12 weeks (and 2 days); Text later?

Happy Valentine's Day (and 11 weeks!)

*WARNING: those of you disturbed by graphic nutritional information should skip to below the stars*

Question of the morning: Should I or shouldn't I have a third donut for breakfast...?

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Let's see, where were we?

Weight: 142.8
What I did for Valentine's Day:
Got up at 6:30ish; started working 10 statistics problems due at 1; skipped morning classes (weather was very iffy, anyway); dug out car and drove on slippery/unplowed roads to school; got to stats class late only to find out that Professor Statistics would have accepted the homework late anyway (due to the weather); held office hours (to which no one came); made slight progress on Logic problem (I know, I know, TIME TO BE DONE with that already!!); drove office mate home; started feeling Icky in car due to lunch consisting of [DON'T LOOK!] potato chips; stopped at grocery store on way home to pick up steaks and ice cream [forgot the card]; tried to help a guy in a red Lexus sports car who got stuck in the snow at the traffic light right in front of me: shoveling efforts successful, guy makes it through intersection, I'm now waiting for the light, but the sensor has now been Offended by this guy sitting there spinning his tires through one green light cycle, so a couple of cycles go by without a green light for us; I wait until the people on the other side have a left turn arrow, wait for them to go and then go straight through the intersection on a red light (I HAD NO CHOICE, people, did I?!?); lady in car behind me who takes part in this little episode (shoveling Lexus, advising about messed up light cycle) is also going to Redner's (of course; where else would anyone be going with the roads like that?) and decides to strike up an extended conversation with me in the store about how men can't drive stick;

make it home; cook steaks; call Mommy (thanks for cards! and money!); watch a little TV; turn comatose by around 9 and go to bed (because I am just SO romantic that way...)

Plan for today: 1) Homework (goes without saying, right?)
2) Go to the campus health center and find out if I have an ear and/or sinus infection (I've never been told I have a sinus infection, so I don't know how they can actually tell that you have a sinus infection, but I have all this pressure in my face and REALLY thick mucous (sorry, TMI...?) so maybe? I don't know.)

Sorry no pictures! Here's the word from Babycenter:

How your baby's growing: Your fig-sized baby is now fully formed — measuring 1 1/2 inches long and weighing in at a quarter of an ounce. His skin is still transparent, allowing many of his blood vessels to show through. Some of his bones are beginning to harden, and tiny toothbuds are starting to appear under his gums. His fingers and toes have separated, and he may soon be able to open and close his fists. He's already busy kicking and stretching, and his tiny movements are so fluid they look like water ballet. These movements will increase as his body grows and becomes more developed and functional. As his diaphragm develops, your tiny tenant may also start to get the hiccups. Because he's still so small, though, you won't feel any of his workouts or intrauterine gulps until sometime between weeks 16 and 20.

Prenatal appointment (just to see the nurse- still haven't met the obstetrician) scheduled for Wednesday. I bet she might have something to say about all the donuts...

Love, Neb

10 Weeks (*UPDATED! NOW WITH PICTURES!)

Here are 10-week pictures for your enjoyment... but wait, you say, how can these two pictures be of the same person on the same day (taken 1 minute apart)?!? Secret: in the picture on the left I was standing up as straight as possible and holding my breath. ;-) Too bad I can't walk around like that. (Thanks to Mike for the photography.)

[Random Aspects of the] State of the Nebiverse:
Weight: 141.6
Morning Sickness Alert Level: Yellow (Have I explained this to you before? There's a Morning Sickness Alert System on the Chalkboard in my office; Red= "Watch Out!", Orange= "It could happen!", Yellow= "Not TOO bad...", Green= "Barely noticeable," and Blue="I feel great!".) Some have pointed out that green should represent a state of active vomiting, but I picked the colors to match the National Terror Alert system (at least I think I did... how many colors does that have...?)

Dinner last night: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream with Magic Shell and a BANANA (w00t! an Authentic Plant Food™!!)

Frustration of the Day: Second pretnatal appointment scheduled for today at 2:00 has been cancelled because the nurse I was going to meet with is out sick. Of course she can't help being sick, but I cancelled today's office hours and rescheduled them for tomorrow because of this appointment, and I shouldn't un-cancel the office hours at the last minute like this... so I'll have to come into school tomorrow just for the office hours... grrr!

Coffee: Yes, please.

