I had a dream over the weekend that I accidentally ended up in NYC with the baby, and my car got towed, and I sought shelter in brooke’s apartment, and then tried to get up the courage to take the baby& stroller on the subway to try to go find her to apologize for breakinginto her house while she was at work. In that dream, the baby was NOT a monkey (as it has been in dreams so far) but a girl. However, bananas did feature prominently in the dream, so there were still nuances of monkey….

Anyway, last night I dreamt that my OB was guiding me through a self c-section (which sounds far creepier than it actually was, and was probably influenced by the Grey’s Anatomy ep last night that showed a c-section) and the baby was a baby, but looked like balut, which you can google search yourself. (They are the partially formed ducklings that Survivor contestants had to eat a few seasons ago, which is where I learned about them.)  The balut-baby fit in my ahnd, and I was like "this is too small! I need to put it back!" but the doc insisted it was okay to keep out.  I tried to unroll it to find the sex, and couldn’t quite figure it out.

It sort of evolved, and ended up looking like one of those martian popping things, when I squeezed it, the arms and legs would unfurl, but I’d let go and they’d disappear into the  body again. i was all freaked out, trying to keep the arms and legs out sot hat I could strap the baby into a carseat. Anyway, in THAT dream, I saw that the baby was a boy. So, who knows. I hope it’s one or the other, and not a duck or a monkey.  Not that there’s anything wrong with ducks and monkeys.

That’s the good news, which, admittedly, is pretty damn good news. I called the doctor today since I hadn’t heard back from him yet (and its been two weeks) and waited all day for the call, for it to come in at 5:10. Guess I could’ve left the house after all.

Anyway, he hadn’t called yet, because he had been trying to get more info from other docs, since what the path report showed was something he’d never seen. "Subacute spongiotic dermatitis (with?) eosinophils."  Bladdy blah blah blah, what I hung up understanding was that it was some weird, rare strain of . . . .  dun dun duuuuun….. eczema. Sigh. I think, anyway, I have some questions out there (and feel free to chime in if you’ve had this!) like, is it weird and rare because it’s on my nipple? or in general? but hey, at least I can tear up that Lifetime movie proposal I was working on. (confirmation received while writing this that yes, it’s eczema. WHEE.)

The steri-strips came off last week, and I was sort of hoping that I’d look down and find myself magically cured, but alas, it was not to be. The funkiness is still there.  The scar is about an inch and a half long (and currently sporting a small sprout of monofilament thread from the stitches, that the good doctor told me to just snip off), a straight pinkish line. It’s longer than I expected, honestly, but not as bad as I was imagining in my head. And, let’s say it again, shall we? NOT CANCER.

Next step is to contact a dermatologist, since the itchiness is still there, and totally annoying. Annoying like "laying in bed with clenched fists at sides kicking feet around and gritting teeth trying not to scratch annoying." ANd really, with all the random skin shit that I have going on, it would probably be good to get a derm anyway. 

In other news, I don’t HATE WIndows users, yall. Some of — most of — my best friends use Windows. I guess I am annoyed by the AVERAGE windows user, of which most readers here are not. I’m talking the "oh, my antivirus ran out so whatever" type user that calls me.  The client I had last week is back online, the one that gave me nightmares and such.  I hate leaving stuff unfinished/unfixed, so it was really bugging me, but Verizon came today and replaced her jack, which was fried. It was a pretty old jack, so I’m not surprised.  Also, inall of my questioning of "did you do ANYTHING since I left here?" they answered no, but somehow the phone line got switched into the wrong jack on the PC, which didn’t help. And with those two improvements, i was able to log into the modem and discover that the modem had been wiped of all connection information, which was a breeze to set up, and made me really glad I had written down the un/pw combination 2 weeks ago. Of course, I could have rebuilt the connection in one try if I’d been more clear in writing down the number 2 and not something that I later thought was the letter z. At least I know how to work around my handwriting and compensate for stuff like that.

It also only took 15 minutes, instead of 2 hours, and the lady was thrilled when I left, which is good, because I LIKE spending time with my husband before going to bed.  I also like people not thinking I’m a fraud, too.

