Category Archives: Dave

let's just lump one more major life transition in there

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As for that thing that I hinted at yesterday, which I said affected Dave more than me? Well, that turned out to have a very different outcome than what I was expecting.

The big secret was that Dave has started looking for a new job. His company is in the middle of a merger, he hasn’t been happy with his role there for a while and it wasn’t showing signs of improvement – in fact, it looked like things were only going to get worse after the merger – and it just seemed like the right time to move on. This was something that we had talked about months ago, and he’d been studying up on a lot of new technologies in his field so that he would be well-versed when it came time to start doing interviews.

As luck would have it, he started shopping his resume around last Friday, and over the next few days he was absolutely inundated with interview possibilities. (What can I say, I married a smarty-pants with a very impressive resume.) Some of the prospects seem quite promising, which is why this has been taking up a lot of our thoughts.

The catch that I personally wasn’t expecting? Dave got laid off from his current job yesterday. I think he had an idea that it was coming, but it certainly surprised me. It’s not a reflection on him at all, it’s just part of the whole “restructuring” thing that they’re doing as part of the company merger. Dave’s boss is basically a good guy, and he knows that I’m 7 months pregnant, and I think he felt a bit guilty for laying Dave off right before the holidays when we have a baby on the way. So the good news is that he got a really kick-ass severance package. Financially, we should be ok for quite some time. In fact, the way things are progressing with Dave’s job search, it looks like he’ll get an offer long before we have to start worrying about money.

So really, it’s not that bad, and considering my worrywart tendencies, I’m surprisingly calm about the whole thing. I’m kind of at peace with the idea that everything will work out for the best, and that we’ll end up wherever we’re supposed to be.

Which reminds me: Some of those promising job prospects are local, and obviously, those are the ones that I’m rooting for. (There’s one in particular that I have a good feeling about, so we’ll have to wait & see what happens there.) But some of them aren’t, and the non-local jobs seem to be in California for the most part. Which, ok, I love Seattle and I’d really like to stay here, but if we have to move, then that’s what we’ll do. The idea of getting our house ready to put on the market in the next few months, not to mention the idea of moving out-of-state with a newborn? That’s a bit stressful. But it’s manageable.

My attitude toward this is all about weighing our respective goals: I want to be able to stay home with the baby for at least the first 6 months (the first year, if possible). In order for that to happen, Dave needs to have a job where he’s happy, so that he doesn’t feel pressured into some kind of “sole breadwinner” role. I’d feel guilty for putting him in that position, he’d feel resentful toward me and the baby, and it just wouldn’t work. Yes, we could compromise – he could take a lesser-paying local job, I could go back to work full-time, and we could put the baby in day care. And I know that situation works out beautifully for a lot of families, but it’s not what either of us wants.

So if this all boils down to him taking a job in California, so that he’s happy and we’re financially able to allow me to stay home with the baby? Well… look out, California.

orange syrup and harmless reptiles

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Friday was my 24-week OB appointment. Which is a little off since I’m actually 25 weeks pregnant, but I don’t think anyone is really keeping track of those minor technicalities except me. This was the appointment where I had to drink the nasty glucose stuff ahead of time to test for gestational diabetes. Mmm, yummy orange syrup. Gag. It was quite gross, and I won’t know the results of the test until sometime next week.

And then, just in case that glucose stuff didn’t make me quite nauseated enough, I also got a flu shot. Because apparently it’s very, very bad for pregnant women to get the flu. And I understand that, but my arm (where I got the shot) has been aching and my stomach has been upset for the past two days, so I’m not sure if it was really worth it.

Also noteworthy: at my monthly weigh-in, I found out that I’ve only gained two pounds since my last appointment. That means that I’ve gained a grand total of 12.5 pounds since I first got pregnant. Now, call me kooky, but doesn’t it look like I’m hauling around a bit more than twelve measly pounds? It certainly feels like it. Every time I have to walk up the stairs at our house and it completely winds me, it feels more like I’m carrying an extra fifty.

Not that I’m complaining. Twelve pounds is good. And I noticed recently that I seem to have less cellulite on my butt and thighs, so maybe those prenatal workout DVD’s are doing some good after all. Although honestly, it’s sort of hard to tell if my legs are really getting more toned, or if it just looks like it when compared to my ginormous belly. Who knows, it could all be an optical illusion.

Other weekend stuff: Saturday night, I went to dinner with some of my girl friends, which was great. Other than Kris, it had been weeks (if not longer) since I’d seen any of them, so it was really good to sit around a table for a few hours and catch up. And they’re such a funny group, I realized as I left the restaurant that my face ached from laughing so much. I love it when that happens.

