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We’ve had an exciting week! It began with a trip to the aeropuerto a week ago Friday … a trip on which I threw up. Twice. I was really tired, too: I woke up at four in the morning (to pee … DUH!!!) and then I couldn’t get back to sleep. I think I finally resumed my evening slumber at 8am — precisely the time I was supposed to get up and shower before heading to the airport. GRR.

Does throwing up bother anyone else as much as it does me? Because I HATE it. With a passion. I’d rather have a migraine. Well, I’ll try one migraine and then get back to you. But I really hate throwing up. Every time I do, I strain so hard that blood vessels on my eyelids burst. (Update: Ben reminded me that my blood vessels may burst partly because of the anticoagulants I’m on.) It sucks.

Ben and I were headed to Pasadena, CA, back to our old haunting grounds at Caltech, to host a baby shower for my little sister. She’s pregnant! Due in January! So, after a Friday night of sundae-supply-shopping and diaper-buying, we woke up on Saturday and set about preparing Dabney’s lounge for the shower.

But first we had to get INTO Dabney, a task which was nontrivial given the Friday night activity was “Gangsta Night,” which involved taking stuff, mostly furniture, from other houses and depositing it in the courtyard. Goodness gracious, was there a lot of crap! I finally got into the lounge/dining hall area by climbing over an unknown number of couches, a ladder, and a grill. To be fair, we WERE warned about it; I just didn’t take the warning seriously. To me, though, “There will be a lot of crap in the courtyard” means, “There may be a misplaced sofa.” It never occured to me that there would be THAT much stuff.

Because I advertised this shower as a “Pickles and Ice Cream” shower, we served ice cream. People seemed to like the ice cream that Ben bought. Kimberly is the one on the right side of the table.

We played several games. First up was, “Who Can Empty the Bottle Fastest?” I filled eight bottles with beer (sparkling cider for Kimberly) and then we had a race to see who could down theirs first. This game was very well received. Sherpa (at least I think that’s his name) won hands-down; everybody else was at least five minutes behind him.

Then we played “Name That Baby Food” and “What’s In The Diaper?” Most of the attendees were good sports and played along; the “old folks” (me, Ben, and our friend Anastasia) got a D-, though. Anna flat out refused to have *anything* to do with baby food; she said she considered it poisonous.

She got an anemone from one of her Darb friends. I think this is hands-down the coolest baby shower present I’ve ever seen!

She got a handmade book, “I’m So Confused,” from her Darb friends. She and Jeremy read it out loud to everybody present.

And here she is opening my gift(s). You can see Remington the chimpanzee, decked out in his custom-made vest, on the bottom left, and the quilt I sewed for Egbert, of which I am quite proud, on the right.

And that’s the baby shower! We had a rather relaxing rest of the long weekend — I visited campus for a day (and wore myself out! Ben set me up with a couch in the computer lab, which I made good use of …), we had dinner with our friends Chris and Eric, and we gorged ourselves on Pasadena’s incredible edibles. After a send-off lunch at In ‘N Out, Ben dropped me off at BUR Tuesday afternoon and I flew home. For some reason, I was pretty tired and slept for the first hour of the flight — not an easy task on the puddle jumper United committed to the BUR-DEN route. My driver met me at the airport, and all was well … until we got to the canyon.

I got quiet, and he asked me if I was done talking. Lord knows he wasn’t! “No,” I answered honestly, “but I’m going to throw up in a few minutes. Please don’t mind me.” Sure enough, two minutes later … BAM!!! I upchucked my entire dinner. Agassi (that was the driver’s name) stopped the car and got me a bottle of water. When I was OK, he resumed driving … but only at a snail’s pace. I reassured him that I was done, and he could really go faster … but he wouldn’t. We crawled up the canyon at 30 mph, and so did everyone behind us; I can only imagine the frustration they must’ve been feeling. Anyway, we finally got home to my puppies, I had a can of soup, and I went to bed.

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Ben stayed in Pasadena to visit come customers last week, but I had a doctor’s appointment. It turns out that well rested, I could have driven myself, but I didn’t know that ahead of time, so Ben and I decided to hire our dogsitter and friend Mike to take me to the doc in Denver.

This time, I met with Dr. Barbour, the maternal-fetal medicine doctor who studies women who’ve had strokes and are now pregnant. She is one of the main reasons we’re staying in Colorado during my pregnancy; she’s one of the only people across the nation who studies women like me. I visited her several times pre-pregnancy and had some follow-up questions to ask her afterwards; I became nervous when the nurse wouldn’t let me speak to her. Fortunately, my fears have become non-issues and I’ve now got full confidence in her.

She began the appointment by asking me how I was feeling, which was excellent because I was concerned I might forget to tell her. “I’m sick. I’ve been throwing up a lot lately. Can you give me any medicine for that?” I pleaded. She said yes, of course. She gave me a prescription for Phenergan, which “might make you a little drowsy, so please don’t drive after taking it the first time.” Well, I took some that afternoon and I admit that it does make you feel non-nauseous, but it wiped me out. I slept from 2:30 in the afternoon until 6:30, had some dinner, fell asleep again on the couch, managed to drag myself up at 10:30 to take the dogs out, and then went to bed. Ben said he wished he’d recorded our phone calls from that afternoon because it sounded like I was completely stoned. Needless to say, I called them the next morning and asked for something non-drowsy.

