Transl. “We’re having (another) baby!”

(Sorry for posting this so late. Mom stayed to chat a while… Frank nicely scanned all the images, but I wanted to process them and add comments for posting online.)

I LOVE my obstetrician. She’s an ultrasound magician and generous with the hospital’s ultrasound printer. We came out of there with near 8 feet from the paper roll.

These are just the best. There’s 15 in all! (Follow the album from the first pic for all the shots.) But wait a minute, let me rewind a bit…

The simplest plan for today was leaving Xavier at daycare all day, because I had the two doc appointments of unknown length throughout the day, and picking him up for a few hours mid-schedule would just throw him off the babysitter’s lunch/nap schedule and make me in a hurry for no good reason. Thus finding myself on my own – Frank safely dropped off at work – I managed to fill my first hour with nothing much and then show up at the doc for 9h30 precisely. The appointment was handled by a resident, she went through the batallion of questions for the first appointment and did the gynecological (?) exam I was due for (yay me). At the end of the appointment, she whipped out the fetal doppler and I held my breath.

It picked up my heartbeat. (Well yeah, it always does that…) But she moved it around, and there it came up, like the echo of a running stag, or the rythmic whoosh of a train speeding by. The fast heartbeat of a tiny human.

Smile wearing, I greeted my ob-gyn as she came to check on her resident at the end of the appointment and order bloodwork. I’m lucky to have such a great obstetrician, she’s really nice, efficient and – as noted previously – an ultrasound genius. (I wonder what she’s like during birth, though, as she wasn’t on call when Xavier was born.)

With the rest of my day opened until 3pm, I figured I’d get the bloodwork done after lunch, while I didn’t have to be at work or with Xavier. I got some errands done, celebrated my good mood by buying Xavier a new toy and went to lunch with Frank.

Bloodwork was unpleasant at best. My vein stopped spilling halfway through the 7th of 8 vials, which required for a second technician to come in and jab a second needle in to finish up. Then, having had nothing to drink since morning (test requires 4 hours without liquid intake and 2 hours without peeing), I was challenged to fill three urine samples. Sigh.

Did yet more errands (Frank says I’ve been shopping all day), where my dis-hydratated state caught up with me, but I managed to remedy that and was on time to pick up Frank at work, from where we took the direction of the hospital.

Appointment was at 3h30, we saw the doc at 4h45, no comment on that. Then you know the rest… the images above say it better than words.

Every pregnant woman has a moment where she finds out she’s going to have a baby. For many, that’s what the pregnancy test is for. First ultrasound is my moment.

Good news. Be back once Xavier’s in bed for details…
Bonnes nouvelles. De retour lorsque Xavier sera au lit pour les détails…

I’m still not sure of this pregnancy’s age – I’m expecting it to range between 9-10 and 13 weeks. As I mentionned earlier (last paragraph), I had my reservations on the pregnancy’s progression in its beginning; there has not been other specific worrisome signs since, and I have been fed with similar and worst pregnancy stories all with a good ending in the meantime, but it is necessarily a doubt that has shadowed me through the weeks. It has been like being astride two horses at once, these last weeks – a part of me doesn’t want to get over-enthused, from fear of disappointement, and the other is trying to hold a positive attitude to give the pregnancy its fair chance and send a good energy to the foetus.

Tomorrow we’ll know. I have an appointment with the OB/Gyn in the morning. She will probably measure my uterus to try to figure out the age of the pregnancy, and will undoubtly try to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I’m expecting to be about 13 weeks along; if that is the case, there’s a good chance for us to hear the heartbeat. This is my ideal scenario : it doesn’t guarantee the ultrasound will be perfect, but it would appease my fear of a miscarriage and it would let me breathe the rest of the day.

Late in the afternoon is the appointment at the hospital for the first ultrasound, probably with my same OB/Gyn. She was the one who did both of Xavier’s ultrasounds, and she does a great job with those (and she gives out many copies, yay!). If we haven’t been able to hear the heart that morning, it’s then we’ll know what to expect. Frank will be present for this appointment; maybe we’ll ask if we can film the monitor.

I leave you with this, then. I’ll be back tomorrow night with news and – I’m really hoping! – pretty ultrasound images. Good night to you (I know I won’t be sleeping, hehe!!)

Quick finds – I’m not posting my final order to Amazon, I know, but I still have until Thursday to figure it out, so more on that later…

Another year rolls in

Last year I found at Costco a cool “mom” fridge calendar. I thought I didn’t have enough appointments and events to jot down to make it useful, but after seeing it there a couple of times, temptation prevailed and I bought one. Turns out, I DID have enough stuff to fill up an acceptable percentage of it. It’s proven useful this year, with Xavier’s doctor checkups and visits at the clinic for shots, and just to remember weekend events, dentists appointments, auto oil changes, etc. AND I gotta say I enjoyed using it; it’s a nice tool, and pretty too.

