I Had a Dream

They say that when you get pregnant, your dreams become very vivid (and potentially prophetic). Well, my dreams have always been vivid (I'm not bragging, since more often than not, they're nightmares), but I did just have a dream that was practically in technicolor. And yes, it was a nightmare.

I was at my grandmother's beach house when I saw the most beautiful bird over by the neighbor's house. It had the body of a snowy owl, almost as if it were made out of porcelain. In fact, it had patterns on it, just like an owl figurine made out of bone china. It also had the tail of a peacock. I called up to my uncle, to make sure that he saw it too, because he loves peacocks. As soon as we drew attention to it, it began to hover in front of our window like a hummingbird. Then it flew off. Everybody was oohing and ahhing over how beautiful it was, but I knew it was too good to be true. I said, "I don't think that porcelain owl peacock hummingbird was real. I think it was a drone." Nobody believed me at first, but then a whole squadron of sea planes flew overhead - each a different color of the rainbow. Each one dumped sheets of ice from it's tail and we screamed at everyone on the beach to get out of the way, but there wasn't time to run and this guy (who was carrying a large box of pink cupcakes) got hit. As he fell to his knees, another man came running at him and stabbed him repeatedly. Apparently, they were two fishermen who had had a disagreement.

That was the end of the story.

I just really loved all the colors of the bird-drone, the seaplanes, and the cupcakes.

Image courtesy of Big Sis Little Sis

Pregnancy Story: Part Two

It was very exciting to find out that we were going to have a baby, and we had the whole ten-hour car ride home from Chicago to think and talk about it, but I have to say that we had been planning the pregnancy for so long that it just felt pretty normal. In fact, Jeff wanted to talk about sports more than he did about the baby. I just wanted to talk about baby names, but the pregnancy didn't really have anything to do with that, because we've been talking about baby names since about two weeks into our relationship (and in those five years, we have yet to find a boy's name that we both like).

What I did have to start thinking seriously about was how long to wait until we shared our big news and how exactly we would go about doing that. One of the reasons we decided to get pregnant when we did (in addition to having an early August birth, which would give Jeff most of the summer to work and earn money, but still have a little bit of time before the start of school to spend with the newborn baby, as well as the hope that the baby would be born on my beloved grandmother's birthday, which would make it a Leo, and would mean that we wouldn't have to worry about nasty weather when speeding to the hospital, AND the fact that I could get by for the majority of my big-belly pregnancy in flowy/stretchy summer dresses without buying hideous and expensive maternity clothes) was that we were going home for Christmas in about a month and could tell the whole family in person that I was pregnant.

It was very important to me to tell my mother this news in person, because there was no way in the world that I was going to miss seeing the priceless look on her face. I also really wanted her to be the first person to find out, because she has wanted a grandchild so badly for so long (pretty much from the day she gave birth to me). However, this did not work for a variety of reasons. First of all, I'm pretty sure all my cousins in Chicago knew I was pregnant even before I technically knew. Secondly, it worked out that I spent my first night back in Seattle at my dad's house and I couldn't keep such exciting news to myself (I'm weak).

There's another fold in the story, because not long after Jeff and I got the great news about the pregnancy, I got the horrible news that my mother had cancer. God, this filled me with so many mixed emotions (which I won't go into here) and I was terrified that, instead of being deliriously happy about her soon-to-be grandchild, my mom would just be depressed at the idea of not having an eternity to spend with this child. I really wanted to spread the happy news, not the bittersweet news. But at the same time, I knew that the prospect of a new baby would strengthen her resolve to get better and would give the whole family something to look forward to (no pressure, pitseleh).

I'm going to fast forward to when we told everybody, which means that I'm skipping over our first OB/GYN appointment and the beginning of the first trimester (and all the loveliness that it entails), because that's what this post is mostly about. So, even though - technically - my doctor's office and the whole lobby of our regular brunch cafe knew that I was pregnant before we got home to Seattle - I'm going to say that my dad, step-mom and sister were the first to hear the big news.

