The TV is my companion.

I miss him already.

Andrew's off to California for some training in some platform that has something to do with computers and the internet(gah, you'd never know, when I write like this, that I'm actually pretty bright and even used to work in computers once--I really did used to know what my husband did, once upon a time).

A week.

It kind of sucks.

Not that I've been awake much for the past few weeks, but still. It was nice to share pizza with someone (even if he did only leave me once piece). And he's been a super star with getting stuff done around the house lately. And I miss someone asking me at the end of each day, "How was school?" (even though I haven't had a school day without him yet--he just left this morning.)

Now, as a side note, I haven't exactly been following this fire crap, other than a, "yeah, so sad, burned houses" kind of way. But suddently I'm much more interested. I found some cool thermal sattelite images, but then I remember I have no idea about California geography. Is San Jose near San Diego? Why does everything start with San? And the answer is, thankfully, no, San Jose isn't anywhere near San Diego.

Anyway, I'm home, alone, for probably the last really nice weekend of the fall. There's nothing but crappy football on TV (c.f. any game with the Miami Dolphins or St. Louis Rams; also, guess what? Patriots win! snooooze... sometimes football from the West Coast really blows). Six days till he comes back.

Andrew, if your book comes before you get back, I may just open it before you get here. So hurry back.

Ya, Sure, You betcha

Finally, the Minnesota in my accent (an odd amalgamation of Tennessee, Chicago and Minnesota, which leads me to say things that come out like, "Y'all need to talk to dose guys over dere, ya knoooow?") comes to good use.

I am taking Norwegian class. It's awesome. I can say all those funny vowels, like the a-with-a-halo (å). Basically, all I have to do is pull out the Minnesotan in my voice, mix it with a little Swedish Chef, and I'm good. For instance, å is like saying a super Minnesotan "Minnesoooota", only leave out the "t". That last vowelly bit, after the s? That's å.

So, "jaså" (a sort of, "oh, really?" interjection) ends up sounding reeeeally Minnesotan, in both tone and meaning.

Of course, there's also a few million other ways to say o and u, and they're all slightly different, and then there's the other "extra" vowels, like æ (a really really flat a sound) and ø (sort of like a cow with heartburn) but I'm working on them, and they're coming pretty naturally.

I don't know if you've noticed my name here before, but it's Kari. Not your typical every day American spelling. Atypical enough, in fact, that whenever anyone else could find a personalized keychain, license plate or stuffed animal, I had nothing.

It is, however, a fairly typical Norwegian spelling. So Norwegian, in fact, that every other dialogue involves some poor girl named Kari. "Is her name Kari? No, her name is not Kari. Her name is Anne." "Is your name Kari? Yes, my name is Kari. How do you spell it? I spell it K-A-R-I." "Is Kari a student? Yes, she goes to University. What does she study? Kari studies biology and chemistry."

Yes, it's not exactly rocket science (clearly. Who's ever heard of a Norwegian rocket scientist?) but it certainly keeps me paying attention in class.

What I like best, though, is that if you go by the vocabulary we've learned so far, Norwegians are THE politest people on the planet. For instance, at the end of a conversation, instead of saying something like, "See you later!" we've learned that you say, "Takk for nå," meaning, literally, "Thanks for now." Like, "Thanks for this most recent time we've spent together, chatting." It's like the ultimate way to live in the moment, you know?

Or our professor ends every class with "Takk for i dag," meaning, Thanks for today. Us! Thanking us, the students! I love it.

I have class tomorrow, and I've already done my homework, written my flash cards, and practiced my dialogues. I'm such a geek.

A note before I leave.

This whole "coming clean" thing is hard. I don't want to be all, Lookit Me I'm Pregnant! to every person I see--or even to most of them--but, uh... well... it's starting to get obvious. And now I don't know if there's people I should be like, "Hey, how's it going Sally? Cute new shoes today. Oh, and I'm pregnant." Like the secretaries in the main office, who are totally awesome and if you're smart you make them your best friends in the whole school because they can save your butt. Do I tell them? Or is it just too... too? Or my students. "...and that's how we solve a system of equations. And, I'm pregnant, due in May, so don't worry, I'll be here most of the year." It's just odd.

It's great that I have this to worry over!

