Today, surprisingly, I got a call from our doctor (whom I haven't even seen yet!). She made an appointment for us to have an ultrasound- today! We got to the ultrasound office where they made me wear a backless hopsital gown, without underwear! This was really unfair considering that the old man I passed in the hallway wearing a similar gown was allowed to wear his white briefs. I really don't know why I didn't look away. When the coast was clear, I ran from my changing room to the ultrasound room, clutching the gown around my behind.
The nurse made me lay down on the bed, rubbed warm goo all over my tummy and tried to take an external ultrasound. Guess what? I have another reason to hate my bowel movements. Since I was so "full," which the nurse was kind enough to point out several times, they couldn't see the baby. "Looks like we have to do a vaginal ultrasound" she said calmly.
WHAT? WHAT THE HECK? NO WAY! NOTHING GOES IN THERE THAT I DON'T APPROVE OF!
"gulp, um, ok" I replied. I'm pretty sure I looked like I was going to die along with all my modesty.
In the end it turned out ok, well, considering....We found out that I'm actually only six weeks pregnant. It's frustrating that I have to add days to my pregnancy ticker. Here I thought we were almost 8 weeks closer to the end and turns out I was two weeks off. Two weeks is a long time- a fortnight to be exact- alot can happen in two weeks. darn...
It was weird to see the picture of the baby, he/she just looked like a bean-size dot with a bright center. Apparently the bright center was the baby's heart and I could see it flicker with each beat. The best part, however, was listening to the heart beat. 120 beats/minutes. Wow, there is an itty bitty drum inside me....amazing. I know I cried but I don't know if it was because of hearing my baby for the first time- having actual proof that we really made a baby- or because of the cold, uncomfortable probe poking around inside me.
When the whole ordeal was over, after I recovered my decency and my panties (after Husband suggested I get a "sexy" hospital gown to wear at home and I punched him in the arm), I stopped at a cafe to get lunch. That's when I started feeling dizzy and light headed. After I paid for my salad I plopped into the nearest chair. I put my head between my legs, grabbed the paper bag my lunch was packed in (took out the lunch first, of course) and enjoyed my first pregnancy vomit.
I can't actually be sure if it was from being pregnant or from being inside a medical facility. I have a history of fainting after getting physical exams, trips to the orthodontists, and after receiving shots. One time, twenty minutes after a Hep B immunity shot, I was walking down the school hallway to my class when, according to some gawking fifth graders, I lost all life in my limbs, turned white, and fell to the floor like a paper doll.
I'm destined for an exciting labor....is it possible to faint multiple times in a row and still successfully give birth.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Operation "Mama, JD"
I guess I need a plan...I feel like a world-sized junk drawer has been turned upside down on my head and I have to organize my way out of the mess. Not that it isn't a pleasant mess.
If I play my cards right, there will be ONE baby in August (god, I hope there is just one). :)
I need a total of 90 credits to graduate. So far, assuming I pass all my classes from fall, of course, I will have 47 credits. I added an extra class for spring once I found out I was pregnant (makes complete logical sense, right? Add EXTRA classes when you discover that you will soon be large and tired and craving Chick'n Patties every waking moment). After spring semester I will have 63 credits, and if I can get a full summer schedule, I will have 70 credits under my belt by the time August rolls around (along with me, because I'm pretty sure by August the most effecient means of tranportation for me will simply be to roll down steep hills of Seattle to catch my ferry). So after baby Indiana Jones Palmer (just kidding Husband!) is born, I will only need 20 credits to graduate.
The rest of "Operation Mama, JD" goes like this:
Take next fall semester off. No work. No school. Just me and baby bonding over messy diapers and the Baby Mozart series...oh and Justin Timberlake- no, it's never too early. Next spring I would like to take a couple night classes and find someone who can watch the baby on campus while I rush in and out of class. By summer, I hope to work part time again- if my law office will have me. Hopefully between fall '10 and spring '10 - if not sooner, I will get all my classes out of the way in time to graduate just one year behind.
After that, is the bar exam of course, but then I have no idea what I will do. I would like to work part time but I have a feeling its not easy to find part time attorney positions. I worry that if I take off a couple years to wait until the baby is in school then it will be too late to find a legal job because I would have missed out on valuable work experience right out of school. On the other hand, I do not want to have a baby just to let someone else raise it. I love babies and if I have to go through all the work to have one, dang it, I'm going to enjoy him/her while he is still little, cute, without weird body piercings and not asking me for money all the time.
