Like a Steel Trap

such is the mind of my brother. Yesterday we were discussing baby names and I was running a few things past him to get his opinion. This was a long and rather protracted discussion where he gave a significant amount of input and also divulged his own preferences should he have children. This went off on a tangent about adoption vs. sympathetic surrogates and came back full circle to the name topic. at which point I asked him not to mention any of the names we had discussed. Specifically not to tell my mother as I was not really ready for her input as i was still formulating ideas. Brother Platypus responds "Don't worry, I don't even remember what they were. Was that important? Should I have written it down"

Seriously, the man could be a spy. If he were ever captured, they'd never have to worry about him revealing the master plan. I'm surprised he gets home at night.

Think Pink

Which is exactly what I will be doing for the next several months. I had a sonogram last night that looked like we should be expecting two little girls sometime in July!

here's a funny conversation I had with my brother today:

AP: So we had the sonogram and it looks like they are girls
Brother P: That's great!
AP: really, you wanted girls
BP: Well, I was afraid they'd be boys and be all about how many sports teams they were on. Then I'd be all "oh, that's nice. What do you think of this wall color?"
AP: Funny that's pretty much what The Duck said

The Duck is totally psyched about having girls. his words: "this way I can read stories and give them kisses and not have them be all weird about it"

ah, men.

I would fall off my bar stool

this is exactly what I would have done if you would have found me a few short years ago perched in an upper east side establishment of questionable repute with jack and coke in at least one hand and told me that I would not only be married, but married to the Duck, and not just pregnant, but pregnant with twins.

Actually I would have thrown my drink in your face. And probably sworn a blue streak. But I was most likely drunk. So you will have to excuse my younger self and her bad manners.

The truth is, that I never really expected to be here. I mean, married is one thing. It's bad enough. The whole "sell out to the man, sign the papers, pay the fee" thing is not my style. But the Duck said it was important to him to be married before having children. And well, let's face it. I'm inching up on 30 and I should probably get started.

So I said Ok. and we planned a wedding. and we had a fun time without having to sell any major organs to pay for it. Which is not to say that we aren't up to our eyeballs in debt. We did just buy a house. Which needed a lot of work. And I thought it would be brilliant to buy a timeshare (which was before the house purchase). And I needed to go to Greece for my honeymoon.

I didn't really think I would get this pregnant this fast. I mean, I know I joked that I was going to slingshot my diaphragm into the Hudson immediately following my ceremony. I didn't. My mother would have had a stroke. and then I never would have heard the end of it "the time you almost killed mom with your contraceptive device". I really don't need that.

And I'm sure I've mentioned that I live in a very old, very small house. With a rather surly kitten. There is barely room for us, let alone 2 cribs, 2 highchairs, 2 bouncyplaylandthingers.

How the hell am I supposed to afford the things to store these children in? not to mention, where am I going to store them. And let's not get started on the fact that my salary would barely cover daycare for one baby, but surely not two.

I've seen about a hundred thousand ultrasounds in my job as genetic highpriestess, but damn it all to hell if they aren't the cutest things bouncing around in there.

and by in there, I mean me. which is trippy. but really really cool!

BABIES!!!

Brrrrr

Well, at least it's cold today. After yesterdays rant, the universe must have heard my lamenting and sent me some frigid arctic air. That makes me happy in a twisted way. If I can't throw snow at the Duck, at least I can force him to wear gloves. Small victories.

I have nothing else really blog worthy to report. Yesterday we went to Fortunoff to try and scam them out of some lenox soup bowls. That was a miserable failure. I also managed to see 10 patients yesterday and not write a single chart note. Also going to be a miserable failure when I attempt to remember who has what today. And this morning when I attempted to get dressed, I realized my black dress pants, which up until the wedding were almost obscenely too big, now barely zip.

Yippie. I have already gained my allotment for the first trimester and I have 4 weeks to go. That's gonna rock, I'm sure.

We did get a treadmill from a friend and the Duck is going about trying to cancel our still-shiny-from-lack-of-use gym membership. Maybe I will be able to waddle my fat furry ass upstairs to use the treadmill in my house. Although I've had it for 2 days and I haven't made it up there yet...

Is it too early to start buying maternity muumuus?

And the Hits Keep on Comin'

well boys and girls, I am a very poor blogger. I know this, I read other people's blogs. really wonderful essays on what makes life tick. my entries are small and infrequent and not very earth shattering. I know I'm not much of a writer. But I have something new to write about. Hopefully something that is moderately more interesting than ranting about my wedding. And go get yourself some cocoa because this is doozy of a post.

I am pregnant.

Yup, really really actually pregnant. I figure it happened right after we got back from Greece. So that makes it 7 weeks tomorrow. I know that this may seem a little absurd. I mean, I haven't even been married for two full months. But I went to the doctor last wednesday and they did an ultrasound and I had a definitive gestational sack with an embryo that appeared to have a heart flutter.

My profession being what it is, I know I advise friends and patients all the time to keep their early pregnancies to their immediate family. This is supposedly to save you from having to explain the very frequent early miscarriages. A good friend of mine recently went through a very similar situation, only last month. She went for her first ultrasound and they had difficulty detecting a FHR or a fetal pole. She hadn't told anyone and so the miscarriage was her own business.