I leave or a ginormous Family Wedding Event, or as ginourmous as our family gets. It'll be the first time I meet my new nephew which I'm positively delighted about. Everyone at school agrees that he is quite possibly the cutest baby since cameras were invented, but I need to test this hypothesis in person.

Moreover, it'll be good to get away and just be for a couple days. We have no obligations past a dinner on Thursday and a wedding on Saturday. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this time!

Out of the closet...

I've been psyching myself up for this, so here goes.

I'm pregnant.

It's official. It's real. Woo hoo!

Yeah, that birthday party? You got me: I wasn't drinking because I was pregnant. That wedding? Every glass of wine I had got left, full, somewhere. Often next to my partner in crime, who was able to finish it for me (a noble, noble sacrifice). You were right, I was totally pregnant. And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, for not asking me or bringing it up with me and waiting until I did (Ahem, ladies, I'm looking at YOU). You guys are the BEST.

And mostly, I just don't want to talk about it. Which is a weird thing to say at the beginning of a (em, rather long) blog entry that's pretty much destined to be all about being pregnant, but let me try to explain.

First, there's the hormone thing. Apparently progesterone is really really important to staying pregnant. "Pro", as in "in favor of" and "gesterone", as in "gestation". I'm pretty pro-gestation myself, intellectually speaking. Apparently my uterus wasn't on board. The tests I had six weeks ago found that I was low on progesterone. Now, it hasn't been confirmed, but I suspect that this is why I miscarried last time. The timing fits: if you aren't making enough progesterone, you aren't making enough placenta, and then when the little egg-baby has to switch from it's egg-baby-yolk to the baby-making placenta for nutrition, there just isn't enough healthy placenta to get fed and, well, the end result is pretty obvious. And that's at about, oh, 8 to 10 weeks. Which would be the right timing for my miscarriage.

So, about six weeks ago, apparently this was happening to me. Those were the tests I referred to, earlier.

The treatment for low progesterone is a progesterone supplement, but apparently the mouth is too far away from the uterus to take it orally and for it to be effective. So... Yes, my friends, I have had really nasty ladybits for the past six weeks. It's been great. And it's been great twice a day. And the worst part about the treatment is, the only way you'd know it was working is that you didn't miscarry.

So it hasn't exactly been a relaxing six weeks. So there's that.

One thing you don't really know until you're doing this infertility treatment stuff is that you'll never go to the bathroom the same again. Every time you get in there in the morning, you wonder if you're supposed to be peeing on something. Is it ovulation time? Pee on a stick! or maybe, could I be, pregnant? I know, Pee on a Stick! The thought nags you, because if you forget to pee on a stick with that FMU (first morning urine! I love the infertility TLA's...remind me to share some sometime), well, it's a while till you have enough pee again to pee on the stick properly, and even then, no pee is more concentrated than your FMU, so there's always the chance that it should be giving you the stripe/plus/smileyface but you just had pee that was too watery....

See? It's a whole thing.

But worse is the blood. Because when you're not peeing on sticks, you're expecting blood. And dreading it. Or cursing it.

I had thought when I got pregnant last winter, that's it! No more having to do something when I pee. And then the blood started, which shocked the shit outta me.

And we all know how that turned out.

So now, here I am pregnant again, and I'm dreading the blood. I can't even imagine those NPP (normal pregnant people) who just take it on faith that they're pregnant and will stay pregnant. I can't even imagine that kind of security. A sureness that for that next X weeks, you don't need to fear going to the bathroom. That you don't fear your underpants. Which, by the way, is the name of my punk band when I get one together.

Don't, I beg you, tell me "it'll be fine." Last time I'd had all the markers of being fine: heartbeat, images, measurements on track. And it still ended. It wasn't like I'd just found out I was pregnant--I'd had images, little fuzzy images. That was supposed to be the signal.

So now, I don't trust the signals. And I don't really trust anyone else to tell me "it'll be fine."

