A big weekend of gifts and shopping

Had a big baby weekend. Perhaps our biggest thus far in the first 33 weeks of pregnancy.

On Saturday, the girls at my wife’s work and her sister threw us a baby shower. My parents flew down on Friday, and her mother surprised her at the baby shower, which was very unexpected.

The shower was fun. The hosts of the shower knew my dad would be with me, so we were both invited. My dad wasn’t sure he wanted to attend the shower. It was touch and go for awhile. We were very close to taking off and going to a driving range, which I think he felt more comfortable doing. But, once we saw the food spread, we decided to stay. Actually, my dad put aside his qualms and said he would do whatever I thought we should do. He wanted to be flexible. He remarked a couple times that he was surprised to find himself at a baby shower. He’s old school. But he socialized like a champ.

I think most of his surprise stemmed from the fact that my wife and her friends at work are not “woooh” or “squeal” girls. They don’t giggle, or do foo-foo things. The party games were quite normal and fun for both women and men of all ages. It was a great shower. Fun people. Fun games. Good food. And we hauled in a ton of stuff.

THEN… we spent 20 hours (okay, 4.5) at Babies ‘R Us and bought everything else we needed. You need help finding something at Babies R Us? How can I assist you? I have the store layout mapped to my brain. Infant goods? Enter the store and take a right, past the registry table. Car seats? A few isles away on the same side of the store. Bedding? Opposite side.

This is where all of our hours upon hours of researching paid off. We went in, knew what we wanted, and loaded up. We dropped a cool $2K in one day at Babies ‘R Us. And here’s the brilliant thing, and I highly recommend for all first-time parents:

1. Sign up early with Babies R Us to get coupons in the mail, and wait until you have some. They seem to send ‘em quite often. And, Babies ‘R Us has some pretty good coupons. (They had coupons for like 20% off of any furniture item more than $500, which the changing table was; and 15% off items $250-$499, which the crib was; long story short: we saved a few hundred just by timing it right with coupons).

2. Buy as much as you can in a single trip, and sign up for the Babies R Us Credit Card, which gives you 10% off when you purchase everything at that time. (10% off for the whole day actually, but who wants to make multiple trips when you’ve been there for over 4 hours?) For us, that meant $200 in savings of our $2K purchases.

3. Do all of your research ahead of time, and have it all figured out BEFORE you get there. Because once you’re there, the store employees aren’t none too bright. Nice and friendly, sure… But they really don’t have the detailed knowledge that a research-geek parent such as yourself craves. Trust me on this fact. (Sample interaction with store clerk: “Excuse me, what’s the difference between these three breast pump packages?” “Umm… they’re all the same.”  “Well, they appear to come in different carrying cases.”  “Well, uh, yeah. Besides that, they’re all the same.”  “But this one has a battery pack that can be removed from the case.”  “Oh, uh. Yeah.”  “And this other one says it comes with different nipple shields.”  “Oh, umm… yeah, that’s different.”  “So why is this one $50 more?” “It has a different case.”  “Okay, thanks.”)  So yeah, have it all mapped out before you show up, because you want to buy it all at once, and if you say, “Nah, let’s research this later,” you’re going to lose out on the 10% savings of getting it together. Plus, you’re going to fight with your significant other. Nothing good comes out of being in a Babies R Us for more than 2 hours.

So not counting about $300 in coupons and combo deals ($150 off when buying glider and ottoman at the same time), we got another $200 for buying it all at once. OH– and my advice gets better (naturally): they offer delivery for $60, but you can do it for up to 5 items. So we’re having them deliver our crib, changing table, glider, and ottomon all for $60. That’s a frickin STEAL!

We used our baby registry as our shopping list, so we walked into the store when they opened, printed out our registry, and bought everything we didn’t get from the shower. One helluva weekend. Lots of free and not-so-free baby items! Now we’re stocked up. Feels good to have a little more done. I still have to put together all of this furniture once it arrives. (The crib is back-ordered.) But that’ll be a post for another day. (A post about building baby furniture chock full o’ cursing and ‘that’s what she said’ jokes.)

