Half way there!!!

nospam@example.com (Bobby) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:08:00 -0700

We have reached 20 weeks folks!!!

Apparently, this is the halfway point. I have been informed that this whole "9months" thing is a fairy tale. A baby is actually carried for 40 weeks — 10 months. After you hit 35 though — or somewhere in and around there — all bets are off. That kid could pop out at any given time!

*considers*

I suppose the term "all bets are off" notexactly true, either… pools on when the baby will decide to show its pretty face to the world are still open for a little while longer. Apparently, people do do this… there was mention of it at my work.

People will gamble on anything.

Anyway… 20 weeks. Time to get edumacational!!!

According to BabyCenter, the baby is now around 10 and a half ounces and approximately the shape of a banana — no… that’s not right… — approximately the length of a banana from the tip-top of the head to that cute little baby bum.

From head to heel, you’re lookin’ at about 10 inches.

Add a couple more if the baby starts striking poses with its hands over its head — which ours is wont to do… That’s a whole lotta baby right there!

Now here is where things get gross…

Baby now has a greasy white substance coating the entire body. The mental image here produces a bit of an ick factor — but this stuff (more professionally known as "vernix caseosa" — but I’ll stick with "stuff") is pretty important. It is to protect the baby’s skin while it is hanging out in the luxurious heated pool of life (amniotic fluid — I am enjoying the cheesy metaphors today… sue me). This is a good thing. No baby wants to be seen for the first time with dish-pan hands… ruins the cute factor!

This stuff is also practical during the birth as it makes the trip out a little easier with all of the slickness and whatnot.

The baby is also swallowing — for practice. Getting that digestive system warmed up. Cute, no? Now back to icky…

Meconium. Black stickyness that comes from cell loss, digestive secretions (yummy) and swallowed amniotic fluid. This is accumulating in the baby — and will be one of the kiddie’s first presents to the parents. Yup, you guessed it, sticky blackness in the first dirty diaper — I will do my best to remember not to freak out. Apparently some babies get rid of it during the delivery process.

Something to look forward to…

So I'm having a baby... Now what?

nospam@example.com (Bobby) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:42:31 -0600

While the first thing I experienced may have been joy — mad, passionate, unadulterated joy — this was quickly followed by an overpowering and extremely urgent new thought:

I need a new job.

Baby’s cost money, man! Anybody can tell you so… And my current job simply was not going to cut it. There were bills to pay, debt to consider, baby classes, LaMas, baby yoga or other excercise, maternity clothes, food, diapers, car seats, strollers, cribs, diapers — did I say diapers? — daycare, moving (no way was a baby going to fit in our basement suite), baby clothes, toys, University — by the time the kid is ready to go to university, it ought to cost as much as buying a house — and what about buying a house??? Holy hell, what about the cost of other kids!?!?!!?

*insert mini panic attack here*

All of this took place in a matter of seconds, still in the doctor’s office, holding my wife’s hand while the doctor jabbered on about…something. I think it was vitamins… folic acid or something. I took a breath, slapped myself mentally a few times, and forced myself back to the present. It was utterly amazing to me how my train of thought jumped so far and so intently into the future. This had never happened before, not to this extent. When I first met Robin, one of the reasons I knew we were meant to be together was by a sudden shifting of consciousness, a realisation that I was no longer thinking about the next week, or the next month, or even the next couple of years. I was thinking about my life with her and my life in general in terms of at least 5 to 10 years in the future. I was making real plans — concrete ones. This was huge! Discovering we were going to have a baby was was pretty much the same thing — but on steroids. And this was only the first of many mini attacks since. My mother once actually had to forcibly remind me that the baby won’t be here tomorrow. We had time.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself…

You see, it wasn’t like Robin and I weren’t ready — entirely… We had talked often about having a baby in the near future, but, until a few months before the wedding, we had (mostly) decided that we wanted to pay our debt down first. Especially since the last job I had completely screwed me.

It hurt too.

I loved that job.

I was working as a marketing manager and business consultant for an up and coming online business and I was having a great time. I was being creative and contributing to something new and interesting. I was making decent cash. Robin and I had accumulated a bit of debt together moving to another province and planning for our wedding, and I had a significant amount of my own already (*kicks the butt of the student loan devil*), but we were establishing a plan to eat away at that. In short, things were looking pretty good.

Then they screwed me.

I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say that I was a victim of a dwindling budget and an owner that felt he had gotten everything he needed out of me as the project was entering the next phase.

Bastard.

He screwed a couple other people too, I’ve heard, and the VP thought the situation sucked enough that he quit over it.

Anyway, this threw the proverbial monkeywrench into our plans and we ended up making up the difference with severance pay and credit cards. It nearly derailed our wedding plans. In the end, I ended up going into business for myself as a contractor so as to make ends meet and still give me the flexibility to have time off for the wedding. We were no longer as comfortable, but things seemed to be working out. So, after a bit more discussion, me and Robin decided that we were ready. She would stop taking the pill just before the wedding (so as to keep her fantastic figure for her wedding dress) and we would "see what happens". We didn’t think anything would happen too quickly, as we knew folks who were trying for some time before getting results.

As I mentioned in the previous post… we were wrong. Looks like it happened on the wedding night. What can I say? We’re fertile… Annnd consequently, we were both pleasantly surprised and slightly caught with our pants down — so to speak.

Now back to the needing of a different job…

The new job was kind of fun, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. There were two main problems: the money wasn’t steady enough to be planned on, and the work was proving to be dangerous. I was on the road (driving) 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in city traffic and like any city, the more you are on the road, the more morons you meet. I began to feel like I was playing the odds, and that they were steadily building against me. I started thinking about aquiring different employment. It was a decision I had made previously, but once we realised that we were pregnant, "started thinking about" became "Now NOW NOW!!!!" I can’t be putting my life at risk when I have a baby on the way, not that kind of risk. Too many variables on the road. And the money… it needs to be steadier, something we can count on… and more! It needs to be more!!! After all there are diapers and clothes and university and… well, you get the idea.

So the hunt is on. It is an annoying, stressful, and generally trying task that I would much rather avoid, but the necessity of it is nipping at my heels, burning at my ass and otherwise driving me onward. The main problem with this job hunting thing is that, of all the things that I am qualified for — and I have done many different things in my short life — there is not one that I want to do again. Ultimately, I want to start my own business and I would like to write — and I would also like to do a hundred other things, all of which I intend to do… once I can afford it. Instead, I am preparing a cover letter to a company that hires people and trains them on the job in the electrician trade. It is my task to convince them that I have the right qualities they need for their business, regardless of the fact that I have no official training or experience.

Good thing I have experience in both writing and marketing, eh?

We’ll see…

But that’s not the only avenue I plan to trudge down. Oh no! Before I relegate myself back to the things I have done before, I will investigate being even a general labourer at a construction site. There are enough of the things around this town right now, and nasty as that work would be at this time of year, I hear it pays up to $24 an hour as a starting rate. The work would suck, but the paycheques would be oh-so-nice.

And like I said… I need money.

I’ve got a baby on the way.

holy crap, I'm pregnant! (Entries tagged as diapers)

Half way there!!!

So I'm having a baby... Now what?