And on computers, I just had to order some books I need to read for class — Weaving the Web, by Tim Berners-Lee, and IBM and the Holocaust, by Edwin Black. And I added The Birth Partner for free shipping. I love interesting AMazon orders. 

My diaper order finally shipped, and when I tracked the package, it said that it was "Out for Delivery" . . . ..  in Mongomery, Alabama.  I imagine the UPS guy will get the box and be all "Maine isn’t on my route!" and it will get back in the shipping stream soon, and even if it doesn’t, that’s a pretty irrefutable shipping error.  Good thing I don’t need them TODAY.

Finally, here’s a cool site where you can make a t-shirt based on your blog, and I plugged in my URL and got the following sample:

Dave is the best. I mean, I don’t talk about him much here, just because, but today, I’m going to get a little mushy. Maybe a lot mushy.

I’ve been sick for weeks. I’m definitely BETTER now, but I’m still coughing, still have a sore throat, and still just not100%. Still, way better than I was. And every night, I’d offer to sleep in the guest room,and every night, Dave refused.  When my doc mentioned I should try a humidifier, I dug out one that we own, but Dave didn’t think that was good enough. "You need steam!"  He went out and bought the ol’ Vicks Vaporizer (and the menthol stuff!) and has made it his mission to fill it each night when we go to bed.

Two nights ago, I HAD to go grocery shopping. I used to like it, but more and more it feels like a chore, and so every time we make the list, I say "Are you coming with me?" and he says "no."  It’s sort of a running joke between us. When it comes to splitting household duties, we pretty much have shaken it out so that it falls across gender stereotypes, but it works for us — Dave does all of the outside work, mowing, raking, shoveling, trash, car maintenance, furnace maintenance, weatherproofing, etc etc etc, while I generally take care of dishes, laundry (though he has taken to carrying it up and down the stairs as a result of a Forensic Files type show we saw several years ago, where a woman slipped carrying laundry up the stairs and got her head caught somehow, and died, and infact WASN’Tmurdered by her husband  — the ep was so disturbing to Dave that anytime I head for the stairs with a big load of something, he says "HEAD!" as a warning…) cooking, grocery shopping, and taxes. We both share the actual cleaning-cleaning, though I usually do the kitchen and he does the living room, and any vacuuming, because of my allergies. Anyway, yeah, it’s all gender-typical, but it works for us.  SO! My POINT!

We make the list, and I say "Are you coming with me?" and he said yes! Such a stupid little thing, but he came with me and did all the heavy lifting and stuff, and it was cool. Just a stupid little thing that made me happy.

At night, we curl up and he feels around for the baby, and talks to it, and the other night he confessed that he expected to be really emotional when the baby was born.  When I asked him what he meant – emotional canbe so many things — he said "Overjoyed. Unless I have to ask questions like ‘how rare is it?’ or ‘what do you mean, you’ve never seen one like that before?’" 

We’re still working on names, we think we have a boy name, and the girl name I love he’s okay with, but not realllly into it. He thinks it sounds nerdy, which DUH, the kid is going to err on the side of geek no matter what, but when I google image-searched the name, the first dozen or so were of really hot scientists. Real scientists, too, not like, porn scientists. He’s still not convinced.  And we haven’t even GONE to middle name territory yet, not at all.

I love my husband. When we were dating, and i was working the late shift doing tech support, if there was a biug storm, I’d wake up to find my car shoveled out. He’d come over before his day started (we weren’t living together then) and clean my car out so I wouldn’t have to.  That kind of kindess didn’t go away when we moved in together, or when we got married, andI don’t expect it togo away when we become parents, either.

Dave is a quiet man. He’s a bit antisocial, would rather spend an evening in than out, and can seem very reserved when you don’t know him.  I’m more of the social one, and I sometimes wonder if people look at us and think "huh, BO-ring." But together, us, we just work together. We crack each other up, we love each other, we respect each other. We are really kind to each other, and to other people. Dave is FUNNY, damn funny, but he’s so dry, people sometimes don’t get that. (Which is funny, because I was once written up for ‘being too funny.’ My imediate supervisor wrote it that way, because HE got my humor, but apparently other people didn’t, and thought I was just nuts or something.)