Day 119

Much baby related news to share with you… But first, thanks to our friends at BabyCenter.com, I know that today (22 weeks) my baby is the length of a spaghetti squash. Here’s a tip: don’t Google spaghetti squash. Every image that comes back is a picture of a my-baby-sized yellow gourd being gutted. Gee, thanks BabyCenter.com for that image. Next time, why don’t you remind me how my baby’s entrails can be served up with angel hair pasta.

On to today’s post…

#1. We settled on a stroller/car-seat combination. We found a Right Start baby store near us that carries a much higher quality of stroller than you find in crummy ol’ Babies ‘R Us. (If you got your stroller from Babies ‘R Us, I apologize. Strike that. I don’t apologize. This is my blog, and if I want to be an unabashed stroller snob, I can. You and your chintzy stroller can suck it.*)

* This request doesn’t apply to family/friends; only to strangers for whom I have little empathy.

Bob Revolution 12" AW stroller

Anyway, where was I … Oh yes, so we found a nice store that had our favorite strollers on display for us to try out. And the winner is: THE BOB REVOLUTION 12″ ALL WHEEL!

Now, I won’t bore you by extolling its virtues… of which you can be assured there are MANY. But here were the top reasons why we chose it after comparing it in-person to the waaay overpriced Orbit and Bugaboo strollers.

i. Look at those freakin big ass 12″ rubber tires with steel spokes. None of that hard plastic shit you find on other models.

ii. A suspension system. Awww yeah.

iii. In my wife’s first try, she was able to collapse this thing and prop it back up with one hand. By far the easiest to open and close that we tested.

iv. Another couple was in the store with an Orbit, and I asked them how they liked it, “Heavy.” I went around lifting strollers. Bob Revolution was certainly lighter.

v. You can keep the car seat adapter on the stroller when it is collapsed. With the Bugaboo and others, you had to detach the car seat adapter before collapsing the stroller. Saves a step.

vi. It works with our favorite car seat, which is from Graco.

vii. Best of all… The stroller’s name is “Bob.”  I am SO ready to start using this name. “Honey, where’s Bob?” “Is Bob in the trunk?” I love naming inanimate objects.

So, there you have it. After 3 weeks of Googling non-stop, and trying out in-stores, we settled on Bob.

Seahawk cake at my baby shower

#2. While I was visiting my work this past week, they threw me a surprise baby shower. Photos to come soon. I was blown away. And I was a complete dork, because I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never been to a shower before. They made me wear bows on my head, and we played games. Everytime someone else won… I won baby gifts too. That’s my kind of contest. It was amazing. It was a tailgating themed party, so all the food was hot dogs and chili and dip and chips and wings… oh. So good. And the person even made a Seahawk shaped cake. Oh, and I got the DAMN CUTEST onesie I’ve ever seen: it’s a Seahawks jersey. So cute.

Oh, and to underscore my complete dorkiness… I hate opening gifts while people watch me. I love attention; but not that kind. My style of attention is making jokes under my breath in the back of class. I absolutely cannot stand people watching me open gifts. It is unnerving. Anyway, I’d open the gift, and look and it, and coo over it. And then put it in a pile. Well, everyone said, “Hold it up so we can see!” Oh. Right. I hadn’t realized. Apparently, someone was taking notes for me on what I was getting. Like I said, I felt like a complete dork. But, one of the best parties that has ever been thrown for me. Thanks, Peanut.

#3. We had another OB appt this morning. Alas, no photos to share with you. But, everything is progressing well. My wife is disappointed that her baby bump is not more obvious. She can’t wait for it to be like a basketball in front of her so a.) she can wear tight shirts to show of her baby belly, and b.) so strangers know with complete certainty that she is pregnant. I think she is frustrated that she doesn’t look pregnant yet, and in her words, “People just think I’m fat.”  Awww. Poor thing. The cool thing is, I can tell. And that’s all that matters, right? I’ve tried various tactics to cheer her up from this notion, ranging from, “What do you care what strangers think?” to “You’re pregnant. It’s like being on vacation. Get fat. Who cares. Eat whatever you want! Enjoy it.”  Neither seems to be the proper strategem. Advice welcomed.