As excited as I was to spill the beans, I played it cool when they all picked me up at the airport and I even stayed mum for most of the evening at my dad's apartment. It was a special night at Chez Weiser, because it was Hannukah and my dad had both my sister and me there to celebrate with him (a rare and special occurrence). My dad has lead the Hannukah service in exactly the same way since we were little kids, so I knew exactly when I would have a good opportunity to tell them about the baby. My dad always, always says, "Traditionally, the youngest child gets to read the story of Hannukah, so Rebecca, would you like to read?" Now, I don't quite remember whether I said it right at this point or, more politely, after my sister finished reading the story (which is written on a children's greeting card with mice as the Maccabees), but I said, "Well, technically, Becca isn't the youngest child anymore, because I'm going to have a baby!" I don't know if my sister was more excited about the baby news or about not having to be the one to read that Hannukah story year after year (I kid), but she and my step-mother leaped up from the dining table and cried and hugged me, etc. My father, however, barely moved a muscle and just sat and stared and turned as white as his hair. Yikes. But after what was probably realistically only a minute, he said that he was very surprised and very happy. Phew.

My sister really wanted to be present when I told my mom, but that would have meant keeping the news to myself for a couple more days and I just.couldn't.do.it. Well, more precisely, it wouldn't have been possible to keep the news from my mom, because she could have read it all over my face after seeing me for a grand total of five minutes. Hell, I'm surprised she didn't call me the day after Jeff and I got the positive test result and say, "I just have a funny feeling that you're pregnant. Are you?" So, anyway, after I took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and my uncle picked me and my giant suitcase up and drove to my mom's apartment, I chit-chatted with them for a little bit (to throw my mom off the scent) and then told her that I had brought along an early Christmas present for her. It was an ornament of Mrs. Claus (the only vaguely grandma-ish figure I could find) with a stocking full of presents (for her beloved grandchild, of course!) and across the top, I had the ornament company write "Grand-Kèrr," which is what my mother had (jokingly) said that she wanted to be referred to by her grandchildren. She opened the box and immediately burst into tears. My uncle got really worried and said, "Why is she crying? What did you give her?" And I said, "She's crying, because she's going to be a grandmother!" And I pointed out the "Grand-Kèrr" on the ornament and explained the story to my uncle and then my mother said, "Oh, I didn't even see that part!" It turns out that she didn't have her glasses on and could barely see the ornament, let alone the writing, and she was just crying because she knew that whatever it was that she was holding meant that I was pregnant. I told you she was like this.

Image courtesy of Christmas Ornament Shop

Jeff was much better at keeping the big news under wraps and didn't tell his parents or sister until the whole family was gathered together in Port Ludlow after Christmas. But that was his choice, because he said that all he'd ever wanted to do was to stand up at a large family gathering, clink his glass, and announce that he was going to be a father. So he waited until we all sat down for dinner (the whole Marshall family: Jeff's parents, sister, grandma, aunts, uncle, cousins galore) and then he made the announcement, but he didn't stand-up and I don't remember whether he clinked his glass! There was so much family, that we had to pull up an extra little table to the main dining table, and we sat there with Jeff's cousin Scott and his girlfriend Sarah, who is about to have a baby (any second now!). Scott and Sarah joked that there soon-to-be son Noah would be all alone at the kid's table next year, and Jeff said that, no, actually, Noah would have a little cousin, not too much younger than he, to keep him company. Everyone was so excited and Jeff's dad even cried a little bit!

Okay, this post is getting a bit long, so I'll just gloss over the telling-of-the-friends and say that it was all very, very fun and it was kinda a buzzkill to run out of people to tell.

OH! And I have to mention the fact the everyone - EVERYONE - is just assuming that it's going to be a boy.

Poop

There is a show on the Travel Channel right now about a restaurant in Taiwan where everything - including the food - is poop themed. Thank God I didn't catch sight of this a month ago.

