November 18, 2002
Monday, 7:26 AM
20 Weeks
Well, I have to say that I was disappointed with the ultrasound. [Ed. note: I had just had an ultrasound the previous Friday.]
It was not a 3D ultrasound, as I had thought, but a structural ultrasound in black and white and shades of gray, which made it very murky and hard to see. Before I go any further, at least let me say I was not disappointed with the results, because the baby is healthy – no spina bifida, no abnormalities of heart, liver, bones, or anything like that. The lungs are developing normally (they’re just about the last major organ to develop), the brain is perfect with no signs of excess fluid, and we could see the four chambers of the heart and all is well. It was hard to see any detail of the face, which bummed me out, and of course, the baby was napping (even though I drank a whole bottle of juice in the hopes that the sugar would wake it up), so its legs were drawn up pretty tightly and we couldn’t tell its gender.
Actually, we were both kind of relieved about that part. We don’t really care what it is, as long as it’s healthy.
Lola [my sister] came with us, and she was pretty excited about it. She will be giving birth in about 3 weeks, and the doctor took one look at her and said, “Are you next?” We all laughed. I can’t wait to see what her baby is going to look like – will he look a lot like Matthew, or different altogether? And I wonder what his personality will be like and how the two of them will interact. I wonder the same thing about our baby – how it will get along with its cousins. In some ways, it would be cool to have a boy, because he would have so many boy cousins to play with. But then, it would also be cool to have a girl, because we haven’t had one yet in this generation. Only time will tell, I guess.
Everyone in Sweet William’s office – scratch that, all the bigwigs in Will’s office - will be off at a conference in Boston this week. I wish I had known earlier, although he doesn’t have to go to it this year. If he had really wanted to go, he could have. Then we could have gotten a free trip to Boston while I’m pregnant, which would have been great so friends and family could see me (and I them, of course). I would have had to pay for my own plane ticket, of course, but so what? Next year, the conference will be in Vancouver, and we will have a 7-month-old. He will have to go by himself. Sucks.
Anyway, what this means today is that Sweet Wills will be working 12-hour days this week and will then have Friday off. He is starting vacation on Friday. I am taking vacation on Monday through Friday of Thanksgiving week. It will be nice for us just to chill together…or go off and have lunch with friends separately from one another. Also I can spend some time with Lola, since she’s begun maternity leave. But it also means that Sweet William is going to be exhausted this week. No fun for him. My honey works so hard...
We spent the morning at Santa Monica Beach yesterday, and it was glorious. Because it is mid-November and because we got there at 10:00 AM, the beach was pretty empty. It was somewhere around 73 degrees and sunny, and we spread our towels out right near the water and watched the pelicans diving into the water. We also saw a couple of schools of dolphins heading north. It was just so relaxing! We talked a lot about the baby and what kind of parents we want to be and what potential problems we see. We talked about our own families and how different your perceptions are when you are an adult looking back on things your family did while you were a kid. We talked about boundaries and the difference between being your child’s parent and being a friend. It’s really a tough job. You love your kid so much and you want your kid to like you, but you have to make the rules and set an example and your kid is not going to like you all the time. It’s not all fun and games -- more’s the pity -- but hopefully in the long run, your child can see that you were trying to help and guide them rather than make their life miserable arbitrarily.
I hope I can remember this when my 4-year-old is screaming about how mean I am and how much he/she hates me. Or when my 16-year-old tells me I’m a selfish bitch because I won’t let him/her drive the new car.
Oh, brother. Well, it’s 8:02 now – time to get to work.
Pretty interesting (to me), mainly because I sound so happy and mellow. Probably because I was also writing this for the baby to read someday, so it doesn't contain all the cuss words and general snarkiness that some of my writing does. It does take me back to those days -- incredible how long it seemed, the months and months of waiting, and now it seems like it passed by so quickly. And now I have this amazing little person in my life who says things like, "Oh, you're washing dishes? That's a really good idea, Mommy" and "NO, I do not need to wear socks."
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the futchah....
Ah, the Steve Miller Band. They had their moment.
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