April 23rd-29th : The Conference

I feel terribly disorganized and unsettled lately, and I think the first thing to do is to fix these problems within my own mind.  Often, that means writing everything down.  I fear this is going to be a rather long and jumbled post, so if you feel like going on an adventure, then by all means, keep reading.

You're still with me?  Thanks, friend.  :)



Wow, even now you're still reading.  I haven't bored you yet.  Just wait.

Things have felt totally crazy since last week.  The beginning of last week.  First, I want to mention that the lab I work for has been planning a move into our new building for several months now.  This move was carefully calculated to happen over a weekend so that none of our clients were negatively affected in any way and we got all our specimens processed in the regular timeframe.  This was complicated by the fact that the owner, Dr. S., chose THE. SINGLE. WEEKEND. all year that I was going to be out of town, to do the move over.  I'd already requested off several days to attend the American Adoption Congress' Mile High Expectations annual conference in Denver, CO.  And of course the move got scheduled for while I was gone.  For me, that turned out pretty great because I didn't have to do the heavy lifting or put in the fourteen hour days that my coworkers did... except that I was trying to help them and feeling really guilty that they were to be shorthanded on the ONE weekend they needed me most.  But I'd already paid my entrance to the conference and had plane tickets, so I was not present during the laboratory move.

Last Wednesday, April 25th, T drove me to the airport after two solid days of both of us working our fingers to the bone to get enough product ready to sell.  I was taking STAR necklaces, pins, and bookmarks to sell at the conference and represent One Little Starfish, LLC.  (www.onelittlestarfish.org)  It was actually the very first time I'd flown by myself.  Odd.  Needless to say, I managed fine and caught all the right planes and didn't get kidnapped by rogue taxi drivers or anything of the sort.

The American Adoption Congress (AAC) conference began on Wednesday, but I didn't arrive in time to participate on Wednesday.  Thursday was my first full day of conference activities.  (Interesting note: I'd never been to a conference of any sort, either!)  The conference went all the way through Sunday afternoon. My parents had flown into Denver on Monday, as my illustrious mother is on the AAC Board of Directors (she's also an author!) and they had meetings prior to the conference.

The mere idea, right now, of going through and recapping each day in chronological order, is boring and exhausting to me.  If it bores me to THINK about writing it, I'm certainly not going to subject anyone else to reading my summation.  Therefore, I now present you with: AAC conference "snapshots" of A's mind!

Preface: It'll probably seem weird to many of you that the experiences I had that stick out most prominently aren't memories from workshops.  Maybe it *is* weird.  But this is my experience, and my thoughts on why these things affected me most.

*On my flight home, I was seated next to one of the U of A men's rugby players - he slept the whole way.  Somehow, I'd managed to score a seat in the first row, in a wider seat with "stretch" legroom on my Frontier flight.  I didn't pay extra for this, or specify it ahead of time.  I just got amazingly lucky.  (The rugger next to me made sure to say hello to the rest of his team as they boarded the plane!  They were all quite jealous of his prime seating.)  So on this extra comfortable and convenient seat, I took out a small journal and began jotting down things I wanted to remember.  I'd attended only three full days of conference, and yet it felt as if I'd been gone from my wife for weeks.  I surprised myself with the things I remembered and wanted to write about.  Here they are (some of them), in the order I wrote them down.

*Carol - the only 15 year old boy in a 66 year old grandmother's body I've ever met.  This woman, my Carol, spent much of our time together blowing my mind.  Truly, Carol, I love you dearly and you made such an impact on me and I have such fond memories of you!  I met Carol in the Book Room, which was my father's contribution to the conference.  Carol was selling her adoption jewelry and a book she wrote, which regrettably didn't make it from the printer in time to be sold at the conference, but yet she did manage a few presales.  Carol is youthful and energetic, full of stories and life and exuberance.  She wore me out, and I'm 25.  She was a drinking, cussing, hula-hooping, dancing fool!  Carol also has a wit that'll splice a hair in half, and a sense of humor so dry you'll need lotion if you're spending an extended amount of time with her.  The things that came out of your mouth shocked me into silence a few times, Carol, and that is a major accomplishment.  Kudos to you, my dear!  I hope I'm half as lively as you when I'm 66.  (The lighting wasn't great, which is why mostly we've just got blurry cell photos - that and Carol never holds still!)

Yep, that's actually a single hula hoop that has a collapsible "travel" feature!  Go Carol!


*Mom punching Leah in the nose.  A friend of my mom's, Leah, was making the rounds and saying her goodbyes at Saturday night's dance party and apparently my mom was overly exuberant, and instead of throwing her arms around Leah she managed to land a fist right on Leah's nose!  I glanced over at them and saw them both crying - bear in mind, crying was not abnormal at this conference, so I wasn't concerned.  But then I noticed they weren't sad... they were laughing so hard that they could scarcely breathe.  Tears streamed down their faces and only increased as they shared the punching story with everyone else.