Anyway, I love my husband, but even more, I really, really LIKE him. I like hanging out with him. I like knowing that we take care of each other in our own ways, and I like looking forward to the future of parenting together. I know it will be hard, and that it’s something you can’t really prepare for, but I think that having such a solid base to start from is a pretty good jumping-off point.

I can now talk without breaking into a coughing fit, but the cough hasn’t completely disappeared. SInce talking was the worst, that’s a good thing. I really tried to get Dave to register an AIM account so that we could have a conversation that wasn’t punctuated by violent coughing fits every three words, but he wouldn’t go for it. Oh well.

He worked 15 hours yesterday, a UM televised doubleheader of women’s basketball at noon, and hockey at 7.  Today he is working with his freelance guy.  He had Monday off, but still, that’s a lot of work for one week. Poor guy. (Well, not poor, since he gets OT, or he wouldn’t do it. But still. TIRED guy.)

Last night the widget was bouncing around, and looking at my belly was like looking at a Whack-A-Mole table. I can’t discern parts yet, but there were lumps and bumps popping up everywhere, leading me to conclude that the widget was doing jumping jacks. WEIRD.

It seems so weird to be so…. pregnant. I’m 24+ weeks, you know? That’s 60% done. I have less to go than I’ve already gone.  I have a link to this countdown calendar that tells me I can say I’m 6 months pregnant now, but that seems like too much, so I just say 5. (Plus, people tend to use the formula: (9-n) +x=duedate month, where n=’months pregnant’ and x=current month, and n=5 gives a more accurate due date. i think being due midmonth affects the equation.) But, the days to go part can’t be challenged — I’ve been pregnant for 170, and have 110 to go. In 11 days, that will be LESS THAN 100. That is NUTS. I was clicking through a monthly calendar, checking for the dates to schedule my GD test, etc, and was all "Click-Feb, Click-March, Click-Apr, Click MAY BABY OMG!" FREAKY.  There’s so much to DO! I have to get the backroom organized! I have to prewash the diaper whenthey get here! We have childbirth classes and I’ll have a shower and I’ll start to see the doctor every 2 weeks, and then every week and OMG I have to give birth! Oy!

I have to have the 1-hour GD test in a few weeks, and I’m thinking about going to the hospital lab because the people watching is better at the lab up the street. Is that weird?

My 24 week appointment went well. Everything is measuring spot-on, my concern about the discrepancies between my scale and the doctor scale were laid to rest when I had it confirmed that the rate and total gain were the same.  At 24 weeks, I’ve gained 12 pounds, which is below the average, which is where it should be. Babycenter tells me I should only gain 15 pounds, which makes me give them a great big middle finger. I know I shouldn’t gain a LOT, and probably less than average, and I’m eating well and exercising (does coughing count as abs work, too?) but 15 pounds is going to be surpassed, for sure. I plugged in the figures for someone who was underweight, and they got a range of 28-40. Overweight, FIFTEEN! That’s it, fatty! FIF!TEEN! Whatever. March of Dimes was much more helpful in providing a graph of weight gained over time, and I’m holding steady to my own curve, which is okay, IMO. ANd my doctor, who reportedly can be pretty aggressive about weight gain, had zero problems with where I’m at.

The coughing/illness of the last two weeks was diagnosed as bronchitis, and I started a 6-day round of antibiotics today. I sure hope it helps. The coughing is annoying, to me and others, I’m sure, and it HURTS. It’s coughing-til-I-see-stars at this point, to where I almost throw up from the momentum. I wake myself up coughing, and Dave, and it SUCKS. My voice is slowly going away, right now I sound like one of Marge’ sisters on the Simpsons. Oh, and lets not mention that if I feel a really powerful coughing fit approaching, I better get to a bathroom right away, lest I totally piss my pants.

How does sex end up making one so totally UNSEXY? UGH. UGH. UGH.

Oh, and here’s a belly pic from today: