What to expect when you're not expecting yet

We've spoken before of how pleasantly surprised all the doctors and nurse practitioners have been with our preparations. I really started to understand the flip side of that surprise this week with our visit to the Yale Student Health center Monday.

Everything sitcoms have taught me about pregnancy has painted it as regimented, monitored, and above-all, scheduled.

• Day one of your pregnancy: Start taking pre-natal vitamins, one month ago.
  
• Day two of your pregnancy: Wife begins craving pickles.
• Day three of your pregnancy: Husband's anxiety over crushing responsibility, lost youth manifests in hilarious, seemingly-unrelated psychosis of questionable verisimilitude.
  

The process in this... discovery phase of pregnancy seems wholly self-guided.

We've had great, detailed conversations with a lot of whip-smart medical professionals, but sometimes all I hear is:

“I'm going to recommend a 24-hour urinalysis. Just, you know, take a day and get this done some time before you become pregnant.”

“Oh, so you'd like to get off your class C and D migraine meds? You might consider looking at and switching to one of these alternatives before you get pregnant. You know, talk with your primary care doctor about it.”

“So you had a football-sized tumor removed as a child. Oh -- visit an oncologist? Sure. Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. I mean, if you want. So really, you're not pregnant yet?”

They've imparted lots of great information and helped us work through all the preparations to feel confident going into this. I just hadn't considered that there's not much to the process at this point beyond advice. Anne's basically healthy; until evidence suggests otherwise, all our necessary bits are in working order; really, we're not pregnant yet. Any changes at this point depend on our initiative -- why would a doctor ever change Anne's migraine medicine out of the blue, when it's doing an okay job at regulating her migraines with a minimum of side-effects?

This may not be revelatory to anyone but me. And it's not like my doc is hunting me down with a blood pressure cuff, so I shouldn't have been flat footed on the idea. Just noticing, is all.

Will it be Dorothy or Theodore?

I wrote in the last post that I pretty much always think I'm pregnant. A monthly ritual that grew out of this in the past was me calling Sean and opening with a cheerful "I'm not pregnant!" It felt different to say it this month, but not so bad. We weren't expecting to get pregnant in the first month of trying, and I haven't been to a doc about the triptans yet, so it's not terrible news. I got a bad migraine Wednesday night and popped a triptan without any worry, which was nice. And it hasn't been so bad, endometriosis symptom-wise. It turns out the vitamin B-50 I take every day to prevent migraines is also good for preventing cramps. Excellent!

But yeah, it's still disappointing. So, based on my recent research, I think we made need "a touch of destiny" to jump start this project.

So, solemnly and according to the pirate code, I vow that if I get pregnant this summer, resultant baby will have a name derived from ancient Greek.

Speaking of Greek ... let's not speak of Greek right now. Certainly not in Greek, though I'm amazed at how much I've learned in four days. I'm going to go put my 100% quiz up on the refrigerator when I'm done writing this, but I'm putting in 8 hours of studying outside of class (which is four hours) every day. Getting pregnant under these conditions would definitely be a miracle--I haven't learned the word for that yet, but I bet I will soon.

Oh, so the subject line ... names help us as mnemonics for vocab words, like in the lesson we learned today there's a word that transliterates roughly to "dorahn" meaning gift ... Dorothy and Theodore both mean "Gift of God" because doro/dore=gift and thy/theo=God. Anyway, I'm keeping my eye on the Greek names.

Not crying wolf

It was tough to leave our New Jersey newlywed nest and come back to an apartment that needed move-out cleaning and a sublet (without air conditioning) with a single bed in Connecticut. The transition was made easier by a night out with Sean and Myra to see the latest Pirates movie, aye. I don't want to ruin anything, but there's a scene after the credits that prompted me to lean over to Sean and comment, "Maybe we'll be that lucky."

I can't help but wonder, in a hypothetical way, if I am, at this moment, already pregnant. But Sean will tell you that my instincts in this area can't really be trusted, as I kind of always think I'm pregnant. Like, if I'm a little nauseous or unusually hungry. It's always just PMS. I'll just trust that the real thing will be unmistakable, at least eventually. Ha.

Anyway, I'm not ready. I didn't think I'd do this, but I've sort of procrastinated on the baby-prep. I haven't done the kidney function test or gotten off the triptans, although I've cut down on those significantly. Moving has been a bit all-consuming--I'm hoping that even though I'll be busy now, it'll be a consistent busy, easier for making doctor appointments.

If you'll excuse me, I am unusually hungry.

