Breaking the news to family

I had my first prenatal appointment today. It was after work and I was so tired that he could have said absolutely anything after, “congratulations you’re pregnant”. I just smiled. I probably looked like I was a heavy drug user because he seemed a little concerned about my lack of enthusiasm.

After the appointment I called my parents and then Kurt called his mom.

Kurt’s phone call to his mom – oh that was just one funny phone call! Kurt started with…”so what are your plans for Christmas?”

She was completely confused and said, “uuummm it’s February, planning ahead a little aren’t we?”

Kurt said, “I was thinking we should have it here”

She was still confused, didn’t know how to answer, “uuuhh well, uumm…”

So then Kurt said, “Cause you want to see your grandkid don’t you?”

“WHAT?!?!” I swear it’s amazing his mother hasn’t died from a heart attack already. She said, “Why didn’t you tell me anything?!”

Kurt says, “Well Erica’s only seven weeks pregnant right now. It’s not like I keep you THAT in the dark.” Kurt had no idea that between the fact that we did not see his mother last year for Christmas and the way he presented it to her she actually thought that we had already unleashed a new child on the world. Meanwhile I’m sitting on the other end of the couch laughing my ass off.

She calmed down a bit and says, “oh!” then Kurt said that we didn’t want to travel with a two month old baby yadda yadda yadda. The way the news was broke to her I think she’s probably too shocked to be happy, but she kept saying how cool it was.

The UI test results are still negative. I’ve had these symptoms for over a week – how on earth can it be negative?

I broke down and went to the walk-in. The UI symptoms are just driving me nuts. I have an appointment with a new doctor on Monday – Yes Monday with a brand new doctor, but my regular doctor couldn’t see me for more than a month.

The test was negative for the UI and positive for the pregnancy test. For some reason I didn’t really get excited about a positive pregnancy result from a walk-in clinic even though I’m sure it’s the same as from any other doctor. I have to go in again in the morning for another UI test.

I called to make an appointment at my regular obgyn and the soonest they can see me is March 26th. I can’t wait that long! I have some symptoms that seem like a UI. Can having a UI harm the baby if I’m pregnant? I really don’t want to go to a walk-in clinic. Walk into one of those even if you aren’t sick – you will be by the time you leave. I hate those places.

Tomorrow is officially day number 42 (the longest I’ve ever gone between cycles without being pregnant). I got the same results this morning that I got last night. AURGH!! So I guess I just have to make an appointment – is the providence OBGYN open on Sundays?

I took the test today but the results came out invalid. There was actually no option in the instructions for the results that I got – just my luck. Good thing I get two tests per box! I’ll be doing it again in the morning – that’s when the baby hormones are strongest or whatever. I’m pretty damn sure I’m pregnant though since Kurt and I just finished a movie and that’s the longest I’ve been awake all weekend.

A few weeks ago Kurt asked if I wanted to play City of Heroes. I did, but I decided that I wanted to play in the room where I already had my laptop set up. I logged into the game and Kurt demanded that move into the same room with him. “Why?” I dared to ask. He said, and I quote, “So I can tell you what to do.”

On Monday night I put the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on about an hour before bedtime. I went upstairs to chat online and mess around with my blog a little. As part of the ‘getting ready for bed’ routine Kurt put squeaky pants (Gandalf) in his room and closed the door like we do every night. Minutes later I started to smell smoke. It smelled a little like burning rubber. I went downstairs thinking I left the stove or oven on, but didn’t see any lights on. I went back upstairs, but still smelled something. I went downstairs again and this time looked inside the dishwasher, which was on the heat dry cycle. I called up to Kurt, “I think we need a new dishwasher!”

“Why?”

“Cause this one is smoking.” I said. Then the fumes hit me and smoke just started pouring out of it. I turned off the dishwasher, closed the dishwasher door, ran upstairs and put a towel in front of Gandalf’s door. Kurt asked what’s wrong and I said, “The dishwasher has smoke pouring out of it.” I never use the heat dry cycle, as a matter a fact even though I typically have it set on air dry I usually turn off the dishwasher when it gets to the dry cycle.

Kurt and I opened the door again and pulled out a nylon/plastic cooking spoon that had slipped through a hole in the lower wash rack. The rubber handle of the spoon was resting right on the heating element. I opened all the downstairs windows and stayed up till about one o’clock in the morning. At midnight I think the smell was pretty much gone and I checked in on Gandalf. He WAS sleeping peacefully. He was a little miffed at me for waking him up, but he was ok. I still didn’t sleep very well that night and my throat hurt this morning. My nasal passages felt like they were burning (filled with smoke) all day.

It’s so funny to watch Gandalf run across the top of his cage and attack paper. I usually give him my junk mail to destroy and he loves to punch holes and shred it. He’s an extremely expensive paper shredder, but he’s very thorough. The other day I gave him a Drs. Foster & Smith catalog that I had finished looking at. He had so much fun dragging it around the top of the cage and attacking it. At one point he was standing on the edge of his cage with catalog open and him shredding one page. Suddenly the catalog slid over the edge of the cage and Gandalf, who apparently weights less than the catalog, was still holding onto one end and plummeted to the floor still grasping the catalog. He was fine other than a slightly bruised ego. Gandalf popped up and was very alert – looking to see who may have witnessed his embarrassing moment.

Today I read an article in the Everett Herald about the French birth rate going up.

French birth rate up to 2 per woman
The increase bucks the trend elsewhere in Europe, where populations are graying.

By Pierre-Yves Roger
Associated Press

I have two major issues with this article. I’ll list them in the order in which they appear.

France had more babies in 2006 than in any year in the last quarter-century, the state statistics agency said Tuesday, capping a decade of rising fertility that has bucked Europe’s graying trend.

Rising fertility? Really? The actual fertility of the French people has gone up?

France’s fertility rate has been climbing steadily since 1996, Insee said, but it still has not passed 2.1 – considered what it takes to replace a population in developed countries. The rate in the United States is 2.1.

I just don’t like this meshing of the word fertility with birthrate four times in the same article. It makes it sound like they’re just recovering from radiation and are finally able to replenish their population. It’s irritating, but acceptable. The one thing that bugs the shit out of me is at a the bottom of this article that is all about the French birthrate going up – at the end of it the reporter feels compelled to state that,

The number of French marriages is continuing to decline as more French couples are choosing to form civil unions instead, Insee said.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything at all? Marriage is nothing more than a piece of paper. Paper doesn’t prevent conception. It would have to be pretty thick fucking paper to be used as birth control and I don’t want to think about the cuts it may produce. Seriously what the fuck does marriage have to do with the birth rate in France?