Breaking The Mold

Fruit of the Womb?

So... why is it that all of the stock photographs of pregnant women doesn't show the swollen footed, back pained, restless-legged hordes that one might see at the typical OB-GYN office? Is there some sort of pregnancy propoganda in the works?

Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of wonder and anticipation that goes along with Anonymous Mommious's pregnancy. There are sad but extremely wealthy people pay a lot of money and try really hard to do what we did by chance. Maybe it's my inner cynic at work, but maybe I'm just a little defensive of my baby's Mom. Her pregnancy reminds me to thank my own Mom for what she went through with me. It is magical, but not in a David Copperfield kind of way. Rather than making a 747 disappear, Mommious is making a little human appear. And rather than locking herself in ice, she's losing sleep with twitchy legs and an aching back. And this is just the beginning. I'd take the ice, myself... but I'm a guy.

I have a child and I did bond with her. Don't get me wrong. In fact, my experience has taught me that there is no substitute for a good Dad. I get the way a Dad feels for his children, but when I see a woman quietly accept all that she has to and face everything including the changes her body goes through, with this quiet determination, it never fails to impress me. It's something that's worth encouraging and standing behind rather than marketing to. I was plenty fond of her before this. I'm certain more will be revealed.

Baby Para's First Thanksgiving........Sort of

Ok, so I know that it wasn't really Baby Para's first Thanksgiving seeing as she is still a tiny parasite feeding off her Mommy.  However, I couldn't help thinking about how different our Thanksgiving is going to be next year with a little 4 month old baby amongst us.  This Thanksgiving was wonderful!  Anonymous Daddious and I spent it with my parents, older sister and brother-in-law.  It was a relaxing, joyous day.  We even got some great frisbee time in with my sister and brother-in-law.  We all helped in the preparation of the food and of course in the devouring of it also.   Daddious made a scrumptious turkey and rice soup using the turkey carcass for the broth.  There were no uh-oh or oh shit moments.  I imagine next year may be somewhat different.  Having a baby around will definitely dominate Anonymous Mommious' time and energy.  I am not sure where we are going to be next year for Thanksgiving.  We will probably not travel as it can be difficult with a new baby and Anonymous Daddious will be using his vacation time to be home right after Baby Para is born to help me out.  We would love to have our family come to us to visit and help make Baby Para's first Thanksgiving as wonderful as possible. 
  I hope everyone had as fantastic and stress free a Thanksgiving.  Time to put up the tree and get ready for Christmas.  I can't wait to get a baby's first Christmas ornament with a picture of Baby Para on it. 

-Anonymous Mommious

And The Beat Goes On....

  I had my very first sonogram Wednesday.  It was indescribable.  I am very familiar with ultrasounds as I used to perform then on animals all the time at my old job.  However, it iswas completely different when it was done to me.  I feel bad for all those dogs and cats that didn't get warm ultrasound lube because man that was some cold stuff.  Baby Para is still sort of low in my body.  She is in a yolk sac that provides her with nutrients.  She is a little bigger than the size of a dime and looks sort of like a kidney bean.  I LOVE HER. 
  I got to see her little heart just beating away.  It was good and strong.  A normal heartbeat at 6-7 weeks would be 90-110 beats per minute. The presence of an embryonic heartbeat is an assuring sign of the health of the pregnancy. Once a heartbeat is detected, the chance of the pregnancy continuing ranges from 70-90%.  I was definitely nervous about seeing a heartbeat as I always imagine the worst case scenario.  However, Baby Para is strong just like her daddy.  I wish her daddy was there, but he got to see the picture of her.  My next sonogram scheduled on Daddious' day off so he will get to come along!  I will try to get the sonogram picture on the blog soon. 
  I was hopeful that I had almost made it through my first trimester with much ease, but I have three extra weeks to go and I am definitely feeling more morning sickness than before.  That's ok though, it just means Baby Para is growing and needs the extra hormones to allow that to happen.  I have heard that the worse the morning sickness, the more likely the baby is a girl?  Urban myth?  Whatever the case is Baby Para's Mommy and Daddy are going to love her/him with all of our hearts.



-Anynomous Mommious

Time to Fall Back... about 3 weeks.

The latest news from Operation Occupy Mommious' Womb:

So, today was the first time they bounced sound waves off my unborn child in a new style of "Radar Love" which hopefully won't cause her to listen to Michael Bolton records or that auditory quailude of a musician,  Kenny G.

Guess what? We were wrong. Baby Para has only been with us for 7 weeks and three days. I'm sure her anonymous Mommious will want to comment on it, as she saw it go down in person. I had to work. Kind of a drag, but I'd rather be a "yes man"- to that extent- than be a "I need a job, Man..." times are rough out there.

