I Had A Gigantic, Ugly Preemie... Meet Marlowe, the BFG

Well hello loyal readers (Momma Bear & Kel).  I bet you've all been wondering where the hell all of my pregnancy and baby wisdom disappeared to after week 18.  Well I will tell you.  I quit.  I'm a quitter.

More like life got in the way and I suppose I couldn't find anything worthy of posting about.  That's not really true.  I still had an opinion about everything but I was just too lazy to post.

Let me quickly recap weeks 19-31.  It went like this: donuts, work, philly cheesesteak, work, lay on the couch, whine at Jeff over how every time I had to do ANYTHING I was multitasking because I was pregnant and he was not, attempt to sleep, donuts, work... you get it.  I actually lied to my boss and told him I had an iron deficiency so he wouldn't judge the ridiculous amount of shaved meat I was eating.  Clearly I'm the model for a fit pregnancy. My exercise total topped out at 0 days.

Also during my 31st week my mom and sister threw me an amazing baby shower.  With lots of donuts. They totally get me.  I'd be lost without them.

Then, good old week 32 set in.  I thought I had the flu.  I don't know what the fuck happened to me other than 1. I like, tripled in size seemingly overnight, 2. I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and 3. was put on bed rest (which is the worst thing EVER).  I negotiated this point with my doctor and we settled on one daily trip to Starbucks (drive thru only!) and two trips per week to her office.

It. Was. A. Blast.

Week 33 was spent battling some monster upper respiratory infection.  At first I was scared to even have a cough drop.  Then they offered me cough syrup with codeine and at first I was like "no fucking way!" followed by time elapsing by approximately three seconds and then "I'd like the cough syrup with codeine please".

THEN week 34 was rounded out by GIVING BIRTH.  My OB nurse basically told me if I made it to 35 weeks she would be impressed. She pretty much fucking nailed it because Marlowe Gracie Herold came out all puffy and ugly on July 14, 2016.

Did I just call my kid ugly?  Yes I did. Want to know why?  Because she was an ugly newborn.  She looked like a slimy, overweight, pissed off Japanese sumo wrestler.  They held her up in front of me and while I did cry tears of joy (so did Jeff) I also briefly thought, "oh no, put ber back in" which of course couldn't happen because she was 7lb 13oz and FIVE AND A HALF WEEKS PREMATURE.  Thanks, diabetes.

Notable stories from her birth:

1. I had some condition where I had a shitload of water (amniotic fluid).  I was told that if and when my water broke it would be a lot.  Understatement of the century.  Enough water came out of me to float the Ark.  And because Jeff and I were in denial about how short my pregnancy was chalking up to be, we were not prepared.  In the middle of a routine trip to the kitchen to get some more cous cous, my water broke.  At first I thought I just pissed my pants, but then it didn't stop.  So, I leaked, and leaked, and leaked and stood on a towel between our bedroom and bathroom and directed Jeff about everything he needed to pack for the hospital, which really for me was just a cell phone charger.  (I don't know why women go on and on and on about what to pack.  I ended up being there 6 nights and 5 days and the hospital fed, clothed and medicated me the whole time.  Thanks MGH. Great chicken noodle soup.)  Anyway, I sloshed over to Vinnie and kissed him goodbye and sloshed into the car for a very quick ride into the city and then sloshed up to the Labor & Delivery floor where I immediately began Operation Find Someone Who Will Let Me Have A Motherfucking Sip Of Water.  Sadly, their doctor skills beat my lawyer skills and I remained thirsty for an eternity.

2. People are smart.  Like, really smart.  A whole team of people numbed me up, cut Marlowe out of me, managed to not let me die on the operating table, sewed me up and got me back into my room all in about 2 hours.  Marlowe, finally free from the inhospitable environment known as my uterus, was whisked away to the NICU for all sorts of treatments.  Thank God, Harry Potter, Spiderman, or whichever other storybook character you'd like that she is healthy.  I actually just like to thank her incredible team of doctors and nurses for keeping her alive. She spent 3 weeks and 3 days at MGH and it was a nightmare for us.  We were assured by her medical team that her biggest problem was basically that she was just too young to have some very important skills (mainly the ability to suck, swallow and breath in order to eat) and she needed to age.  So, time passed.  I spent countless hours in the NICU (hello HIPPA violation after violation) and got to know some amazing people.  There are a couple of nurses over there who I am positive have angel wings coming out of their backs... and just one total asshole who I wanted to kick in the balls.  I won't name names.  Robert.

