When I picked up the magazines for dave’s birthday, I grabbed  a book for myself.  I decided to NOT read anything having to do with pregnancy or parenthood, or anything like that — I just wanted a page-turner.  My page-turner choices are usually forensic investigation stories, and I’d already read the newest Patricia Cornwell paperback on our vacation.  Tess Gerritsen had a new one out though, and the back cover sounded promising, and IMPORTANT TO NOTE, mentioned nothing about pregnancy or parenthood. Sounded like a straight up murder mystery gettin’ solved by an ME deal.

Well.

I don’t know HOW THE HELL they didn’t mention the pregnancy aspect of this book on the back cover. Amazon’s editorial review even starts out: "Pregnant women play key roles. . . . ."  FIrst! Fucking! Sentence!

I mean, it was a great novel, but oh, the irony of my steely reserve to buy a NON-pink-fucking-book, and get the pregnant detective investigating the past murders of pregnant women while in present day, a pregnant woman is buried alive in the woods, you know, all pregnant and shit. The kicker would be if this IS the month, you could add "being read by a pregnant woman."

ANother week to go. Sleepier, and a little touchy emotionally, ie: woke up from a nap and burst into tears at an Oprah I’d already seen before, but WHATEVER. We’ll see.

In IB, there is a thread about the "loss of pregnancy innocence," about when your pregnancy takes a turn for the worse, or there’s complications, and how that affects you.  And me, that’s been the hardest part of this whole thing.  The physical part, whatever, it sucks and is messy, and the emotional part is shitty, too, but it’s not ‘a baby’ that I feel like I lost.  It’s the experiences that are forever tainted.

My first visit back to the OB after the Very Bad Ultrasound was my first shot of being on the outside of the experience.  I was waiting in the waiting area, with my little pharmacy paper bag containing the Rhogam shot, and the other woman waiting at that time was a very pregnant woman wearing a pink shirt.  (And also black loafers with white socks, which annoyed me totally separate of her delicate condition.)  She was filling out thank you notes from a baby shower, and before you ask how I know, the notes had pink prams etched on the front.  There were so many, she was carrying them in a SHOEBOX. And, you know, filling them out in the waiting room of her OB office.  It pissed me off, which is an irrational thing. I have no idea how long it took her to get there, or what she had to endure before she reached the stage where she could be publicly annoyed (seemingly) at having to fill out SO MANY thank you notes, but her presence and actions annoyed me.  Totally. Irrational.  But, at that moment, I knew I’d never, ever fill out thank you notes while waiting.  And I knew I’d know what was up with the not-pregnant woman with the paper bag in her lap, and I’d feel sympathetic to her.  Hell, maybe I’ll be in that position in a year, and maybe I’ll lean over and say something like "it sucks, but it worked for me the second time." Or something. I don’t know.

ANYWAY.

Today, my appointment kept getting moved because the doctor wa sin surgery that took longer than expected.  They were very gracious about getting me in today so that I wouldn’t have to miss work again, and they told me to come in at 4.  I went over, and went to the window, and while they were checking on availability and finding my chart, I watched the door to the exam room that we had had our ultrasound in, open.  Out came a couple. A typical  Maine couple.  Very heavy (not pregnant looking) woman, a man with a Nascar hat and similar t-shirt on, with a scruffy beard and blue jeans and diesel boots.  Working class people.  And the woman walked off to use a bathroom or something, and the man stood there, staring at his printout of the ultrasound, beaming.  I knew that they’d had the experience that I was so desperate to have.  It was obviously ultrasound day, the place was filled with couples where the woman was rubbing her big belly and grinning.  And me.

One of the other biggest sadnesses of this is what Dave’s lost.  Looking at that guy, I thought, "that should be Dave." I can handle something bad happening, because god knows, I’ve had a lot of good things in my life.  But Dave, he’s worked so damn hard for everything. He didn’t have a father. And to have his first shot of fatherhood disappear in the blink of an eye, to see him so excited in the ultrasound, certain i was just worrying like I do and that everything was fine, seeing him lean around and crane his neck to see his first image of his first full relative that he would ever know… that’s what makes me sad.  He’s suffered enough loss and struggled hard enough in his life, I wanted his first child to come easily, he deserved that. And I know it’s irrational, but I feel like I let him down.  And that guy, maybe he had the same life experiences. Maybe he didn’t.  Maybe he drinks too much and doesn’t really love his wife.  But he was amazed by the fetus inside of her. I can tell you that for sure.

