Today was the "big" mid-pregnancy ultrasound. We were thrilled that after a whole lot of prodding, the baby finally turned over and gave us a view of her little bum. That's right, IT'S A GIRL! Little Charlotte Lily has decided that she's ready to join our family. We were relieved to find that her little body seems to be complete and healthy. (And Adam and I are thrilled that we can put off arguing over boy names for at least a couple more years.)
This 3-D "alien" photo of the baby is made a little less scary by the thumbs up she's giving the camera. I look at these pictures and I still can't believe that this little person is living and growing inside of me. It's such a great miracle to be part of the beginning of her life on earth!
This week was Spring Break at Duke. Even though Adam and I both have a lot of deadlines coming up soon, we decided that this would be one of our last chances to take our long-delayed trip to Charleston, South Carolina before babies started to make our world travels more complicated. (We intended to go to Charleston two summers ago, but I got pneumonia at the last minute. Yep, it was awful.) The weather was perfect (a balmy 75 degrees with low humidity), our hotel was fantastic (the French Quarter Inn, which we highly recommend to everyone), and the food was absolutely amazing everywhere we went which is, as you all know, the most important thing to a pregnant woman.
Adam next to a giant Magnolia tree at the Nathaniel Russell House.
One of our now-famous self-portraits. (Thanks heavens Adam has such long arms or we'd have virtually no photos together!)
Adam and I visiting Drayton Hall, the oldest standing plantation mansion in the United States (ca. 1740). It was the only plantation on the Ashley River not to be torched by Sherman on his infamous march south because the family hung yellow flags at the end of the drive and had their slaves tell the Union soldiers that the house was being used as a hospital for people with yellow fever. Very sneaky!
Our last stop was at the gardens at Middleton Place, the oldest landscaped gardens in the United States (ca. 1750). Although the plantation house was burned by Sherman and rebuilt in a less-than-impressive manner, the grounds are astounding. It took one hundred slaves ten years of hard labor to the clear land, dig the numerous ponds, plant the hundreds of flowers and grasses, and create the paths and smaller gardens that make this estate so astounding.
Ariel (and 17-week baby belly) in the gardens.
And last but not least, some really cute little turtles hanging out in the rice mill pond.
It looks like I'm either eating too much ice cream or there really is something going on inside my belly. This dress used to get me a lot of attention when I was a swingin' single gal, but I think it would probably just scare off most men now. Thank heavens Adam thinks that my burgeoning belly is beautiful! (I'll be 15 weeks pregnant on Saturday and have gained about one pound so far.)
Friends, I finally did it. I bought maternity jeans. For many of you, this was probably no more than a baby step in your pregnancy. For me, this was a gigantic leap. This is why. Having grown up in Utah, I have seen my fair share of maternity wear. And what I have seen over the years has not been pretty: polygamist-inspired plaid jumpers with frothy lacy collars, huge polyester pants with elastic waistbands generally favored by grandmas, and dresses roomy enough to make Ringling Brothers weep with envy. When my clothes started to get a little tight a few weeks ago, I entered a state of complete denial that this would be my fate. I wrapped a rubber band around the button on my jeans and thought, "I can make this work for nine months. I can!"Soon after, I heard about a potential miracle device called a Bella Belt. In case you don't know what this is, it looks kind of like a tube top made out of a cotton/spandex blend that you use to cover up your unbuttoned jeans. I quickly ordered two of these little beauties online and prayed for fast delivery. My rubber band was already reaching its limits.Well, I waited for them to arrive. And I waited some more. Two weeks went by and my pants got tighter and tighter by the hour. I didn't realize how bad the situation had become with my jeans until I put on a skirt one evening and discovered how much easier it was to breathe. It was time to face the truth: I wasn't going to make it to whenever our lax postman decided to drop the Bellas in my mailbox. It was time for drastic measures. It was time for (DUN DUN DUN!) maternity pants!In all honesty, it wasn't really that bad making the change. I have actually had a great experience with them since I just sucked it up and accepted that I was going to be wearing pants with ugly stretchy panels and elastic waistbands for a while. The nicest surprise was, well, those suckers are pretty darned comfortable and really forgiving of your big thighs, wide butt, and formidable pooch. As a matter of fact, I wonder why people ever want to go back to wearing pants that aren't 90% spandex and sized in just small, medium, and large. Maybe I'll run for Congress one day and get a bill passed saying that all women's pants have to be stretchy and comfortable--generously sized, butt-crack and wedgie resistant, and comfortable enough to fit you with ease even when you're retaining water or ate a big cheeseburger the night before. If all pants cradled our bodies like pregnancy pants do, it would be easier to love ourselves. If our waistbands weren't in constant war with our love handles and our skinny jeans weren't cutting off the circulation to our legs, I think the world would be a kinder, gentler place.
