200 days

If Babycue is born on the due date, we're 200 days from bringing Babycue into the world.

Week 11: Now bring us some figgy pudding

Congrats Babycue: you're a 1.5"-long fig. Good work!

Smileycue is still ill, but with less frequency than before.

Daddycue is still the responsible party.

"Do you know the sex of your child?"

No. We haven't learned it yet, and we'd like to wait until the birth to learn the sex.

But just because we haven't found out doesn't mean that we don't have preferences. I would like a boy. Smileycue would like a girl. This makes sense: I have a younger brother, Smileycue has a younger sister. I understand boys, she understands girls.

Recently, we stayed with friends, Jack and Errett. Jack has a knack for knowing the gender of unborn children. Jack asked a few questions and decided we will have a boy.

We'll try and be better about using gender-inclusive language on this blog when referring to Babycue. For now, know that we don't know.

props to Cold Stone

So Dan took me out for ice cream in Iowa City tonight. We were on our way home from a wedding reception in Muscatine, and stopped for dinner, then ice cream. We headed to Cold Stone, and asked if they knew the ingredients in their ice cream...and we were handed a training manual with a chart that listed every ice cream and topping in the place and the most common food allergens and checked by which had what. So my toppings were limited to gumballs, coconut, marshmallows, and gummi bears, but there were only about 4 flavors I couldn't have. And let me tell you, coffee ice cream with marshmallows gets a big smiley face from me!

And BTW, we don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl. Some of us seem to be less than capable of gender neutrality, and assume things before we know for sure.

I wanna get physical, physical

Smileycue had her first physical yesterday. Highlights:

• Smileycue received a clean bill of health.
  
• Smileycue can pee in a cup; however, she needs help remembering to pee in said cup in the morning. She also needs help remembering to bring the cup o' pee to the doctor.
  
• Despite using the strange belly sound machine (name?), we could not hear Babycue's heartbeat. Not a surprise, as Babycue (Fetuscue?) is only 10 weeks old.
  
• Babycue will be expensive, but insurance and a monthly payment plan will ease the pain in the wallet.
  

Fun facts:

• Babycue is the size of a kumquat this week. (The picture at right is what Smileycue's belly would look like if we were having octuplets...or if she ate a mess of kumquats.)
  
• Smileycue's uterus is the size of a baseball.
  
• Smileycue is not comfortable about talking about her uterus.
• Uterus is a strange, phonetic word.
  
• Phonetic, while strange, is not a phonetic word.
• I continue to talk to Babycue about all of this. He is my confidant.
• Yes, he.
  

Thanks for reading!

Backstories, vol. i

As we share the news with family, Smileycue and I are hearing interesting stories about our time in the womb. I knew that I was late (due date - August twentysomething, but born in September). I also knew that my mom began labor at Red Lobster the evening prior to my birth. (Insert astrology joke here.) What I did not know is that after suspecting conception, my mom visited Planned Parenthood to take a pregnancy test. When my mom told my dad, he wasn't surprised because he "tried extra hard that time." My parents waited until March to share the news with friends and family. As this blog attests, we could not demonstrate that same level of self-restraint in keeping the news to ourselves.

Smileycue was born to farmers. (Insert Supergirl/planet Krypton joke here.) A few days after Smileycue's birth, her mom was in hog shed pulling pigs with one hand and nursing Smileycue with the other.

We'll share future stories of the rearings of Smileycue and Q in future posts. Please post your stories and memories of Smileycue, Q, or your own experiences in the comments.

chocolate chip cookies, plus some soy information

It seems that in some circles bringing chocolate chip cookies to social functions and the workplace is a sign that you are expecting. I know it was that way in my former workplace, and one day a coworker brought cookies to be nice and all day long people were trying to figure out who was pregnant, until she finally told them she brought them to be nice. I brought banana chocolate chip cookies to a family gathering recently and an aunt accused me of trying to say something...I had bananas I needed to use up, and those are my favorite cookies. No announcement. I had told a college student we know that story, and when I saw her yesterday she asked when I would make chocolate chip cookies. I told her I wasn't going to, and as it turns out, chocolate chips are made with SOY!

Lately I have been craving milk. I need it. I drank three glasses before bed last night, and tonight I had two glasses of chocolate milk (no soy!!!), plus a glass after work. I might even get another one in a minute. This is funny because as a small child I was lactose intolerant, and it kind of went away after puberty until I went on the pill, when it kind of came back, and I'd say that is not a problem right now. Give me milk.

I have been doing some research about soy, because it is in everything, and often disguised with different names. Here are a couple of links to what I've found so far.

Lecithin Information Guide

Soy Allergy (Food Allergy Initiative)

us and our moms

Yesterday we got back from Chicago. It was a good trip, and fun to spend time with our moms. Mine wanted to go to a fabric store--we got a lot of fabric for various projects, and a lot of frog stuff (the nursery theme we decided on). We asked our moms about being pregnant with us, and with Chris and Brenda. We learned about the weather the summers we were born. It was so hot when I was born that mom actually put me in a laundry basket with ice water in it and parked me under a shade tree. We learned how long our moms were in labor with us, and how long they carried us, and about when they told their parents. Debbie told us about finding out about Dan, and going to Planned Parenthood for the test, and the responses from the people there. When she told Mike, he said he knew she was pregnant, because he tried extra hard that time!

I had just realized in the last couple of weeks that my sister was probably considered a high risk pregnancy for mom, because of the Crohn's, and mom said they didn't think she would even carry Bren 6 months...but she carried her full term (way to go mom!). Chris was almost born on the way to the hospital, he came so fast. I hope more of these stories come out over the next few months. It is fun to find out how things went for our moms.

feeling better, name suggestions, and telling people

Whew! So, I was sick for a few days and the nurse visit really helped, and I got some of that nasty stuff out of my system. By last Wednesday night I was asking for pizza...good sign. There are still days, but overall as long as I avoid soy and eat every time my stomach thinks it might be hungry, all is well. Today I made homemade bread so I can at least have toast in the mornings. And I ate a bowl of cereal (I had been avoiding milk), and it stayed put. The kids at work had quite a time of going through every snack we sell to see if there is soy--we discovered three safe things: fruit snacks, pretzels, and marshmallows.

It was a little tricky eating in St. Louis, because some restaurants don't really know what ingredients are in their products. I ordered a root beer float at Sonic and they had quite a time checking labels. The only St. Louis food that didn't go over was the Greek salad.

So, we've gotten one name suggestion so far. Lightning. If you have your own idea, let us know.

We had an elaborate plan worked out with Chris to tell our moms in Chicago. Dan is in Denver later this week and will fly into Chicago where Debbie and Chris would meet me and my mom and we were going to surprise both moms at the same time, but Debbie backed out on Chicago and we had to call her and tell her. The next day she texted that she was excited, and since I have never known her to text, I am glad she is. We decided to tell my mom on the way home from St. Louis, and she immediately mentioned that she had a lot of sewing to do. Our dads responded a little less enthusiastically, but they're dads...mine asked if we were getting a dog (we've often referred to Brenda's dogs as grand-dogs, and our tarantula as a grand-spider).

I told my sister as she was driving us to a movie, and she almost drove off of the road. I accidentally told Dan's cousin Matt because he called while I was curled up in the bathroom, and I told him I was sick and he asked why. So I told him. It turns out he was calling to tell us about their pregnancy...due not long before ours.