If I play my cards right, there will be ONE baby in August (god, I hope there is just one). :)
I need a total of 90 credits to graduate. So far, assuming I pass all my classes from fall, of course, I will have 47 credits. I added an extra class for spring once I found out I was pregnant (makes complete logical sense, right? Add EXTRA classes when you discover that you will soon be large and tired and craving Chick'n Patties every waking moment). After spring semester I will have 63 credits, and if I can get a full summer schedule, I will have 70 credits under my belt by the time August rolls around (along with me, because I'm pretty sure by August the most effecient means of tranportation for me will simply be to roll down steep hills of Seattle to catch my ferry). So after baby Indiana Jones Palmer (just kidding Husband!) is born, I will only need 20 credits to graduate.
The rest of "Operation Mama, JD" goes like this:
Take next fall semester off. No work. No school. Just me and baby bonding over messy diapers and the Baby Mozart series...oh and Justin Timberlake- no, it's never too early. Next spring I would like to take a couple night classes and find someone who can watch the baby on campus while I rush in and out of class. By summer, I hope to work part time again- if my law office will have me. Hopefully between fall '10 and spring '10 - if not sooner, I will get all my classes out of the way in time to graduate just one year behind.
After that, is the bar exam of course, but then I have no idea what I will do. I would like to work part time but I have a feeling its not easy to find part time attorney positions. I worry that if I take off a couple years to wait until the baby is in school then it will be too late to find a legal job because I would have missed out on valuable work experience right out of school. On the other hand, I do not want to have a baby just to let someone else raise it. I love babies and if I have to go through all the work to have one, dang it, I'm going to enjoy him/her while he is still little, cute, without weird body piercings and not asking me for money all the time.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Success is Relative
Sometimes I question my goals in life. I worked hard throughout highschool and undergraduate school. After that I worked hard to get into a good law school. Most of my life has been full of "go-go-go," deadlines and stress. There is no doubt that I worked so hard because I wanted to be successful.
But now I'm not sure. What do I really think success is? Do I really want to work my butt off just to land a high paying 60+ hours a week legal job? Once I get the job, I will just be working even harder. Am I even competative with other law students seeking the same job?
I'm starting to realize how fast life has gone by so far. It will just go by faster. I don't want to waste it doing something that gives me an ulcer in exchange for reputation, status and a fancy paycheck. No, I think I'd prefer to savor each year, spending my life doing something that really makes me happy. I guess a fancy, high paying job could end up being fun and enjoyable, but I wont kill myself to get one. Maybe I'm cut out for being a mom first, then pursuing a career later in my life (my Husband might faint if he reads this).
But now I'm not sure. What do I really think success is? Do I really want to work my butt off just to land a high paying 60+ hours a week legal job? Once I get the job, I will just be working even harder. Am I even competative with other law students seeking the same job?
I'm starting to realize how fast life has gone by so far. It will just go by faster. I don't want to waste it doing something that gives me an ulcer in exchange for reputation, status and a fancy paycheck. No, I think I'd prefer to savor each year, spending my life doing something that really makes me happy. I guess a fancy, high paying job could end up being fun and enjoyable, but I wont kill myself to get one. Maybe I'm cut out for being a mom first, then pursuing a career later in my life (my Husband might faint if he reads this).
A Good Book - For Me to Poop On.
I read in a pregnancy book I picked up at the Ghetto Library that if you don't feel nauseous in your sixth week it is unlikely that you ever will.
Damn, damn, damn that book for giving me a false sense of security~! At exactly seven weeks I started to feel nauseous throughout the day. Luckily I discovered a temporary cure for my nauseous in a box of perfectly breaded Boca Burger Chick'n Patties. For two whole days I wondered around the Puget Sound with a plastic wrapped chick'n patty stuffed in my pocket, "just in case." The whole time I had to keep asking myself: "really!? This isn't real chicken!?"
Needless to say, I want to rip the pages out of that book, stomp on it, and take a dump all over its glossy pages. Of course, I wont! Because despite having three bowls of Kellog's All-Bran breakfast cereal in 24 hours, I still can't function like normal "regular" adults. How much fiber can you eat before it becomes unhealthy? Can you die from not being able to "empty" yourself?
Now for the New Year's resolution: I promise to focus less on poop in my subsequent posts.
Damn, damn, damn that book for giving me a false sense of security~! At exactly seven weeks I started to feel nauseous throughout the day. Luckily I discovered a temporary cure for my nauseous in a box of perfectly breaded Boca Burger Chick'n Patties. For two whole days I wondered around the Puget Sound with a plastic wrapped chick'n patty stuffed in my pocket, "just in case." The whole time I had to keep asking myself: "really!? This isn't real chicken!?"
Needless to say, I want to rip the pages out of that book, stomp on it, and take a dump all over its glossy pages. Of course, I wont! Because despite having three bowls of Kellog's All-Bran breakfast cereal in 24 hours, I still can't function like normal "regular" adults. How much fiber can you eat before it becomes unhealthy? Can you die from not being able to "empty" yourself?