Exhaling

There's a lot yet to be unpacked, but we've managed to hide it all away well enough to host our first guests -- my brother and sis-in-law, currently stuck in holiday weekend traffic. It's a good bit smaller than we had in Texas (obviously), but much bigger than our most recent apartments. And it's ours -- all ours.

We're willing to share it, don't get me wrong. It's possible one or two of us may have already started plotting out the logistics of a crib, even. As of today, though, we're pretty much newlyweds and it rocks.

Breaking radio silence...

In case you've been pining, just thought I'd drop a little note about where we've been. I've taken a couple days off from the Month of Many Moves to spend a little relaxing time at the office, while Annie continues her leisurely vacation folding and packing boxes in Connecticut. So refreshed we shall be when our paths re-converge this weekend.

Our doctor suggested living in the same state might improve our chances of conception.

Soon enough we'll be all settled in and back on the baby train. Which, I imagine is very cute, but just kind of rocks forward and back on the tracks, still trying to figure out the whole locomotion thing.

EDIT: I just realized this leaves the impression that our Wiederverinigung is imminent, when in fact we're just making the preparations for that to come at the end of the summer, after Annie has conquered the Greek.

William wants a doll

I'm intimidated at the thought of raising a boy. I'm an only child--my main frame of reference/resource for child-rearing is Free to Be, You and Me. Which is great, and it did great things for me, but I'm not sure "William wants a doll" and "It's alright to cry" are going to balance against the messages the world sends boys.

I'm not saying the world doesn't send mixed up messages to girls. I'm just personally familiar with many of those messages.

If you had told me when I was a young feminist (0-18 yrs old) that patriarchal society has just as much of a negative impact on men as it does on women, I would have been deeply offended. This is corny, but in a college journalism course we watched a video called "The Tough Guise" about the dangerous myth of masculinity and its impact on men and boys ... and it opened my eyes. And freaked me out on a whole new level at the hypothetical thought of raising a boy--I'd always imagined having a girl, but this video only heightened that aspiration.

All of this came out in a less-than-graceful way over lunchtime chatting at the refectory last week. A friend asked if we want a boy or a girl, and I responded: "We're planning on a boy, but we're hoping for a girl." Another friend called me out on this and another friend assured me that it's OK to hope for a girl baby, knowing that Sean and I are going to love our baby. Period.

So here I am, a slightly more mature feminist who really does believe that Free to Be stuff. I don't want to turn around and dump a bunch of my own sex/gender issues on my child. I want to go into this mysterious process with an open mind and an open heart (wait a second ...) and really be ready with the love, no qualifications. Frankly, I should be intimidated no matter what.

So when I imagine hypothetical future baby these days, I often imagine a boy. He has a name, which I've promised Sean I will not disclose, but the name does help me imagine the kid. It's exciting. Here's the thing ...

Is it OK if I'm still kinda hoping for a girl? I'm genuinely asking ... as a fine YDS graduate once said in a sermon, "I'm not allergic to your Amens" ... or in this case, comments.

Second thoughts

(How's that for a sensational title?)

So, I may have been a bit hasty in promising Lisa Marie a comprehensive list of our potential baby names. The thing is, her very fair request coincidentally managed to pit the first two cardinal rules of baby blogging -- (1)full, graphic, obscene disclosure and (2)baby-name paranoia -- against each other. And, like the climax of every great Isaac Asimov story, Annie and I have been crippled with indecision, cycling through the possibilities, trying to resolve the inherent conflict.

Not to mix metaphors, but Annie "phoned a friend" or two and, with their council, we're leaning toward a decision. First, there's the whole issue of counting all your chicks in one handbasket. But more importantly, as our friends pointed out, this is the INTERNET and there are THIEVES. A sentiment which is surprisingly dear to my heart, as Annie can attest. So, for the time being, we won't be releasing our choices, not even under a Creative Commons license.

I will, however, share a theory on naming that Annie introduced me to when we first started flirting (with this idea of procreation): there is a subliminal, quasi-mystical importance to the acronym created by a child's initials. She learned it from her mom, a SEE. You can see how such a theory might appeal to an ACE, and I must admit it seems to really have worked out for her. As an SBE (née SBA) I really have no experience to draw on. It's very fun at least, and adds another level of intrigue to the baby naming process. How cool would it be to have not just a great name, but also a kickass monogram? And if they were tied together in meaning or form, all the cooler.

So, names that can almost certainly be ruled out:

Petrarch Engelberto Edison-Albright
Leroy Ignatius Edison-Albright
Alia Pomegranite Edison-Albright

Otherwise, we are open to suggestions.