Also at our OB appointment, we found that Peanut is already head down. The doctor said, “There’s little indication that your baby will stay that way.” But still, that’s a good sign. Peanut just has to hold that position for the next 4 months.

#4. In the last week, she has started feeling Peanut. I think that’s the “quickening.” (Highlander, anyone?) Which you think would be an amazing thing, but now, Peanut gets fidgety at bed time. I guess when you go from walking and sitting and standing and moving (which is basically rocking Peanut), to laying still, your baby is like, “Hey, c’mon. Start the ride back up!”

#5. We settled on a hospital. Los Alamitos. It’s not the closest hospital to us, but still only about 12-15 minutes away. If Peanut is high-risk or we expect any complications, the better hospital is right down the road from us, with a NICU and all that. But, since things seem to be smooth sailing (thus far), and since the closest hospital is … umm… hmm… [searching for proper way to phrase this]… in a less than ideal part of town… well, we decided to head towards another hospital.

So that’s all the baby news for the past two weeks. Oh, and we’ve narrowed down our name lists to 5-girl, and 4-boy. And no, we won’t tell you what they are.

Day 91: The kinda’ post you’ve patiently waited for

Oh boy, this blog entry is going to be huge. It’s chock full of so much goodness, you would need 8 bowls of your regular blog to match the bloggy goodness you will get in one Papi Nuevo entry.

Peanut 18 weeks 01/02/2009

Oooh, where to begin. Let’s start with… NEW PICTURES! (Because let’s be honest– that’s the first thing your eye went to, so let’s just get it out of the way.)  To the right is a picture of Peanut, at (roughly) 18 weeks. Keep in mind this is a slice of Peanut that you’re looking at– imagine if Peanut was cut clean in half. (So that’s why there’s no arms or feet — at least I hope.) Man, look at that spine. Creepy. But the doctor assured me that a spine was — apparently — a good thing, so at least I know we’re having a vertebrate and not a zooplankton baby. (Invertebrate jokes!!! Yes!!! See, this entry is only 2 paragraphs old, and I’m bringing the A material.)

My wife hasn’t felt any movement yet, and she’s nearly 18 weeks along. The doctor said that’s normal, and that most first time mothers don’t experience movement until week 20, on average. I guess mom’s who have had babies before start to feel movement around week 18. (I guess when you’re a first time mom, you assume it’s gas?) By the way, they have a name for this: quickening. Now, call me crazy (“crazy”), but I thought that was a Highlander movie. (When you cut off the head of an Immortal and all the power transfers to you, thank YOU very much Christopher Lambert.) I wonder which use of the word came first? Hmm. I feel like someone at EMI Films should’ve thought that through a little better.*

*PS – For that brief tangent, I did a quick IMDB.com lookup of the “Highlander” movie series… EMI Films… wow. What a powerhouse production company. Their last few films consist of, “Culture Club: Greatest Hits”, Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie (1990), and not only “Evil Under the Sun” (1982), but also the award winning “Making of ‘Evil Under the Sun’” (1982). Spectacular. Can I just take a brief moment to tell you how tickled I am by the suffix “The Movie” after “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em.”  You know, so you don’t confuse it with “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Video Game” or “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Parcel Post Letter with Signature Confirmation.”  I think more films should add “: The Movie” after the title, to make it sound more venerable. “Schindler’s List: The Movie”… so you don’t get confused and think you’re going to watch a 3 hour pan across an actual list. (Did I just make a Schindler’s List reference? WOW.)

Anyway, back to Peanut’s picture. As you know, 18 weeks is sort of a guesstimate. In the lower right corner of the pic there are 3 different EDDs (Estimated Delivery Dates?) based on a few different measurements. LMP = last menstrual period, and by that the date of birth is still estimated to be 06/04/2009. AC = Abdominal Circumference, and by that measurement, the EDD is 06-07-2009. (Which I think was also the EDD in the last picture we had a month ago when they did the CRL or “Crown to Rump Length” measurement.) Which is somewhat of a relief, because I come from a hearty stock of people; how do you say… people with a healthy “AC.” Not that I expected my fetus to be shaped like a Turnip… but I’m just relieved that the sonogram estimate didn’t assume my baby was due next month, that’s all I’m trying to say. And finally, the FL (Femur Length) indicates a delivery date of 05-28-2009. (But they all have an error factor of about +/- 12 days, so the FL could still indicate a baby in the first week.) Although it’s kind of exciting to think that Peanut is already “tall for his/her age.”(Yeah yeah, I know — there’s probably no correlation between FL and actual heighth of the baby as an adult, but still… a guy can dream can’t he?)