Logic Homework: Still working on it! Really! I'll be done... "soon"......

Thinking about: Pregnancy seems to go both really fast and really slow at the same time. In three weeks I'll be done with the first trimester- Wow!!- but on the other hand, it seems like it's taking FOREVER for me to look pregnant. Maybe this is why the wise people wait until later to break the news: it's awkward going for two months or something with everyone you work with knowing you're pregnant, but you really not LOOKING pregnant. *sigh* I'm sure when I'm big in the last trimester I'll remember these days of superior mobility fondly, though, so I should appreciate each stage as it comes along, right?

Hmmm, that's all I've got for now. I should go back to work, anyway. Picture to appear later today or tomorrow (if Nate's officemate Mike is kind enough to help us all out with that again...)

Love to all! Kisses!
Neb

9 Weeks and 2 Days (with pictures! *UPDATED!* Now with text!)

Sorry for the delay in the nine week update- despite the glut of digital cameras in the world, it proved to be rather tricky to get these photos taken and uploaded, and I wanted to have them for you to all enjoy this week. This was my first-day-of-school outfit this year so let's pretend that this is the last-first-day-of-school picture that I never had taken, shall we? And here you can see Galois's expanding home (aka my expanding midsection.) Now, why don't we all be very nice and pretend that
1) my stomach was completely flat and didn't look at all like this before pregnancy [yeah, right- I've only gained 2 lbs and if you had taken me to a Chinese buffet 3 months ago and photographed me immediately afterwards I am pretty sure the result would rival this.]
2) this picture is NOT comparable to the pictures of most women somewhere in the middle of the second trimester... la la la, I can't hear you...!

Ahem. Anyway, I am going to try to update with these external pictures of Galois every week or two since a) Certain Doting Grandparents are reading this website now and will have to accept these as poor substitutes for the weekly ultrasounds they'd rather see (did y'all know ultrasounds cost about $250? wow!?!) and b) I know the rest of you really couldn't be more thrilled than to see a never-ending series of photos of flab. Because honestly? The baby in there is only an inch big or so. The rest, as Chris Long would say (scientifically and rather delicately) is "adipose tissue."

Anyway, let's see, what else would you like updates on? I weighed 143.0 yesterday morning which is, yes, less than I did a week and a half ago- we all know weight fluctuates. But I'm happy because I think now it's unlikely I'll be one of those people that gains 15 lbs or something in the first trimester (not that there's anything wrong with that, people-who-gain-15-lbs-or-something-in-the-first-trimester!) It's just that starting out pregnancy borderline-overweight, I'd like to stay on target if possible, especially early on. ("Target," for those of you not reading pregnancy propaganda all the time, is 2-5 lbs first trimester and about a pound a week the rest of the pregnancy for a total of 25-35 lbs.) Okay, end of mild weight obsession.

My lack of morning sickness was going great (thanks to B6! my best [vitamin] friend!) until about Wednesday, when it mysteriously returned. I don't really know what happened, but I'm pretty sure there was a sequence of events that went something like:
1) feel sickness returning Wednesday, no apparent reason :-(
2) Decide on Thursday to order Pizza Pan Deep Dish Pizza for lunch. With bacon! [Because I am manifestly idiotic!]
3) Dinner Thursday night: Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with Magic Shell. Yeah!
4) Friday: The sickness! Oh, the sickness! Why isn't the B6 working anymore?

Of course, maybe I should insert reason 0: Dinner Tuesday night: fried chicken! Or even reason 1/2: Utter lack of sleep Sunday/Monday/Tuesday nights during Homework Marathon. But you never know. This morning so far I feel better, despite yesterday eating, among other [more healthy] things, 1/2 piece of the leftover bacon pizza, a pudding cup, a handful of Nacho Cheese Doritos, a Maple Walnut Crunch ice cream cone, and a chocolate glazed donut. So I think the sickness was due to severe lack of sleep.

[Okay, okay, oh my goodness, rereading the last paragraph I realize that some of you out there have just gone into cardiac arrest just READING my food selections, and for that, I am so very sorry! No, my diet is not [quite] that bad ALL the time- at least, I don't think it is- I'm sorry! I'll try to do better! The vegetables! The vegetables for the baby! I know! I know! At the beginning of pregnancy I was eating better because I had to because my constipation and gas were so bad (TMI, sorry!) but now that I've been feeling better I've been less... hmmm... restrained? :-) I take my prenatal vitamins! Every day!]

