I hate filing.

I hate filing. It is the bane of my existence.

I am sitting in my office at the j.o.b. and I am disgusted with the state of things. It's all my fault, and it's all because I hate filing.

I don't know what it is about filing that I hate so much. I don't mind making the folders. I don't mind putting them in the drawers. I think it's the hanging folders. The hanging folders are the problem.

First of all, who has the energy to figure out how to organize all this stuff? If I've got 15 manilla folders on my desk, how will I organize them in my drawer? Should I group them? Into what categories? And don't even get me started on those little white tabs.

So for now I will continue to procrastinate on my filing - at least until something even more heinous needs to be done. After all, that's why we have interns.

Colbert Interviews Eleanor Holmes Norton

I wish I lived in DC so I could claim Eleanor Holmes Norton. She rocks!

Friday! Yay!

I sat down to write a post, and the only thing I really wanted to say was "Yay! It's Friday!"

This has been a long, tough week. The good news is that, at the end, I'm feeling pretty good about things. My desk is a mess, but I feel kind of caught up. (I'm not caught up - just feel that way). I feel peaceful.

Maybe it's because I'm floating in gingerale.

Forgot to mention

If you click on my baby picture to enlarge it a little, you can see that it says 7w1d, which stands for 7 weeks, 1 day. Which is 8 days less than it should say, based on what I've been told thus far.

Waah! I am losing weeks!

We got another measurement that was 7 weeks, 3 days, so that's a little better. Fallout: my due date is now March 10. At least until the week 20 sonogram, where they will make some kind of "final" determination (and tell us that, yes, it's a girl).

Haiku for Andrew

Andrew, dude, you rock.
A watermelon snowball!
Aren't my knockers huge?

No, no. I'm awake.

This morning, Dave rolled over and asked me if I was okay.

I presume this is because the alarm had been blaring the Counting Crows for half an hour and I hadn't even rolled over for my obligatory saltines yet. Oh, and he didn't have to get up.

I am fine, actually, but TIRED. Exhausted. I choked down five saltines and rolled over for 20 more minutes. Finally got up, dressed and headed out the door.

My friend JoAnne says that this is temporary. She says that, right at the beginning of my second trimester, I'm going to feel great. No more nausea. Boost of energy. Belly.

God I hope so.

So over it

Okay, I'm over it.

I thought it would be cool to get morning sickness. You know, proof that I'm pregnant and all. But now I'm done.

The good news? New baby pictures!

And now for the explanation: the black circle on the left is the bag the baby's in. See the two white dots? Those are plus signs that mark the top and bottom of the baby. The baby itself is a lighter area that's really hard to see on the sonogram at this size. But it's very cool.

We saw the heartbeat on the monitor today. Just a little flicker, but definitely visible. Yeah, it made me weepy.

So back to complaining:

1. The NP who performed my ultrasound kept jabbing my bladder with the wand. HARD! I was like, "Ow! Stop it!" Good thing I made an extra pee before the exam.

2. The RN who was supposed to go through all my previous bloodwork and determine what new tests I needed didn't do a very good job. I had at least three extra vials of blood drawn for tests I've already had. How many times do you need to check and see if I had Chicken Pox? (Aside: the phlebotomist was very nice).

3. Nobody told me I was going to need to produce a pee sample. 30 minutes after the extra pee I took to prevent squirting on the NP? Yeah. It's a good thing I make new pee at an alarming rate.

4. I don't feel so good.

Anyway, all told, we spent two hours at the doctor's office this morning - WAY longer than I had hoped. I have done basically nothing since them but sleep. Better try to squeeze in a little more work before everyone else in the world goes home.

Lest I mislead you

This is the bra. Not the other one. It's the greatest.

I'm ba-ack.

Well, I'm back from New Jersey. A great time was had by all. Got to spend lots of time with squishy's cousins Mike (19), Jared (14) and Susie (3), as well as my sister-in-law Leah, hubby Steve and the incomparable Big Z. (That's Dave's dad).

We mostly hung out all weekend and laughed at Susie, when she wasn't throwing a tantrum. She's a sweet, sweet girl, but she's just at that age.

The crib is beautiful. It's leaning up against our unsold bunk beds in what will become the nursery, yet to be reassembled.

I was sick as a dog and made it my habit to drive down to the convenience store every morning for a bottle of gingerale and some nilla wafers. Yeah, I had saltines, but I had to ration them out over the whole weekend. Anyway, how many saltines can you take? On Friday, I had to stop at Kohl's to buy bigger bras because I couldn't stand my 36 A-B-C sports bra any more. If you've got it, why squish it against your chest? Also, breathing is nice.

