It's finally time and the buglet is on its way, but you have no idea what it is, do you? You can thank Anne Malmo for the term, but take half of Amy and half of John and mix them together with a bundle of genetic mutations and you'll wind up with a buglet.
Our buglet is due March 10. Of course, that's really just an educated guess as is the gender, weight, length, and even the name. Think you can do better? Make your voice heard in the buglet poll or if you're too cowardly to tell us your guesses you can just view the results.
For the day-to-day developments (ok, not day-to-day, but some of the biggies) check out the log below.
March 10
Hurray! Due date! Oh, wait, turns out today is the "business" due date since our "biological" due date was actually March 8. Doesn't make sense to have a baby on the weekend, does it? Sure doesn't.
So now Amy's officially overdue, but nobody's really surprised. All those numbers about effacement and dilation have begun growing, but really slowly and pretty much without Amy noticing so now we wait...
March 4
Yeah, I know, no updates for almost a month. We've been busy, ok? Doing what? Uh... A little bit of hiking and playing in the snow and trips to the doctor and more trips to the doctor and it's a good thing we don't have to submit a copay each time we go to the doctor because had more trips to the doctor.
Everything's going well, no big news. Amy's tired because she can't sleep and although I only awake about every third time she wakes I'm getting up four times a night so you can bet I'm a pleasure to be around. That and I turned 30 which was actually quite entertaining. It's not being 30 that's going to make me feel old. Maybe having a kid will...
Still no names, but we've got another... four days before we officially need to know that answer. Yee ha. Bottom of the ninth and all that.
February 9
Only four weeks left. Let's take a look at the checklist:
choose a pediatrician (they had lollipops)
complete the nursery
pack Amy's bag
buy millions of cute things
pick names
Dang.
January 18
Amy's Saturday: baby shower. I wasn't there, but rumors indiciate it was a highly-refined event replete with fancy cakes, sandwiches with few crusts, and one million ducky-based gifts.
January 16
After birthing class number two the first question on your mind is certainly, "Has John been demoted to second-string as a result of further misbehavior?" The answer: not yet. That's not to say I didn't have moments of extreme awkwardness during class. All throughout the uncensored video of a birth I had my teeth clenched and hands wrung as though I was at the dentist. Then I had the joy of the double hip squeeze.
It's a way that I can help Amy during contractions. She sits in a chair backwards and leans forward. I push in on her hips. Not too bad. Ok, I can do this. Until the instructor comes over (60 year old nurse from Canada) and takes my hands and puts them directly on Amy's... um... cheeks. "Now squeeze," she instructs. Yeah, it's better for Amy, but isn't this how we got into this trouble in the first place? At least the nurse wasn't there for that.
January 8
Yeah, Amy started out small. And, yeah, she's still not huge. But, wow, it's amazing how it's been growing. Right now she thinks it's either a baby or a bobcat based on wacky, wacky movement. Must have been all that New Zealand air in the latter half of December. The flights to and from were brutal at about 12 hours each, but Amy was a trooper and found ways to cope.
Last night we took our first birthing class which included a bit on meditation and visualization. The instructor dimmed the lights and played soothing music while reading to us in a sing-song voice. I thought it was kind of like hypnotization. I imagined the next thing she'd say was "and when I snap my fingers you'll all be chickens" and suddenly I was overly amused by the thought of eight third-trimester women clucking around while their partially-involved husbands looked on with amazement. My giggling was not good, but I bought Krispy Kreme on the way home to make up for it.
December 1
Home early from a Thanksgiving marathon we decided to finish off the nursery. It didn't take too long to get the closet all put in place so we quickly jumped into the crib-manufacturering business only to have the power go out on us. Argh. We sat for a few minutes expecting it to come back on, but had to finish the job by candlelight. With only a few stumbles in the dark carrying things like dressers and chairs up the stairs we were finished and just in time to take delivery of an emergency power-outage pizza.
November 26
So now we have color on the walls, but who would have thought the color we picked would turn out to be Forest Service Truck green? Ouch, not us. So we looked around and figured we could do a faux-finish ("faux-finish" being French for "so you buggered it up, huh?") to salvage our work. The color has been toned down quite a bit and might not cause the baby to keep its eyes closed. All we have to do now is rework the closet, get all the furniture in there, hang up the blinds and my super-cool mobiles (moose and trout, of course) and we're just short one screaming, messy infant.
November 3
The transformation of the "guest room" into the "baby's room" has officially begun. The contents of the guest room have been spread evenly throughout the house and we have a satisfying layer of primer on the walls and white paint on top of that for the ceiling. Hopefully some time before March we'll get the color on the walls and get to move back in there.
November 2
"John! John!"
Crashing through the bathroom door I find Amy lying in the bathtub with a goofy grin on her face. "Get the video camera!" So back down the hall I sprint tripping over the dog and sliding into the wall before making the reverse journey. Amy's back in bed with towels strategically located for a G-rated film.
Good God, you can see the frickin' bug in their moving and kicking or doing whatever it's doing. Freaky. Ah, but not so freaky as the fact that Amy was more concerned with getting it on tape than sharing the moment with me. Grr.