Sunday is kind of our non-official lazy day, so Dave and I hit the grocery store, and I’m trying out a new crock pot recipe. I’ve also cleaned the kitchen, cleaned our bathroom, and done a few loads of laundry, so I’m feeling pretty good about the state of our house overall.

Oh, and today I learned something about Dave that I didn’t already know: apparently he is even more scared of snakes than I am. We found a little garter snake in our front hall, which I’m guessing one of the cats brought inside. The poor little guy was moving very slowly, it seemed like he had been injured. Anyway, Dave and I both sort of freaked out over it, and then I was the one who ended up using a curtain rod (random, I know, but it was nearby) to shoo the snake into a box, so I could carry it outside.

It’s just funny because Dave is the guy who will pick up the biggest, hairiest, nastiest spider in his bare hands to carry it outside rather than kill it. But a little garter snake – which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even have fangs – totally squicks him out. Go figure.

Oh well, as long as he keeps taking care of the mice and other critters that the cats bring inside, he’s still my hero.

no verdict

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I started to write this last night, but I was so upset that I couldn’t find the words.

I got home yesterday around 4:30, same as usual. I checked the voicemail, and I had a message from my OB’s office. They said that they needed to reschedule my appointment. For the record, they left the message at 4:00 p.m. – approximately 22 hours before my actual appointment time. My heart sank before I called them back, I knew it wasn’t going to be happy news.

Apparently the ultrasound tech is going to be out all afternoon. No explanation, she’s just out of the office. I’m assuming it’s some kind of emergency – or at least, it better be for them to bump me at the last minute like that. They rescheduled me for Thursday afternoon at 2:00.

I managed to hold back the floodgate of tears until after I hung up the phone, which is not easy with all these crazy hormones. I tried to call Dave, but he didn’t answer his office phone and he had left his cell at the house. (I heard it ring downstairs when I tried to call him. I’m working on trying to make him remember that he needs to be a bit more reachable in case of emergencies, because my worst nightmare is that I’ll go into labor at some point and have to drive myself to the damn hospital because he won’t call me back until four hours later.)

Since I couldn’t get in touch with Dave, I tried my mom. I didn’t get nearly the sympathetic response that I wanted. I just got the, “well, I had to wait 9 months to find out. And anyway, it’s only two more days, big deal!” She also reminded me that the only reason I was crying about it was because I’m pregnant – which, thank you, I know that’s true, but that isn’t helpful, Mom.

Dave called me back about an hour or so later, by which time I had long since glued my ass to the couch and had several off-and-on crying jags. I cried again when I told him, and got the same, “oh well, it’s only two more days!” chipper response. I think he and my mom both were honestly trying to make me feel better, but… argh.

The thing is, I know it’s not that huge a delay, but it feels like forever when I’ve been counting it down since the day I found out I was pregnant. Which, for the record, was 15 weeks ago. So I know it’s not the end of the world. I’m just really upset about it right now.

Last night, I even left a couple of messages with some random ultrasound places in the area to see about their openings. Apparently my OB doesn’t have a 4-D ultrasound, and I had been thinking that I wanted to get some of those groovy high-quality pictures at some point anyway, so I figured what the hell. Unfortunately, my insurance won’t cover it if I go to one of those places, and I have no idea how much it costs. And none of them have called me back yet.

So. It seems as though I’m stuck waiting until Thursday. And also? There goes my plan for Dave’s Big Birthday Surprise.

This sucks.

Aside to Dave: Happy 35th birthday, sweetie. I’m sorry I was such a grump last night (and still a grump this morning). I’m working on it. But I love you, and I hope you have a fantastic birthday.

the weekend before the big 3-5

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I’ll bet y’all really want to know what I got Dave for his birthday, hmm?

Well, the main present was this:


It’s a Sony HandyCam. This was a partially selfish gift, because I’ve been wanting a video camera for a long time. I knew that Dave would love it too, as he loves all things gadget-y. Does it have a plug? Does it have buttons? Rock on!

Especially now with the baby coming, I really want to be able to make home movies for our own personal archives. Plus, this nifty little guy will let us edit our movies and then burn them to DVD’s, which is extra-handy since all of our parents live so far away. Not that sending them DVD’s of their grandchild will necessarily make them less inclined to visit on a semi-regular basis, but at least they won’t feel like they’re missing out on quite as much.

Other presents of the day: a hair-trimmer thing (I know, it’s kind of boring, but he specifically asked for it), season 2 of “Lost” (umm… ok, that’s another partially selfish gift), and a couple of things for the baby. This was my favorite:


I found that onesie online and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Ages ago, Dave and I joked about finding baby clothes with a little Union Jack flag on them, I really didn’t expect to find something that so perfectly sums up this baby’s heritage.

