Immaculate Conception

Guilty

Recently a good friend at work confided that she was eleven weeks pregnant. My friend has had two miscarriages in the last two years, so she held off until she was sure before telling anyone.

This friend is a little bit of a frienemy, we compete a bit and she likes to act tough and shoot me down when she can, but overall I respect her and want the best for her. So when she told me she was pregnant, I was totally excited for her, and somehow felt more courageous - now there would be two executive women running all over the country with giant bellies. We talked about how fun it would be to work out together and compare doctor's appointments and planned to re-arrange our work so we could cover for each other's FMLA.

The next day, I was writing on the whiteboard in my office and she took a marker and wrote, simply, "NO baby." and then shut the door and cried for twenty minutes. It broke my heart. The baby had not survived and she had an empty sac, nothing living inside. She would have a D&C the next day.

And so I found myself at my four-month appointment, listening to my baby's heartbeat, while my friend was in the same office complex having a completely different experience. I couldn't stop crying from gratitude, and some odd guilt that my little speck appears to  be fine. Now when I see her at work the last thing I want to talk about is any symptom or happy complaint about my clothes not fitting. I want to focus completely on work, and she seems to feel the same way. For a few minutes, and a couple of days, we were intimate; first in joy and then in sorrow, but now, shields are back up and we're two smart fast-paced executives, passionate only about our jobs.

Motor: Crash!

Two years ago C and I were stopped in traffic on a highway, and an 18-wheeler hit us from behind going at least 60 miles an hour. One surgery, one lawsuit, some physical therapy and lots and lots of aches and pains and meetings later, we finally settled. The company that hit us S.U.C.K.S. It's a family-owned Utah-based highly conservative very dangerous trucking company with a safety rating that puts them within a few months of going out of business. Their trucks were in four hundred accidents in the last two years and they were responsible for twenty accidents resulting in at least one fatalitiy in the same time period. Aside from that, they *really* didn't want to give us any money because of our couplehood. In fact, at one point during mediation, we were only 10% apart and the guy flat out said, "I'm not giving another penny to that dyke." So we walked. And they ended up setting for 15% more than if they had just split down the middle at that point, and that felt good. We figure the best revenge is a life lived well, so we'll send the guy a Christmas card after the baby is born and thank him for financing a portion of our happy child's college fund.

So the settlement for that adventure was  completed this week, and on Sunday night we were driving down a five-lane highway when some little high-school girl crashed into the side of our car because it was too much trouble to actually look before changing lanes. She sent us into a 180 degree spin that landed us three lanes away from where we started, facing the wrong way, sticking out into traffic. If you live in Houston, you know how crazy our highways are, and our only thought was getting out of the car before it got T-ed by someone in the lane we were stuck in, so we jumped over the concrete wall and waited for someone to hit our stuck car. By some miracle, we only witnessed lots and lots of smoking tires and near-accidents, we really didn't want to kill anyone else! EMS came and blocked the scene pretty quickly, and neither of us were injured, just scared to death. Of course teenager stopped to check out her own damage and then took off before we could get her license plate. I can't imagine what lies she told her daddy.  Evenutally we were able to restart my car and we limped on home.

That's the end of my Honda Civic days. Now we're looking at Range Rovers and Ford F-350s. (Kidding, but sometimes here in Houston it really does seem like the biggest car wins.) We're actually looking at the ultimate lesbian mom stereotype car, the Subaru station wagon, or the ultimate rich lesbian mom stereotype car, the Volvo station wagon. I think the Sube will win because we can't realistically wrap our minds around paying so much cash for a vehicle. The bottom line is, we want something that 's substantial, stops on a dime, and quickly accelerates past idiot truck drivers and teens.

It's not just us anymore, we have to look out for the speckle.

