Procrastination and gender predictions

It’s been a while. I haven’t really felt like blogging lately.

But now I’m sitting at home and have lots of work to do for uni so it’s the perfect time to start again! I am the master of procrastination… mwahahaha. So I am conveniently ignoring the three major assignments I have to complete (and mostly start) in less than three weeks.

Not a great deal has been going on around here. WB is growing, but I’m still barely showing. I can feel so much movement now. It’s like a little eel swimming around in there. And the kicking is most frequent when lazyboo puts her hands on my belly at night. My theory is that WB is connecting with her other mama (who still hasn’t properly decided on what she’s going to be called yet…). Lazyboo says that it could possibly be WB telling her to shove off… but I like my theory better.

I’m still exhausted and full of angst. But when I think about it, that’s not much different from when I’m not pregnant! I have found a new psychologist and have seen her a few times and I really think that’s helping a lot. Lots of icky painful deep seated family and personal issues to deal with though… it’s hard. But I really like her. She makes me laugh through the tears and she’s helping me to let go of some of it. And she makes my gaydar ping very strongly. Then there’s the Whole Lesbian Sex Book in her bookshelf! I know that it shouldn’t make a difference, but I feel much more comfortable with someone who can understand my life a bit better.

Lazyboo has been amazing through this last month. I was being mushy the other night and trying to put it into words - she’s like my anchor stopping me from drifting out to sea, she’s like a weight keeping my feet on the ground, she’s like a soft cushion to catch me when I fall. Of course when I say stuff like that she just bursts out laughing at me and makes fun of herself but at least she knows how much I appreciate her.

Princess has been a bit of a handful lately. I think it must be a combination of me being much more inaccessible, and Lazyboo trying so hard to make sure I’m OK, and her growing realisation that soon she’s going to have to share attention and resources. She had only the second tantrum she’s ever had (i know this seems like it cannot possibly be the truth but believe me when i say that we are blessed with an amazing child) on monday night and omg was it big! So much anger and upset for usually such a mild mannered little girl. It got to a point where I just had to walk away and let Lazyboo deal with it because she was pushing all my buttons. Let’s just say that the night ended with both of us in floods of tears and LB trying to calm us both down. But yesterday I had a long conversation with her about that and about lots of other things and I think we’ll be on more of an even keel right now. Boy this parenting thing can be hard sometimes!

In much brighter and very exciting news, we only have one week until our next ultrasound! Next Wednesday morning (21 May) we will get to see our little WB again, and maybe even will be able to identify just what flavour (as LB would say) the baby is! I have always been conflicted about finding out the gender, as I feel that there is so much exposure to gender stereotyping that it doesn’t need to start prior to birth, but as the time gets closer, I get more and more excited about it. So here’s the predictions so far:

• I am convinced that WB is a boy. This pregnancy is so much harder and so different than my first one, that I’d really like to explain it on an excess of male hormones in my system!
• Lazyboo thinks that this pregnancy is harder because I’m older and fatter (though she says it in a much nicer way than that!). She says she’s not objective because she so desperately wants a boy and won’t make a prediction. She does think that WB has to be a girl because I’m so convinced of the opposite - I was shocked at Princess’s birth to be told that she was a girl.
• Princess thinks WB is a girl. But that may just be wishful thinking cos she thinks that boys are mostly icky right now.
• Our donor J thinks that WB is a boy. For timing reasons and he says he has a hunch. And he has donated to quite a few couples previously and I think they’re mainly boys.
• Nanny S thinks WB is a boy. No real explanations given.
• One of my munchkin’s mum’s last night told me that she thinks WB is a boy too.

So the predictions are primarily that WB is a boy. Anybody else got any predictions? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if next week we go in there expecting to find out and WB turns out to be far too shy to show us - this is the baby that proudly showed off his/her spine at the last ultrasound and refused to move!

In other random news:

• my sister’s due date has been pushed forward again so we now have couple of weeks buffer between us - yay!
• My other munchkin’s mum told me last night that her daughter will be born on October 17 - I’m thinking that she’ll probably beat me to it!
• R1 has a new job and will no longer be able to have Princess on alternate weekends. This is really sucky - we were looking forward to some us time before October - but we’re making other arrangements to make sure she keeps seeing her dad regularly. And this will facilitate more family time for us while she’s still an only child.
• My job finished for the moment. There’s talk that there will be more work in june and july but no promises. So we’re broke but at least I have time to supposedly work on my assignments!
• My assignments have not miraculously written themselves while I procrastinated.

Awwwww…..

Today I got to hold a very tiny baby.

She’s four weeks old, but only the size of a newborn, and she wasn’t even born premature. She was only 5 pounds 7 when born full term.

Her mother is quite petite, so a small baby was not unexpected, but she’s just so tiny! Only just fitting into newborn sized clothes now.

The baby belonged to one of my colleagues from work. Its always amusing watching everyone flock around the pram every time someone brings in their baby. But today, it was all the men (plus me!) who actually held her. All these recently new dads were even more excited than the women, and that saying something around here.

The mother looks very well, fantastic considering she gave birth only four weeks ago. Apparently the baby is sleeping up to seven hours at night and is a calm, quite little girl. Fingers crossed we’re that lucky.

I hope that Weeny Beany is so small and tiny and cute. I’m sure he will be butt ugly initially, as all newborns are. They just look like little aliens to me.