Now for the New Year's resolution: I promise to focus less on poop in my subsequent posts.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Why He is Still Cute
Husband: "Was that you or the cat?"
Me: "What?"
Husband: "I smell a fart."
Me: "I think she tutors small children."
Husband: "You said 'toot'!"
Me: "What?"
Husband: "I smell a fart."
Me: "I think she tutors small children."
Husband: "You said 'toot'!"
"Backsight"
As my grammatically correct and vocabulary rich friend reminded me today... the colloquial word for "backsight" is "hindsight." I reserve the right to invent my own words.
I've been married for seven months (in the Catholic Church, I have only been married for two months because we eloped first-- we still don't know which anniversary to use). It took me a long time to adjust to living with a husband. Although I have had plenty of roomates, living with a husband is very different. Husbands hog covers and take up valuable bed space-- of these minor nocturnal crimes, I am equally guilty. Husbands don't like when you wear a pair of their socks and lose one. Husbands sometimes listen to weird music at the decibal level of Musical Notes Are Penetrating My Every Thought and Dripping Out of My Eyeballs.
Husbands don't like when you attempt to throw something in the garbage can, miss, and walk away without picking it up. Husbands don't like when your laundry piles up into mountains the size of dino droppings. I have to admit that I haven't met these new conflicts with complete grace. In fact, I'm pretty sure I pursed my lips into a heavy pout, crossed my arms and made loud obnoxious sighs. Either that, or I proceeded to not speak to my husband for hours except to exclaim loudly, "did you hear something? must have been the wind."
I wish in my slightly childish moments I could just pause to remember how awesome my husband is and that I need to grow up, even if its just a very teeny bit.
In fact, he is a very amazing person and I look up to him alot. The pieces and qualities that make up who he is are so special that I cannot imagine being married to someone without any one of his qualities. He is so rational, organized, calm and logical. A good balance to my irrationality and my chaos. He is kind and gentle and has a sense of civic and family duty. But probably one of the things I admire about him the most is something I feel that people either have or they don't have. I really think its hit or miss. I don't really know how to describe it but I think it comes from a possessing a blend of rationality, responsibility and the highest degree of propriety. This quality makes him easy to trust and easy to place within a decision making role. I feel that in any situation, when faced with a choice, he would always do what is most decent and proper and not necessarily what is the best outcome for himself. There are not many people whom I can feel this way about, including myself.
Of course, he loves me which means he also has good taste. And I already know he will be a great dad.
I've been married for seven months (in the Catholic Church, I have only been married for two months because we eloped first-- we still don't know which anniversary to use). It took me a long time to adjust to living with a husband. Although I have had plenty of roomates, living with a husband is very different. Husbands hog covers and take up valuable bed space-- of these minor nocturnal crimes, I am equally guilty. Husbands don't like when you wear a pair of their socks and lose one. Husbands sometimes listen to weird music at the decibal level of Musical Notes Are Penetrating My Every Thought and Dripping Out of My Eyeballs.
Husbands don't like when you attempt to throw something in the garbage can, miss, and walk away without picking it up. Husbands don't like when your laundry piles up into mountains the size of dino droppings. I have to admit that I haven't met these new conflicts with complete grace. In fact, I'm pretty sure I pursed my lips into a heavy pout, crossed my arms and made loud obnoxious sighs. Either that, or I proceeded to not speak to my husband for hours except to exclaim loudly, "did you hear something? must have been the wind."
I wish in my slightly childish moments I could just pause to remember how awesome my husband is and that I need to grow up, even if its just a very teeny bit.
In fact, he is a very amazing person and I look up to him alot. The pieces and qualities that make up who he is are so special that I cannot imagine being married to someone without any one of his qualities. He is so rational, organized, calm and logical. A good balance to my irrationality and my chaos. He is kind and gentle and has a sense of civic and family duty. But probably one of the things I admire about him the most is something I feel that people either have or they don't have. I really think its hit or miss. I don't really know how to describe it but I think it comes from a possessing a blend of rationality, responsibility and the highest degree of propriety. This quality makes him easy to trust and easy to place within a decision making role. I feel that in any situation, when faced with a choice, he would always do what is most decent and proper and not necessarily what is the best outcome for himself. There are not many people whom I can feel this way about, including myself.
Of course, he loves me which means he also has good taste. And I already know he will be a great dad.
Here's to 2008: A Long Sober Year
It's really hard coming up with excuses to NOT drink on New Year's Eve. Husband and I planned on not really announcing our baby news until I see a doctor to make sure everything is ok and in the right place. So I had to be clever and avert all opportunities to be served alcohol. Turns out, I'm not that clever.
