2 Mommies and a Baby

Lois called me today to tell me that she thinks she has her period. She sounded so excited.
I guess trying to have a baby makes you look at things in a new perspective. Instead of "gross" and "dammit," we are doing cartwheels.
As far as this goes, we are still not certain if that means we can start trying again as soon as she ovulates on this cycle (two weeks) or if we need to wait another month.
If we can try again immediately, then Yippee!! for us. But that means that Holly will be painting the new condo by herself in October.

When you are thinking about having a child, you pay attention to a lot more things.
One of those is safety.
Two incidents yesterday made me mutter to myself in a tone that I can only identify as a parental response (I guess I am ready).
Incident #1 – a little white car pulls around a parking lot with a child almost completely hanging out the window like a dog trying to have the wind hit his face. The kid must have been 5 years old. No seat belt.
I almost went bananas.
What if the car slid and hit another car? That definitely appeared to be way too fast for a parking lot. How come that kid doesn’t have a seat belt on? What about a car seat? What if he gets ejected from the car? What’s wrong with those parents????
Incident #2 – driving home from work at approximately 8 pm, getting fairly dark. 3 kids on Candlewood Lake Road, a pretty busy road, are all on bikes zigzagging around the road, all about 8-10 years old, no reflective gear, no helmets.
I was thinking to myself “what parents in their right minds would let their kids out here at this hour with no protective gear?”
“I would never let my child do that!”
Maybe I was such a wild, reckless, crash and burn kid that I will be a completely neurotic parent. I doubt Lois will let me be totally uptight, kids bump their heads and get boo-boos all the time, I will just make sure my kid is wearing body armor.

I wasn't going to buy anything for the baby before we got well into Month 4, but since we were at the end of the first trimester, I thought I could get a little something.
One of the things I ordered was this.

 



I forgot about it, and it came in the mail to work on Thursday.
It just took the breath out of me to open the thing, especially once I realized what it was.
This, along with another surprise item, will most likely remain in my trunk for at least another 6 months (hoping that our next attempt at the pregnancy gig works the next time we try).

After some debate within myself, I have decided to keep this blog going.
This is really about our efforts to start a family.
We will try again, we decided. Lois was a little unsure on Sunday, somewhat unwilling to consider going through that first trimester again and the possibility of “it” happening again.
Then P.S. came over with her adorable baby and Lois held her for about a half a second and was ready to start trying again.
We move on. Life goes on.
The next time we try, we probably will be in our own house (by October 1st?), we will be less stressed out about everything going on in our lives, and we will be more prepared the next time.
And Lois can have coffee for a few months and eat things that she hated for the last 3 months.
The weirdest thing before all of this happened is that Lois turned to me a week prior to “it” and said “I just don’t think this is the baby that we are going to raise.”
She knew something. I think she was ready and I was more upset about the whole thing.
But, as I said. We are moving on.
I am working on trying to not feel sad when I see a baby or a pregnant woman. Our time will come.

sadly...so sadly...loey's flu on friday was more than a flu.
we knew by saturday night that the inevitable was happening.
lois had a miscarriage.
we are doing ok right now and appreciate the support we have already received from friends.

Everyone will tell you that getting through a pregnancy is a roller coaster, emotionally and every other way.
It is very true.
Yesterday, we had a little scare, and I had moments of extreme anxiety that I didn’t realize I was capable of.
Lois had some bleeding yesterday. She called me and told me it wasn’t a big deal, but that I should know about it. It was red.
From what I have read, red blood is bad, brown blood is okay. If red blood and cramping occur, it is not good at all. Lois had no cramping.
So, I made her call the doctor and she dragged her feet. “I don’t want to be an alarmist,” she said. Needless to say, I think I said something like “call the doctor, or don’t call me back until you do.”
The doctor’s office made her come in for an immediate ultrasound. I was on pins and needles all day, basically unable to function as a normal human being in the world until I heard back from her. I checked my cell phone to see if it was working approximately 87 times.
She called me at after the ultrasound.
“Everything is fine,” she announced. “Baby’s heart rate is great and they found no problems.”
Thank God!!! I breathed again.
Later, Lois admitted that the doctor thought I had done my job by making her go and how she was glad I made her go.
Surprising, I am not usually the alarmist one.

Today we are at 11 weeks. Only 203 days to go!!!
It’s the size of a softball in there! Can you feel it? The little guy (or gal) is about 2.5 inches long, and weighs about 14 grams.
It’s growing in there! How weird.
It’s a good idea to learn Kegel exercises, and time to start doing 25 a day.
Yuck. That is something I can’t help Lois with.
How many more weeks until the sleepiness, lack of appetite and occasional crankiness (not that Lois is ever cranky) subsides?

4 people in the last 48 hours have tried to sell me on a minivan.
I made Lois promise to me that we will not buy a minivan.
I am getting my SUV next year. We are only having one child. We do not need a minivan, no matter how many cool little things minivans have in them, like lazy susans under the floor boards, DVD players, wireless headphones, built in sunshades, etc.
We are not buying a minivan.

