Crack lady just got back from visiting my bro and his family. Check out how big and how cute my niece is getting!

I wanna squeeze that toddler hiney!

I love baby butts, don’t you?

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First, the new house has a turlet. Yes, D has tested it out

Second, by popular demand, I attempted to put Penelope in a onesie… JUST BRIEFLY! You know, just long enough to get a funny picture… she immediately ran to the door and sent kitty messages that I am sure said, “HELP! The woman has gone mad! She thinks I am a baby! She’ll be putting me in diapers next!”

“There, that’s better!” she hissed as she tossed the cloth prison aside.

And now, I give you some week 15 bumpage viewing…

First, from the front, you might just think, “Just a woman with big knockers…”

From the side, a little more bumpage showing, but in this dress you might notice the junk in the trunk before the bump in the front.

Oh, but trust me… underneath you can clearly see…

I am wearing Spanx nude colored maternity undies here. Ladies who are not currently pregnant, write that brand name down. Trust me. You WOULD NOT be seeing so much butt and thigh if I wasn’t squeezed into a pair.

Other than my little bump and recurring chin whiteheads, I have no symptoms at all! I actually missing hurling because at least then I had some reassurance that things were progressing in some way. I keep fearing I’ll wake up one day and find out this is all water weight or some serious gas. I need to feel some kicks … I know it is early, but I would love to feel some signs of life.

Say, JAG, did you check out the turlet? Someday, I hope you’ll be leaving your poops and pees in there, little one. And I’ll be there to nag you about flushing.

Well, first, it is D’s birthday. I had these things waiting for him when he came home (plus a cake in the fridge):

Beer, a card, a pic of JAG for him to look at while working on the new house, a sandwich, chips, and TP. Why TP? Because he said his goal was to take a dump on a fully installed toilet in the new house on his birthday - it won’t happen today, but maybe this weekend. He is a dreamer, that man.

Second, mother frappin’ baby stuff is in my house. These were sent by my RL friend Autogato.

Of course, Penelope claimed them right away and gave me a look that said, “Mommy, I don’t think these are in my size!… Say, these are for me, right???” She better watch out or she’ll end up wearing the smallest onesie!

Baby stuff. Actual baby stuff in my house. I need time to adjust.

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Only 6 students showed up for my educational psychology class today. They were all female and mostly older and/or more mature students.

The topic was Down Syndrome. I found the class deviating from the usual lecture format to a nice group discussion on reproduction, chromosomal abnormalities and … miscarriage. It was where the discussion went based on the questions asked (”Can you prevent Down Syndrome?” “Why don’t other Trisomies get attention?” “What caused the trisomy in the first place?”), and I totally let it go there. One student revealed that her friend had a baby with Down’s and fully blamed herself for it. Another revealed that she had a miscarriage and couldn’t shake the notion that it would happen again and described the frustration of not knowing WHY it happened and HOW she could prevent it. I ended up presenting a rundown of how cell division occurs and how messy the whole process can be, and emphasized how mothers DO NOT cause the vast majority of miscarriages and chromosomal abnormalities that occur.

I really hope I did some quality educatin’ today. Judging by people’s responses, the group had been fostering many of the rampant misconceptions regarding how conception leads to parenthood and how and why things can go awry along the way.

First, a certain someone’s IVF egg retrieval was today. If you don’t know who I refer to, see my last few password protected posts.

Second, my dad came by an looked at the last u/s pic, prompting him to ask, “Where are its legs???”

Upon hearing this, D broke down laughing and shouted, “He doesn’t have any! We’re gonna name him Stumpy. Stumpy Tater for all the potatoes he makes mommy eat!”

My dad also pointed to my stomach and asked, “What do they… um… eat while in there?” Bamboo, dad, don’t you know that?

Crack Lady also ended our tepid phone call by asking, “You realize this means D has to finish the house?”

D responded with, “Nooooo - I planned to let the little guy help me! Wasn’t that the point of having one? Free labor, right?”

We were rolling on the ground laughing. It felt good.

Oh, and finally, despite the rampant use of male pronouns employed by commenters and family members alike, we do not know the gender of JAG. There is a close to 50% chance that JAG could be a girl. I am just saying…

… and she couldn’t sound less enthusiastic!

I said, “I am 14 weeks pregnant.”

She replied, “Oh… again?”

Um, no, not again… see, since I have never even been 14 weeks pregnant, beyotch!

At least I have the internets to cheer me on.

Yesterday I ventured into a … maternity shop. I got some shorts for our upcoming vacation to Oregon. I kept waiting for the sales clerk to ask me what the heck I was doing in there… “Ma’am, this shop is for pregnant ladies only.”

At the register, I got quite a different treatment, being asked, “Will this be your firstborn?” I just thought “First born? What makes you so certain we’ll make it to a birth?” Then she asked, “Will you be nursing this baby?” Baby? It is a fetus - lady, you are jumping ahead a bit too much for me!

So, as you can see, while I am still far more positive after reaching the 2nd trimester (14 weeks today!), I still can’t quite accept a real live baby outcome unequivocably just yet. When D and I plan, we still preface things with, “If things keep progressing well…”

Then I checked out the pile of ads and freebies that were thrown into the bag with my stretch khaki shorts - ads for baby furniture galore, even toddler beds and potties. Whoah! JAG is still covered in lanugo and the eyelids are still fused - is it really time to start planning potty training???

After the maternity shop, I went to Target to get my usual biweekly list of necessities. In a truly dissociative experience, I found myself wheeling my cart up to the baby registry and, yes, creating a registry. Now, there is nothing in that registry, but one now exists. I practically ran away after doing it, worrying that the screen would start blinking, “You’re awfully early with this, Ms. January due date!”

