Like a kid on Christmas Eve...

So you know how the night before something exciting, like your first day at a new job, or say, a trip to visit your sister in France you don't feel like sleeping and you say it's like you're a kid on Christmas Eve? Yeah, I just had that thought. And then I remembered that it is in fact Christmas Eve.

I haven't really been feeling very festive this year. We didn't do any decorating, since leaving three cats alone in our house with a Christmas tree seemed like a poor choice. I'm not exchanging a ton of gifts with people this year, either, and what I'm getting will be for the most part purchased in Paris, so I haven't really done that either. Combine that with the stress of working in retail during the holiday season, and well, you wouldn't be feeling so jolly either.

It's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting in bed waiting for my nail polish to dry before I go to bed. Kyle is out getting a beer with a friend. We had mac and cheese for dinner. It's very unChristmas-y. And tomorrow we are taking the bus to the airport. Wahoo. We don't actually make it into Paris until the 26th, but the family is holding off on the festivities until we get there. So that is nice.

My dad's favorite cousin and his wife are also joining us for a few days in Paris, and I'm really excited to tell them about my pregnancy. When they saw my sister in November (right when I found out), they were asking her if I was going to do the baby thing soon, so they'll be excited. And it's pretty amazing to be able to tell the in person, since the last time we saw each other was at my wedding.

I'm itching to announce it. Now that we've made it this far, there's no point in spoiling the surprise before we get that ultrasound done in January when we get back, but I'm ready to be out. I feel lately like everything in my life relates back to this, and I'm finding it difficult just to carry on normal conversations with people for fear of letting something slip. And the whole growing belly thing is clearly going to become an issue soon. (I went through all my dresses trying to find something appropriate for going out in Paris and nothing fit!) But we'll be able to be out with family this week in Paris, and then we only have a few days after we get back before we can tell everyone. Ready ready ready.

A little bit of everything.

Oh man, I have been a bad blogger. I am sorry. Unfortunately now that I've let it go so long without posting anything, it's hard to even know where to start. Lots has happened recently, and I think a bog post full of bullet points is the only way to get through it with any sort of coherence.

Please accept this as a substitute for a belly picture.