3. I'm tired and I'm not even breastfeeding.  How anyone breastfeeds and is the sole provider of nutrition for a kid blows my mind.  How anyone single parents a kid blows my mind.  How some women do both of those things at once is hero status in my book.

Also, phantom cries are a thing.  When we finally lay down at night I evenly divide that time between 1. wondering if she is still breathing (so I get up and go check), 2. hearing phantom cries,  3. vowing to remain celibate until she is 18 and emancipated and 4. hovering somewhere in between sleep and making another bottle.  I'd sincerely like to thank the pure fucking genius of the maker of the Baby Brezza.  Google it and then buy one.

So, now we have a baby!  Here is her newborn picture confirming her ugliness.  Jeff actually sent this to people while I was basically still out of my mind and couldn't police his thumbs... so that was disappointing.  But as you can see, she is now the cutest little bunny ever!


 Newborn... Buzz's girlfriend... WOOF.
About a month.  Thanks to my amazing friend Heather for this photo.

About two months old.  This was after we injected her with autism. I mean, after her vaccinations.
About three months.

Another one from three months because it is the cutest.

Reasons Why I Hate Everyone

One of my least favorite parts about pregnancy, other than sobriety and only pooping once every third week, is all the ridiculous bullshit that I read online from other mothers or expecting mothers who are too stupid to understand the difference between fact and opinion.  (These are the same people who misuse the word literally. "I literally ran 100 miles an hour to save my son from drowning." Oh really? Literally? 100 miles per hour?  You broke the human land speed record? Grow a brain.)

Because insomnia has set in something fierce, between midnight and 1am I typically troll the What to Expect blog for mothers expecting in August 2016.  The shit I find on these blogs is pure, delightful stupidity from morons all across the lands.

For example, one woman asked the group something along the lines of, "My chest hurts from my sternum to my belly button.  It feels like stabbing pains.  Is this heartburn or could I be having a heart attack?"  In my head, my thoughts go long these lines: "jesus effing christ you goddamn moron.  shall we just wait and see?  CALL YOUR DOCTOR OR GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!" Of course, like I said above, I only like to troll the blogs and I don't like to actually participate in any of the discussion, so if this lady died there is definitely some blood on my hands. For whatever reason I just didn't care to make her aware of her below average IQ and decision making capabilities.  I hope she's okay.

Confession:  I did participate on the blog once, and it was to tell some ignorant asshole below the Mason Dixon line that no, she did not need to move her registry from Target to Walmart because she didn't want her grandma to possibly run into a transgender person in the restroom. (She probably calls her maw maw or something else totally fucking ridiculous.) Society blows my little mind.

And while we are on this topic, do any of the phobics out there boycotting Target think that they have an increased chance of sharing a restroom with someone who is transgender simply because Target now has a policy about it?  No.  Don't be fucking stupid, although I fear it is too late for that.  Having a policy about transgender rights DOES NOT 1. make more people transgender, 2. make transgender individuals pedophiles or 3. really change anything that was already previously happening.  It's just an articulated policy, whereas before it was not.  Let me tell you a little story about how Attorney Suzie actually had the gross misfortune of being assigned to litigate a case against a transgender woman.  The whole week of trial, guess what happened?  Yup.  I peed next to her in the bathroom at the courthouse.  Penis and all.  Guess what didn't happen? Rape. Or talking to her in general because it is super fucking awkward peeing next to somebody you are suing.  Also, I lost that case.

Another favorite topic is whether preggos are "allowed" to have a glass of wine every now and again.  Here are my thoughts on the matter.  Very few physicians are going to take a bright line position that indulging in the occasional glass of wine is okay because it is unclear exactly how much booze it takes to make your kid sick.  But to the C You Next Tuesday on this blog that said something along the lines of "Wine is poison.  Literally poison.  Why would you give your baby poison?"  I say to you: learn the meaning of the word literally, asshole.  Wine is not "literally" poison.  It is LITERALLY wine.  If it was poison, every country in the history of the fucking world would not allow its citizens to consume it.  Wine is wine.  Poison is poison. Wine is sold as "fit for human consumption" and poison is not. Is this starting to make sense to anyone?