Everyone has experienced those sneezes that absolutely jolt your entire body, right?
Every time Lois sneezes, I wonder what Ziggy is feeling.

We told the girls last Friday about Ziggy and they are sooooo excited!
Their first question was “is Ziggy going to be a Yankees fan?”
Puh-leese. Like there is any doubt how our child will be raised.
They want to come to the hospital when Ziggy’s born. Are they cousins to Ziggy? Aunts? Siblings?
They want to babysit when they are old enough. They even asked if the baby can spend the night at their house, with their mother babysitting.
Uh…how do you respond to that?

We are 10 weeks into the pregnancy. 
Your baby is no longer an embryo!
Zygote no longer, we are still calling it Ziggy!
Though she's barely the size of a kumquat -
What the heck is a kumquat? Why can’t they say lemon or lime or something normal people can have some frame of reference to?
— just an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, she now has completed the most critical portion of her development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in her body rapidly grow and mature….
I understand that these explanations don’t want to use impersonal pronouns, but if Ziggy is a boy, he would probably prefer to be referred to now as an it rather than a she.
During the next three weeks, your baby's length will more than double to nearly 3 inches. Her head is proportionately smaller now than it was a few weeks ago, but it's still almost half the length of her entire body. Her forehead temporarily bulges with her developing brain and sits high on her head; it will later recede to give her a more human appearance.
Thank goodness! Lois has been calling Ziggy the “little alien” since it looks like a large headed alien. (Actually, for anyone who remembers Spaceballs, something like the thing that comes out of the guy’s stomach in the diner near the end of the movie.) I personally do not think that referring to our child to be as the “little alien,” despite its inability to hear us, is the most maternal and motherly thing.
Each day, more minute details — including tiny fingernails, toenails, and peach-fuzz hair — start to appear on her body. Her fingers are now completely separated; her arms bend at the elbow and curve slightly; her hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over her heart; her legs are lengthening; and her feet may be long enough to meet in front of her body. She is busily swallowing amniotic fluid and kicking her legs.
As we move away from the “little alien” status, maybe we are also putting our “gummy bear” references aside as well. Are we going to be insensitive parents?

I told my sister on Sunday that Lois is pregnant.
Her word-for-word response was, “Oh, jeez.”
When I scoffed at her response, mostly humorously since I knew her response would be something like that, she said “Well, come on, you know I hate babies.”
She has a 10 year old son. Hmmm.
Is my family abnormal?
My brother’s response was the one that I think most people expect from their families when they are married and over the age of 18. (Let’s leave out the lesbian relationship element for right now).
Lois family is excited. Ok, her brother and sister-in-law are excited, and her parents are mildly interested which is a big step for them.
Is my family abnormal?
And, I don’t thing the lesbian thing has anything to do with it. I have a feeling that my family would respond the exact same way if I were telling them I was pregnant after being with my rich, nice, good-looking Roman Catholic husband for 10 years.
I guess I shouldn’t rely on my sister as a baby sitter.

We have not bought anything for the baby yet. I don't think that is such a bad thing, we are almost at 10 weeks.
But we have received a couple gifts so far. Laura bought the baby its first pair of Nike hi-tops, Jody gave us rubber duckies and Mindy-the-neighbor crocheted a baby blanket for us. It is soft, washable and adorable.
Now we are starting to collect baby stuff.
We will probably give ourself a few more weeks before we start buying things for Ziggy, but that doesn't mean that we can't accept gifts.
We spent a few hours on Saturday at Babies R Us, Burlington Coat Factory and Target checking out strollers, clothes, rocking chairs, cribs, toys, bassinets, and the like.
Having a baby is looking like its going to be expensive from Day One.
We figure we may be able to get a bassinet and/or changing table second hand, but cribs and car seats must be new.
Why is a car seat $179.99 but the same car seat that comes with the stroller is $199.99?
We tested strollers up and down the aisles. Lois seemed a little perturbed when I mentioned that the cup holders in the strollers' handlebars would hold a beer for me.
We almost feel asleep in the gliding chairs. We do have a friend that would probably give us her rocking chair for free, but we both really liked those glider chairs (which were $189.99).
We discovered that we have great taste because our favorite strollers, pack n' plays, bassinets, etc. were all Eddie Bauer.
We also seem to be leaning towards having a boy because everything we like and pick out seems to be a little more masculine. Go figure. We would stop ourselves and say, "what if it's a girl?" And then we would pick something somewhere in between totally masculine and totally pink.
I can't wait! I am told we absolutely have to have a baby shower. I assume that means we have to register somewhere.
Maybe we will start all this in November or December.
In the meantime, Lois and I will be walking around Babies R Us going ga-ga like little kids scoping out the perfect stuff for our Ziggy.