So I have to downgrade baby Para's status to "smaller, more globular, but still cute". Don't believe me? Check this out: She's got eyelids, a beating heart, a functioning liver and pancreas, and two hemispheres to her brain. Nothing's cuter than two hemispheres of the brain, is there? 

Every fetus thinks she wishes she were baby Para.



The Joys of Being Sick

  I'm loving my experiences with morning sickness.  I get to feel nauseous and tired.  I am always fatigued and can't seem to get enough sleep.  Thank goodness I have a great man to cuddle up with during naps.  I finally have an excuse for farting!  I can just let them rip.  Its just a symptom of being pregnant.  I also get to spend a lot of my time in the bathroom.  I have to urinate every hour.  I am definitely seeing all different decorating styles and it helps me get an idea of how to decorate our bathroom when we get a place.  Another great advantage to being pregnant is my sense of smell is very strong.  I get to smell everything from food to shampoo to farts.  No one can hide what they ate from me as I will be able to smell it on their breath.  As for my breast, I finally have them!  They are tender all the time and every time they get bumped I am reminded that Baby Para will be nursing on them. 

   Overall all of the annoyances of being sick I can deal with.  My body is dealing with being pregnant and increase in hormones.  As long as Baby Para is well, I will put up with anything!  So bring it on pregnancy symptoms, I can take it!

-Anynomous Mommious

Anticipation is Making Me Wait, and I Keep On Wayayayayaitin.

Week nine, and there's a baby bump on Anonymous Mommious's belly. She's a small thing, so any difference in her body, is going to show. I had my hand there last night wishing to feel a kick. Of course, it's too soon for that. Baby Para's not very big.

So there she or he is. According to what I read, Anonymous Mommious is going to experiece a lot of changes and challenges, such as increased sense of smell, constipation, bloating, flatulence (Wow, huh? Para is making her mom fart) , heartburn and indigestion, excessive saliva, breast tenderness and change (I'm not going to comment on that) fatigue, and frequent urination.

So I've got to treat her well... my experience is that kids usually don't thank their Moms enough for everything that they endured in order to bring them into this world. I'm guilty of that, too... I think that I've thanked my Mom for enduring my dumb decisions and mistakes in life, but not enough. Moms are awesome. There's a level of love that they put into their kids in order to give them the best advantage in life. Their love endures all kind of things, and the pain they go through, they live with it becuase of the determination to bring their child into the world and give them the best advantage.  

So thank you Mom, for hauling me around in your womb. Thank you for the pain you endured with my 10.6 pound self when you were giving birth. Thanks for the quiet love you gave to me when I was a baby. Thank you for all of the conversations that we've had. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for loving me through every mistake and blunder. Thank you Mom, for saving my life and supporting me though the really dark times... I really do appreciate you and I'd give you a huge hug if you weren't so far away. I love you Mom,

And you are the best!

PS: Can I borrow the car? (Just kidding)

Baby Para's Reflections on Time

So I was having one of my telepathic conversations with Baby Para as her Mom was taking a nap yesterday... It went a little like this:

Me: "So, Baby Para, this weekend we're going to move the clocks back an hour, but I don't want you to think that you're going to be any younger for it. This is just a way for us to have more hours of daylight."

(See, I'm familiar with the fact that some kids wish they were older, and adults wish they were younger. Sometimes it's rare to find people who are at peace with their station in life.) So Baby Para responded:

Baby Para:    "(gurgle)         ."

And she or he had a good point. Sometimes it's difficult when we're expecting certain things, like a baby or a court date.  It's difficult to live in the moment. Pregnancy seems to be a good way to practice that. Every move we make now impacts the future, so each minute matters enough on it's own.

This is a cool thing about Baby Para. If asked what she or he thinks about the past accomplishments and failures of her parents, she (or he) wouldn't care about either. She (or he) wasn't around for that. She (or he) only cares what sort of people her parents are today, and she (or he) needs us to take care of her (or him) right now.  And she (or he) is leaving it up to us to do the right thing. She (or he) has her (or his) little hands full at the moment.

Thanks for keeping it real, Baby Para. We love you.

 

-Daddious



Lets weigh in on this fact....

I discovered that the largest baby ever born was in 1995.  He was 22 pounds, 8 ounces.  OUCH!  I can't even fathom giving birth to a baby that size.  I wonder what his mom ate, miracle grow?  Hopefully my baby will be the average birth weight of 7 pounds, 8 ounces.  While I was 5 pounds, 10 ounces, Daddious was a whopping 10 pounds, 6 ounces.  Hopefully our baby will average out between those two weights and I won't have a 22 pound baby.  My little body wouldn't be able to handle that well.  I will keep my fingers crossed.

