not one speck of knitting news

It seems like the instant I discovered I was pregnant, I lost all interest in knitting. Completely. I'm missing my former obsession terribly, but alas! It has no shown sign of returning.

B and I were talking last night about baby preparations (of course), and I said, I have no desire to knit anything at all for my baby. Once we know the sex, I might dive in and make a Sadie-like blankie (but not one in pieces).

But I think I just feel so different that I'm not sure how all the old me pieces fit. I read other knitblogs, and there are all these women with new babies who are churning out tons of projects. I've always been a slow knitter, so now I wonder if there's any hope for me, or if I'll be knitting my 12-sock stash when I'm 80! Oh well, it's the journey and the process, right? And summer has always been a slow time for knitting anyway (it's all that wool!). Maybe it's time to dive into my Euroflax washcloths. I bought some really lovely Crabtree & Evelyn soaps in May with the idea that I'd like to give my girlfriends some washcloth/soap gifts.

welcome to the queasy!

Yesterday, friend A and I went to celebrate my birthday by painting some ceramics. She made a great salad with chicken and veggies and white peaches, and I just wanted to eat peach after peach after peach. I don't know if it was a craving so much as everything else just makes me want to hurl.

B said the other day, "I've never known someone could get so excited about feeling sick."

The smell of my reasonably clean refrigerator makes me sick. The smell of Harvey's breath makes me sick. The smell of ice makes me sick. Isn't it great?

No puking, which I think of as a very good thing. But Friday, I walked back to my office after a meeting across campus. I was feeling better than I have in weeks--energetic, focused. I got to my office, sat down, began eating my morning snack, and thought, "Hmmm. I'm going to throw up." Hit me like a freight train. I walked slowly to the small office bathroom (thankfully empty, because there's often a line for our one-seater), waited, and breathed. The urge lessened a little. I walked out and casually said to a colleague, "Do we have any trash bags?"

Everybody knows now. I decided to tell, even with a month left to go in the first trimester. I wanted to control the message.

I'm doing fairly well with eating, but by the end of the day, I'm starving and sick too. So dinner has become a spin-the-wheel kind of proposition. Last night, the only thing in the world I wanted was egg foo yong. Bizarre, no? In general, the cravings have been for the tangy and the spicy. So we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant. Guess what? No egg foo yong on the menu. We ate an appetizer and soup and I ordered mu shu chicken, ate a few bites for the veggies, B had spicy eggplant. We then went to the other Chinese restaurant, where I know they have egg foo yong.

Yes, we went out to two dinners. Cost more than our fancy birthday dinner at the waterfront fish house the night before (strangely, I've also been craving fish). I hope the second trimester relief from queasy holds true, or we'll go bankrupt.

Friday, we got this:

First baby present, from one of my girlfriends. In my head, it's not a blanket--it's an act of faith. Thanks to my distant friend A, who knows that I sometimes need help with hoping and believing.

grumpy today

Tuesday was my 36th birthday. It was a dream day: we got to tell our parents we are pregnant! By Tuesday, I'd told my girlfriend posse. One of them had told her parents, who are also good friends of ours. I'd told my oldest friend, who had been staying with us for the weekend. All this telling meant I arrived home to three bouquets of flowers, ostensibly birthday flowers, but I suspect the blastocyte had something to do with it.

After we told the parents, we went to our local dessert splurge place, bought three different slices of designer birthday cake, ate three bites of each, and tossed the rest (eating for two means something different for me--that I can't indulge). It was a wonderful, wonderful birthday.

Yesterday and today, the fun wore off. I am worn out with doctor's appointments, especially within the freakin' HMO. I had a specialist appointment yesterday (where the doctor and nurse ended up having a fight in front of me because they couldn't agree on how to treat my chronic medical condition--after telling me in my first appointment a few weeks ago that they were going to "learn along with me," since I'm the first pregnant patient they've had with this condition), and my OB appointment today, where the doctor literally greeted me with--nope, not "congratulations--but "Hmm, 36 years old. You have a 1 in 200 chance of a Down's Syndrome baby."

Now, I know that the HMO needs to cover its big bureaucratic ass. I know they need to advise me of the risks. But, because of my chronic medical condition, I've researched the risks (and, oddly enough, I had a very specific conversation with the same OB back in February about the risks). But I'm telling you, if they don't stop talking to me about birth defects at every fucking appointment, I'm going to go postal.

Please don't write me comments saying this level of frustration isn't good for the baby. I also can't take one more person telling me what I ABSOLUTELY MUST do to ensure this baby is healthy or happy.

I'm a smart woman. I'm not a risk-taker by nature. But I'll be damned if I've ever tolerated anyone telling me what to do. And I just want--need--to enjoy this pregnancy as much as possible. It will probably be my only pregnancy. I'm somewhat change-averse, and this has been a big change. I like my privacy, and despite my decision not to tell my officemates, I discovered today that all but one of them knows (it's hard to hide twenty-five doctor's appointments in three weeks).

the News

I had to capitalize this title, because it's pretty Big News.

B and I have made something with a HEARTBEAT. (eek)

Yes, in the midst of all this crazy summer, I seem to have gone and got myself knocked up.

This is a knitting blog, not a Nann's whole life blog, so suffice it to say: this is a much-desired, long (long!) awaited event. There's a long way to go, even before we're out of miscarriage territory--it's only 7 weeks, but at the ultrasound yesterday, we saw and heard the little flutter that says our blastocyte is pumping away.

We have the first OB appointment on Thursday. I've already had four appointments with other doctors/nurses, because as an older, overweight mom with a chronic health condition, I'll be watched more closely.

How is it that something so normal, that people have been doing as long as there have been people, can seem so momentous when it happens to you? And, at the same time, I think I expected it to transform me overnight. Well, I'm still here, just in a slightly more queasy package. But I'm learning patience--the two weeks between positive pregnancy test and this ultrasound were perhaps the longest of my life, and there's a long, long way to go.

While it still seems surreal, every once in awhile, the joy steals into my day. B's been doing a break-out happy dance every once in awhile.