You would call me a dipshit if I suggested to you that McDonald's is not food.  It certainly is food.  Arguably poisonous food, but food nonetheless.  See what I did there?  I just paralleled poisonous food that pregnant women eat all.the.time. to an (arguably) poisonous beverage that Western society has shunned and makes women feel guilty for the occasional indulgence.  Don't get me wrong, if you get drunk during your pregnancy, you're a piece of shit.  Similarly, if you ate exclusively fast food during your pregnancy, I would also believe you are unfit to raise a child.

Not that I think vegans have anything real going for them, but should we ask the pickiest / choosiest eaters on the planet if they'd rather have a McDouble with fries and a milkshake or a glass of wine on any given day, I bet the wine wins 10 times out of 10.

My point is, if you don't want to have a glass of wine during your pregnancy, don't.  If you want to have a glass or two every now and again, have at it.  It's not like we are all going to raise our kids the same way.  This shit doesn't come with a handbook.  This is also not communism.  So have a Big Mac or a glass of wine if you want one.  It's the same freaking thing.  What my opinion is here (note, not factually based at all) is that you probably shouldn't have McDonald's every day, nor should you have wine all the time.  But practicing moderation never killed anyone, so get off my nuts about it.

Why I'll Probably Be A Shitty Mom, According to Some Twat on Facebook

This morning I read some dumb ass article about when women should not become mothers. Not to my surprise, four out of the five "don't have a baby ifs…" applied to me.  Awesome - off to a great start.  This is why I should not savor my pointless decaf coffee in bed on the weekends and actually either a) join my husband at the gym or b) help my husband clean the house or c) do something else to be a productive, non-piece of shit member of society.  Whatever.

Anyway, the article said not to become a mother if these thoughts had crossed your mind:

1. You think you'd regret not doing it;
2. You are doing it to appease your partner;
3. Your biological clock is ticking;
4. You are sick of people asking when you will have kids, and
5. You want somebody to take care of you in your old age.

Can anyone guess which one DOES NOT apply to me?  If you guessed Stupid Reason Number 5, you would be right.  I am certainly not carrying this shit baby around in my belly for the better part of a year on the hope that she is not a total fuck up and has the capability to earn a large enough livable wage to eventually set me up in the Ritz Carlton Senior Living Center.  No ma'am.

As for Stupid Reasons Numbers 1-4, the author of this brilliant piece of writing totally called me out.  Somehow she got into my brain, unlocked my secrets and had the audacity to publish them on Facebook.  Clearly she missed the part where my husband and I busted ass at work for the last 6 years and are fortunate enough to be financially secure (until he buys a boat, or a motorcycle, or a second home, or hopefully some shiny bauble for my right hand middle finger…. Jeff, get the hint….) Anyway, the point is, I'm not stupid enough to create a human being so she can slave away during some of the best years of her life only to be stuck cleaning my adult diapers.  Like I said before, myself and Benjamin Franklin plan to take care of that on our own.

However, Stupid Reasons Numbers 1-4 totally apply to me.  I have to admit that it is somewhat scary because here I am halfway through this pregnancy with no real sense of urgency to raise my little bundle of "joy" and a much greater sense of urgency about finding someone I can trust to come watch her on Taco Tuesday so I can still go out.  Sure, I want to meet her, but the overwhelming sense of her permanence is something that freaks me out.  I seriously am such a selfish piece of shit.  As I write this, we are vacationing with my twin sister, her husband and their kid in Miami.  We just stuck the baby in the pool for the first time in her 7.5 months on Earth which was promptly met with screams and left the adults wondering what the fuck we are supposed to do with her all day.  (Well, I thought that.  Kellie and James probably didn't.)  I mean, jesus Charlie, I have a nap to take and all the rest of the adults have been drinking beer since 9am.  She is cute and all but... STFU.

I may or may not have written about this in another post, and since I am too lazy to go back and check I am just going to re-tell the story and if you don't want to read it, then go away.  The first time we got pregnant we were sitting around watching golf, day drinking, discussing my biological clock, the fact that we probably should have a kid to appease society and what the hell else did we plan on doing with our lives that we couldn't spare the time to make a human and then spend the rest of our lives hoping it doesn't spend its whole life murdering cats.  Was that sentence long enough for you?  I am exhausted just after typing it.