You can see all of the pictures from our little Saturday afternoon birthday shindig here.

In other news: two more days until we know the sprog’s gender. Two days.

Twoooooo. Daaaaaaaays.

The wait is driving me insane.

This morning, Kris and I met up and went to church, and afterward (since I was in the neighborhood), I went to Target. I didn’t buy anything (!), but I wandered through the baby section for a while. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve always steered myself toward the gender-neutral clothes. This was the first time that I really took a good, long look at the boy and girl clothes. Here’s what I learned:

* Little boy clothes are heartbreakingly adorable. I don’t much care for the sports-themed stuff, because I figure that the kid can decide for himself whether or not he likes sports, and I’m not going to push that issue. But the clothes with puppies or firetrucks or little airplanes on them? I sort of love those.

* Little girl clothes, for the most part, annoy the ever-loving crap out of me. Sure, some things are really cute, but there are so many with slogans written on them, like “Precious Little Angel” or “Our Darling Princess” or whatever. Throw up. Considering this baby is going to be the genetic offspring of Dave and me, I can guarantee you that if it is a girl, there is no way that she’ll be either an angel or a princess. Unless they mean princess in the “diva” sense of the word. Because it would be entirely possible that we’d have a little drama queen on our hands.

I don’t know if the fact that I gravitated toward the boy clothes is any indication of this baby’s gender. It could just be that I’ve had a feeling that it’s a boy for the past fifteen or so weeks. I suppose we’ll find out one way or the other in approximately 46 hours. (Commence nail-biting.)

Labor Day summary

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The weekend housework report:
* I worked in the garage for a couple of hours on Friday, but it was just too hot, so I gave up pretty quickly. According to the forecast, this weekend is supposed to be in the low 70’s, so hopefully I can finish it up then.

* On Friday, I ordered new doors, baseboards, casing and crown moulding for our entire house. It’s all part of the big Pre-Baby House Renovation Project. But fear not: we have a contractor who’s going to install the stuff, we aren’t going to do it ourselves. For one thing, we want the work to actually be finished by the time the baby arrives. For another, we don’t want it to look like crap. However, the price tag on this little project is steadily climbing. I’m really glad that I get frequent flyer miles whenever I use my credit card.

* Yesterday, I cleaned out our bedroom closet. That’s actually a much bigger feat than you might imagine. But it’s a small space, so it felt really good to start and finish a project in one day. And now Dave will never be able to find his clothes because (gasp!) they’re all on hangers in the closet, rather than on the floor or in the laundry basket.

* Speaking of the laundry basket, I folded a good three or four loads of laundry yesterday, which my lower back really didn’t appreciate.

* I also made my first-ever attempt at cooking lasagna, since I thought that might be a good dish that I could potentially make and freeze for after the baby arrives. This was just a trial run to make sure it would be edible. And it wasn’t bad, but I need to remember to add more salt in the future.

Other odds and ends:

I’ve been having problems with an internal application at work, so this afternoon I had to call our helpdesk. While I was on hold, I heard muzak/instrumental versions of “Fernando” by ABBA, one of the “Fame” songs by Irene Cara (I’m not sure which one), and “Your Song” by Elton John. The music of my childhood has been deemed appropriate for elevators and hold music. I suddenly feel very, very old.

The news about the Crocodile Hunter made me incredibly, inexplicably sad. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Mostly I just feel sad for his family.

On Saturday, I bought and paid for Dave’s birthday present, although I don’t actually have it in my possession yet. It’s driving him crazy because he has no idea what I’m getting him, he just has a few vague hints that I’ve dropped. And it’s a really good present, too; I’m quite proud of myself for thinking of it. I’m going to enjoy dragging this one out for the next two weeks.

Which reminds me: two more weeks until we know if the sprog is a boy or a girl! Aaahhh!!! I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I honestly don’t care either way, I just need to know. It’s driving me crazy every time I pass through the baby section at Target. Also, my dad has been forewarned that if my instincts are wrong and this baby happens to be a girl, and he dares to make one reference to Gone With the Wind, I will hang up on him, and he will not be welcome in our home at Christmas.

[For those of you who didn’t catch that reference: When Scarlett gave birth to Bonnie Blue Butler, Mammy said, “I apologize, Mr. Rhett, for it bein’ a girl.” My dad thinks that line is hilarious. Obviously, I feel otherwise.]