By the way, the sonogram we got back in June that estimated June 7th as the delivery date said it had a 3% margin of error, I think. So that’s the date I’m sticking with. But a pool will be starting shortly.

Fetus Food Equivolent o’ The Week: This week, BabyCenter.com tells me that Peanut is the length of a bell pepper. Now when I have fajitas, all I will think about is eating babies. Wonderful job, BabyCenter.com.

Lesson Learned this week: Trying to go toe-to-toe with a pregnant woman on meals is a bad idea. (I don’t want to increase my AC.) We went to a drive-thru donut stand the other day and ordered 1 old fashioned. I was a good boy and did not get anything. But damn, that’s really hard to do. And I can’t pretend to be all pious — because I had about 1/4 of the donut anyway. When I eat with my wife I call it solidarity, when I choose not to, I call it will power. It’s a win win really.

House update of the week: Two updates regarding the house. #1, we had a pest control guy come out, but since we don’t have an attic (only a 12″ crawl space), and since we don’t have access to said crawl space, he couldn’t do anything. But he did make some recommendations about covering gutter spouts, pruning our palm trees, and wrapping some sheet metal towards the base of the palm tree trunk. (So the rat can’t climb the palm tree.) So we went to home depot and picked up all that stuff. And while there, we also found an electronic rodent thing-a-ma-jiggy. You plug it into your wall, and it apparently sends a signal or buzzing or something through your house’s electrical wires that annoys rodents. The good news is — we haven’t heard from the rat in the past 4 nights. So either we’re sleeping more soundly (that’s not it), or the fixes we put in place worked.

House Update #2: I’m happy to report I did my math wrong, and we may still qualify for the Hope 4 Homeowners act. So I’m going to start the ball rolling on that and see how far we get. We may end up not qualifying — because we’re not really down on our luck — but boy oh boy would that be sweet if we did. I would happily walk away and move up to Portland near other family. But, I don’t want to get my hopes up, so I’ll reserve excitement until we know more.

We also spent the past few days looking up houses online near Portland. (Well, about 30 minutes outside of Portland, in the same town as my brother-and-sister-in-law.) On the surface, I tell my wife, “Why do you do that to yourself? You know we can’t move yet.” It’s like the debate between Red (Morgan Freeman) and Andy (Tim Robbins) about whether hope was a good thing or not. “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” But, between you and me and the 3 billion people on this planet who have access to this blog, I enjoy it. It’s fun to dream of owning a new place. As Andy writes back to Red, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Random Reflection on Life o’ the week: It’s weird to be an adult and think to yourself, “I want a new house.” And really, there’s nothing stopping you from doing that. (Well, assuming you aren’t trapped in a cruddy mortgage like we are.)  Or similarly, “I want a new car.” And boom. You can go out and finance one. That is still weird to me. Every day I decide to wake up and put on pants. And just like that, I can wake up and make a life-altering decision like, “Let’s buy a house.” I guess I’ve been an adult for awhile, but that concept still feels foreign to me. As I sit here and type, it’s strange to look around and think, “Holy crap. This is all on me. If I lose my job or something happens… this all comes crashing down.” Sort of a “flying without a safety net or parents to fall back on.” I feel like I just aged a wee bit from I was when I started typing this paragraph. Hmm.

Day 42: The Giving Tree

This post is written with the aid of Boont Amber Amber Ale.

I’ve made it official to my customers. I visited some of my customers the other day, and I keep a picture of Peanut in my portfolio. And I hate to admit this… I even had a conference call with a customer that I wasn’t looking forward to… and I lead off the call with, “Guess what? I just found out my wife is pregnant!”  Man, did that lighten the mood.