*Zach's song and hearing him sing karaoke.  A newfound friend of Leah's - Zach.  An 18 year old man with a kind and friendly face.  Zach and his birthmother, Michelle, were attending the conference together for the first time.  Zach is an amazingly talented songwriter/singer/musician, we came to find out.  He allowed me the pleasure of listening to a song he'd written and played and sung and recorded himself - I was moved to tears by its raw honesty.  Prior to hearing his song, he had snuck up to the DJ booth and signed up to sing Matchbox 20's "Unwell", so as he began to sing we didn't realize it was Zach.  Our group had spent the evening mocking the horrific karaoke singers we'd been cursed with so far, so this fresh and talented voice was like cool water.  Once we realized it was our Zach, the performance took on a new level of intimacy within our group.  Zach has the ability to be so incredibly truthful and real, and he transferred it into his rendition of  "Unwell".  As some of you know, the lyrics go like this,
"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
a different side of me."
Which I thought was a very appropriate song to sing at the end of a very emotional conference, particularly for Zach, who it seemed had made a lot of discoveries about himself and life over the previous few days.  It was a shockingly impactful performance; it moved many of us to tears as we watched his soul pour out of his body.  Zach: you are an amazing person.  I am so excited to see what comes next for you.

*Dinner at La Fogata.  Thursday night, Dad and I found ourselves to be 2 out of a party of 6 people for dinner.  It started as just Leah and us, and then Leah ended up making several invitations and before we knew it, we were having dinner with 3 strangers and one person we'd met only the day previously.  Ohhhhhkay, sure.  (Carol is from Maine, Zach and Michelle are from New Hampshire, Leah lives outside of D.C., and Dad and I are of course, from Arizona!)  Actually, it ended up being a super fantastic time, everyone at dinner was so different and interesting and HILARIOUS that I don't think any of us particularly wanted it to end.  Except that some films were being shown that evening back at the hotel, so we had to get back somewhat quickly.  The three young'uns (Me, Leah, and Zach) had walked over because Carol's little rental car only seated five.  But we didn't have enough time to really walk back so... what to do?  Myself, Leah and Carol had shared a pitcher of margaritas among the three of us (AMONG, not BETWEEN because BETWEEN pertains to only two people - thanks Leah) and none of us were fit to drive.  Dad and Michelle had beers, which left Zach.  The only one too young to drink.  He became our designated driver.  Dad sat in the front seat with him to navigate.  I sat "on the hump" in the backseat, Leah to my left and Michelle to my right.  There wasn't any room for Carol in her own rental!  Before I could suggest some kind of solution, here comes Carol, diving across our laps.  She ended up laying on her back over the three of us, Leah holding her head so it didn't hit into the door.  Zach carefully drove us back to the hotel in this ridiculous arrangement.  We were all laughing so hard, it's a miracle we didn't cause Zach to drive over several curbs.  We did manage to make it back in time to view the films, too!  All's well that ends well.

*Meeting people in the Book Room.  As I mentioned before, Dad was running the Book Room - which is a room, full of books, incidentally.  Okay, really it's a place where people can sell their books/CDs/films/whatever that is associated with the adoption community, but they have to be an attendee at the conference in order to sell their stuff.  I was selling One Little Starfish stuff, and had arrived Wednesday night to set it all up.  Thursday there wasn't much going on, workshop-wise, that I was interested in, so I spent the day with Dad, officially opening the Book Room and helping however I could.  "Helping" turned out to mean more than I'd bargained on, but I was really happy I could be useful rather than a bump on a log.  As people began to filter through the Book Room, I got to make several new friends.  I met so many people through the Book Room, it was incredible!  M.J., who encouraged me to attend the Michigan Womyn's Festival in 2013 and do a workshop with her about donor conception.  Casey, with the most incredible blonde ringlet-ed curls and brightest blue eyes - and who could forget her awesome black leather jacket and tie-dye skirts?!  Carrie, who has written her own memoir but was struggling with what to title it.  Kris, one of the women giving workshops on donor conception.  Amanda, who is an artist and sells inspiration-themed work (www.theinspiredpaintbrush.com) and gave me one of her wonderful "Mental Block"s.  Phyllis, another presenter focusing on donor conception and infertility.  Tall and hilarious red-headed Macy, a friend of my mom's.  My dad worked so hard on the Book Room, and it really showed.  I loved dearly that I was able to spend so much time working alongside him.  I think my favorite part was when I got to tell people who my parents are.  Brings a smile to my face!