So anyway we had the sex, and voila, baby in the belly.  Seriously, our first shot at conception was grounded in Stupid Reasons Numbers 1-4.  But after a lot of reflection (because I have little else exciting going on right now) I have a very big and special message for the author of the Facebook article I can no longer find which is… challenge accepted.  We might have started out doing this for all the wrong reasons but they are sort of starting to feel like the right ones at this point.  We'll see.

We Can't Call her Dumbo….

I am now in my eighteenth week of pregnancy, which mentally means eighteen going on 6,000.  We have been able to peek in on the nugget two more times, and thanks to another not-scary-at-all, really fun experience of having blood leak out of my vagina for no apparent reason whatsoever, an unplanned trip to the doctor where we got to hear her heartbeat for the first time!

For you loyal readers (Hi Momma Bear, Hi Kel) I can just hear you exclaiming "HER? Whoa whoa whoa, it's a girl?!" Sorry to keep you in the dark for so long, but we found out during an elective ultrasound that Nugget has a vagina and is now going by the name Marlowe.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't actually keep my family in the dark about her sex longer than 3 minutes after we knew.)

It's a pretty interesting experience picking a name for your child.  Jeff and I have been set on a boy name for at least 5 years, which obviously meant that we were going to have a girl.  We tossed around a lot of names during the years when we were never actually considering conceiving a baby and we liked a couple (Maggie, Mattie) but never really honed in on one.  I came across the name Marlowe on another blog on the interwebs and instantly fell in love.  Jeff?  Not so much.  We have had lots of conversations along these lines:

Me:  Can we please name her Marlowe?
Him:  Sure.
Me: But I want you to like it.  I mean like, really like it.  I don't want to bully you into it.
Him:  OK.  I don't like it.
Me:  Fuck you.


Me: What other names do you like?
Him:  Madison.
Me: Over my dead body.
Him:  Well that's the name I like.
Me:  Fuck you.


Me:  I think I can feel Marlowe kicking!
Him:  You can feel the baby?
Me:  Yes, Marlowe is kicking!
Him:  I wish I could feel the baby moving!
Me:  Her name is Marlowe.
Him:  That's a boy name.
Me:  Fuck you.

Then, because I married an amazing man and because he is 1,000% a better person than I'll ever be, he agreed to the name Marlowe.  I only had to remind him 10 or 12 times that my vote counts twice.  But, he said he had a dream about it and woke up seemingly on board, and I'm so selfish that I am just running with it.  I absolutely love her name and I hope she actually materializes into a real live human baby that the hospital allows us to take home and raise so I can call her that every day of my life.  We are still waiting for the myriad of nicknames to start rolling in.  Kel already calls her Lowie, which I also love, and my mom, Kel and I call her Shit Baby 2 (Charlie being Shit Baby 1) so I don't think we will have a shortage of excellent names to torture her with when she's older.

Another interesting little bit of news to share is that between weeks 15 - 18 Jeff was convinced that she only had one hand.  I would take down the ultrasound pictures on our fridge and show him both hands, but nevertheless, he stuck to his belief that she'd one day need a hook for a hand.  When we went in for the 18 week ultrasound I immediately threw Jeff right under the bus. With a smile on my face I explained to the lady that Jeff is scared she's only got one mitt, and she graciously took the time to point out BOTH hands.  Phew.

Here are two 15 week shots (sorry to expose your lady bits Marlowe) and one from 18 weeks.

Ramblings from Trimester 1

One of the scariest parts of this pregnancy for me, other than everything, is feeling asymptomatic of actually being pregnant.  In fact, with the elimination of drinking, and the additions of eating a lot more organic, drinking a shitload of water and getting a full night of sleep every night has arguably led me to feel better than I have in a long time.  Like, since undergrad.

I know I earn very little sympathy here.  Some women are so sick they are hospitalized and here I am whining that I am not sick enough.  For me, my boobs have been somewhat sore, but I often find myself molesting them to make sure they they are still, in fact, sore so that, in turn, I can convince myself that I am still pregnant.