*Sigh*

Moving on. Emotionally? I am happy about the baby. (I could just type that every week for the next 30 weeks probably.) Glad the ultrasound went well. Starting to think about nesting, I think. Although it's hard to Nest when your spouse is sort of a Migratory Bird who will need to Mirgrate right around the time the eggs are supposed to be hatching (okay maybe that analogy only goes so far...) But during Cryptography yesterday I made a List of Things we "Need" for the Baby (there's no point in taking notes in that class... it's Professor Algebra from last year, the jolly, non-linear one who gives lectures with content of Measure 0) and that made me happy.

In school news, as mentioned above there was a Homework Marathon from about last Sunday to Wednesday, and it was really cool because Jesus made the Homework Miracle for me in statistics! I showed up to school at 8:00 on Wednesday morning with 6 out of 13 HW problems done, and they were due at 1:00, and I had 3 hours of classes inbetween... so I was just going to do what I could and hope for the best. But Jesus made the magic and somehow, they ALL got done! Yay! :-) This weekend is a [FINISHING] Logic, Algebra, and Cryptography [which will be easy] weekend. (Logic is an incomplete from LAST semester, for those of you playing along at home.) Algebra is only 6 problems due Monday night, which is much better than the first two assignments. So there is hope. I need to cut Nate's hair and I really need to take the car for an oil change, but we'll see if those get done. Thursday this week I didn't get any work done, but I ran the dishwasher twice (which tells you something about the state of our kitchen!!) and took down our Christmas decorations (yay me! that's unusually early for me. ;-)). So progress is being made. Every semester of school I'm amazed how good God is to me in helping me get things done that look impossible.

I guess the other main thing on my mind right now is the conversations I've had with professors over the last few weeks, professors expressing disappointment that I'm not going to complete a PhD. I realize that with different values and worldviews and priorities in life, it might be impossible for me to make them understand why someone would invest two years in graduate study of mathematics and then retire. In their way of thinking, everyone who loves mathematics and has the ability to get a PhD should do so, and from the Math Department's point of view, every student that leaves without completing a PhD is one more lost opportunity to improve the department's status and ranking among universities. But even realizing that it might be impossible to make them understand, I feel compelled to try, to explain that there are things in life that motivate people other than money and prestige. And even though trying to communicate these things has been frustrating, it's been good for me to have some of these conversations, because it has made me think realistically about the future. Realistically, I know that I'm not really, at least in some sense, the "domestic" type. It seems like some people are really good at, and really interested in, things like cooking and cleaning and sewing, but I am not one of them. I don't get excited about trying out new recipes or household cleaners or laundry tips. A few episodes of craftiness have led to activities like making fabric covers for the vertical blinds in our living room, but on the whole, I certainly can't say that I find much fulfillment over the day-to-day parts of being a homemaker. I DO want to be with my baby as much as I can; but if I'm not earning an income I know I'll feel somewhat compelled to do things like clip coupons or shop at more than one store to get the best prices, activities that just seem tedious. Next year I'll probably feel more guilty than I do now about not having the laundry or the dishes done. All I know is that I'll need something else going on in my life- something that uses my mind, even if it's a little thing. Sometimes I think about the freedom of having options of what to be learning about other than math and I get excited. Not chained to the millstone of homework, I could actually go to the library and check out a book about Renaissance art or Frank Lloyd Wright or ancient Peruvian culture. I could finally get a chance to learn about the connections between music theory and mathematics, or find some tapes and study Spanish or French. I could study theology and sink my mind (and my heart) deeper into the Word of God. But the freedom and the array of options is scary to me, too. What if the lack of external direction incapacitates me from choosing anything at all? What if I end up surfing the internet and watching TV with the baby all day (every day?!?) In one way I've never really been out of school (between UIC and Lehigh I was studying for the Math GRE which was basically like being homeschooled again), and on breaks from school I tend to be pretty directionless. I know that I will need some structure in my life next year- certainly not having every minute of every day scheduled (which I'm pretty sure is impossible with a baby anyway), but just having some kind of activity in my life other than taking care of the baby and our home. Something I guess I need to pray about. But even though I have no idea what it will be like to be at home with a baby all the time, I'm really looking forward to the possibilities. :-)

Thanks for reading.

Love, Neb