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled as hell to be pregnant. It's just I'm also really still scared that this won't stick either. It's really really really hard to tell people, and harder still to talk about it. It feels like I'm jinxing everything. My mom is thrilled for me, which yay, but it also makes me feel really super uncomfortable to get emails from my aunt and my cousins and my mom's friends (none of whom *I* told, and I had no idea that my mom was going to tell everyone) about how happy my mom is, and congratulations! Andrew is adorably excited, but when I went to his work party Wednesday night, the first word out of every single one of his coworkers' mouths was "Congratulations!" Including his boss. And his boss's wife. And his boss's boss. I'm sure if his boss's boss had a wife (or a girlfriend, or for that matter, a date) I would have heard it from her too. (Did he announce it at a company meeting? An "all users" email? it was really odd.) It was a little intimdating and a lot uncomfortable. Not because of anything they did, because everyone was genuinely nice about, but just because.

I know people do this because they care. Maybe it was just the volume of people that I didn't know knew, all at once, one after the other, congratulating me.

I don't know if this is making sense. I suspect that the friends I've had that have seen me through this year understand. I suspect others may think I'm being ungrateful. And my response to that is: I'm not ungrateful, but I'm not grateful. Yet.

But I know I have friends and family who are genuinely caring and interested, and I know you're probably chomping at the bit for the details.

So here's the scoop. I'm 11 weeks today. We've seen the wee niblet's heart--twice--and heard it three times, and we've seen it's brain; we watched it dance, a little like this, and apparently my uterus decided to get on board with this whole "in favor of gestation" thing because I know way more about my placenta and umbilical cord than probably most pregnant ladies. And they're both there and fine and healthy. Yes, we're going to find out the sex of the baby (and yes, I think people who wait are a little weird). I'm due May 4th, although I'll have to have a Caesarian; due to my surgery last summer, I'm at a high risk of uterine rupture and rumor has it that's a wee bit uncomfortable (in the DEAD kind of way). So I'll probably be wheeled in about a week before I'm due. And yes, it's totally awesome timing, speaking as a teacher. No natural childbirth for me--it's drugs for SURE! No midwives, water births, hypnosis, or "eee-eee" breathing. And no annoying debates about the relative merits of any of it (or how you just have to do it this way or that way because otherwise you're not really giving birth), because I really don't have a choice*, which is sort of the silver lining, because I have an instant "Shut the fuck up" card to play when that discussion starts. Yes, I'm going back to work next year, mostly because I'm not crazy now, but staying home all the time, I sure would be soon.

Did I miss any questions?

So, yay! I'm pregnant. And yes, I'm a little prickly about it. I'm scared absolutely shitless that I'll get this far and lose it next week. Hopefully, eventually, I'll relax into the thing and be able to enjoy it. Probably around, oh, week 35 or so.

But definitely, tell me to "just relax and enjoy being pregnant." That'll totally help.

_______
*Please don't say VBAC, since I'm not eligible--it hasn't been long enough. See? still not an option. Yay for no options!

Why is it...

... that no matter how many times I've gone to a doctor who's going to look up my lady bits, no matter what instrument is in use (speculum? dildo-cam? scope of some other type?) or the purpose (oh, the myriad and many reasons I've had a doctor in that region)...

...I still feel the need to hide my underwear after I get undressed?

The Fun Never Stops 'Round Here

You know what's fun?

I'll tell you what's fun!

Parent-teacher conferences! They're fun!

Dad in fatigues and combat boots getting down on his daughter for her test anxiety! That's fun!

Mother of difficult son explaining that said son "just doesn't learn well from women teachers" and that's why he's doing poorly, not because he sits in class with his book closed and his paper put away! That's funner!

Mother of stubborn son explaining that he's not doing well in class because he's "mad at" me and that's why he failed the test and then crumpled it up and threw it at me! Almost the funnest!

But the funnest is whizzing through forty parents in three hours--so, let's see, that is, hmmm, carry the one,... less that five minutes per conference and in the middle of that, being pulled aside by an administrator and told that someone asked her to tell me to move it a long a little faster! That's the absolute funnest!

Actually, I hadn't done the math at the time (there may be some irony in that statement) but now that I have, I'm dwelling on it and getting pisseder and pisseder at her. I saw 40 parents. I talked for three hours straight. They can't honestly expect me to have spoken LESS than five minutes with those parents. As it was I was ending conversations quickly. How much faster should I have gone?

"HiyourkidhasaCheneedstostudymorekthnxbieeee"??????

She can bite me.

I'm going to go to bed now, and dream sweet sweet dreams of staying very very quiet and not talking to anyone for three, maybe four days. Ahhhh...