Our Peanut gave us a little scare this morning at our doctor's appointment. The doctor couldn't hear a heartbeat with the hand-held doppler, so we had a second ultrasound just to make sure that everything was okay. It turns out that Peanut is just lounging a bit off to the right in Ariel's uterus right now so the doctor was looking in the wrong place. But we were excited because this meant that we got another peak at our baby, who has grown a good deal since our last ultrasound three weeks ago. Peanut has doubled in size from last time (about 2 1/2 inches long now) and looks much more like a real baby. We could see his little head and arms and legs clearly this time. Peanut had her legs crossed at the ankle, was jumping up and down very actively, and waved at us with his little arm. We were glad to see and hear the heart beating at a healthy 156 beats per minute. And disappointed that they only moved the due date up one day to August 23! (Yes, we are purposely taking turns with our gender adjectives because we won't find out what we're having until our "big" ultrasound on Good Friday.)
I've just made it to my thirteenth week of pregnancy and I'm still waiting for that magical moment everyone talks about where the nausea and headaches end and all of your energy returns. But I recently read in What to Expect When You Are Expecting (a.k.a. Baby Bible) that some women actually get sicker in their second trimester and it almost brought me to tears. Lord, save me from that fiery pit of hell!
Last week, I finally decided it was time to tell my graduate advisor (i.e. She Who Holds All the Cards) that I was pregnant. Believe it or not, it took a while to work up the courage to do this. My advisor is in her mid-sixties and has never married or had any children. She told me once that she doesn't even like children until they are old enough to be reasonable. ("When's that anyway?" I silently wondered. "I think my mom is still waiting on us.") And she is a self-professed, hard-core, old-school feminist who recently asked one of my engaged colleagues if she had to overcome "numerous feminist reservations" in order to agree to get married.
Do you see now why I was sweating this?
I decided that it was just better to get it over with quickly, like ripping off a bandage. So I cornered her at a school function and just made the announcement. "Liz," I said. "I've got some great news. I'm pregnant." She silently started at me for a minute before answering in a very flat voice, "Well, all right then." And that's it.
The way that I figure it, things could've been a lot worse. She didn't get angry at me and start ripping into me, she didn't kick me out of my program, and she didn't (heaven forbid!) ask me if I was planning on keeping it. But she couldn't manage to muster any enthusiasm for a life choice that was so far out of what "living" has meant to her. That was hurtful to me in its own way, even though I expected little else than what I got from her. To her, a baby seems to be little more than another hindrance yet to be overcome in the pursuit of a Ph.D. To me, this baby represents one of the greatest pursuits of my life in and of itself. To have both--this Ph.D., this baby--represents the fullest kind of life in my mind, the best of all life in two worlds rather than in just one. Why would I settle for having anything less than that?
Today was the "big" mid-pregnancy ultrasound. We were thrilled that after a whole lot of prodding, the baby finally turned over and gave us a view of her little bum. That's right, IT'S A GIRL! Little Charlotte Lily has decided that she's ready to join our family. We were relieved to find that her little body seems to be complete and healthy. (And Adam and I are thrilled that we can put off arguing over boy names for at least a couple more years.)
This 3-D "alien" photo of the baby is made a little less scary by the thumbs up she's giving the camera. I look at these pictures and I still can't believe that this little person is living and growing inside of me. It's such a great miracle to be part of the beginning of her life on earth!