On Saturday, we piled all the boys into my mom's Durango (borrowed on account of the crib) and took them to see Clerks II. It's a good thing we came by, because Auntie Leah probably would have died if she had taken them to see that movie. She was shocked and appalled when she found out that Jared had been watching "Lucky Louie" on the DL.

When we got back last night, I had even more bras waiting - this time in the form of a JC Penney order that showed up on my doorstep while we were away. I got this bra for sleeping. It is the greatest invention of ALL TIME. Not kidding.

This morning, had to get up and head back to work. (So did Dave, by the way! Ha!) I'm feeling iffy, but riding high on gingerale and excited about my checkup tomorrow!

Un oh

The past week has been fairly uneventful. I spent my seventh week of pregnancy wondering when the other shoe would drop, i.e. when would the morning sickness arrive?

Today, that question was answered.

I was clicking along, feeling fine, wondering (just in the back of my mind), whether I would escape this particular side effect's icy grip. But I kept reading that it starts around week eight, and that most women start to feel sick right after they make up their minds that they're out of the woods. So I didn't get my hopes up.

It started yesterday with a queasiness that went away with food. I resolved not to allow myself to get too hungry. I vowed to surround myself with snacks.

This morning. Breakfast. Just in time - I've got that not so happy tummy feeling! Still sick in the car - emergency pretzel stash. By the time I got to work, I had to drive past work to the local convenience store for an emergency infusion of that morning sickness panacea - ginger ale.

Now that I'm at my desk, I feel better, but I don't know if it will last. I keep telling myself I'll get used to it, but my first brush with the demon hasn't boosted my confidence.

The good news? I've sprouted 38DDs. :)

Tomorrow, we're off to New Jersey to visit the clan. Our niece is out of her crib, so we'll be bringing home furniture! Yay!

Don't lose any sleep

Kaiser is going to give me the second ultrasound, probably next week or the week after. So we'll get to hear the heartbeat soon! Yay!

Also, my due date is March 6.

Assignment: Dave

Dave is still at home.

You may recall that Dave's building was flooded (with, we've learned, 3 MILLION gallons of water). You know those "disaster recovery plans" everybody's been working on since 9/11? Well, apparently the IRS never got around to finishing theirs. Kind of like some people never get around to filing their taxes? Harumph.

To be fair, I'm not sure how they could have anticipated this. A deluge destroys the building. Only this building. How weird.

Anyway, while Dave sits at home enjoying his newly stress-free lifestyle, I am slaving away.

Damn him.

I've started giving him little assignments to keep him busy during the day. Nothing extraordinary - just things I would do if I had time - like scheduling comcast to check on our signal, calling vonage about our crappy voice quality, checking with his sister on the crib, stuff like that. Please. Not a big deal. He is resistant but is acquiescing.

If you have any little tasks you need done by my house husband, let me know.

Ta da!

Without further ado, squishy:


What is this, a rorschach test? Here's a hint:

That's it! That's the baby! Zoomed in! Gosh, talk about tiny, huh? No heartbeat yet, but I'm told it's a little early for that. We'll probably be able to see it next week if Kaiser will pay for another ultrasound. Sheesh.

So, all in all, not the romantic, tear-jerking experience I had hoped for, but it is reassuring to see a blotch on the printout, anyway.

And, we graduated from the fertility center! That's excellent news. They people are very nice there, and I am so grateful, but I feel like we're...um...a little too close. Like maybe we should take a break - you know - just try being friends for a while. Maybe at least until, you know, I get comfortable with the fact that 43 new people have seen my vagina in the past 6 weeks.

Today we came full circle. Dr. Sagoskin ("my" doctor) was attending at the ultrasound. He's been coordinating my care, but because of the way the schedules work, I hadn't seen him since our initial consultation. Saw everybody else in the joint, but not him. Anyway, it was nice to see him today.

So that's it, for now. Normally, the center likes to do another ultrasound, but my insurance won't allow it, so it's back to my OB. Hopefully I can get an appointment soon and get that extra ultrasound back at the ranch. I'd like to see the heartbeat. That would be cool.

In other news, Andrew came by for coffee on his way back from picking up paper downtown. I gave him a copy of the ultrasound to take to Jen. Coffee and conversation were both nice.

Now I have to get back to work on these postcards before I get fired.

And again!

Much congratulations to Stephen and Alex, who welcome Adrian today!

The world is full of beautiful babies!!!

2765

Oh god, it's turning into a pregnancy blog.

No, we can't let that happen. How boring! Like a one-note bugler!

Let me just say this one thing - beta is 2765 today. Up more than 300%, again. I'm told this is excellent. Everytime my nurse calls she sounds happier and less cautiously optimistic.

The even-better news - no more bloodwork for the foreseeable future. This is a good thing. Even though my one phlebotomy-friendly vein has gotten quite adept at healing up enough to endure a bloodletting every two days, I am prepared to let that go. 11 times. 11 times since May 30, I have had my blood drawn and run through a centrifuge. That's enough, thanks.