There have been a few times when I have felt sick, and during those few times I have thought this: "Yay, I feel sick! Validation!" Fast forward 5 minutes. "What a little dickbag, asshole child in there making me feel sick.  Cut the shit, baby."  (I have no idea at this point if my kid has a dick or not, but we throw the term dickbag around freely in this house so it seems appropriate.)

Do you want to know the second and third times I knew I wanted a baby?  The first time we saw this baby's heartbeat and two days later after I started bleeding, thinking I might be having another miscarriage.  The bleeding happened on a Saturday night and I immediately called the doctor, who told me to sit tight and call back if I started soaking more than one pad an hour.  Fantastic medical advice.  This jerk works at MGH, practically the best hospital in the world, and her advice was just to hang out.  I'd never felt less reassured.

On Monday I called back and asked when I was coming in for an ultrasound.  The nurse told me that I had just had a great checkup 4 days prior and since the bleeding had stopped (spotting really, but I like to blow things out of proportion and fear the worst) they were not going to have me some in.  So, I did what any decent lawyer would do and that was argue until I got my way.  A few hours later, I had won the round and we went in.  Thankfully Nugget was doing just fine.  This medical phenomenon was diagnosed as "sometimes these things happen" which has really done a lot for my faith in this process. They told us to have a nice day come back for our regularly scheduled 12 week ultrasound in three weeks.  Sometimes science is such baloney.

In other news, I have started to have my first food cravings and aversions.  God forbid I crave something diabetic friendly.  Vegetables are about as appealing as dog food at this point.  Instead, I have managed to discover the nutritional value in glazed donuts covered in sprinkles.  Not only is this something I now consider a superfood, my optimal time to consume them is between 3 and 7am.  As a diabetic, I have this conversation with myself 6 or 7 times an hour: "Self, don't eat that donut" Followed by, "Roger, Self, you got it.  No donut.  That would be bad for your blood sugar, and since we are a responsible Self and want to have the healthiest baby possible, we wouldn't think about eating donuts.  Or Kit Kats.  Or sugar cookies.  Or syrup.  Definitely not syrup. No way." And then I eat the donut and pray that I took enough insulin to cover all the garbage calories I just consumed for no reason.

As far as aversions, I don't cringe at one thing specifically, but I have started to dread anything for dinner that has previously been planned.  The other night I thawed chicken for chicken parm, which I normally love.  (On an unrelated note, fuck you to anyone who uses the "word" unthaw, which literally translates into "make frozen" or the exact opposite of the verb THAW.)  When it was time to make the aforementioned chicken parm it was like someone suggested I eat boogers for dinner.  Ironically, I thought that if Jeff took me to our favorite place in the North End, I could crush some chicken parm.  But hell no if I was making it for myself for dinner that night.  The same thing happened when we planned to have breakfast for dinner.  I love eggs! We have breakfast for dinner all the time. I also make Jeff take me to our favorite shithole diner every weekend for a bacon and cheese omelet and a pancake (yay syrup!).

The moral of this awesome story is, if I plan to eat it and take responsible, adult steps to begin preparing it in advance, inevitably I won't want to eat it when the time comes.  I should probably reverse logic my own ass and plan to have a dozen donuts for dinner.

And here is another story that you may think is a showing sign that I will be a semi-decent mom but should really confirm what a shit head I am.  We had planned a trip to St. Maarten in March but good old Zika virus showed up there so we cancelled the trip and rebooked to Miami.  Before anyone starts handing out proverbial pats on the back to yours truly, let me explain that I did not rebook out of fear that our baby would be born with a shrunken head and correlated complications. I rebooked out of fear that I would have to raise a child with a shrunken head and correlated complications.  See the difference?  That would affect ME, which is not in my long term plans.  I only want a gorgeous child with flawless grammar, great table manners, wonderful sleeping habits and an above average distribution of both brains and athletic prowess.  I realize that this kid is a mash up of Jeff and I so I'll be lucky to get a halfway decent speller that makes the honor roll with straight Bs and starts on the varsity lacrosse team by its senior year.  Here's to hoping.

Here are Nugget's second, third and fourth photo ops.

Holy Fuckski We Are Having a Baby (Maybe)

After I had the most pleasant experience of a D&C (said nobody ever) my biological clock straightened herself right out and we immediately began trying for another baby.  Don't ask me why.  The first time we got pregnant it was in a vodka infused, haphazard attempt to shut everyone up.  I still wasn't convinced that we shouldn't just spend our lives offering to babysit our friends' little assholes and coming home at night high fiving each other for our common sense not to reproduce.

