Shrodinger's Baby

Wow, what an emotional couple of weeks.  And it's not over.

Two weeks ago, I took a home pregnancy test that came up positive.  Steve and I were beyond excited.  And a bit surprised!  Not that we didn't know we could get pregnant our first month off birth control, but it didn't seem very likely.  First of all, my doctor had warned that it could take six months to a year for my cycle to work its way back to normal.  And I've had several friends struggle with pregnancy, so I was preparing myself for the long haul.

I wanted to confirm things with the doctor before we told anyone.  I went in early that Tuesday morning.  The test was indeed positive, but a weak positive.  She said it could be that I was really early-pregnant (barely four weeks), or it could be something scarier, like an ectopic pregnancy or a nonviable fetus.  I asked if it could be all the water I'd had to drink that morning (more than 30 ounces), and she said it could be.  So we did two blood tests, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday, to compare (hopefully) increasing HCG numbers.

I got the results of the first test on Wednesday and the second test on Friday.  Must have been the water causing the weak positive. Things were on the right track!

Steve and I told our parents, who were all ecstatic.  A baby!  The first grandchild and great-grandchild on both sides of the family.

This past Thursday, though, when I got home from work, I started bleeding.  Steve took me to Urgent Care, and the doctor there recommended we go to the hospital.

I spent four and a half hours in the ER.  I had blood drawn, was poked, prodded, and ultrasounded (internal and external).

Steve sat for four and a half hours in a metal folding chair, stomach growling after having missed dinner.

The diagnosis was Threatened Abortion.  There was no evidence of fetal cardiac activity.  They also found a small tear and hemorrhage near the gestational sac, along with a large-ish fibroid (which shouldn't be hurting anything, but still).   The doctor explained to me that while 20-30% of pregnancies experience bleeding in the first trimester, only half of those end in miscarriage.

Oh, and because I'm lucky enough to have an A- blood type (and Steve is A+), I had to wait an extra almost two hours for a Rhogam shot.

And I'm officially on bed rest through Monday.

Friday morning, I went to meet my OB.  She explained that at just five weeks, we may not expect to see a heartbeat in even a healthy pregnancy.  She gave me those same 50/50 odds the ER doctor had, and said there's really no way to know anything until eight weeks, when there should be a heartbeat.

So this baby is either okay or it's not okay, and there's no way to know until we can peek inside.

I'm going in Monday for another blood test, because I don't think I can wait another three weeks for bad news.  If my HCG levels aren't increasing appropriately, it's probably bad.  If they are going up, it's still wait-and-see.

As it stands, I'm still bleeding a bit.  I laid down or slept for almost the entire day Friday, and Steve's been such a trooper.  Really, really wonderful. He even made homemade banana pancakes for breakfast this morning.

You know, we've only known about this baby for two weeks.  It's early.  Very few people had the chance to get excited.

But we got excited.

It's amazing how many plans you can make thinking about something for two weeks.  How many hopes you have.

My mantra since finding out we're pregnant has been Let this baby be healthy.  For the last two days, all I've been thinking is Please let this baby be okay.  Let it be healthy.  Let there be a heartbeat.  Over and over and over in my head.

We didn't win the lottery.  We're saving all our luck for the baby.

Please let this baby be okay.  Let it be healthy.  Let there be a heartbeat.  Please let this baby be okay.  Let it be healthy.  Let there be a heartbeat.  Please let this baby be okay...

May the odds be EVER in your favor!

There was a time when I went to see movies (in the theatre!) just about every weekend.  I'd often find myself in the position of having seen everything that looked remotely interesting.

In the last couple years, I've scaled back my movie-going to a handful of films a year, and most of those in the $3 theatre. 

That is to say, I have to be pretty excited about a movie to see it opening weekend.

Enter: The Hunger Games.

I was late to the game (ha!) and read the books just a few weeks ago.  Usually, if I haven't read a book by the time I find out the film version is coming out, I wait to read it until after I see the movie.  If I love a book, I often don't care for the movie adaptation.  But if I see a movie based on a book first, I usually end up liking both (because everyone knows the book is better nine times out of ten--Silence of the Lambs being the only exception that comes to mind).  So I knew I was setting myself up for disappointment by reading the series so close to the movie, when the details would be really fresh and I'd be extra-sensitive to all the changes.

Without spoiling anything, I think this was possibly one of the best book-to-film adaptation I've seen.  It was amazingly cast, for starters, and surprisingly faithful.  The costumes, the sets... everything was exactly as I pictured it.  The few small changes were understandable.  Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

I might even go see it again.

Geekery Side Note: I totally bought myself a Mockingjay necklace off Etsy.  I wore it once, and foolishly left it on the bathroom counter while taking a shower and getting ready. When I went to put it on, it was gone.  I found the pendant on the floor, but the chain?  Nowhere to be found.  Nowhere!