Yes yes. I used my unborn child for selfish gain. Look, if I could fart rainbows, I’d share that will everyone too. Why not use this type of thing to my advantage. I’m a salesman. Not a preacher.

Plus, I’m hoping to score lots of baby gifts. Keep in mind, I used to work in an office where I was the only guy with 30+ women. (By the way, this is a story for another time– but an office full of women is bat shit crazy. Everyone has some beef with everyone else. Drama drama drama.)  Anyway, al it takes is just one of those women to say, “Hey, we should have a baby shower for Jeff…” and by law, the rest of the women are forced to follow suit. I’ve already got one customer promising to do this. Hopefully others will do the same.

Look. I realize this sounds like a selfish stance to take. And it’s not like I’m only in it for the gifts. But I’m a pragmatist, if nothing else. And while, we as a society, are not supposed to admit this kind of thing, I love getting gifts at Christmas. Oh sure, I love giving gifts and all that touchy feel crap. But seriously, who could hate getting gifts? Just because I’m hoping for more gifts isn’t a horrible thing, right? It’s not like I’m telling my customers directly that I want them to give me a baby shower. This blog is anonymous, they’ll never find it.*

*If you are a fellow employee at my wife’s work, ignore all of this. I would never imply that you are obligated to throw a baby shower. But if you do, my favorite bottled beer is Deschuete’s Brewery Black Butte Porter. Hint hint.

PS- Don’t tell my wife I just wrote that. She wouldn’t approve. Even if it is a joke. (Sort of.)

One of my customers who i showed my OB photo to was a doctor. She looked at it and said, “Wow, this baby looks great. A nice healthy ring around the uterus.” I’m not really sure which part of the image is the uterus, but I’ll take her word for it. After all, all that doctor schooling must’ve taught her something. And in addition, I’m not even sure what it means to have a healthy ring around the uterus. But she made it sound like a good thing. Whatever it is/does– my wife has it and apparently I should be happy.

And of course everyone made the joke. “Oh it looks like you.”  Which is getting old to me. But, that was the exact same joke I made in the doctor’s office. So now I know how the OB technologist felt when she mustered up forced grin. Note to self: OB techs hate jokes about how “it looks just like you.” Avoid all such humor.

Day 39: Drawing Lessons from the Boob Tube

I never realized, until we got pregnant, how many shows are about pregnancy. Just this week, each night of the week a different show I turn on is about someone being pregnant. It’s almost like the Television Gods are sending me a message. And with each show, I learned a valuable lesson about life:

Monday: The sitcom How I Met Your Mother is about one of the couples wrestling with the pros and cons of trying to have a baby. Lesson learned: Pregnant wives don’t like it when you yell, “Don’t do it!” to the characters on the TV. Even if you do your best to convince them it was all a joke — don’t joke with pregnant women.

Tuesday: Eli Stone has a character who is wrestling whether to keep her pregnancy. Lesson learned: Don’t yell to the character, “It’s not worth it!”  Really really. Don’t joke with pregnant women. (I’m kind of stupid in the fact that it usually takes me two mess-ups before I learn my lesson.)

Wednesday: The movie Juno is on 24-hour loop at Cinemax. Lesson learned: Pregnancy looks painful. I get squeamish just watching fake births on movies. I’m not sure how I’m going to like it in real life. (I have to close my eyes when I watch Jen get needle shots. I don’t dig needles. Cutting an umbilical cord… not sure that’s going to happen.)

PS- Tonight’s Juno was followed-up by Zane’s Sex Chronicles on Cinemax. Ahhh, Cinemax. I love your B quality soft core porn.

Day 35: Paging Dr. Right

Thanks for all the room, mom

Today was our second OB visit with our second OB doctor. We didn’t really click with the first OB we tried. And I’m happy to report that this one was much better.

So we go to the office, and the staff was friendly off the bat. And the office was nicer. Yeah, I realize that probably should matter — like when voting, you probably shouldn’t care whether someone is black when deciding if they’d be a good president — but let’s face it, that sort of thing happens.