These calendars feature big squares perfect for notes, they are printed on writable paper and are fridge-freezer-door sized. They come with magnets for the back and fun stickers to highlight everyday family activities (sports, hobbies, dentist, doctor, birthday, etc.). They’re sold in September, as they start with the school year, but they hold 16 months – the drawback is that you throw away a couple months if you buy one yearly.

Last year I got from Costco the 2006-2007 version from MoreTimeMoms – here it is for Canada and there’s a “see inside pages” if you want a better look. It’s available in US or Canada, and there’s a French version.

I totally recommend it and would have gotten the 2007-2008 edition, except that the months feature new images of the same cartoon family, so I got the similar one from MotherWord instead at WalMart. The stickers aren’t as cute, and the day squares don’t have handy lines in them, plus the shape is a different, but the month headers are full of funny little bears doing seasonal stuff. It’ll do for this year.

So far I like to keep the pages once I’ve ripped them off the calendar – some type of archives of our days : if I need to remember when this or that thing happened in the future, I can look it up.

Design tips and artwork

Quickly, still… I’ve stumbled upon this blog 2-3 times already when looking for tips and techniques for Photoshop/Illustrator etc., and have now suscribed to the RSS. It’s called Veerle’s blog: she’s a Belgian illustrator/designer doing beautiful artwork and sharing handy and fun tips and howto’s for Photoshop, Illustrator and web design. For those who like to dabble with these…

Have a nice week, all! (Our Awaited Wenesday is coming this week: I should be posting again once or twice before the week is out.) I leave you with pics from babysitting Romane on Wednesday, and Xavier visiting Félix on Saturday. Also: video of Xavier’s first bike ride.

Let’s play a game.

I’ve finished reading Harry Potter 7 well over a week ago, and I’m now looking for my next read. I have some stuff lined up – and a 5$ gift certificate from Amazon valid only in August, how unfortunate… – but there are still some decisions to be made. That’s where I’ll be taking votes. Fun, isn’t it?

Usually, I order for at least 40$CDN with Amazon in order to get the free shipping. I figure they’re gonna say my 5$ rebate won’t count in the 40$, so I’m expecting to buy for 45$ this time around. My order, so far :

• His Dark Materials Book 2 – The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman: Continuing the trilogy. I’m not sure yet if I should be getting the French version or the original English version. Usually I go for the original for obvious reasons, but I’ve read and own the first book in French for this one. The English version, however, is 5$ cheaper and in stock at Amazon. What say you?
• The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum : This is NOT the genre of books I usually go for. This is part of why I’m deciding to try it out. I quite enjoyed the movies – the last of which we saw on Saturday – and I think it will be the first book I’ll read AFTER seing the movie, should be interesting.

That’s it so far, and it amounts to 19,68$. I’m thinking of picking up another de Lint, maybe Widdershins, but hesitating.

I know there’s a big list of books I want to read tucked away in some corner of my mind, but I just can’t remember any of them at the moment. So if you have a good recommandation, now’s the time. I’ll simply request that you keep to books under 800 pages or so, and preferably stand-alone novels, unless it’s a really really good read. I’ve been through Kay, Hobb, Gabaldon and Tartt, btw.

And the last question : which book do I start on first? I might well let people decide for me on this one.

I don’t follow the news much, so I’m not usually aware of most local (and world) news. I do my thing, and that’s fine by me. Today was different. We’ve been sneaking a peek every other hour, trying to see if something new came up. In fact, there’s been hardly any other stories mentionned than the one we were watching for.

Most people from our town will already know what story I’m refering to. For those from afar, the short version: a girl of 9 went missing on Wenesday night – she’d been out around 8pm and never came back home. The news ran like a trail of powder around the city yesterday, and today intensive searches with (I heard) around 200-300 volunteers turned up… nothing. With some evidence suggesting this, they’re now seriously considering a kidnapping. (For updates and other info, I recommend Troisrivieres911.com. There’s a guy there that’s always listening in on the police waves and reporting everything local. That guy’s doing an awesome job right now.)

Frank wanted to go, but there were already two coworkers gone volunteering, and with some other people on vacation, work couldn’t spare him. My parents both went. We used to know the girl’s father. His parents (the girl’s grandparents) were our next door neighbours growing up; I delivered the paper to their house for years. Their son was a couple years older than us; his sister and he would sometimes babysit us – he’s a real nice guy, always a smile on his face back then. I saw him on the news, adding some details to the description of his missing daughter – the colour of the keys she had around her neck. I don’t envy him right now.

The fact that I used to know this guy, and being a mother myself now, I’m terribly hoping they find her alive and well. Every hour that passes deepens the ominous shadows lurking around the event, and a third night has now descended upon our town. We’ll spare a thought for her and we’ll keep watching.

Fingers crossed.