Babymoon, take 2

It's Fleet Week here in San Francisco, and the Blue Angels are doing practice runs overhead, which must mean it's almost anniversary time! Six years ago this week I was an hour late to my own wedding because of traffic streaming out of the Presidio after the Blue Angels air show. Which resulted in my poor now-husband having to give a speech to the assembled guests letting them know that I was NOT leaving him at the altar, but just stuck in gridlock in the back of a limo. Thank goodness for cell phones!

To mark this momentous occasion, we have planned a second babymoon this weekend, to try and make up for the fact that our previous attempt didn't exactly have the glow of romance to it. So I used hotel points to book us a room downtown, where we will blissfully (hopefully) be tourists in our own city for a weekend. We have dinner reservations, and big plans to walk around aimlessly and maybe ride a cable car or two.

Given that we just spent a buttload of money remodeling and buying baby stuff, there will be no gifts exchanged this year. But, I'm thinking of totally cheesing out and writing a love letter to the Mr. He has always been more than I could have hoped for, but in this past year particularly. I feel like I don't tell him enough what an amazing partner he is, and so I think I'm going to take a crack at putting it in writing before my brain turns to baby mush.

Has anyone else ever done this? Any advice?

Baby Basics

We took our first prenatal class -- Baby Basics -- over the weekend. It was definitely basic, which was a good thing for this only child with very limited baby experience. Although I have to imagine that changing a dry diaper on a doll is going to be wee bit less complicated than changing a squirming baby with poop running down her leg with a cat on the changing table and the phone ringing on 2 hours of sleep. But I suppose those would be hard conditions to simulate.

Now, I'm always the eager beaver in class-type situations -- lots of questions, and notes, and probably annoying the crap out of everyone else -- but I couldn't help noticing that a lot of the couples in the room looked very unhappy. Or at least seriously disinterested. The classes aren't mandatory, so I don't really get it. But it made me kind of sad for them. I guess you never really know what people are going through. And honestly, maybe they were all just in food coma or something since the class was right after lunch.

But it did remind me, once again, that while infertility sucks the big one, it's certainly removed any ambivalence I thought I had about becoming a parent. I guess I'll have to wait and see if poop sucks worse than Lupron, but I'm pretty sure I'll be happy to go with the poop.

Why you should not read Twilight while pregnant

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for anyone reading or contemplating reading the Twilight series.

OK, I confess. I've now read the Twilight series not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. Inside of a year. My excuse: I've found the complete escape into fantasy to be super-comforting during this crazy year of infertility diagnoses, Clomid, IVF and pregnancy.

For anyone else who's read the books, I'm sure we can all think of some very obvious reasons why reading the series -- particularly the final book -- might not be a wise choice for either an infertile OR a pregnant woman (or for someone like me, who's been both infertile and pregnant at different times while reading it). Whether it's Bella getting pregnant on her first cycle, a pregnancy that involves severe morning sickness, an unenthusiastic father, severe illness, blood-drinking and broken bones, or a childbirth that culminates in a c-section via vampire teeth, exsanguination, and death -- well, it's quite a buffet of horrors.

But, even knowing that, I've read the books THREE TIMES. What a loser.

It should have come as no surprise that at some point I'd have a very graphic dream with some Twilight-y goodness mixed in. When it finally happened last night, while I was mildly disappointed that it did not take the form of a sex dream about Edward, I was

also pleasantly surprised that it did not involved me getting my spine crushed by the chicklette.

But it was disturbing nonetheless. I dreamt that I brought my daughter home from the hospital, where she immediately began speaking (a la Renesmee). Not just speaking, but telling me all of the things I was doing wrong.

Mommy, you're not fastening the car seat right.

Mommy, I don't like this car seat.

Mommy, you're not holding my head right.

Mommy, your breast milk tastes yucky.*

The takeaway? As much as I'd like to escape into the world of Twilight from time to time, I'm super-glad that I won't have to worry about this kind of backtalking for at least a couple of years.

*And by the way, where did my subconscious come up with THAT?

Infertility Urban Legends

OK, OK, enough about my bodily functions. I'm feeling much better this week and can now focus on much more interesting topics.

I got a call over the weekend from my childhood best friend ("S"), as we've been plotting over her plans to fly in for my baby shower at the end of the month. As a bit of background, S and her husband started trying to have a baby soon after they got married in 2003, went through 5 (or maybe 6?) rounds of IVF, suffered multiple miscarriages (including an ectopic pregancy that cost S one of her tubes), and were never able to get an explanation from any of their three specialists as to why she wasn't able to carry a pregnancy past 8 weeks. About two and a half years ago, they decided to find a surrogate, and last October they were blessed with two beautiful, healthy twin girls.

After the expense of going the surrogate route and the heartbreaks of the preceding years, S and her husband decided they were done. All three of their specialists agreed that since she was not able to get pregnant without IVF, there was no need to have her remaining tube tied or worry about birth control.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

S is pregnant. The old-fashioned way. No timed intercourse, no drugs, no nothing. She's not even sure how many weeks along she is, because her cycle's been so irregular with the one tube and the multiple IVFs -- a total change for those of us used to knowing and obsessing over every cycle day! They are totally in shock.