But it was really hard. It was hard for her to go through that alone without her family or friends knowing and being able to be compassionate. Not that there's anything anyone could have done. Except maybe it would have been nice to be able to cry to someone. Because it sucks.

So I decided to tell quite a few people. Starting with my mom. Who I think is excited about it, but is being strangely quiet about the whole thing. Sort of the same way she was when I told her I was buying a house and again when we told her we were getting married. It's like she doesn't want to let on what she really thinks... It's sort of annoying. Especially when it's your mom and she was the kind of mom who was up in all your business for, oh, your entire life.

I think she's excited though as she's decided to tell everyone she knows. Which includes hideously annoying dude who lives with her. We can't discuss him. We'll just call him the Rat. He is small, presumptuous, slovenly, unhelpful, barely employed and very very loud. So, yeah, Rat is fitting. We don't know why on earth she would want him around, but I guess she finds him amusing... this is the same woman who laughs out loud at the previews for Talledega Nights: the Legend of Ricky Bobby. So, yeah, not so discerning in that respect.*

In addition to the Rat, she's telling her bridge club tonight (which in her defense is also my bridge club and I haven't been there since the big W and now I'm too tired and must go home and go to bed after work everyday) and she wants to tell the people on her job.

So I guess that means she's excited. I told a few of my girlfriends last night. We were out to dinner. It's a monthly thing we've done since college; whoever can make it out, we try to meet up to chit chat. In the past it was as many as 15, but now it's usually 4 or 5 of us. I was a little nervous to spill the beans being that I'm the first one and apparently (as I learned last night) everyone else has been trying.

Now I feel a little like a jerk. I mean, I didn't even try. I just stopped trying NOT to. One of the girls is taking daily temps, another is taking fertility meds and the third, well, you read about her last month... I just feel like i should have worked a little harder for it.

According to the Duck, this is Karma. This is my reward for being a good person and doing the right thing about his family. Instead of following my instinct of slowly torturing them and then burning their house down with them inside, I was the bigger better person. And they shit all over me. Repeatedly.

Take the example of the wedding rings... What? I didn't tell the story of the wedding rings?? this is going to be a long post. Maybe I should do this in bullets for ease of reading and understanding:

• The Duck's father is a jewler in the NY diamond district. We will refer to him as the Chimp
  
• He made my engagement ring. it is a custom design
• He is a very difficult person to deal with. He is ignorant and opinionated
• He is also easily swayed by people he deems to be experts (who, coincidentally, never are)
• We went to him to make the wedding bands
• We thought we were going to have to pay him for them (another long story. Short version: they are cheap)
• The three of us compromised on a design
• I was never in love with the design, but it matched the Duck's and it didn't rock the boat
• The Chimp tells us about this "new" metal that's better, stronger, faster than platinum and half the price
• We agree, he's the expert and we are paying for them so we'd like to keep cost low.
• Chimp informs us this is our wedding gift, don't expect anything else.

Fast forward ----->>>> Wedding comes, goes, we get rings, they are fine, we wear them to Greece

• Second week in Greece, the Duck notices that his ring appears to be pitted and dinged, rather severely. It looks like he's worn it through a war for 10 years.
• Mine has a huge gouge out of the side.
• We've been on vacation... sort of low on the "ring damaging" activities
• Upon return, the Duck goes to see his father to show him the damage
• The Chimp is astounded. He then reads the material spec sheets on this "new" material
• Turns out it's weaker than white gold.
• Chimp marches back over to the caster who he had make the rings and demands restitution
• Caster says "wow, that sucks. I'll cut you a deal on the platinum to make new rings"
• Chimp calls the Duck and tells him he can make new rings, but we have to give ours back
• He wants to sell them back to the caster to re-coup the money he already laid out. for our gift. which was defective. (arrrgggghhhhh)
• Platypus has mental breakdown and tells Duck he can have her wedding band back when he cuts it from her cold, dead finger
• Platypus then realizes that she is being played here. She then decides she will get the wedding band she wanted originally, since they have to be re-done.
• Duck talks to Chimp. They redesign bands. Duck gives Chimp a solid 18K ring the Chimp had made him for a highschool graduation gift.
• Chimp accepts this as payment for new rings (aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhh)
• Duck and Platypus wait. Patiently. For word that the actual rings are ready. But we still don't know if he's going to try and charge us. For our gift.
  

Ok, so we are up to speed. Now the Duck and I have recieved a written invitation to Chanukah lunch at his parents. And why are we being summoned in such a way? Well, because the Duck's prodigal sister will be in town for the holiday. She will be making the arduous journey from wherever it is that she actually lives (she tends to be a wee bit of a fibber) with her husband, who is a Marine and we were pretty sure was deployed overseas (because his mother, The Evil Flying Monkey, told us he was). So it turns out he's actually stateside and they can manage the trip for Chanukah to recieve gifts a plenty, but they couldn't bear to make the trip up 2 months ago for her only brother's wedding.

I'm pretty sure we recieved this lovely written invitation so that we would know who we were supposed to be bringing gifts for. I am also pretty sure I won't be going. And finally, I am damn sure that I am not sharing my big belly-related news with them until necessary. I want to wait until a Christening and send them a lovely invite. The Duck thinks college graduation should do nicely.



*which is not to say I don't find that shit funny as all hell.