To start the evening off, we took a mini road trip to visit some friends for the night. The party started before we even arrived at our destination. The last carpooler we picked up was waiting outside with a bottle of champagne. He popped that bottle seconds before getting inside our van. Before we knew it-- we became a six person Party Caravan with plastic cups of cheap boos spilling everywhere, singing along to Michael Jackson and Beyonce. Of course I had one teensy tiny sip of bubbly before making up a lame excuse about not finishing it.
We got to the party and played guitar hero before heading off to a bar with live music. I have decided that it's just not possible to not drink on New Year's Eve unless you happen to be an invalid, infant, pregnant, or the world's lamest geek. Since we didn't tell people I was pregnant, of course I came off as the latter. But people just don't take no for an answer. I was really annoyed I had to feel so guilty and uncool for not wanted to drink. I mean I didn't flaunt that I wasn't drinking, and I did have a cup in my hand. Usually, I'm The Drunk so I've never had the opportunity to step back and realize how great the social pressure to get drunk really is.
In the end, I had to crack to one or two people to explain to them why I really couldn't drink (otherwise I'm sure they would have tied me up and force fed me alcohol).
Friend: Let me get you a drink
Me: Oh, I'll just have a diet coke for now
Friend: No, you have to drink something with ALCOHOL in it!
Me: maybe in a bit.
Friend: Come on, what do you want?
Me: no thanks, really....(Yo, get the hint yet? this girl doesnt want a drink!!)
Friend looks at me in astonishment. I have become the person I used to dread in college: the WORLD'S LAMEST GEEK- the person who never touches a drink at any party and for no good reason.
Peer pressure kicking in....
Me: well, I can't drink.....right now.
Friend: why not...are you pregnant or something.
Me: yes.
It was interesting to view the whole New Year's Eve event in a sober light. I felt awkward dancing without stumbling and with somewhat normal coordination around all the drunk people. Instead of being in the middle of the action (where I usually try to be) I was mostly an observer. I just couldn't get into the craziness, I was too worried about being near second hand smoke and drinking enough water. I had fun, don't get me wrong, I was just at the party on a different level than other people, I guess.
I have to say the best part of the evening was coming back to the house where we all crashed for the night and watching the drunk people stumble around, try to carry on coversations, pass out, and relief themselves in inappropriate places.
To start the evening off, we took a mini road trip to visit some friends for the night. The party started before we even arrived at our destination. The last carpooler we picked up was waiting outside with a bottle of champagne. He popped that bottle seconds before getting inside our van. Before we knew it-- we became a six person Party Caravan with plastic cups of cheap boos spilling everywhere, singing along to Michael Jackson and Beyonce. Of course I had one teensy tiny sip of bubbly before making up a lame excuse about not finishing it.
We got to the party and played guitar hero before heading off to a bar with live music. I have decided that it's just not possible to not drink on New Year's Eve unless you happen to be an invalid, infant, pregnant, or the world's lamest geek. Since we didn't tell people I was pregnant, of course I came off as the latter. But people just don't take no for an answer. I was really annoyed I had to feel so guilty and uncool for not wanted to drink. I mean I didn't flaunt that I wasn't drinking, and I did have a cup in my hand. Usually, I'm The Drunk so I've never had the opportunity to step back and realize how great the social pressure to get drunk really is.
In the end, I had to crack to one or two people to explain to them why I really couldn't drink (otherwise I'm sure they would have tied me up and force fed me alcohol).
Friend: Let me get you a drink
Me: Oh, I'll just have a diet coke for now
Friend: No, you have to drink something with ALCOHOL in it!
Me: maybe in a bit.
Friend: Come on, what do you want?
Me: no thanks, really....(Yo, get the hint yet? this girl doesnt want a drink!!)
Friend looks at me in astonishment. I have become the person I used to dread in college: the WORLD'S LAMEST GEEK- the person who never touches a drink at any party and for no good reason.
Peer pressure kicking in....
Me: well, I can't drink.....right now.
Friend: why not...are you pregnant or something.
Me: yes.
It was interesting to view the whole New Year's Eve event in a sober light. I felt awkward dancing without stumbling and with somewhat normal coordination around all the drunk people. Instead of being in the middle of the action (where I usually try to be) I was mostly an observer. I just couldn't get into the craziness, I was too worried about being near second hand smoke and drinking enough water. I had fun, don't get me wrong, I was just at the party on a different level than other people, I guess.
I have to say the best part of the evening was coming back to the house where we all crashed for the night and watching the drunk people stumble around, try to carry on coversations, pass out, and relief themselves in inappropriate places.
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