Oh, congrats to Molly and John, who welcomed a 7 pound 1 ounce bouncing baby girl into the world on Friday. Can't wait to meet Jane Darby and hang out with Jesse, who has probably grown 6 inches since the last time I saw him.

What else is going on? I spent all weekend working on a flash site for a client. I have learned A LOT about flash lately, mostly by necessity. This wasn't supposed to be a flash site, but it turned out that way. Oh well.

Anyway, there has been a learning curve, and it has been steep. I have a love/hate relationship with the learning curve. It is, at times, incredibly frustrating because you don't see how you're going to get through the project when you have to do a web search for every line of code. But it's so much more rewarding when you figure something out. When you're building a site that you know how to build, that's easy, but boring.

I coped by taking a lot of breaks, particulary pee breaks, which help me think.

We've had the kids for the past week or so, and they're heading back to their mother's tomorrow. That's fine. I love having them around, but I also love having tater tots for dinner if I feel like it and not worrying about what they're going to eat. Because they eat SO MUCH.

Anyway, enough rambling for one day.

Okay again

Okay, okay, okay.

I'm okay.

(just keep telling yourself that, kid)

Another blood test this morning. No results yet. It's almost two, so now I'm in "waiting for the phone to ring" mode. Whatever. It's fine. Everything's fine.

We told the kids today. Finally! They were the last to know, I'm afraid. I guess we didn't want them to get psyched up and then get disappointed if something happens, but it was becoming increasingly likely that they would find out from somebody other than us, given all the people I've been telling. It was stressing me out. So we decided we would tell them as soon as Max got back from China.

Oh yeah, my kid was in China. Woah. How cool is that? He doesn't even have his driver's license yet, and he's bargaining with street vendors in Tiennamen Square. He brought me presents. Oh my god, get this:

My adorable, sweet stepson brings me a fabric scroll from China. As I'm unrolling it, he says, "I got the dragon one for you because..." [Dave interjects: "Because she's the dragon lady?"] Max continues, "No. Because the dragon is supposed to be some powerful goddess or something." Seriously, have you ever heard of a 15 year old kid talking like that? To his stepmother?

He also brought me a jade pendant and a keychain of a terra cotta warrior carriage. He's so cool.

Anyway, I showed him how much I loved the scroll by taking down that clock that makes bird noises every hour (loved by me, hated by everyone else who lives here) and replaced it with the scroll.

So....we told the kids. Max was like, "Cool." Then Danny (who is almost 19) says, "Wait - are you serious? Really?" And then he grinned. Then everyone called "Never changing diapers," except me, because I'm dumb about that stuff.

Dave started to tell them about the names we picked out, then Max interrupted with, "Wait one second - here's the deal. You can't name this kid one thing and call him something else. That's all I have to say about it." He said that because his name is Derek Maximilian Selig, but nobody calls him Derek - everyone calls him Max and always has. So I guess he's tired of explaining it. He's funny.

Oh goodie! The nurse just called! My beta levels are even better than expected, so everything really does look fine! Yay!

Okay, back to work.

Worried

I'm worried.

The joy and surprise of finding out that I'm pregnant has settled into a dull roar. Don't get me wrong - I am ecstatic - it's just that it's hard to sustain that initial excitement when the only signs that you're actually pregnant are exhaustion and enormous knockers.

My doctor has me returning to the fertility clinic every other day for more blood tests. This is making me uneasy. I know that it's routine, but it's like they keep checking - just one more time to be sure. Makes me feel like maybe I shouldn't be sure. Or that they are expecting something untoward to happen. Nobody's told me this - it's just my brain rambling.

Meanwhile, I am really disgusted with work. The j.o.b. is fine, but the rest of my work life is totally out of control. I am constantly doing one thing while worrying about another. I am overcommitted to the extreme, and people keep calling.

The thing is, it isn't fun anymore. Back in the early days of doing this full time, I had all the time in the world. The whole reason I started this company was to be able to relax when I needed to relax. My health necessitated that. But now I'm working all the time, or pretending to.

Pretending to is more like it. Because when I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I do everything in my power to avoid working. Like yesterday. Sure, it was the fourth of July. I could have decided not to work and taken the day to recharge. Or, I could have decided to work and really punched it. Instead, I stayed in a kind of no man's land - worrying about how I should be working while wasting time with mindless distractions, like television and too much sleep. That was probably the least helpful thing I could have done, but I couldn't pull myself out of it. I couldn't force myself to work, but I couldn't let go of the idea that I should be working.

I told Dave this morning that I've just about had it. I either need to find a way to make this fun again, or I need to start thinking about doing something else. Sigh.