Hiatus! (15w3d)

Apologies to anyone out there who waits with baited breath for my semi-weekly updates. Girl was busy.

Last Monday I left for Atlanta, GA for a three day work meeting. On Wednesday, La flew out and met me at the fancy work hotel. On Thursday, we met up with a couple of our besties and our goddaughters, who moved to North Carolina a year ago, and who we haven’t seen since.

So, I didn’t really have time for blogging, ya know? (Although I always have time to read everyone else’s blogs, and am super stoked about the Librarian’s BFP and PepiBebe’s BFP!! Yippee!)

What do I want to tell you about the last week? Hmmm . . .

• I continue to be grateful to work with people who I find smart, engaging, critical thinkers. And I’m so glad to do work I love and value. I get super excited about what I do every year at this meeting, but after a year that felt so very long with fertility treatments (and therefore really sucked a lot of my identity away), I am even more excited and grateful. I am also now harboring a fair amount of fear about how, exactly, I will be able to leave my job for a few months to take care of baby seafoam – something that, until now, really felt far away and unimaginable.
• If you haven’t already, ALL of you (because I assume that if you read my blog you are either queer and trying to get knocked up or infertile and trying to get knocked up or both) need to go out and purchase What Makes a Baby by Cory Silverberg.  WHY? Because it is, 100% hands down, the BEST book for answering that very question, especially if your family’s story isn’t reflected by the vast majority of media.

I had a really beautiful moment with this book during my trip. Our goddaughter’s were conceived via IVF, and their heterosexual parents needed some help in the way of a sperm donor as well. Thus, this book has been super helpful for them in beginning the conversation (yes, with their not-yet-3-year-olds) about how they came about. But my moment was different. When I got to the page of the book about babies being born (I looked for an image but couldn’t find one) either vaginally or via c-section, the Bug pointed to the picture and asked “what’s that?” regarding the vaginal delivery. I told her, “Sometimes babies are born by coming through the vagina, in between the legs.” “Through the vulva?” she asked. “Yes, bug, through the vulva.” More proof that yes, it works to teach your kids the correct language for their bodies! It made me feel all kinds of fuzzy to be having a good, age appropriate sex talk with a three year old! We also talked about the baby in my uterus (not my tummy. the baby is not in my tummy.) and when she would get to meet it. It was so lovely!

• I’m really glad we are only having one baby right now. I hella respect all y’all who are carrying or have twins, and I adore my goddaughters and I know that I went from 0 (no children) to 1,000 (two three year olds) in seconds, but holyshit . . . Since we got back home, I have been in love with the silence of my life. I will enjoy it while it lasts, and know that even one baby will be mighty loud. mental parenting note: no recorders/wind instruments for toddlers.
• I’m excited that there may be an end in sight to the same-sex marriage shenanigans in this country, mostly so we can sink resources into other things (like safety and health and housing for LGBTQ folks.) And, I’m excited that after ONE MORE TRIP (our marriage license from June is invalid due to the circumstances, but we can get a legit one any ol’ day we please!) La and I will be 100%, fully recognized as married. And we finally get the shot gun lesbian wedding we always dreamed about.
• I got a nomination for the “Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award” and I sure am grateful, and I probably won’t be playing along because the survey things kind of exhaust me. But, I really enjoy being able to check out new blogs, so I’m going to recommend 10 of my faves:
  • http://pepibebe.wordpress.com/ – one of the first blogs I found on our adventure. They have had a long, difficult journey but stayed just beautifully engaged and in love the whole time. ❤
  • http://spiritbabycomehome.wordpress.com/ – love this writer’s style, perseverence and great humor through some incredible trials.
  • http://bsandbabies.wordpress.com/ – speaking of twins!
  • http://thechroniclesofanonbellymama.wordpress.com/ – and more twins! + blog from a non gestational parent, which I think is hella important!
  • http://mymotherfullfamily.wordpress.com/ – adult child of queer parents. SOOO GOOOD!
  • http://houndmamas.wordpress.com/ – special love to this hound mama who is on the verge of IVF
  • http://thebarrenlibrarian.wordpress.com/ – award for best IF blog name, plus general hilarity in the face of suck!
  • http://ladyloveandbabydust.wordpress.com/ – another long time blog friend
• I did some serious maternity clothes shopping with my mom, and am excited to be mostly full time in them these days. I am maintaining my skinny jeans with the belly band (didn’t find any skinny style maternity jeans that I liked) and can do regular shirts as long as they are on the longer side. I also caught some folks giving my belly the once over at the airport yesterday, which makes me think I might becoming more obvious. I’ll get La to take a good picture and show you all.
• I turn 33 on Friday! (Seafoam will be 16 weeks!) A year ago when I blew out my candles, I wished to be pregnant this year on my birthday. I’m really excited to report this might be the first time I’ve ever had a birthday wish come true!
• Last weekend, the best mother-in-law ever had an overnight in Denver (she’s a flight attendant) and spent her less-than-12-hours helping us (and when I say “us” I mean “La”) install a new kitchen sink. 

Like usual when it comes to house projects, it was a little more difficult than anticipated, and included sawing down the counters to make room. But I’m so glad! Our old sink was gross white plastic and it got stained like crazy. Plus, it had two sections which is bad when you don’t have a bathtub in your house and you’re going to need a place to wash a baby soon! It took them all night, so I was happy to do my part by shop vac-ing the sawdust off of everything the next morning.

Despite bullet points, this is much longer than I anticipated! I hope you feel adequately caught up on the events of the last week or so. The final news? Apparently I can’t go an hour without either eating or feeling like the hungriest ever. I guess this is better than nausea, but it does mean careful lunch bag packing lest I fall pray to the candy-donut-carb fest that is the break room kitchen.