My best guess is that the cat thought it was a fun toy and dragged it off to his secret lair.  (I am sure to find a pile of fluffy little toys and his first collar hiding in the same spot.)  My only concern is that it might have been consumed--by either Renny or Chloe.  I haven't noticed it coming back out the other end in either case, although I'm not looking very thoroughly.  Here's hoping it shows up in a remote corner under the bed someday.  I have the pendant on another chain, but the original one was so much better.

How we spent our six-month-iversary...

A few months ago, I picked up what I thought was a Van Gogh paint-by-number kit in a clearance bin at Michael's.  It came with three canvasses with "pencil" outlines of his paintings (no neat little numbers to know what paint goes where, though), little reference pictures of the completed paintings, two blank canvasses a set of acrylic paints, paint brushes, and a palate.

We spent the evening painting.

"Pencil" drawing example (still plastic-wrapped)

Reference picture (not the one either of us did...)

Our set-up

Almost done...

Ta-da!

Steve is much more a perfectionist than I am (and had some class work to finish that ate into his painting time) so he's still working on his.  But as a first attempt at acrylic paints, I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Even if it is a complete rip-off of a famous artist's work.

(I should also mention that Steve brought home beautiful daffodils, grilled tri-tip, and made his dad's famous mac and cheese for dinner.  A true six-month-iversary celebration!)

Recipe Book: Chocolate for Dinner

Steve bought Adventures with Chocolate recently, which I originally thought was a book about making your own chocolate.  (It's not; further research on chocolate-making revealed a fairly complicated process requiring some really specific equipment, and I think I'm resigned to buying my chocolate.)

But the book is full of fascinating information.  It's beautifully photographed, and covers recipes for things you'd expect, like truffles, to the less-typical savory chocolate sauces for chicken, for example.  I intend to read it cover-to-cover when I'm not using all my available reading time devouring the Hunger Games trilogy.  (I could barely tear myself away from the third book long enough to write this post.)

Have you ever wanted to just eat chocolate for dinner?  Here's your chance to do it legitimately.

Honey-Cured Bacon, Stilton, and Chocolate Sandwich

• Crusty bread - we used a rustic/artisan (I forget) loaf from Trader Joe's
• Soft butter for spreading
• 2 ounces dark chocolate (the book recommends Venezuelan 72% dark chocolate; we bought the only 72% dark we found at Trader Joe's, which was not Venezuelan, but still delicious)
• Honey-cured bacon (ours was honey-smoked--which I'm not sure is the same as honey-cured--turkey bacon with a little honey drizzled on for cooking)
• 3 ounces Stilton cheese

The recipe in the book is very specific on the cooking instructions.  Here's what we did.

I cooked the bacon (with honey) on the stove-top while Steve grated the chocolate.  I was pre-heating the toaster oven on the hottest setting while this was happening.  I toasted and then buttered the bread.  Steve covered half of the bread with grated chocolate, and I stuck it back in the toaster oven until the chocolate melted, which was really about 10 seconds.  In fact, I think it would have just melted onto the toasted bread without intervention.  Out of the oven, add a slice of bacon and some crumbled Stilton, top with the other half of bread, and voila!  Chocolate sandwich for dinner.

As an added bonus, you can use up your leftover bread, cheese, and bacon in the morning with a fried egg in place of the chocolate.

YUM.

Good-Bye, Fifty-Five!

Eighteen months and three weeks ago, Steve and I joined Weight Watchers.  I think we were the heaviest either of us had ever been.  Part of that was the preceding year and a half of dinner dates, and then just getting too comfortable.

Like you do. 

April, 2010

That picture doesn't even look like us to me!  At all.  I almost didn't want to put it up here, but it's probably good to remember where we started.

A week after that picture was taken, Steve proposed.  That August, we started our journey toward a thinner us.

I passed the 50-pounds-gone mark on August 4, 2011.  Then there was a wedding, a honeymoon, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and New Year's.  A slow few months, weight loss-wise, to say the least. 

But we've gotten back into the swing of things.  We're back to working out and paying attention.

At our weigh-in yesterday, we both had lost 55 pounds!

Our attempt at a self-portrait

What weights 55 pounds? 

A bag of dog food weighs only 40 pounds, and that's heavy enough I don't want to carry it any farther than from the car to the house. 

My dog doesn't weigh much more than 55 pounds, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't carry her around. 

So how the heck did I carry 55 more pounds of weight on me all the time?  (Or, perhaps this is a commentary on how I need to build more muscle...)

I know I posted a picture like this recently, but I think this really is the biggest pair of pants I still own.  (I gave a bunch of too-big stuff away recently, but this pair of pants was a little worse for wear.)  I should probably hold onto them as yet another reminder.

Been there, never going back.

Got a belt?

To celebrate, I think I'm going to use one of gift cards I got for Christmas and have been holding onto for just the right occasion, and buy a new outfit. 

We also celebrated by each running two miles out of our total 3.5 mile "run" this morning.  (Someday we'll be able to do all 3.5, but today is not that day.)

We haven't lost these 110 pounds, because if they're lost, they might be found.

We're banishing them.