Friday, November 11, 2011

ULTRA!sound and some big news.

I bet you thought the big news was that we are having a baby girl. Well, you are wrong. The big news is that Luke got a job with army intelligence and we are moving to San Antonio, Texas sometime next year. We found out on Wednesday, and celebrated by getting our very own Costco cards!

Life is really great right now. We knew that we would finally be able to call our baby "he" or "she" after Thursday, but we didn't know that we would also be able to call ourselves adults. I am currently celebrating my adult status by ordering prints of our wedding pictures from Costco. (It's probably important for girl-Ebi to know that her parents are married, even if she is the very definition of a honeymoon baby. It's legit.)

Anyways, ultrasound. It was incredible. Luckily, I was prepared to not find out the gender until the end, so I was happy taking in each little part of the baby and asking hundreds of questions about everything. And it was good that I was in no hurry to gander at Ebi's sexy bits, because she was in no hurry to show them off. It took three tries to finally get a clear picture, and even then, it wasn't the clearest.

My favorite part of the ultrasound actually wasn't the gender determination or the profile, though that was pretty transcendental. I loved seeing her little arms and legs moving around. I just want to point out here that I recognize that other peoples' babies are just not as cool as your own. I recognize that. I further acknowledge that this picture does not look like a human. But allow me to explain why I love it so dearly. This is a picture of MY baby and she is crossing her tiny little arms in front of her tiny little face, and, as someone who has said "I do what I want!" more times in her life than I can count, I love imagining my baby being a little snarky, too.

And here is her little body. The weird thing about ultrasounds that I somehow didn't notice during my disinterested perusal of probably a hundred pictures like this of other peoples' babies is the fact that you can kind of see the skin and the bones at the same time. This got a little bit creepy sometimes, like when the ultrasound tech lady tried to tell us that we were looking at a picture of our baby's face when we were clearly looking at a picture of a baby skull. This one is a little less of the creepy factor and more of the cool. I loved seeing the spine and the ribs, but you can also see the faint outline of a nose and lips. I'll see that nose and those lips all the time when she is born, but I hopefully won't have many chances to see her bones.

So, there you have it. Luke and I went and bought a bunch of little onesies and nightgowns at Target, and then I brought them over to show Natalie. I'm so happy that I get to share the joy of a baby with my sisters for a while, and especially with Natalie. She graciously gave me all her "If I ever have a girl" clothes saved from yard sales over the years, and we tried our best to make some headbands. She is gifted in this regard, I am not. We'll consult some blogs and try again.

As for Luke and I, we are thrilled as can be. I didn't sleep at all the night before last, anticipating the ultrasound, and then I didn't sleep last night, thinking about our tiny little girl who lives inside me. I've never been happier to lose sleep.

Monday, November 7, 2011

On Being Pregnant.

I have been pregnant for about 20 weeks now. Actually, to be precise, 18 weeks. But you don't want to know how weird and nonsensical the counting and measuring system is for pregnancy. I don't even care. All I really know is that my weekly bab-e-mail told me that I'm halfway through.

So, this Thursday, I will get to have my first ultrasound and find out all sorts of things about Ebi. When I found out I was pregnant, (in the bathroom at work. yeah. I know.) I was more than a little freaked out. I came home and just sort of sat on the couch until Luke got home. I had texted him very confusing things all day - "I'm going to take a pregnancy test?" "oh...I'll tell you later, how is work?" "um...I didn't end up taking if after all!" Poor guy. Anyways, he came home and I burst into tears.

Between blubbering, I managed perfectly articulate my fear of being a pregnant newlywed, of being fat and emotional (totally unjustified, right?) and changing so much without him ever really knowing the cool, normal-sized, non-gestating Marlee. We were both in such uncharted territory that we just sort of sat there on a scratchy couch for a few minutes without talking, then Luke said, "Let's go see what's in the dollar theater."

So, in the weeks and months that followed, we sort of followed that system. I would bemoan my state, usually after throwing up for the third or fourth time in a day, and Luke would have a good idea, like rubbing my feet or taking me for a drive. The plus side was that I didn't have much of a chance to gain weight.

But now I'm in a happy place. Ebi (our little semi-affectionate name for the baby, meaning "shrimp" in Japanese) is now as long as a banana. I feel like an organic fishbowl, and every now and then, a little swish or a bump, and that's just wonderful to me. I haven't thrown up in weeks. WEEKS. (I feel like I'm at Bulimics Anonymous, typing that.)

I understand why people wait for a while to have children, but for us, the pregnancy has brought us closer in such a unique way. I love the way that Luke will talk to Ebi as he puts lotion on my newly-expanding and insanely itchy stomach. I love how he will put vitamin gummi bears on the side of my plate. I love how he lets me move a flashlight around on my stomach into the wee hours so I can feel the baby move. I especially love how he thinks of the WORST names. (Smeagol Bangerter?!) It just feels so right to be sharing this moment, and my identity has remained perfectly intact.

So, as I was saying, this Thursday we'll find out if Ebi is a girl or a boy shrimp, and we'll probably stop calling it Ebi. This is the part where I would post a picture of my baby bump, but I really just don't have one. I don't know where I am hiding a banana-sized person, but I'm a little embarrassed about the fact that I look a little chubby at most, but nothing baby-indicating. So, whatever.
Here is a picture of me pretending to be pregnant last year for my role as Mary in our family's annual rendition of the nativity. So that's all I have for you. My real bump is lame, so I think you should appreciate this just as much.