It turned out that there was another delay, so I was told to come back at 5.  While i was out, I went to Borders to pick up a present for Liam, and while I was doing that, I took advantage of the "Buy 2 get 1 free" sale.  There were a couple books that I’d wanted to read for some time: Blue Shoe, by Anne LaMott.  Little People by Tom Perrotta.  And the third? Well.

The third I bought. I went back to the OB office and decided I needed something to read, because it was all pregnancy mags or car mags for the fathers, and I didn’t want to read those. So, I decided to take the third book in. 

"Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers."

And I went in, and read it for half an hour before being called in.  I don’t know that anyone even saw the cover, or the title, or even noticed the book.  But it was my little gesture of "not everything in here is alive" to bridge that gap of "Oh, I’m sooooo pregnant and uncomfortable" to "I would give anything to be pregnant and uncomfortable."

I told you I was weird. It made me feel good, anyway.

The appointment went well; my beta is dropping as it should, and the doc agreed that staying on Synthroid would be fine, so that’s good.  Other than that, all is well in my world.

Amazon knows me too well.  First under my "Recommended Reading" was this book:

"A psychological term, "magical thinking" describes the belief that one exerts more influence over events than one actually does."

Also in Signs, a PS in one of my kids reading journals was this"

"PS, When can I name your unborn baby????" 

And,at lunch I overheard the school nurse talking to one of our pregnant staffers about "getting tested" and asking "who else is pregnant or trying, do you know? because they should get tested, too."  Melanie, one of two colleagues that know was sitting right across from me, non-verbally and subtlely as possible communicating that I needed to talk to the nurse.

Luckily, I am stuffed up, so I finished my meal and left under the premise of needing to blow my nose.  I was able to corner the nurse very quickly and get the scoop. In doing so, I’ve now come out to a gossipy type (in her defense, though, she doesn’t tend to talk about other’s medical issues, just everything else about them) and remind her that this was NOT public knowledge.  The scoop is that there is an outbreak of Fifth Disease at school, that can cause problems in pregnancy.  Basically, she told me to wait until I knew if I was or not, and if I was, I’d have to have a blood draw to test for immunity. No big deal, really.  And I was discreet and quick enough that no one saw the conversation. WHew.

In other news, the trunk of my car is filled with 200 dollars worth of sugar for the dance my NJHS kids are sponsoring tomorrow. MMmmmm.  I hope I feel better by then!

Just spent way too long making a compilation of stuff that is occupying my time until a baby comes along. I plan on linking it in a sidebar, but below is the annotated list. Enjoy, or something!

My room is in order, I have a bulletin board in the hallway, the desks and chairs and tables are arranged, and we have an agenda for tomorrow. I guess I’m ready.

I’m fucking TIRED though. I almost want to go to bed NOW, I’m so tired. I was at school for 10 hours, a bunch of it spent doing assessment crap that will probably be undone in three months, and I am just tired. I’m interested, at the very least, in seeing my kids. Almost excited.

See, I get excited about my job until the assessment and NCLB crap kicks in. I am trying to be positive, to remember that the kids come first and fuck the government. Do what’s best for kids. Then, worry about the paperwork.

Part of our hoo-ha tomorrow is reading “Through the Cracks” aloud to the kids. It’s a picture book that speaks well to my program; how kids fall through the cracks if all they do is “watch” school. How participation and integration and teambuilding is what pulls the kids back up from the cracks, and that’s cool.

I ordered it from Amazon, last-minute, but it arrived today in the nick of time. The supplemental book to qualify for free shipping was 40,001 Best Baby Names, the last book I’ll BUY regarding such, I promise, but one I’ve wanted for months. I like Old Hag names (Henrietta — Etta, Wilhelmina, Griselda, Gilda) and Dave likes more common ones, and variants of my own (Samantha, Greta, Gretel) so we need to meet in the middle. He liked Gret-names before he met me, and has a real thing for unpronounceable Scandinavian words that may or may not be actual names. I won’t let there be a Gretchen-lite, but I do like having a strong German name, and baby will have a German surname, so that’s cool. But I don’t want my kid to be named after a Swedish toaster manufacturer or something, either.

Interesting dream last night: I was trying to console a distraught James Hetfield (yes, of Metallica) because he was devastated that the Mobil station and convenience store back home did NOT carry Dilly (A Canadian dill pickle flavor) Chips. He was seriously crying and shit. I felt bad.

Anyway, here is an interesting article by, for, and about new or impending fatherhood.

Test: Negative. Patiently awaiting the bleeding.

But, to pass the time, I went to the library. Here’s the thing. I’ve been reading every pregnancy/parenthood memoir-esque book I can get my hand on. And what drives me nuts is that they are all. fucking. pink.

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