But, like I said before, we got used to the idea of seeing a little Jeff & Suzie running around the planet, wreaking havoc on everyone while we stood back and smiled at our clever little progeny / monster.

Plus, our main weekend hobby had become an even mix of sleeping in, eating out, alcohol, naps and overall pissing money away with nothing to show for it.  We decided we really did need a lifestyle change and we were shocked over how hard we took the loss of our first baby.  Nobody in the world has ever accused me of being maternal (or nice, really) so these feelings that I never, ever thought I'd have really crept up on me and were a refreshing slap in the face.

Fast forward three months to the halftime of a New England Patriots game (thanks Monday Night Football) where I again ordered my husband to lose his pants because, based upon my Einsteinian calculations, I was maybe ovulating. Fast forward another 3 weeks and panic began to set in.  I had missed my period but otherwise I felt normal.  I half hoped I wasn't pregnant so that I didn't have to do all of the pregnant scary things that women have to do and so that Jeff and I could continue to worry solely about work, if we were going to eat dinner out, order it in or (gasp) cook, and who was going to fold the laundry. (Him. Always him because 99% of it is his.  Side note: jeans ARE NOT DIRTY until you wear them at least 15 times, and if you wear an undershirt and a collared shirt under your sweater, the sweater goes back on a hanger, too.)

So, one Sunday night after some liquid courage, I peed on a stick.  Negative.  Total head scratcher.  That had never happened before.  I was previously batting 1.000% on the "have sex, get pregnant" thing.  Obviously it was a mistake.  Good thing pregnancy tests come in sets of two.  Another beer, more urine, another negative.  Now I was perplexed and, to my surprise, SAD.  What was this unexpected emotion creeping up on me and ruining my Sunday Funday?  I crawled into bed and woke Jeff up, (because he goes to bed at the same time most toddlers do), and explained the failed science.  "We'll crush it next month babe" he said.

A week later and still no period.  Jeff manned up and managed to purchase another set of home pregnancy tests while he was out being productive one weekend morning and while I was home, laying in bed being a useless piece of shit.  As soon as I saw them in the house I got scared and hid them.  Out of sight, out of mind, right?  I was like a dog that instinctively knew that this car ride was a trip to the vet and not to the park.

This is not my proudest moment, but I want to be honest here (probably to my only two readers... hi Momma Bear, hi Kel.  Because really why would anyone but my mom or my sister be reading this shitty blog?)  I peed on the stick, ran out of the bathroom, chugged a beer, ran back into the bathroom, saw the PREGNANT symbol and burst into tears.  Like, I ugly cried.  Happy? Meh, kind of.  Terrified? You betcha.  I just didn't want another dead baby.  Or any responsibility, really.  I might be the only woman in the history of the world to pee on a stick, cry, and have just one more glass of wine before reality set in.  How's that for a lowlife?

Now for some good news.  Two days later the fine folks over at MGH again ushered me into an early ultrasound.  We went in and got the most un-gratifying news of all time.  There was a yolk sac, which meant that yes I was technically pregnant, but there was no detectable heartbeat.  We were told that was normal because at 5 weeks 3 days (which was what I was measuring) a heartbeat has not yet always developed.  That afternoon we were driving down to South Carolina for Christmas and wouldn't be back for a week.  We were scheduled for another ultrasound (which I later found out was called a "viability" scan… great) for two weeks later.  No fucking worries, we'll just head on down South for the jolliest day of the year wondering if we have another miscarriage on our hands. Or, more technically, in my uterus.  Bring it on.

Thankfully, we got confirmation that Nugget had done some serious hard work right around the time Santa was jamming his fat ass down chimneys all across the lands.   Nugget measured two weeks bigger than when s/he was measured two weeks prior and had a heartbeat of 146 bpm.  There was our first proud mommy and daddy moment.  We cheered for our genius baby and congratulated it on its wherewithal to go out and gets itself a heartbeat.  Achievement unlocked.

Here is Nugget's first Glamour Shot.  I know, I know.  I was stunned by this little bueat too.

