23 weeks

Today I am 23 weeks pregnant. I have been entirely too emo all week. Thanks so much for all your support as I make my way through this crazy time - your comments during these weekly posts (as well as your other comments and emails) have really made me feel good.

As it turns out, morphing into a mother is not as easy as buying maternity clothes and reading pregnancy books. As a result, I sometimes feel depressed - but (for the most part) I think of depression as a natural response to change. I'm not about to jump off a building or anything, in case you were wondering.

Totally emo belly shot:




The last shot is an inside joke between me and me (okay, so Roy's in on the joke, too). I'm sure many of you have seen some photographer or another use this cheesy pose in a maternity portrait session - it's the dead horse of cheesy poses out there. Me, I think it's hilarious when I see it come up in a photo (kind of like those selective saturation shots where the whole picture is in black and white and one part of it is in color - sooooooo 90s). Roy and I plan to do our own version of the heart on belly pose in our maternity session (but sweet baby jebus, we will not partake in a selective saturation shot - thank the gods our awesome photographer knows better). I tend to walk around doing the heart pose to random people who I think might appreciate it.

Anyway, enough trash talking. This week I:

1) ate a lot of string cheese (and I mean a lot)
2) sneezed a bunch of times (but at least I don't pee when I sneeze - yet)
3) listened to a tactless co-worker (yes, another one) tell me that it's so great that I look pregnant now and not just fat (it's so good to know that I'm not fat anymore!)
4) received an article about the octuplets via email from someone who wanted to make sure that I wasn't surprised by an extra baby when giving birth (thanks for your concern, guy)
5) worked on our registries (they're coming along!)
6) signed us up for childbirth and breastfeeding classes (Roy was shocked that he would have to attend the breastfeeding class with me.)
7) did a whole lot of research on cloth diapering and making homemade baby food, both of which we intend to do (and both of which elicit lots of eyerolls and heavy sighs from other people)
8) had my follow-up ultrasound for the mass in my uterus area (no news on that yet, but the tech was nice enough to let me look at Bunlet for awhile and print out some new pictures.)
9) booked a babymoon for me and Roy to San Francisco for Valentine's Day weekend (I am so excited!)
10) made some good headway in cleaning out the extra bedroom, allowing us to set up baby's first bookshelf (the goal is to have the room painted by the end of February - I will be in the third trimester at that point.)



And now for a humorous anecdote:

I walked into the restroom at work the other day, and the department manager (DM) was in there. Here's what happened:

DM: Oh, Leslie, I have something kind of uncomfortable to talk to you about.
L: Um, okay. What's going on?
DM: Well, Derrik wants me to bring in a stethoscope so that he can listen to your baby's heartbeat.
L: Yeah, he already told me that, and I sent him a digital file of the baby's heartbeat a couple of months ago.
DM: Well, that was really nice of you. I don't see why that wouldn't be good enough. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to bring in the stethoscope then, huh?
L: Uh, no, I wouldn't be comfortable with that.
DM: Yeah, that's probably a sexual harassment complaint waiting to happen.

Gee, ya think?!

I swear, the place I work is full of crazies. It's so comforting to know that my DM needed me to tell her that Derrik's request was inappropriate. What a world.