Puttin' the Labor in Labor Day

C and I went to see a play this weekend called BOLD: Birth on Labor Day. We had always figured on the full spa-day labor, with episiotomies and epidurals and not the faintest sight of  blood. After the play, and reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and joining up with the Mothering.com crowd, I'm really thinking about having this baby at home. I'll be 38 when the baby comes, but I'm fit and hearty and one of this irritatingly robust people with nary a stress nor strain. It fits with my feminist, anti-western-med, rebellious and questioning side. Stats show that having a baby at home is actually safer than having a baby at the hospital, and doulas have the same placating effect that epidurals do, with far fewer complications.

I'm hitting up on my own fear of other's opinions, though. My mom was one of those martini and cigarette prenatals, with no memory of any of our (four) births, and very little focus on anything other than her own comfort. Her mom was actually put under for all five births, and she was perfectly happy for the drugs. My sister and sister in law both had hospital births with epidurals and the works, but what I mostly noticed was that the babies couldn't stay with them in the room for more than a few minutes at a time until they went home and they were totally at the mercy of the nurse's personality and moods.

All these folks may think I'm crazy for doing this at home, and I don't want their fears to get to me in these intervening months. I think I may just keep it to myself for a month or two while I do my research and interview midwives.

Showing

I stopped by my sister's last night and picked up plenty of her her pregnancy pants - actually, she gave me more clothes than I had to wear before I got pregnant. I'm awfully relieved because walking around with my pants unzipped was very distracting. I kept wondering if everyone could see the front of my panties, even when I was wearing the bella band.

I'm definitely showing, and not just a little bit. It's weird to have people look straight out, completely frankly, at my belly. I'm not used to that kind of attention from anyone, let alone co-workers and peers at work. I've told most of the people I care about at work, so then when someone I don't know as well or perhaps don't really love looks at my belly, I feel oddly invaded.

I've been thinking some about being out as a lesbian and "coming out" again as pregnant - as most of you know, you never really stop coming out as a lesbian. Every time you get a new job or join a new gym or go on a trip with your partner there's 'splainin' to do. Recently C had surgery. I was sitting in the hospital room with her and the nurse said asked, "Who are you, her mother?" This was mostly insulting because she's actually older than me, but it was also irrititating that she had so very little context for our relationship that it seemed more probable that we were mother/daughter than that we were partners. I know this is just the beginning of people's idiocy, and that once the baby comes, we'll get plenty of "Who's the *real* mother?" and the like, but  it's still a fresh slap every time.

Netiher of us are very butch, and in some ways that adds to our invisibility as a couple. All the smiles and stares as we move down this pregnancy/family path are something we'll just have to get used to, along with the weird comments, but I think in some ways I preferred not showing, or not being seen, to this.

Bjork

Does anyone else see a lady glaring out of a round window here? Looks like a suspicious Bjork to me.

Ultra-Ultrasound

Does it seem odd to anyone else that I'm only ten weeks along and I've already had THREE ultrasounds? I went to the ob/gyn at five weeks, she was great and just really wanted me to hear the heartbeat. That made me happy. I had another appt at seven weeks, where I thought she was just going to go over my blood tests. Instead, she gave me another ultrasound which resulted in a funny picture that looks like a suspicious Bjork glaring out of a round window. Then today, I went in *again* for an appt, thinking it was weird to have so many appts back to back, and they gave me ANOTHER ultrasound. This time it was over the belly so my Girl didn't have to get involved, so that was a relief, but still. Weird, huh? The pictures are super fuzzy and hard to tell what it is, but the bellybeans' heartbeat is stronger than ever. That makes me happy.

I told them I'm a "no" on all unnecessary tests and that I won't request any more ultrasounds. She agreed but said that she just needs one more set at 20 weeks. Okay, fine. I also don't have to go back at all for a month so that's good news.

I still haven't gained any weight, but it is definitely redistributing itself in an odd fashion. I already got a bellaband so that's helping, at least I don't have to button my pants anymore. I'm still not really nauseous, though I did hurl last night from just flat eating too much at once and trying to put a prenatal on top of that. All in all, life is good, I never thought it could all be this easy.

Knock. On Wood.