Then Dr. Barbour wanted to confirm that I was still taking the baby aspirin. “Yep,” I said, “but I’d like to talk to you about that …” I explained about my GI bleed last year. She wanted to know more. Was it an upper or a lower GI bleed? How did it manifest itself? “I pooed blood,” I answered her. “Bright red at the beginning, but black and tarry later on.” Was it serious? “Well, I was hospitalized for four days, so I assume so.” Was I transfused? “Nope. My hematocrit got down to 28, but they held off on the transfusion.”

She wrote all that down, asked me to bring in my records (sure thing!), and said that at this point, since we don’t know what caused the bleed, she’s going to hold back on the anticoagulants so I don’t have another. That thought terrifies me, because I’d much rather have a bleed than a stroke, but I didn’t know how to say that at the time. Shoot.

Then she proceeded to try to find a heartbeat with a Doppler. The first machine was a total bust; she got another. That one didn’t catch it, either. I was getting mildly nervous at this point. She decided to find Leslie and look at the heart with a sonogram. Good idea! I thought.

The sonogram worked the first time. Bemis is in there, alive, with a 160 bpm heartbeat. He’s much bigger than last time. And … he’s moving around like crazy! My goodness! It’s a wonder I can’t feel him do his gymnastics. He’s got two arms and two legs, and they’re moving like nobody’s business. I beamed from ear to ear.

Unfortunately, because he’s moving around so much Leslie couldn’t get a very good picture. He’s the white blob with a face. “And you can see his arm above his head,” Leslie said. I nodded, unconvinced.

With my annotations:

And here’s me at 11 weeks:

Catch you next week, I hope! Ciao!

We’ve had some excitement around here this past week! First of all, meet Malia:

I traded in my Pfaff for a BabyLock. “Why?” you might ask. Well … my first Pfaff was kaputt. I don’t even remember what it was that was broken, but I took it back to the shop and had it fixed after using it for two weeks. They spent some time with it, declared it dead, and gave me a “new” one. (It began sewing on its own, no feet near the pedal or the hand “crank”, twice.) The “new” one wasn’t exactly new; it’d been on their show floor a while, but I didn’t care too much about that. It worked like a charm until the end of August. I brought it in after our road trip on October 1; they diagnosed it with a broken cutter and said they’d order a part. When it finally arrived and they installed it, it didn’t work. So they ordered another part. And, as any good salesman should, neglected to call me. Fortunately, I’d brought Ben with me when I went to check on it.

“I’m a little bit concerned about my wife’s machine. I purchased it for her birthday in June. It’s now October, so you’ve had it in the store for servicing for over half of its life. I’m wondering if you’ve got any comperable machines in here that we could try out.” I refrained from hugging him, but just barely.

“Why yes, we most certainly do! Come over here and try out this BabyLock Quilter’s Dream. It’s got the integrated dual feed, just like the Pfaff, it comes with this extended table …” We walked over and I practically drooled while the saleslady demonstrated its features to me. I was drooling not because of the features, but because it WORKED. (I’m sure I would’ve been doing the same thing with the Pfaff, of course …)

My husband interrupted the saleslady’s spiel and asked, “Can we trade our Pfaff in for one of these? There won’t be any additional charges, will there?”

“No, no, there certainly won’t. We want you to be happy!” I smiled a big, wide, toothy grin. I would’ve taken it right then and there, but Ben simply said, “OK, well, that’s good to know. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for the Pfaff to come back in good shape, but if it doesn’t, well, we’ll be back. Thank you!”

Well, I went back in to Sew Vac last week to check on the second part they ordered. It had arrived, and no, it didn’t work. “Your Pfaff is on a cruise,” the salesguy told me. “It should be in Tennesse by the end of the week and back on its way to us by the end of next.” I requested a chance to try out the BabyLock.

A saleslady gladly helped me, and the BabyLock not only worked well but felt very sturdy. “Excellent,” I praised. “I’ll take it!”

And that’s how Malia joined our family. She works great! May that continue for at least a couple months! =)

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So what else about me has changed since I got pregnant? I’ve already mentioned the ever-present nausea and my need to pee every half hour. Oh, did I mention that I don’t have any cravings? I’m unfortunately at the point where everything just sounds gross to me. It’s kind of frustrating when you’re hungry but you can’t think of anything to eat. My sleeping habits are, unfortunately, FUBAR. I go to bed around 9:30pm because I can’t find toothpicks to prop my eyelids open any longer — my preferred bedtime would be 7:30. Then I wake up at 6am, go pee again, read the computer and eat saltine crackers for an hour or so, sometimes fall back asleep and sometimes not. This is a big change from my previous sleeping habits, which consisted of a midnight or one o’clock bedtime and the rooster crowing around nine or ten in the morning.