Anyhoo… I’ve worked at a few medical clinics… and I’m telling you, a clinic is only as good as their front desk staff. No matter how great the doctor is, if the front desk staff is disorganized they can lose your folders, and/or file your stuff wrong. (Case in point: The staff at the first OB place never called my wife with the results of her blood work. She had to get that from the second OB doctor today. Oh, and the results were all normal, thanks for asking.)

So the first thing we did was sit down with the doctor in his office, and he took time to talk with us. That in itself blew me away. The doctor is probably in his mid 50s, and he’s a distance runner. (Read: Tall, thin.) He’s Jewish, and has that kind of Jewish nervous energy about him… but I’m willing to overlook that because he took the time to answer all of our questions and more.

Then we went into an exam room, and he did a battery of tests, and did another ultrasound. He told us that from the date of LMP, we were due June 4th. But after he measured Peanut on the monitor, his better guess was June 12th. Maybe we’ll start a betting pool to see who can pick the actual date.

Side note: New favorite joke. Whenever we get one of these print-outs of Peanut, which is essentially a blob in a larger blob, I like to loudly announce (so the staff can hear me), “It looks more like you.” (Seriously, all I care about is making the front desk staff laugh. The doctor talks and to me it sounds like, “Wahwahwahwah wahwahwah…” and I’m in my own world thinking of jokes to make about my blurry sonogram picture.)

My wife got to ask all of her questions, and he seemed very knowledgeable and gave friendly answers. And he set my wife up with a bunch of genetic tests, that the previous doctor didn’t even mention. He seems much more thorough. And plus, his front desk staff was on the ball. By the time we came out they had pamphlets ready, appointments set up, and forms ready to go. Here’s a hint: See how cluttered the desk is at the front. If there’s loose paper everywhere, run… because they’re going to misplace your insurance information and/or not process the claim properly. This second OB’s office, on the other hand, was neat and orderly. A very good sign.

So all in all, I think we found the man who is going to drop our baby. (By the way, I got in trouble earlier for making that joke. My wife said, “If he had a history of that, I think it’d be in his disciplinary report I read.” And I said, “Maybe they have an allowable number of drops per delivery, like a threshold, before it gets reported for disciplinary action.” “I’m pregnant… are you trying to make me nervous about giving birth?”  Sigh. You just can’t win with a pregnant woman. All they have to do is pull out the, “I’m pregnant” card and it immediately trumps all other cards, like the Queen of Spades. No matter what else follows. As long as it starts with, “I’m pregnant…” you immediately lose all arguments/debates/conversations. “I’m pregnant… You should wash the car.”  Boom, done.)

Oh, two important things about the photo that I wanted to mention: Since I the doctor estimated the delivery date to be June 12th, based on the size, that means he thinks the baby is probably closer to 9 weeks, rather than the 10 week estimate I’ve been using. So I’m through with all this trying to remember how many days along my wife is. Odds are, it’s all made up anyway since we don’t really know the precise conception date. So, I’m going to stick with just listing the # of days since I found out, since that’s the only date about which I can be sure.

Secondly, I got my first piece of bad baby news on this OB visit… on the size, when he said, “Your baby is a little small for 10 weeks…” I sort of got defensive inside. “Fuck you, you quack. YOU’RE a small baby. How do you like that, Dr. Dipshit.” So that’s not a good sign. But, I now understand he meant that the baby is the right size for 9 weeks.

Last thing about the picture: Notice how the baby hardly has any room? The dark space to the upper left is my wife’s bladder. She had to go pretty badly, and it was squeezing Peanut’s space. I said, “You have to hurry up and go to the bathroom, Peanut doesn’t have any room to breathe.” Then she muttered something about baby’s not breathing, or I don’t know. “Wahwahwahwahwah…” I was already off thinking about my next joke…

Day 32: A break during the break

Days pregnant: 67 U.S., 53 Europe

I know I know. You’ve patiently waited. Finally. An actual post relating to the pregnancy.

So we got some good news today on the financial front! One of the things we’ve (I’ve) been dreading is the financial hit that we’re going to take while my wife is off during her pregnancy.

Quick tangential thought: I wonder if squeezing a bowling ball out of your vagina is worth 3 months off from work? If someone said to me, “Jeff, pass this kumquat through your urethra, and we’ll give you 3 months off from work…”  Would I do it? I’m seriously considering it.