Image courtesy of Sarah Vee

Pregnancy Story: Part One

This was a very planned pregnancy (I say "very," because we landed on the exact due date that we wanted!), so I was very eager to take a pregnancy test as soon as possible. I bought those "earliest detection" sticks and tried the test a couple days before my period was due. I bought the sticks and did the tests without Jeff knowing what I was up to, because I thought it would be so much fun to be able to surprise him with the good news. I think the way that I had decided I would tell him was going to be by cooking him a dinner full of "baby" foods: baby back ribs, baby carrots, maybe a Dutch baby for dessert? and seeing if he caught on. But, all the tests came back negative. Even though I knew that we may not get pregnant on the very first try, it was still really hard to see negative test after negative test - and I just could stop taking them, which meant I had to buy more and more, and those suckers are expensive! Finally, I couldn't take the disappointing news on my own anymore, so I told Jeff what I had been up to. I had one stick left and we both decided that I should wait a couple of days before using it.

This was right around Thanksgiving and we had decided to drive all the way to Chicago to spend the weekend with my cousins. It was a good diversion, but I couldn't help myself from talking about the possibility of my being pregnant with the family. My cousin's husband asked me one question, "Are your breasts sore?" And oh boy, the answer to that question was definitely yes. "Then you're pregnant," he said. And of course, he was right. I took the final test on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the day that Jeff and I were driving home, and it was the first one that Jeff and I looked at together, and it was positive.

I have to pause the narrative here for a moment to backtrack and rant about pregnancy tests a little bit. First of all, I totally do not believe that they work before your period is due. Maybe one in 100 women gets a positive early result, but on the side of the package, it says something ludicrous like 80% of negative early results could actually be positive. I thought I would be one of those super fertile one in 100 women, but I was not, and it's totally useless to get a negative result which could actually be positive. Secondly, I now understand that commercial that says that some high percentage of women can "misread a traditional pregnancy test." When I first saw those commercials (for digital sticks), I thought, "What idiot can't tell the difference between a plus sign and a minus sign? Or a blue line versus a pink line?" But guess what? I couldn't tell the difference! I am one of those idiots. I had one of the sticks that is supposed to come up with a plus sign if positive and in the instructions it says that if there is any vertical line (the horizontal line is automatic, to show you that the test is working), that means you're pregnant. Well, the last couple of tests that I took before we left for Chicago did have very faint vertical lines, but when I say faint, I mean FAINT. Like, I don't know whether I'm actually seeing a line or just willing it to be so. They were so faint that I needed a magnifying glass to see them and I assumed it was just the trace of chemicals that would turn into a blue line when positive. Oh well, so maybe I'm just an idiot, but I think those tests are really little devil sticks meant to mess with already unstable women's fragile minds. The one upside was that when we did eventually get the positive result, it was so obviously and without-a-doubt positive that it made me feel extra wonderful.

The Story of the Pregnancy Up 'til Now

Ideally, I would have started updating this blog again as soon as we found out that I was pregnant. But, I've never been much of a diary-keeper, so the desire to write is not strong with me, and we had much more pressing thoughts and things-to-do to worry about. So, I'm going to try to remember everything that happened, because it really will be nice to have the story written down, both for me to re-read in the future and for the baby-to-be to read when they're older (if it's a girl, that is; if it's a boy, they probably won't care).

I'm going to write the story in installments, otherwise it would just be one reallllllly long post. Stay tuned for Part One.

A Wee Change

Sooooo...it's been quite a long time since I've posted anything on this blog. I would apologize, but I don't think I have any regular readers to apologize to! Maybe I'll get a few more regular readers now that I have something really important to write about!

This blog will now do triple-duty as a repository for my baby updates, my home updates, and my random musings and interests.

I obviously still need to fiddle with a few things to better the layout of the new blog. The picture of me is HUGE and it won't even be the permanent picture - I just don't have a better alternative at the moment.

Enjoy.