On the acceptable side of things, my boobs have gotten bigger! B cups may not seem large to many of you, but to someone who’s spent her entire life as an A, outgrowing a bra seems like a major milestone. This is one ’symptom’ I’ll be hanging on to for as long as possible!

I’m taking a picture almost every night that I’m awake enough to. Here’s five weeks:

And here’s me at eight weeks and six days (sorry, I was too exhausted last night):

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Six years ago, Ben and I visited a Home Depot in search of a new toilet seat for our house in Pasadena. That’s when we discovered the Bemis brand toilet seats, the bottom of the line, no-frills, prevents-your-butt-from-touching-the-rim-but-not-much-else toilet seat.

“Hey,” Ben said, “we should name our kid Bemis! Bemis Brantley!”

“No way,” I answered vehemently.

“Come on …” he pressed.

“No.”

“Can we at least call our unborn children Bemis?”

I pondered that for a minute, then responded, “OK. I kind of like it, actually. Bemis it is …”

So that’s where the name Bemis comes from. It’s not sticking around permanently, but for the next seven months, that’s what we’re calling our kid. Top that, I challenge you …

I’m in my eighth week now! Bemis is as big as a cherry. He’s growing arms and legs as we speak — he may even be able to articulate them at the wrists! But his number one priority seems to be making Mommy sick. Who needs fingers and toes when you can make her feel as if she’s in outer space? Or riding up Canyon with a crazy driver at the helm?

I haven’t thrown up yet, but I’ve come close. (Update — yes, I have.) Tonight, I made spaghetti. At four o’clock, I had some of the sauce as a snack — it was DELICIOUS. But at 5:30, when Ben came downstairs and started to cook the pasta, my stomach turned over. At 5:50, we served dinner; I couldn’t handle any of the sauce. “Don’t you want some, sweetie?” Ben asked.

“No, thanks,” I answered, “It’ll make me barf.”

He looked in the pot. “Just how much of the sauce did you eat as a snack?”

“About half of it.”

“And you can’t stand to look at it now?” he asked, exasperated.

“Nope. The smell’s too strong.” He looked at me warily. “Sorry,” I reaffirmed, “no sauce.”

Morning sickness is really interesting. I have a couple of things to say about it.

First, the guy who named it is a moron; it doesn’t strike you in the morning. (Knock on wood.) (Update: yes, it does.) For me, it’s about four o’clock in the afternoon and anytime I haven’t had enough to eat.

Second, why does eating make you feel better? I eat from about four o’clock until about 10 o’clock. Continuously. It’s probably not that good for me … but it prevents me from hugging the toilet, so I don’t feel there’s much I can do about it.

Third, what’s with the ‘cravings’? When I get hungry and tired at four o’clock, I sit down and think of all the things we’ve got in the pantry until I stumble upon something that doesn’t make me heave. If I can think of something, I *have* to have it. Right then and there. Is that a craving?

Update: I barfed in the kitchen right after waking up on Thursday morning. I hadn’t eaten anything, so the only thing that came up was the baby aspirin I’d just taken.

So fourth, why does puking make you feel better? It wasn’t the purging of my stomach contents, which was nil, that did it. Yet, right after retching, I was hungry! GROSS!

Jessica, I tried eating crackers and drinking water in bed yesterday, as you suggested. I didn’t think it would work because I’m generally sicker in the afternoon than I am in the morning. But it worked like a charm! Thank you for the advice.

I’m blessed that tiredness doesn’t seem to be a real problem. I get really tired after walking Chaco and Zamba, so I sometimes come home and take a nap around 4pm. However, the tiredness hits me like a brick at night. Lately, I drag Ben down to bed at 9:30 or so. I go to sleep by 10 and fall asleep by 10:15. This part of the pregnancy can hang around as long as it likes! I’ve NEVER been able to go to sleep that easily!

The emotional lability, which I’ve had since my strokes, is a slightly more annoying problem. Ben likes to listen to choir songs on the way to church; I start sobbing when we get to the Christmas Cantata’s “Joy to the World.” I don’t know why. I’m not sad. It’s not a sad song. Likewise, I started crying when the CU marching band played in Friday’s version of the Mall Crawl. This was especially embarrassing because we’d gone down with some Techers that Ben knew from back in the day. Later on, I realized I was crying when we got to the drum line; I guess it was because it was so loud I was getting overstimulated. Still, who the heck cries at marching bands?

I’ve been asked about presents for the baby. If you’d like to grace us with a gift, that’s fine; we welcome them. We don’t yet have a registry, however proactive we’ve been about Bemis thus far, and we won’t know if it’s a boy or a girl until it comes out. However, there is one rule I have regarding gifts:

If it requires batteries, we’ll take it back.

Books are fantastic. Stuffed animals and blankets are good, too. Diapers? You’re a godsend. A Playskool garage? Awesome! (As long as it’s a silent one.) But a ‘Tickle Me Elmo’? Think again!

This is a rule born out of survival. I can’t handle noise — it overstimulates my brain and wipes me out. So no offense to you battery-toy-buyers, but we’ll pass on stuff that requires power. This goes for Christmases and birthdays, too. Thank you for your understanding!