                                                              

Anonymous Mommious' perspective on week 7

     So far Baby Para has been kind to me.  I haven't experienced too many of the early pregnancy symptoms.  One of the things that made me suspicious to being pregnant was the fact that every time I drank coffee I started to feel queasy.  Some of the other symptoms I have experienced include headaches, back pain, fatigue, mood swings and occasionally morning sickness (which has been occurring in the afternoon but both Baby Para's parents are non conformist so it makes since that she would be also).  Anonymous Daddious has been wonderful at helping me through my pregnancy symptoms.  He is the best at back rubs, cuddling and putting up with my rapid changing moods.  Thank you Sweetie!
     As far as cravings go Baby Para likes salt, so I have been eating a lot of salty foods.  Some of the foods I have enjoyed ( and thus also Baby Para) include Pistachios, pretzel chips, peanuts, and french fries.  She also likes very hot spicy foods.  Habaneros are a must, and Daddious and I have enjoyed trying to one up each other on our pain tolerance to different types of hot peppers.  I have to be careful though because foods that are too hot may not be good for Baby Para.  There hasn't been enough research on capsacin levels and pregnancy.  (Otherwise I would be kicking Daddious' ass at eating the most hot peppers and waiting the longest before taking a drink of milk)!
     I have started to outgrow some of my clothes.  Thank goodness for GCF (goodwill).  I have been able to buy bigger clothes without spending a big amount.  I don't think I am really showing yet.  I do feel a small hard bump in my stomach though, I am not sure if it is grapefruit size.  It seems more like apple size.
    I will keep you updated on my pregnancy as it progresses.  I would love some advice or words of wisdom from you Mommy's out there as this is my first pregnancy.

                                                  




                                                  

Weak Ate. (Week 8)

Happy Halloween! Hope you all are doing well and get lots of candy today.

Today, Baby Para is going as an alien Gummi- Bear:

Boo!

(You're pregnant.)

It is interesting reading the weekly updates on baby development. This week Baby Para is checking out It's new elbows, and it's ears are developing both internally and externally. We can only hope that maybe good taste in music will develop as well, but at this point it's almost impossible to predict. If, when born Baby Para is asking to listen to that guy from the Digital Underground, we'll know that something probably went wrong. Because the Humpty Hump wasn't cool, ever. It was only the mass denial of the early 90s that made it possible.

The digital rays of the fingers have also made themselves apparent. This is a very important developmental time, as Baby Para's mom has the long fingers of a musician, where Baby Para's Dad, who is a "slightly above back porch" musician, has frustratingly stubby digits. Genetically speaking, this is a very tense time for Daddious. Though Dad does not feel the need to live vicariously through the musical accomplishments of his offspring, he would like it to be an option, nevertheless.

There is also information saying that Baby Para's Mom's Uterus has gone from the size of a fist to a grapefruit, and that we may as well stop buying tests now as they'll all be saying the same thing from this point on.

Well, maybe that second part wasn't mentioned, but the Daddious footnotes for "What to Expect"  (Sold separately, payment in Pampers IS considered to be legal currency) do say as much. In the meantime, Daddious is having a "sympathy pregnancy glow" that has to do more with drinking coffee for two, than anything to do with hormones.

Hope you all have a great day...



Fairwell to Caffeine

Oh, woe is me!  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder pregnant and hormonal

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lattes

While I nodded nearly napping (being tired from lack of caffeine). Suddenly there came a dripping

As if of someone gently brewing, brewing with my french press pot

'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, brewing hot and steaming coffee.

Only this and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I remember is was a bleak October.

And each separate dying coffee ground wrought its caffeine upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the Cappuccino; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my travel mug of sorrow for the lost Caffeine -
For the bold and sweetened Americano whom the angels named Starbucks -
Caffeine free here for evermore.

-Anonymous Mommious

Post#1 Greetings And Salutations

Hello all.

So... You can imagine my surprise, when of all times, Thursday 10/20,  we looked behind the bellybutton of my beloved and found one of these!

There was a feeling of a pit in her stomach. Probably something about the size of a prune pit, to be specific, beginning to hog it's Mommy's nutrients, while at the same time, altering her mood from time to time and giving us the mixed emotions of "oh, crap" and "wow, awesome" and "but oh, crap" and "Still, this is going to be great!", and back to "oh, crap" again, in a never ending looped dance of reality.

Something has ultimately changed our relationship forever. Until we know the sex, we have decided to refer to our unplanned but entirely welcome offspring as "Baby Para" as in, Baby Parasite. At this point, it's pretty much just feeding off Mom and not giving us much input as to what it's thinking about.

It's not like the timing is perfect, it really isn't. But the idea of a "little us" is very exciting. So in this case we're going to be busy, for a while, at first trying to prepare the way for a good home for Para, trying to make sure that what comes out on the 22nd of June is more:

 Like this,

  

Than this:

And definitely not this:

Because that would just be weird. And we want something better for our baby than that.

So me and Baby Para's Mom will probably take turns posting some of our experiences as it relates to this while we go along, and hope you enjoy.

-Anonymous Daddious.