• I had my first midwife appointment this week on Thursday. It was a little crazy because the birth center had two births that day so I ended up seeing one of the assisting student midwives, and the end of my appointment was very please-let-yourself-out-I-have-to-go-catch-a-baby, but honestly I'm glad that laboring women get priority, because obviously that will be nice when I'm in need of a baby-catcher. We went through my medical history, etc., and the just of the appointment was pretty much, "wow, you are ridiculously healthy and well informed." I knew that already, of course, but it's nice to hear. Basically everything I already knew; I am at an increased risk for post-partum depression, but other than that, everything is groovy. We talked about what they reccomend for that, and she let me know which local doulas and childbirth classes are dreadlocked hairy-armpitted hippies, not because I care, but because I know such things would put Kyle off, and I need him to be comfortable too. And then I peed in a cup and they took some blood and everything is peachy keen, as far as I know. They've referred me to a local hospital's fetal/maternal medicine unit to do my combined screening, and we're hoping that we can get in before we go to France. It will be our first chance to hear the heartbeat, etc., so I am super looking forward to that, and also getting assurances that everything is going well. So far, the only confirmation I have that I am even pregnant, is my home test pee-stick, and while my symptoms regularly remind me that something's in there, it would be nice to be able to see what's going on. Soon.
•  We hit eight weeks on Wednesday! It seems like a lot. I took pictures, of course, but Kyle somehow mangled our camera cord, and my laptop doesn't read HD cards, so they are trapped forever there, or at least until we get a new cable. However, if you want to know what I look like you can look at any of the pictures from the last four weeks, because I look exactly EXACTLY the same. I know this is a blessing, especially since I'm not "out" yet, but honestly, I'm excited for stuff to start moving around. Or at least for bigger boobs. Something, please. Anyway, blog posts are much better with pictures, so instead of my non-belly, there is an adorable kitten for you at the top of this post, care of google image search.
• Speaking, of being "out," or not, as the case may be, I've been thinking more about how and when to tell the general public about all of this. For the most part, I don't really care who knows, I just don't want to actually have to announce it. I'm a fairly introverted girl, and I don't like making myself the center of attention. I had a hard time telling people I was engaged when Kyle and I were getting married, too. It just seems very difficult, to me, to find a way to bring up, completely out of context this random (though, yes, exciting) news, and like, change the subject to being ALL. ABOUT. ME. It makes me feel horrible and awkward, especially because there are quite a few people who would be upset if they were not to get a personal phone call, which makes it all the worse for me. I'd like to tell as many people as possible via mass email or facebook announcement, so that I just don't have to deal with it. And I'm sorry, as much as I like talking about it, I'm afraid that by the ninth set of aunts and uncles (and we'd not even be all the way through Kyle's side yet!) I'll just be so over answering the same questions that I'll be feigning excitement and it just won't be good. Fortunately, though, my mother-in-law decided that an email would be appropriate for most of Kyle's family,  so we'll only have to make a few calls when the time comes.
• I'm especially anxious about everyone at work finding out. For the most part it will be fine, and I know everyone will be happy and excited for me. My friends that I worked with at my old location all know how much I wanted this so they'll think it's awesome, and there are so many mothers working at my new location that they'll be totally cool, too, so that's not the problem. Just there is one guy in particular that I am worried about. He is technically my boss, which makes things more complicated, although boss-lady won't let things get too shitty because she is awesome. He is a pain in the ass to work with as it is for a myriad of reasons (he doesn't really respect women, we have very different ways of looking at things, communication styles, etc., he thinks that to be respected he has to be an asshole), and I know that as soon as he finds out I am pregnant he'll be super nice to me, but in a very paternalistic, no let me lift that for you kind of way and I really don't want that. I know when to ask for help and when I am pushing myself too hard, and I want to be able to make those decisions for myself, so I can't help but worry about that whole dynamic.
• My plan right now for telling people is to announce just before we leave for France, so at least the news will have a week to sink in before I have to deal with everyone. I'm real magnanimous, I know. At least by that point we'll most likely have fetus pictures, that will make the news more fun. However, if anything looks funky in our ultrasound, I'm probably holding off, because we're pretty sure we are terminating if anything is really wrong, and I don't think that would go over well with Kyle's catholic family. Or with anyone, really. So. But we're not really high risk for anything so I'm trying not to worry about it. One of Kyle's cousins does have Downs Syndrome, though. I don't know.
• My regular yoga class is getting super uncomfortable. I really started to feel it this week. Next class is restorative poses, which I definitely don't want to miss, and then the following week is the annual, teacher takes us all out for Indian food not class, which obviously I can handle, but I'm probably not going back after Christmas. Sad. I did drop into a prenatal class this past Monday, though, and I really liked it. It was the only one I could find offered at a reasonable time (i.e. not 1pm on a Tuesday... really?) but actually managed to be pretty awesome. The instructor and owner of the center is one of the local premier prenatal teacher trainers, I guess, so that is pretty good. I was the least pregnant woman there, by at least eight weeks, but it was good and all the women were super nice, which was cool, since I know like 3 people who are or have in the last five years been pregnant in real life, so. So. Glad I found that.

Okay, so that's as much as I am going to cram into this post, because it's clearly way too much information and now my brain feels like mush from trying to sort all that out (or possibly because I am pregnant and my brain feels like mush most of the time), and I need to go to bed, because the more sleep I get the less likely I seem to be to spend my entire morning barfing. So, goodnight.

Two Things

First, Kitty Update. The Bird Cat came out of surgery just fine, and it ended up costing us slightly less than the low end of the vet's original estimate, so that is good. She's kind of irritated with her cone, but other then that is fine, if a little sleepy. We spent all of last evening napping and cuddling on the couch. I think I needed it as much as her, as work this week has been excessively stressful--a coworker quit and walked out in the middle of her shift yesterday.