What happened

So what happened was, the Serb split. I did love him so, with all of his gypsy ways, but he never was going to stop smoking and we would have had a womb that smelled like a Turkish tea house.

So we searched and interviewed some more, and found BoyScout. He is a student at Rice, beautiful and tall and blond and extremely fit and smart. He was so weirdly, sweetly formal and consistent through the three months we worked with him, all "yes ma'am" and "anything I can do to help you ladies" with no irony at all, just a young man of his word trying to make sure he took care of his end of a business arrangement. In June it actually worked, and now here we are, knocked up with Russian royal and Austrialian prison-camp ancestor blood. He is totally uninterested except in the most chit-chatty, "are you feeling okay" way, and after we have this bebe and pay him, odds are Extremely High that we'll never hear from him again. Which is great.

And I feel fine, no pukiness, nothing really. I'm only at nine weeks so I know I have a long time to go but until I see anything different, I'm sticking with the idea that All Is Well and All Will Continue Apace, perfectly lovely and dreamy like today.

Thanks God, thanks donor, thanks Crisp, thanks job that gives me money to give to donor,  thanks to family members and friends who pushed us even when we were ready to give up. Yay.

Oh yeah!

I forgot all about you, little bloggie! How are you? Has anyone been feeding you? Did you miss me, out there in the ether all alone, with no one to talk to? Were you lonely?

If you were, so sorry. But I have to tell you, I'm not lonely, and it may be a long time before I ever have the luxury of lonely again, because I'm pregnant! Now I'm a "WE" at least for a little while. I even saw an ultrasound of the sprout, and he looked just like Bjork staring suspicously out of a round window.

Beautiful to meet you little sprout. By March we will be the best of friends. By March 2020 we will no longer be on speaking terms, and by March of 2030 hopefully all will be well again. I look forward to all of it!

Bye Bye, Serbie

The Serb is going home today, and I have to admit I'll miss him. He's just so goofy and self-expressed. I went by his apartment last night to give him a laptop I don't need, and it was really great to see all the prizes he was bringing home to his kid. On top of that, he honored his promise to repay me some money, money he could easily have convinced me to blow off and used to take his girlfried to a goodbye dinner. We've already paid him almost $2000 so I don't feel too guilty.

Anyway, I promised to take him to the airport today, and I seriously hope his super-whiney girlfriend doesn't come, but I know she will, which just means a 30 minute ride back to town listening to her sob and sniffle. She has been fairly weird with us so I'm not happy to help her out directly but whatever.

We won't know until this Sunday or so if I'm pregnant this time, but new donor, a blond smarty from Gross Pointe who goes to Rice, has agreed to participate if we need someone. Crispy is talking again about maybe getting pg herself, which would be amazing.

The Spinn is in

We took Serbian Boyo to the Rockets game last night, fourth row center seats on the floor, he couldn't have been happier. (They were from work.) In the third quarter Crisp gets a funny look on her face, and she spent the next eighteen hours in the bathroom. Crisp's new job at the school is really taking a toll on her health - I swear she just got off antibiotics last week. Kids - grubby little germworms. This time next year she'll have the immune system of an Olympian but today she's just sick of being sick.

Even though my OTC came back with only one line this morning, and my initial reading of the microscope was no ferning, I picked up the microscope again this afternoon and it was full of the ferns. (I guess I hadn't let it dry enough the first time I looked.) This afternoon I've got some lovely spinn action so I'm meeting  the Serb at 6, and we'll try twice tomorrow, then he's gone for good.

The Serb owes us money. He borrowed it against his future earnings if (at that time it seemed like when) we got pregnant. A big piece of me wants to ask him to give us three samples for the price of two, but another piece of me thinks that I should just pay the poor guy. He's got a kid of his own and wants to get him prizes from America, mostly lots of Superman and Spiderman stuff. That extra cash means a lot to him and in the long run, not a lot to me. But another piece of me has an ulcer thinking about the fact that we're out almost $2k in swimmers alone and have nothing to show for it yet.