October 22
Ultrasound day. Everbody told me it was going to be really cool, but how come nobody warned me how nerve-wracking it would be? I've figured out my role in this whole thing is to:
do a little bit at the beginning
make lunch for Amy so she eats during the school day
worry that something is going to go horribly wrong
I got my quota of worrying in as the techs repeatedly looked at the bits and pieces that make up the buglet. It wasn't until the doctor came in afterwards and told us right away that everything was fine. Argh.
Of course, the cool part was getting to see what's going on in there. If you want to see as well you have to decide if you're really interested or just mildly interested. What's the difference? About 6.3mb. The larger file is about 8.8mb while the smaller is closer to 2.5mb. Family and all, you are required to download the big one. (And yes, I can tell who you are.)
If you don't want to see the movie you can satisfy yourself with this picture of the buglet staring back at you as if to say "get that frickin' ultrasound out of my face."
Ok, ok. Amy says I need to provide a more appropriate and "cute" still from the experience so here you go.
October 16
Um, was that just a kick or was it just gas? Did you feel that? No. Did you feel that? No. Did you feel that? YES. Freaky.
October 5
Baby stuff shopping. Ouch. On the upside, we didn't actually buy anything, but the little raygun was buzzing something fierce as we filled up the registry with all the little bits and bobs our bug will wind up needing. And it only took six hours! Time sure flies...
September 23
Amy's finally put on some weight! Hurray. Granted, it's only a pound, but if she hadn't put on any the doctor had threatened her with an IV so HURRAY! We heard the heartbeat again and heard the little one kick, though Amy didn't really feel anything. I suppose a winning penalty kick is a little much to ask from one only three inches long, huh? (Want to take a listen? Click here.)
September 16
Amy has finally stopped feeling sick 24x7. Of course, now that she's feeling better it's prime time to get a cold which her students promptly gave her. Aren't they nice?
September 3
The news begins to leak a bit at the Times. More an exercise in rumor management then a press release. A few people heard the news. How will it spread in the next week?
September 2
Time to tell the friends. What better day than Labor Day? The weather didn't quite cooperate, but the gang was all here and were certainly happy to hear our news.
August 21
Loaded to the gills with fishing gear my father showed up at our house with the promise of an evening fishing in the back yard only to hear that instead of going fishing he got a book and the opportunity to dine with me and Amy. Took him a moment to understand the importance of the book (yeah, same grandparenting book, oh well), but then he was as thrilled as anyone.
August 13
We chose a quick dinner with Amy's parents to tell them. After her father spent days helping us build the deck at our first house we owed him first knowledge. Amy described something we were working on for March which was very near to Carl's birthday. We wanted it to be a surprise, but certainly we didn't feel we'd be able to keep it a secret until then so we were revealing it early. She gave him a book which he held for a few moments before telling poor Judy.
August 12
Our second doctor appointment. We heard the heartbeat.
August 11
Tokul was staying with my mom while we were at Mt. Baker. On our way home we stopped ostensibly to pick up the dog with plans to tell my mother, sister and her husband. No surprise, they were thrilled.
August 9-11
A birthday weekend near Mt. Baker with friends. More whispering and gossiping and tasting of drinks and one person who actually asked Amy outright. Amy bobbed and weaved like a good little boxer, but certainly the cat was out of the bag even if not out in the open.
August 2
Another wedding. This time it was Rob and Beth. By now Amy had moved into morning sickness mode which isn't realy "morning" sickness since it's all day long. Sleep 12 hours, throw up for two, sleep four, throw up... You get the picture. Amy actually loses weight instead of gaining it. At least I didn't have to dance too much.
July 22
Our "doctor" isn't a doctor at all, but a midwife. In spite of my cracks about quacks and new-age pseudo-medicine there's no doubt in mind this is the best way for us to go. A bit weird to be in the room during Amy's examination, but it was great to hear that we were indeed officially pregnant.
July 16
Crap. A wedding. Not that we don't love weddings, we do, really. (Heck, we've got eight this summer, we better love them.) Besides, this was Katherine and Paul's wedding, the same couple we'll be meeting in New Zealand in December for sailing and fishing. The problem is that weddings are traditionally when people drink toasts and act wacky. No problem for me, but Amy might be a little conspicuous. (Looking back, this was the first time people started whispering about the possibility.)
July 3-10
Our first experience keeping the secret. Fun. How many people asked when we were going to have kids? Too many. Of course, living without insect repellant was tons of fun in the middle of the woods. We did tell one person: the doctor paying off his school loans by working at the Mammoth clinic in Yellowstone ala Joel Fleischman from Northern Exposure. Did you know that DEET penetrates the placenta in 8% of cases?
July 2
Sure, Amy knew a couple of days before, but July 3 is the day she told me what was going on and since I'm writing this, this is when the story starts. (Yeah, I know, it started a while before this, but we're not going to go there.) We smiled, danced, all that, then we headed off to Wyoming for a cousin's wedding.