Two, the privacy thing again. Now you know more about my cats than you do about me and my husband. I think about this an awful lot. If I get pregnant, or even if I just get a haircut, I want to post pictures! And I want to discuss baby names. And OMG, it is really hard for me to keep typing"husband" instead of his actual name.

So hi, I would like to introduce myself. I am Astrid. (See, the A. I know, very clever.)

And this is Husband. His name is Kyle.

Anyway, nice to meet you.

Fur Babies

Today I wanted to write a nice lively post about Husband's and mine trip to Mount Rainier yesterday, but shit has gone down, and plans have changed.

Husband and I have cats. Lots and lots of cats. Well, three, but when they are long haired and shed everywhere and you live in a teeny house it feels like a lot. We love them. LOVE them.

We also really suck at naming our pets. We gave them these fantastic names, and then.... never used them. So they each have two names, the "official" one, and the commonly used nickname.

When Husband first moved to Seattle we adopted two kittens, sisters.

This is Sal:

 

I named her Sal because it means salt, and there is nothing that Husband loves more than salt. Except for maybe napping. But really, salt. He puts salt on everything, without even tasting it first. Including things like cheeseburgers and pizza. Gross. Hit brother got him a salt lick for Christmas once. Anyway, when she was little she made chirping noises all the time, and they sounded vaguely bird-like, so she was henceforth "The Bird Cat". Very creative, I know. The bird kitty apparently has a death wish. When we were living in our very first apartment she jumped and/or fell off our second story balcony. A couple years later she ate a bunch of thread and had to have several thousand dollars of surgery and other veterinary hoopla. I guess she is not very smart. She loves me most of all and sleeps on my feet every night. Sometimes she likes to chew on my head and it kind of hurts but it is too adorable to do anything about.

This is her sister, Echo:

 

I named her after Echo from Ovid's Metamorphoses, because that's what I was reading in my Latin class at the time. And I like the myth of Echo and Narcissus a lot. Because I'm kind of weird. Anyway, she is kind of deformed and all of the bones in her tail are crunched up together in a little ball so instead of a majestic cat tail she has a little bunny poof. So naturally, we call her The Bunny Cat. (See this very creative theme...) The Bunny is madly in love with her daddy and pretty much wishes I (and the other cats) didn't exist. When Husband and I briefly broke up she stayed alone with him and I think she longs for those days. She seems, though, to have accepted that I am here to stay, so she doesn't yowl at me any time I walk into the room anymore.

Less than a year after we adopted The Bird Cat and The Bunny, they started getting really big and not so cute and kitten-y anymore, so, to bring even more cuteness into our home, we adopted yet another cat:

 

This is Lancelot. He is adorable. Clearly, however, we couldn't just use his god forsaken name and call him Lancelot, so he became known as The Kitten. I know, you didn't think it could get less creative, but it did. It's even worse, because he is so clearly not a kitten anymore, but we can't bring ourselves to call him anything else. He is friendly and loves everyone and I think he might be slightly asthmatic because he sometimes wheezes when he purrs and snores when he is napping. He loves his adopted sisters, who mostly just tolerate him, and sometimes tries to give them baths.

Last night The Bird Cat was bleeding and had a huge wound behind her ear. Looked like she had gotten into a fight. I washed her off as best I could and put some Neosporin on it and kept a close eye on things to make sure it wasn't getting infected. But when I came home from work today it was bleeding again and she had been scratching at it and I got another look at the injury and it looked a lot worse on closer inspection than it had the night before. Off too the vet, hoping they might just give her some stitches and a cone and maybe some antibiotics and we'd be out a hundred bucks or so.

Turns out she has a nasty abscess. They had to anesthetize her and put a drain in it and keep her overnight tonight. And charge us a lot of money, of course. We get to pick her up in the morning. Or rather, Husband gets to pick her up because I have to go to work. The vet called and told us that her surgery went well, but I am still feeling very sad, and I am going to miss her sleeping on my feet tonight.

It is always The Bird Kitty that gets into trouble. Maybe she should have a new nickname: The Million-Dollar Cat.