21 weeks, 1 day
I BART'ed (Bay Area Rapid Transport) to the morning meeting. It took 45 minutes to get to the train. YahooMap estimated it would take 52 minutes to get to Oakland via car. It would have taken only 35 minutes to get to the train, but I had to search for parking until settling on a semi-illegal spot. If more people did utilize our public transportation, the cities would have to build more parking. Oh, the irony! August seemed to like it just fine - high kicks on each part of the journey.
While nobody was looking I snacked on 6 Chicken McNuggets - why do they taste so bland? Also consumed today: one bowl of Cranberry Almond Crunch cereal with lowfat milk, one doughnut, one chicken enchilada with corn tortilla, rice, and beans, one orange, 3 spice drops, another bowl of Cranberry Almond Crunch, one Oreo cookie, 5 oz. of ribeye roast beef, 2 helpings of veggies (yams, gold & red beets, parsnips, & potatoes), 1 mesclun mix salad with tomatoes, 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream, and one blood orange. The McNuggets, 2nd veggie helping, & extra bowl of cereal must have went straight to August because the normal me would not have wanted them.
21 Weeks
I'm going to drive all the way to Oakland for a morning meeting tomorrow. Then, on to Hayward, and back home to Mountain View. It's going to take at least an hour to get to Oakland during the morning commute, and I'll spend half that time struggling with my seatbelt. The lap part of the seatbelt is set at a certain upper abdominal height, and it's starting to get uncomfortable. I keep pushing it down, and it keeps popping back up. Just another indignity to add to the growing list. I suppose I could take public transportation. I'm definitely showing enough now that someone will give me their seat.
By the way, I'm still waiting to get used to all the kicking.
20 weeks, 6 days
I need to find a place that offers prenatal yoga. The alternative seems to be getting dragged out to 4 miles of hiking - which would be fine if my right hip didn't hurt everytime I walk anywhere with an elevation change. And did I mention my first charley horse/really bad leg cramp? I never ever had hip problems nor charley horses back in the day when I was sans child. Well, I have to admit I am fully recovered now, 24 hours later. Not only do I have enhanced senses like Spiderman, I have the healing abilities of Wolverine.
20 weeks, 3 days
Just had the ultrasound yesterday. We saw the brain (huge), spine, profile (curled up), heart (beating), legs, arms, fingers(10), & toes(10), roughly in that order. It's odd, but actually quite reassuring that the first thing that we learned about our baby is this- it has a brain. Ever since then, Anand and I have been shouting, "Our baby has a brain!" whenever the mood strikes us. I suppose the first thing I did learn about our baby was that it kicks pretty hard for a 20 week old fetus. It's been kicking me every other hour since Saturday (19 weeks and 4 days, I think). Anand has already felt the baby move about 5 times. Everyone who has been through this tells me that I'll get used to it. I'm waiting patiently for that to happen.
The environment in which we had our ultrasound added to the surrealness of the event. The nurse wore small pearl earrings and a diamond on a delicate chain. But "she" was clearly a man. And a baritone, at that. Anyways, you can always tell by looking at the hands. Later, Anand insisted "she" was merely Eastern European. Anyways, there were 3 men in the room, not including Anand. This seemed to me to be 1 or 2 men too many for our humble little ultrasound in a 10'x10' room. It turned out that one was the nurse (blond, baritone, stocky), one was the doctor (balding, tenor, short), and the third was purely for bedside manner (dark hair, tenor, very tall). Mr. Bedside Manner told me it was OK that I had declined the AFP test. Ultrasounds only catch about half of the birth defects, but I signed away our rights to legal recourse, so I suppose he can afford to focus on being agreeable. I wonder what they will charge our insurance.
Afterwards, we celebrated Happy Hour with half-price appetizers (Saigon Shrimp (wow!), Salt&Pepper Calamari), punch, delicious lamb chops, just-right scallop curry, a lemon tart, and a very rich buttermilk pudding at Tamarine. Besides the delicious food, the coolest thing about the dinner was that the bartender had just had a baby that morning. His coworkers congratulated him all night long.