After Target, I hit Whole Foods, the capital of smug pregnant bellies IMO. The lady giving out beer samples started to offer me one of the tiny paper cups of organic brew, then retracted with a glimpse at my stomache. I wanted to shout, “That’s right, bitch! I’m in the bump club now!” Of course, I didn’t. I found the nearest reflective surface and checked that, yes, indeed, the small bump was still there.

Then… in the checkout line… I found myself behind a woman I went to a high school with. AND… she’s pregnant! I was overcome with jealousy - despite the fact that, yes, I am pregnant, too. I still don’t feel like it is real or that it will last necessarily. I feel like mine is somehow different than other women’s pregnancies - less tangible, more fragile.

Maybe eventually I’ll get the guts to actually add some things to my Target registry. Eventually.

A colleague just congratulated me and confided that she is also pregnant and waiting for her first 2nd trimester u/s before sharing the news. She had one loss right after my last one, so I am thrilled for her. We vented about gaining baby weight and not getting an actual baby and then showing quite quickly with the next pregnancy… it was awesome. I have a RL belly buddy (wow - did I just use that term? Who am I?).

Speaking of showing, I wore a dress rather than a baggy shirt and pants today - one grad student actually asked, “How have you been hiding that?” I suspect my first day at the new job could be quite interesting.

With coverage…

Raw belly action…

Like my granny panties? You know you do. And if you are wondering what is with the faces, I used the camera timer and how no idea how to maintain a decent face.

Oh, and I swear I do have dry hair most of the time, I just prefer belly shots first thing in the morning, when it is pure JAG with no meals interfering with the profile.

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I just had the most uneventful visit ever. I got to have my first belly ultrasound, and JAG was bopping all over the place.

It feels weird to report this, but everything looks good.

We’ve decided to start telling people, even our moms. Heck, I even added a baby ticker to Facebook - how is that for openness? Maybe I’ll even joke about being pregnant with my students… who knows in this strange new reality?

Hello, second trimester… it is soooo nice to meet you.

D couldn’t get over how much JAG has come to look like, well, a baby. He actually said, “I think I really need to finish the house now.”

When Penelope sniffed the u/s pics, I told her, “Meet your competition, little miss.”

It feels almost wrong to be this content.

There is nothing as romantic as having your hubby stop in his tracks at the sight of your full-on naked body and gasp, “Whoah!… Um… pregnant boobies!” as if he doesn’t know whether he is frightened, turned on, or repulsed.

Apparently the changes aren’t all in my head.

Later he eyed me in my green top and said, “Babe, you are most definitely showing.”

I want my next u/s now.  People are asking me if I am pregnant, and I am saying “Yes,” but I still think, “Well, that doesn’t mean the fetus is still growing…”

Besides hoping the appt goes well, I hope that such an appt at 13 weeks would actually convince me this could lead to a take-home baby.

I feel I have become boring because all I ever talk or write about anymore is my neurotic reluctance to connect pregnancy to parenthood. Don’t I have any other thoughts? The answer would pretty much be nope.

BTW - I am expanding rapidly, I need a new bra, my nipples have darkened, I have gotten those little red weblike veins on my boobs, I have broken out in a pizza face almost as bad as my worst grad school face, and I get a killer headache every three days or so. My chocolate cravings have returned, but leafy veggies still nauseate me. I may be getting a linea nigra, too.

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There is good news over at Vee and Jay.

I am so excited! To say it is their turn is such an understatement.

There it is on my Baby Gaga page - “You are in Week 12.”

Hello, Week 12, so nice to finally meet you. I can see the second trimester coming up the walk as we speak. Can I go out and help her with her luggage?

Baby Gaga says now is probably a good time to share the news. You mean, like tell Crack Lady??? Tell my students (some of whom I have caught staring at my belly)? Mmmm… maybe after the u/s next Tuesday. Heck, maybe after I get to see an actual crying baby covered in my bodily goo.

There is a great article by Peggy Orenstein in the NY Times magazine today discussing how modern women, after being told they can achieve anything growing up, have also come to blame themselves for all failures, even physical ones. Cancer? Infertility? It is our fault for being too negative or stressed. Sound familiar?

In psychological terms, we employ a heavily internal attributional style - successes and failures are up to us, not others or outside factors (like the whole of human biology). This works great for taking initiative and not giving up on career goals and such… but it can leave you a frazzled mess when dealing with physical phenomena like, well, TTC, coping with miscarriage, trying again after m/c, secondary IF after m/c, and, of course, pregnancy after all that. If something goes wrong, I know darn well I’ll find a way to wonder if it was my fault.

I have to remember that, beyond not smoking crack and punching myself in the gut, this is largely out of my hands. I just have to trust that our combined DNA and this uterus can handle the job. Scary.

Body, you’ve come this far. Please keep up the good work.

Please visit Courtney’s blog and offer your support.

Okay, the puking is getting worse. The other night we were wondering if maybe I had the flu on top of the P word it was so intense.

Always at night, always after dinner. D has figured out a pattern - it is always when I eat spinach. D claims his spawn is shouting, “Enough with the health food, mama! Give me meat and potatoes!”

So much for trying to be healthy. After I ate a baked potato with cheese last night and felt fine, D, the tater tot afficianado declared, “That IS my baby!”

I still wince when he uses the B word. Maybe after another good u/s I’ll embrace the concept of an actual living being resulting from a pregnancy.