Anyway, back on track… So here’s the good news… The state of California covers 55% of your salary for 6 weeks (30 work days?) while you’re off during maternity leave. Then, the Californian Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) covers a 2nd 6 weeks (another 30 work days) at 55%.

So that’s 12 weeks that my wife will be getting 55% of her salary covered. Thank you, Democrats.

But, wait, there’s more: My wife’s work has thing secret “major sick leave” thing, where every year you work there, you get a week accrued. Nobody knows about it, because apparently they don’t want you using it. But my wife talked to her HR rep today, and he confirmed that it exists, and that she has 6 weeks (30 days) saved up.

Since the state “only” covers 55% of her salary during those 12 weeks, her HR person said that her work will cover the remaining 45% from her major sick leave accrual. How cool is that???

So quick math tells us that she needs to come up with 45% of her salary for 60 days. So 60 days @ 45% = 27 days. Well, she has 30 days of major sick leave saved up, so she can apply that.

Which means: For 12 weeks, her salary is covered at 100%. Plus, she’ll have a few more days left over, and sne can also use vacation or normal sick days on top of that.

So YAAAAAAY. We still have to start saving in a major way for other things, but this is a bit of good news. In addition, her work offers flexible spending accounts that are pre-tax deductions that you can set aside for things like child-care. We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do for child care (Nanny? Day-care?). We have no relatives down here. I have a sister-in-law who says she’ll be our nanny if we move up there. But, then we just need someone to buy our house at the price we paid, and that would be no problem. Any takers?

PS- My alternate plan is to go on the gameshow “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” and win enough money to pay off most of our house, which would allow us to move and be closer to family. If you or anybody you know works for that show, drop me a line. PLEEEASE.

Day 22: Craving Food, Avoiding Smells

Days pregnant: 57 U.S., 43 Europe

I need to dabble online and find out when pregnant women “cravings” kick-in. For example, my wife has always loved Spaghetti O’s. But the other day at the store she said, “Oooh… that sounds so good!” So, is this just an excuse to eat Spaghetti O’s, or was there something in her brain that made her crave Spaghetti O’s so she could up her intake of some vitamin or mineral that you can only get in a can of Spaghetti O’s.

(And, for the record, that’s the most number of times I’ve typed Spaghetti O’s in a single paragraph.)

The other night we went out to dinner, and she was insistent on finding somewhere with a good salad. Hopefully that was her body crying out for dark, leafy greens to get more iron. And she’s come home several times with snacks and goodies. Our cupboards have more food in them now than usual. I don’t know if I should chalk this up to cravings yet, or if it’s just her giving in to her sweet tooth.

This is a touchy subject indeed. Because I used to kid, years ago, “There’s no such things as cravings. Pregnant women just use that as an excuse so they can eat what they want.” And part of that was said in jest, because deep down I know cravings exist. But I think there’s also sometimes when cravings are used an excuse to eat a big ol’ greasy cheeseburger. Not that my wife is doing that… but I’m not wholly convinced it won’t/hasn’t happened. (He said dancing around the subject ever-so-lightly.)

She’s also become very sensitive to smells. I love hot dogs. (Especially the Hebrew National Fat Free Beef franks. Soooo good.) Well, I have officially been banned from cooking/microwaving hot dogs around my wife. She says the smell makes her ill. Simiarly, she came home yesterday and I had been cleaning the kitchen, and was using some mold remover inside the fridge, and the smell wasn’t that noticeable to me, and she said, “OH MY GOD! What’s that horrible smell?”

My wife has always been one of the most sensitive and emotional people I know. (And I don’t mean that with a pejorative connotation; I mean literally, she has great hearing, great taste buds, and she can cry at the drop of a hat when watching a movie.) So the fact that she is becoming hyper-sensitive to smells and cravings doesn’t surprise me. But I was hoping this wouldn’t come along for several more months.

However, her cravings haven’t been anything out of the norm yet. Just things she already liked. Which makes me dubious if this officially qualifies as a “craving” or if it’s just her wanting some of her favorites.