[Also: when I first told my parents that I was pregnant, my dad quoted Luca Brasi from The Godfather and said, “I hope your first child will be a masculine child.” Ever the movie buff, that guy. I didn’t really think that was funny, either.]

[Actually, I suppose either of those jokes would be funny, if you didn’t know my dad and you hadn’t already heard both of those movie quotes about thirty-seven gazillion times during the course of your life.]

[And what is up with me and brackets today? Weird.]

Random pregnancy tidbit of the day: I am craving crab legs in a big, bad way. Dave won’t eat shellfish at all – and is, in fact, repulsed when I eat crab legs because he thinks the whole shell-cracking thing is barbaric – so I think I’m going to have to enlist Kris to go out to dinner with me. It’s gotten so bad that last week, I actually bought fake crab (you know, “krab”) at the grocery store, and dipped it in melted butter. I even managed to gross out myself with that one, but I was desparate. I think it’s time to treat myself to the real thing.

first photos

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Apologies for the last two posts being flashbacks, I think we can bring things up to present day now.

I had my first doctor’s appointment yesterday, complete with ultrasound. Dave came with me, although I made him scoot the chair around so that he was up by my head. As it is, he’ll witness my body enduring numerous indignities over the next year; I figured that he really didn’t need to see how the business end of a speculum works. At least not this early in the game.

Although it was sort of strange to have Dave in the room during my physical, I just reminded myself that my cat once witnessed one of my pelvic exams, and then it didn’t seem so weird. That’s actually a true story: it was back when Dave and I were first dating and I was flying out (for work) the next day, so I was bringing Teenie to his house while I went out of town. It was one of those situations where I either had to spend an extra 2 hours in traffic or bring the cat with me to the doctor’s office (on my way to Dave’s). And it was like 90 degrees outside, so I couldn’t leave her in the car. So, Teenie sat in her kitty carrier on the floor of the exam room while I had my physical. Luckily, my doctor thought it was hilarious.

Ok, back to current day. Here’s something I didn’t know: eight-week ultrasounds? That is not the kind that they do on your belly. Oh no, it’s an “internal ultrasound” – aka the DildoCam. I kind of had a suspicion about that, but I really wish someone had warned me. It isn’t exactly the most comfortable way to experience the first glimpse of your unborn child, but hey, whatever.



See how cute it is? I don’t think either Dave or I have ever gotten that excited about a fuzzy gray blob.

(Oh, as for my use of the word DildoCam: hi, Google perverts! This is not the site you’re looking for. Move along.)

I also managed to resist the urge to make a joke about whether or not the internal ultrasound had a “vibrate” switch. I think my doctor probably would’ve laughed, but I knew Dave would be mortified, so I behaved myself. (Instead, I just shared my internal-monologue joke with the Internet. Hooray for my lack of a censor button!)

It was sort of weird that I didn’t get emotional or weepy at all during the ultrasound. It was more like a “whew, alright, everything’s ok” relief sort of feeling, not an “oh my gawd, that’s our BAAAYYYBEEE!!!” thing.



But, getting to see the heartbeat was pretty awesome.

So, it looks like everything is ok so far with the baby. As for me, symptom-wise, the fatigue is the worst. The nausea comes and goes, although I still haven’t thrown up yet (I’ve just had a few moments where I really wished that I could have). Other than that, my skin is breaking out and I keep having crazy hormone-induced technicolor nightmares. Oh, and I feel like I’m starting to show, although I’m pretty sure it’s just bloat. Whee! Pregnancy is super-fun!

Whatever. If this is the worst of it, I can take it. As long as this baby comes out healthy, I can deal with a lot worse than this.

the biggest news

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So, there’s this thing. Which I haven’t written about, and which I’m dying to write about, because it’s pretty much all that’s on my mind these days. And I’ve been all, “Noooo, no one can know about it, because if we speak of it out loud, then that makes it real, and then the Jinx Fairy will rain sorrow and misfortune down upon our heads. And lo, the many tears we will shed.”

Instead, I’ve been writing about nothing – like a trip to Target or working in the yard – just to fill in the space so that no one would think that I fell off the planet.

Then it occurred to me that the people who read this blog, who also know me in real life? I think nearly all of them already know about this. So really, when I say that I can’t talk about it, I’m totally full of crap.

So in light of this whole “ah hell, even my dad’s golf buddies know about it now” development, I’ve decided that I might as well go ahead and make the official announcement.

Here it is.

The big announcement.

I was going to suggest that you sit down first, but if you’re reading this online, I think the odds are pretty high that you’re already seated.

But seriously, if you’re standing, find a soft place to land just in case this bit of news shocks the knees right out from under you.

It’s ok. I’ll wait.

You ready?
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