I can’t wait to see him, even if he is an ugly little alien

Hottest 100

Clark follows afterellen.com pretty frequently, especially Best.Lesbian.Week.Ever, which is always a veritable treasure trove of useless but interesting lesbians in entertainment related facts and trivia.

Last year they did a vote of the Hot 100 women, in answer to Maxim magazine’s list of 100 hot women as voted by men - I mean really, what self-respecting woman thinks Lindsay Lohan is even passable, let alone hot?

This vote is on again this year, see After Ellen hottest 100.

I was pondering who to vote for on my list this year, and came up with the following (in no particular order):

1. Shelley Conn - Nina from Nina’s Heavenly Delights
2. Erin Kelly - Annabelle from Loving Annabelle (I love that movie!)
3. Emma Watson - Hermione rocks (Clark wants it noted that Emma Watson has now turned 18 and is legal)
4. Salma Hayek
5. Sarah Shahi - Carman was cool, apart from that whole thing with Jenny (ugh, vomit), and I like her in Life too
6. Guinevere Turner - don’t so much like Gabby, but I love Max from Go Fish
7. Gillian Anderson
8. Rachel Weisz - I think its the cute accent and the kick ass sai fight in the Mummy Returns
9. Catherine Zeta-Jones
10. Jillian Michaels

Honorable mention goes to Rachel Shelley (season three Helena only though, didn’t like the whole Tina/Helena thing - honestly, she’s too good for Tina); Drew Barrymore; Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity was kick-ass); Angelina Jolie (I’m not quite as obsessed as Clark); Liv Tyler; Jorja Fox; and Renee O’Connor, for old times sake.  Its so hard narrowing it down.

I’m sure Clark’s list will be wildly different to mine, which is probably a good thing.

Actually, this seems like it might make an interesting meme.  Mrs Bluemont, Tiff and Sarah - list your ten hottest women in entertainment and pass it on.

I’ve got a theory

Some kid is dreaming, and we’re all stuck inside his whacky Broadway nightmare…

Anyone get the reference? Heh. Don’t be ashamed if you don’t, even Clark didn’t.

No really, I’ve got a theory about why Clark isn’t showing yet, even though she’s now 17 weeks. It seems that lots of other people are at the same stage or earlier, and look obviously pregnant, whereas Clark really doesn’t yet.

I was thinking that maybe it’s because she’s been training for the last 12 or so months, she’s developed some pretty decent ab muscles. Is the uterus being held in by the muscles? Will they suddenly loosen one day, and her belly will pop right out all of a sudden?

Hope it doesn’t hurt, if that’s true. Hope it doesn’t hurt Weeny Beany either.

She’s been experiencing a lot of pain in her lower abdomen, to the sides, which could just be ligaments stretching (as they always seem to mention in every pregnancy book), or could be ab muscles protesting at having to hold this overgrown grapefruit of a uterus in. It’s possible.

As an aside, I’m really jacked off with feeling constricted while blogging.

Cheese and such

We had an appointment with our (shared care) doc/GP on Thursday morning. She’s really very good with all our questions. She took Clark’s suspected depression very seriously, and Clark is now booked in for her first session with a gay-friendly psychologist in the area next week.

The doctor also suggested that one of the best treatments for depression is exercise, so we have determined that I will drag Clark out of bed and we will walk the dog every morning. You have no idea what a gargantuan task that is. It’s going to be much harder on me that it is on Clark. Saying that Clark is a morning person is like saying that right-wing fundamentalist religious bigots are tolerant and liberal.

We have also decided that Clark will probably drop down to only one training session a week. The cardio sessions are just too arduous, and she always spends the next two days stiff and sore (much more than normal) especially in the abdomen, which is not good for Weeny Beany. So in order to compensate we are going to swim twice a week. We actually went for the first time last night - we managed 200m, and considering exactly how long its been since I last went swimming, I thought that wasn’t a bad effort. The swimming and the massage I had yesterday afternoon have done wonders for my back and persistent headache - I can still feel the tension in my neck though, its going to come back. Least I have a brief respite.

Just the fact that we have a plan (to exercise) and have made arrangements for the psychologist have already made a massive difference in Clark. It was getting quite worrisome there - especially since I am not in the best place mentally either. Its hard to prop someone up when you’re feeling much the same way as them.

What was also wonderful was that we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Last time the (crusty old) doctor at the hospital couldn’t find the heartbeat, but our doc felt where the positioning of the uterus was and then put the monitor on and there it was, loud and clear. Clark thought it sounded like a galloping horse. It was awesome, in any case. Really brings it home.

We’ve had a busy busy day today. Have been to training, walked the dog, gone grocery shopping and caught up with 3 different sets of friends already. Clark is currently getting her now regular fortnightly massage (which is also helping immensely) and then we are off to dinner with yet more friends. And in between all that we managed to acquire 4 different types of goats cheese.

Clark is completely obsessed with cheese at the moment. Being off dairy has been challenging for her, and we’ve now been alerted to the existence of a very nice cheese shop where they have copious quantities of sheep and goats cheese. She’s seriously in heaven. So this week we’ll be having (cows milk and gluten free) cheese and salami pizza, and cheese stuffed crumbed chicken breasts. I must admit that I have been missing cheese too - I’ve been trying to be a supportive partner and stay away from the things Clark can’t have - so I’m pretty excited by the prospect as well