Holiday driving etiquette

Because I'm feeling uber-bitchy (*unfolds pregnancy card*) and because me and my unborn child cheated death multiple times on the road yesterday, I just wanted to take a moment and outline some holiday driving "tips", if you will.

1. USE signals. Hold up your arms in front of you and make the letter L with your pointer fingers and thumbs. The hand that can form the letter L properly is your LEFT hand. So, if you are turning LEFT, turn your little "blinkie" DOWN. If turning RIGHT, flip it UP. LEFT = DOWN, RIGHT = UP. Do NOT drive with your hazards on EVER, unless you are having a seizure or heart attack. In which case, you probably shouldn't be on the road in the first place, mmmmmk?

2. In crowded parking lots, do NOT hold up 15 cars just because a car in an attractive location in relation to the store YOU need to go to MAYBE looks like it's going to pull out and your lazy ass doesn't want to walk an extra few feet. You can use the exercise, trust me! And there will be other parking spots, I assure you. You are just begging for a good keying.

3. While we're on the subject of parking lots, how about you get your freaking cart out of a perfectly good parking spot?!?! I've seen many a good parking spot rendered unusable due to the lazy lard-asses (see #2) who don't feel like returning their carts back to the proper place. You need the cardio, dammit, and we need parking spaces people!

4. Cell phones. Look, I'm guilty of using them while driving as well. However, I don't screech to a halt as soon as that phone rings, and then drive at about 25 mph because I can't multitask properly. Or almost rear end other people while punching in phone numbers. I had thought this phenomenon would go the way of the Dodo bird with the introduction of bluetooth headsets, but apparently no such luck. Cell phones were dumbed down for us, and if you still can't use them properly, maybe you shouldn't be driving at all!

Sorry if this came across a bit harsh. I'm no Danica Patrick myself, but I've also never committed these egregious driving sins. With the weather getting ever crappier, I wanted to remind everyone to drive safe. We all have 347,872 things to do every day, but we don't necessarily have to risk the lives of those born and unborn to get them accomplished. On that note, happy, healthy and safe holidays to all! :)

Ode to Chips & Ranch Dip

Chips and ranch dip,
You make my heart skip!
When no food sounds divine,
Only you can I dine!

Chips and ranch dip,
You make me want to flip!
Crunchy goodness with tangy sauce,
Make me speechless, at a loss!

Chips and ranch dip,
You've got me in a grip!
However, I won't dare mention
My obscene water retention.

Chips and ranch dip,
You are music to my lip!
But my hips are starting to spread
And my blood pressure is in the red!

Chips and ranch dip,
My scales are starting to tip!
Blasphemous, hideous treat!
That I *sigh* still love to eat...

One more lolfetus...promise!

Wow!!!!!! Just...WOW.

There are only a handful of moments in my life where I truly felt blessed. Yesterday, I had one of those moments, as I saw my little one kickboxing inside my uterus. And then I heard the magical swoosh-swoosh of its heartbeat for the very first time on the Doppler and I thought, "Surely, it can't get much better than this!"

But it does!!!

In less than 29 weeks (*panic*), we will be welcoming our firstborn and adding to our family (move over Kaya!). Having already had one miscarriage under my belt, I realize now that having a baby is not something that should ever be taken for granted. A healthy baby, above all, is truly life's most precious gift. And I'm humbled and overjoyed and blessed to be given this gift and wonder what good I could have possibly done to deserve this.

Seriousness aside, I do have two ultrasound pictures from yesterday's visit! The ultrasound tech gave me the "crappy" ones she couldn't use, but I still love them all the same. Here's my personal favorite:



Is it just me or does it look like McBaby is smoking a cigar? I guess we're going to have to have a little cigarette/alcohol/drugs talk sooner rather than later...

lolfetus

I desperately needed to get my mind off of tomorrow. I waver between sheer excitement at seeing the little fellow/gal that's been shacking up in my uterus and utter dread that something will go horribly wrong at tomorrow's NT ultrasound. Will my baby have Downs? Spina Bidifa? Trisomy? Worse yet, will it even be alive? For those of you who don't know, I recently suffered a miscarriage. Not just a run-of-the-mill miscarriage, mind you, but a "missed miscarriage". My body, perhaps to spare my mind and spirit, decided that, even after the baby had passed on weeks before, it would go through the pregnancy motions. Morning sickness, check. Fatigue, check. Sore boobies, check, check. Viable fetus....not so much.

So, in an effort to take my mind off things, I decided to have a little fun with my early ultrasound pics. I call it lolfetus, and it's an homage to one of the most amazing websites around: lolcats. Enjoy! :)

Grocery Shopping

So today, I had to go grocery shopping. I just needed more eggs (I've been on an egg kick lately, so sue me), milk, soy milk, cheese and bread. So why did I come home with a receipt for $138.62 from Shop Rite then, you ask?

