!

When we got back from Estes Park, I discovered that my laptop had become furious with us for leaving it alone over the weekend, and it had stopped operating. I tried troubleshooting for a few hours, until I was about to unleash hormone-fueled rage all over it, and then Jake stepped in and saved the lappy's miserable life. Rather than letting me throw it out the window, he sent me downstairs to get back into a peaceful Zen-like state by staring at my aquarium, while he worked some kind of Asian magic on it. He defragged it overnight, and it was back to it's slow-but-working self in the morning. Yay!

The dog has been having nighttime intestinal troubles for a few weeks now. She never has diarrhea during the day when I'm awake and dressed and prepared to take her outside. She only has diarrhea at 1am when I have to wake up at 5am the next morning. Every hour and a half, she'll need to go out to poo, but when the sun comes up, her diarrhea miraculously changes to solid feces. I'm beginning to think she's some kind of poop-werewolf... the lamest werewolf of all time.

So anyway, there's my excuse(s) for not blogging for so long. Take your pick. I'm going to go eat second breakfast, take a shower, and try to jam myself into some non-pajama clothing. Here goes nothing!