Oh You're Married? More Importantly, When Are You Going To Have A Kid?

One Sunday in May 2015 my husband and I were sitting around, drinking vodka sodas on the couch and watching golf (go Phil Mickelson) and discussing important topics like dinner and the meaning of life.  At that point I was 31 years old and he was 29 going on 45.  We had been married almost 5 years, together 9, and we were some of our last married friends without a kid.

I was sick as shit of the question "when are you going to have a baby?" that came from just about our entire universe of friends / family / acquaintances.  I used to tell my mother in law that every time she asked I was going to add a year.  By my math I would have been knocked up sometime in the next millennium.

Then, genius struck.  "Do you know how we can shut these fuckwads up, honey?" I said.  "Take your pants off.  I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating."  What better reason to bring a child into this world that you are not entirely sure you want to have other than to shut people up?  Like I said before:  pure. effing. genius.

Here comes the sad part to this story.  At that time my dad was really sick and had been in the intensive care unit for two months.  We didn't think he was going to pass away, but we knew it would be a long, hard road.  Then I got The Call from my mom, and about 5 days later we said goodbye to my beautiful Poppa Bear.

I was so distracted by his illness, our goodbye and all the bullshit in between that I totally forgot about the execution of Our Genius Fucking Plan a month prior.  I was sleeping on hospital chairs, eating Taco Bell almost exclusively and drinking my feelings away.  Being pregnant was about as close to my frontal lobe as a trip to Venus.

We got back from celebrating my dad's life on a Monday.  I had begun to do the math re: where the hell my period was.  I also wondered why my boobs were annoyed by anything that touched them.  I wondered aloud to Kellie (twin sister for any readers who may not know me) if I could be pregnant.  On Tuesday I peed on a stick, walked Vinnie (our firstborn, a puggle) and came back into our apartment to find a PREGNANT reading awaiting me.  Holyyyyyyy shit.  We had unprotected sex one freaking time.  One. On a day I thought I might be ovulating.  I mean, well played by me, but in reality it was more like: holy shitballs, commence panic attack.

I did all the things I thought I should do.  I stopped drinking, ate only rabbit food, cut out the supermajority of my caffeine intake and worked hard to control my blood sugars (type 1 diabetic here).  I remember calling my endocrinologist to make an appointment to come in and get screamed at for getting pregnant (my doctor had told me that I had a "hostile" uterus because my blood sugars were high) and I told the receptionist that I had "tested positive for pregnancy".  The guy on the other end of the phone laughed and said something to the effect of "It's supposed to be a good thing.  Don't you just mean "you're pregnant?"  Whatever, prick.

Then, the fine folks at Massachusetts General Hospital had us come in that week and confirmed a heartbeat. The doctor told us that the baby was measuring small but that sometimes things start slowly and they hoped s/he would catch up.  Jeff and I are both short so we laughed it off - totally our kid.  It was basically only a diagnosis that I had not been boinking the mailman.  They sent us packing, telling us I was 7 weeks pregnant and would see us in a month.

Fast forward a month to our next appointment where there was no heartbeat and it was confirmed that I was having a miscarriage.

Do you want to know when I knew I wanted to have a baby?  It certainly was not the day I found out we were expecting one.  It was not the first time I saw the heartbeat.  It certainly was not all the times I ordered water instead of wine at dinner.  It was the moment they told me we had lost the baby.  I was crushed.  I had just lost my dad and I was SURE he was looking over me, ready to make sure I had some kid full of piss and vinegar just like him, just like me.

Miscarriage in pregnancy is incredibly common.  I know that.  When my rational brain tells me to think rationally, I know that there was something wrong with our baby and nature took over.  When my (dominate) irrational brain takes over, a lot of self blame gets passed around.  I've done a lot of talking with my friends and family and a great friend of mine pointed out that our whole society is backwards about this baby thing.  We should announce to our friends and family the minute we pee on the stick.  Rally the troops!  That way we can celebrate healthy pregnancies together and mourn the loss of our babies together.  Otherwise, it is such an awkward conversation starter.  "How have you been?"  "Oh, I was really good for like, a month, when we thought we were having our first offspring, but the universe went and took that away from us so now I think life sucks.  How are you? Should we order the nachos to start?"

Anyway.  That's the story of the beginning of our journey.