At the end of our conversation, S said: "You know what's the weirdest part? I hate that we're the infertility urban legend....you know, the couple who tried and tried and ended up using a surrogate and then just RELAXED and got pregnant. Because it was so devastating to hear that particular piece of advice from countless people during our struggles."

Personally, I'm thrilled for them, and am happy to be friends with an urban legend. It gives me hope that the next time around, maybe a good sperm will find its way to a good egg and we can make a baby just like "normal" people do. Maybe not, but maybe. What can I say, I'm a hope junkie.

What do you all think? Are you personally acquainted with an infertility urban legend? Does hearing their stories give you hope or drive you crazy?

Missing DayQuil

Having a cold and not being able to take anything for it kinda sucks. I think I've expressed about a gallon of snot in the last 72 hours.

I know that I'm guilty of this myself, but it's really funny the way people look at you these days when you're out in public and either sniffle, sneeze or cough. OMIGOD IT'S THE SWINE!

But it's not. Just a week of poop, followed by boogers. SEXY!

The good news is that the Great Remodel of 2009 will be done in a couple of weeks. Everything's looking great. I promise before and after pictures.

Now, back to the tissues.

Car rental hijinks

This afternoon, I sent the following text to my husband:

"Ur wife is officially a WIDE LOAD."

Wanna know why?

Today, I arrived at LAX for yet another fun business trip adventure. The big red Avis rental car shuttle dropped me off at the following vehicle, which Avis had so kindly preselected for me:

It's a Nissan 350 Z convertible, which normally would be quite a fun little car for jetting about LA. I actually think Avis was trying to be nice to me with a complimentary upgrade (since I've rented roughly 37 cars from them in the last 6 months), and hey, intially I was pretty fired up.

Until I climbed in. Or tried to climb in. And my tummy was smooshed against the steering wheel. Even when I pushed the seat all the way back. And then I tried to get out and had to basically roll out of the door and onto the parking lot to get out. You see, the Nissan 350 Z sits about 2 inches off the ground. Apparently I have a little more work to do in prenatal yoga on the whole squatting thing.

So, I waddled over to the Avis counter and explained my problem. "Thank you so much, but there's only room for one person behind that steering wheel, and I've got 1 2/3."

So I got this instead:

A Ford Expedition, baby. Which I think could run over a Nissan 350 Z with its front tire and not even alarm the driver. I'm pretty sure I guzzled $20 worth of gas to drive the 10 miles to my office, but it was certainly an improvement over the minivan "upgrade" they gave me last week.

And the guy behind me in line was REALLY excited to get the convertible.

The good, the bad, and the stinky

So, we're back from our chicklette-moon.

Let's start with the good, shall we? Late on Thursday afternoon, we checked in to the lovely Hotel Del Coronado on, you guessed it, Coronado Island. It's a lovely, historic, haunted hotel. I've always wanted to stay there. Nice, hunh?


As if that weren't enough, the Mr. in his charming charmingness managed to sweet talk his way into an upgrade to a suite. So we rang in the first night of our vacay looking out the window at this view:


Again, not bad. We watched the beach get invaded by Navy SEALS after dark (apparently they have the run of the island to train on as they wish), ate some totally carb-y Italian food, and went to sleep.

Things continued to look up the next day, as we got up early, hit Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte, and got to the San Diego Zoo nice and with PANDAS on the brain. No line, everything going well, pandas were cute, etc.

I should have known that furry panda butt was an Omen of Doom. About 10 yards outside of the panda exhibit, I started to feel funky. A little light-headed, a little hot (what else is new?), a little thirsty. I chalked it up to the fact that it was hot, I was pregnant, and, well, those two things seemed to be enough.

We made it to the nearest refreshment stand and I gulped down some water. And then immediately ran to the little pandas room to expel something looking strikingly similar to what that furry panda butt expelled right after I took that picture. It was not pretty -- in fact, the next person to enter the bathroom (while I was still moaning on the stall), exclaimed "UGH!"

Somehow we made it out of the Zoo (that place is FRICKIN' HILLY), and the Mr. drove us back to the hotel. I curled up in a fetal position and slept for two hours, thinking the worst was behind me (ha ha).

But no. I couldn't get to sleep that night, and had a vague feeling that something bad was going to happen. At about 4:00, it did. And then again at 5. And 6. I'm sure you get the picture. I DESTROYED the fancy bathroom. I woke up the poor Mr. (how he was still sleeping at this point was beyond me) and told him what was going on (although I'm pretty sure he got the picture as soon as he took his first conscious breath). He felt my forehead, determined that I was running a fever, got me dressed, and trucked me off to the ER.

Long story short, things are fine, baby is fine, my tummy is now fine, but I spent about 48 hours in lockdown with only Gatorade, bananas and dry toast (oh, and lots of expensive movies from the hotel TV) for company. I felt so bad for ruining the babymoon, and now owe the Mr. a very large (probably sexual) favor for the fact that he carried a specimen of my poop from the hotel back to the hospital for analysis. Is that love, or what?

So, the babymoon was not quite what we expected. But that's not even the worst part.

After ALL THAT POOPING, I was still up 4 pounds at my OB appointment this morning.

4 pounds. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?!?!