Because I apparently NEEDED to buy something called "Chruscik"AND a jar of maraschino cherries AND a package of Double Stuff Oreos AND...you get the point. I could literally feel my blood sugar surge every time I added yet another refined-white-flour-high-fructose-corn-syrup item to my cart. I once remember a time when I used to carefully analyze each item's nutritional information before ultimately deciding that 100 Calorie Packs were just too "junky". Those days, friends, are long gone.

Embarrassingly enough, I've also become one of those ladies who eat their purchases while they shop. You know, because everyone knows how physically intense a 30 minute trip to the grocery store is. And I needed to refuel with some good ol' chruscik. Gestational diabetes, here I come!!!

Lembryo the Embryo is now officially Cletus the Fetus

I'm 10 weeks (and one day) today! That means that:

a. My itty bitty embryo has evolved into an itty bitty fetus!
b. Said itty bitty fetus has been living in mah belly for 8 weeks now! Two whole months, wow!!!
c. I get to see him/her again in a little less than a week, when I get my NT ultrasound done. Boooyahhhhhh!

That's all for tonight. I'm exhausted. Creating a quarter million neurons a minute will do that to ya. :P

OMGWTF, I cried watching Elf

Ever since my eggo got preggo, I've not been a huge barrel of laughs. I'm extremely moody, weepy, bitchy and short tempered. Poor Mike gets the brunt of it, followed by, yeah, noone. Poor Mike. :(

Last night, however, something so disturbing occurred that I started to second guess my sanity. I was watching Elf on TBS and at the end, when everyone was singing Christmas carols in an effort to get Santa's sleigh off the ground, I started crying.

Not just weeping, but sobbing. Uncontrollable, inconsolable sobbing. I wasn't watching some baby seals get clubbed to death, or some starving child in Africa. This was Will Ferrell in green tights trying fix Santa's flux capacitor thingamajig and I found the whole damn thing so MOVING.

So now I'm not going to even attempt to watch Lifetime or WE for the next 7 months because I'm pretty sure I'll become suicidal or something. Crazy little thing called hormones...

The Pukes

Today was a low moment in my until now happy-go-lucky pregnancy journey.

Because I'm still sick with the Ebola thing that's been going around, I was up all night coughing. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep, if at all. Luckily, I didn't have to work today so I tried to sleep in and actually napped a couple of hours throughout the morning. Then at around 11, I woke up feeling a little gaggy. I figured it was probably my own morning breath that was making me ill, so I went to go brsh my teeth. Bad mistake.

I spent the next 30 minutes puking my brains out. Like I mentioned, up until now, everything has been peachy keen, honky dory, so much so that I sometimes "forget" I'm knocked up. After Pukefest 2008 seemed to subside, I was famished so I decided to eat something bland, and had some plain yogurt. About 20 minutes later, I was assuming the same toilet bowl position.

I won't bore you with the rest of the gory details from Pukefest 2008, but suffice it to say that I spent a total of 4 hours today getting intimately aquainted with my Kohler toilet (I had no idea my toilet was a Kohler until today). I plan to sue the writers of "What to Expect" for erroneously misleading me to believe that morning sickness usually "subsides by the 10th week." Because I'm 2 days from Week 10 and if this shit is just kicking in, there will be hell to pay. Hell. To. Pay.

1st post

So I am 9w1d today, +-2 days, depending on which online pregnancy calculator you are using and/or whether you are going by my ultrasound or LMP (last menstrual period). To be honest, none of those dates are consistent so I'm just going to say that I'm in the middle-ish part of the first worst trimester and leave it at that.

I decided to start a blog about my adventures in pregnancy and, soon, motherhood (!!!???!!!) because:

(a) I am a neurotic first time mom (I feel sorry for this poor child already!);
(b) Mike can only handle so much of my neuroses; and
(c) I would like to one day look back on this experience and smile, chuckle, or - worst case scenario - say, "What the EFF was I thinking!?!?!?"

I'm quite the superstitious person so I didn't want to start journaling (if you can call this that) or anything until things looked good. Well, we saw a heartbeat about 2 weeks ago and I'm still as bitchy as can be, so I am left to assume that I'm still pregnant and baby is doing just fine. Also, I'm pretty impatient, so I am hoping this will make the next 215-ish days go by somewhat faster.

Symptoms: Today I am feeling quite gaggy and retchy. No actual vomit (so far) so big ups to the Big Guy Upstairs. Also, I swear I can feel/see a baby "bump" but it might just be my imagination or perhaps the hallucinogenics I took last night (KIDDING! Sheesh, chill.) Actually, I should mention that I have become perhaps The Most Annoying Ex-Smoker you will ever meet. I will cough and choke and make flailing gestures in a feeble attempt to dissipate your nasty carcinogenic smoke if you so dare smoke in front of my puffy, tired face. You have been officially warned.