*Being so proud of my mother.  My mom is an author.  She wrote a memoir about learning she was adopted late in life (a Late Discovery Adoptee, or LDA) and even more difficult than that, she continues to promote it and herself.  My mom has always been a writer, for as long as I can remember.  It's only been recently that she's authored a book and gotten it published, but I always figured the book part was a foregone conclusion.  She loves to write, it fills up her soul.  However, she doesn't love self-promotion.  She isn't a lover of the spotlight, or a saleswoman.  I know she has to convince herself to get out there and promote the book.  When people ask her to sign their copies of her book, she finds it extremely odd because, like she says, "I'm just one of you guys; we're all the same."  When I stepped foot into the Denver Tech Center for this conference, I felt like hundreds of people already knew me.  I felt so special, so privileged because my mom is the Secretary of the board!  My mom wrote a book!  My mom tells everyone about me and T and our baby!  My mom, whose heart has a never-ending amount of space for new people and new stories.  Whose love is limitless.  Whose selflessness is staggering.  Whose work ethic is incredibly strong.  My mom, who helped to make my body, who helped form my spirit - she's mine.  Her DNA is part of my DNA.  Her roots (or lack of roots) are mine.  Mom, I'm so proud of you and all your accomplishments and I'm SO proud to be YOURS!

* The Mom Mafia.  My mother has a group of birthmoms who she is incredibly close with, whom as a group my father has affectionately nicknamed "The Mom Mafia".  She wouldn't be where she is right now without all her Moms - thank you all so much for taking my mother in under your wings!  I had such a wonderful time meeting many of you.  I hope to see you all again soon.

*My new friend, Sukari.  I met Sukari and Leah both on Wednesday night, as my parents and I were finishing up dinner in the hotel restaurant, Garrity's.  Sukari, I learned, is a Late Discovery Adoptee.  She also is gay.  She and her partner are talking about trying to have a baby of their own in the somewhat near future, so as you can all imagine Sukari and I had a TON to talk about.  We spent many workshops together and had several dinners together.  She and I went to all the donor conception workshops, and my mom even tagged along to the "Let's Start a Donor Revolution" panel discussion Friday night.  Sukari is tall and expressive and gorgeous and funny as shit.  Lady, I had such a great time with you and I hope there's a baby in your belly sooner rather than later.

*Feeling out of place.  I've learned that there are a lot of ways to "fit in" at an adoption conference - it's all about your connection to adoption.  When I introduced myself, it typically went like this, "I'm A from Arizona and I'm the biological child of a Late Discovery Adoptee as well as the soon-to-be mother of a donor-conceived individual."  Though I have a two-pronged entrance into Adoption-Land, still I felt like an outsider.  I never got around to discussing this with Dad; I wonder if he feels the same.  By the end of the conference, I was struck by the number of attendees who had life-altering, mind-blowing incredible personal growth experiences.  I was even more struck by the fact that I hadn't.  That, in and of itself, was fine - but I felt like a stranger poking my face into an intimate family affair.  I got to witness all these terribly emotional and personal journeys that people are taking, and the best (and maybe harshest) analogy I can come up with is that it's like a larger-than-life version of going to the zoo.  I see the animals, I read their placards about where they're from and what they eat, but I don't live their lives.  I get to leave the zoo at the end of the day.

Adoptees are forever adoptees.  Their feelings of loss and abandonment and betrayal aren't only felt once, or even only once a day.  These are their lives.  Being an adoptee, or a birth parent, or an adoptive parent... those are experiences that make up the fabric of life, of each and every moment of every day for the rest of the days they're fortunate enough to walk this earth.  It's not something to simply be "dealt with" and then move on.  I guess that's the biggest thing I learned; not to say that I didn't know it before - but to know it isn't necessarily to live it.  I feel it on a different level now than I ever did before.

I can account for every day in my life.  Every day, I've known who my parents are.  I know who felt my first kicks while I grew in my mother's womb.  I know who saw me be born into this world.  I know whose laughter and funny voices taught me about the humor in life.  I know whose lips kissed my face as a baby.  I know who soothed my cries, who dressed my wounds, who changed my diapers and put up with my trouble-making as a child (and as an adult, for that matter!).  These examples are just a drop in a bucket full of things adoptees don't and probably won't ever know about themselves.  And these things are NOTHING compared to the big-ticket items, like someone's original birth certificate, family medical records, and other things equally important that many adoptees don't have access to - my wonderful mother included.

I don't know that I'm trying to make a point.

I have felt overly full this week, since returning from the conference.  Full of every emotion imaginable.  While I was gone, I thought about my wife and unborn daughter all the time.  I thought about how lucky I am, to have them both.  I developed a huge fear of air travel - what if the plane crashed and something happened to me?  I'd lose my wonderful T, and my darling daughter who I haven't even gotten to meet yet.  The idea of that even now brings tears to my eyes.

I contemplated often what my mother's life was like, as an unborn baby and then an infant and then a child.  She grew up all the way to the age of 43 without anyone telling her that oh yeah, someone else contributed their genetics to her and someone else grew her in their uterus and someone else gave birth to her and someone gave her away and someone entirely different from the first someone had her in their home for her first three months, before she ever went to live with her adoptive family.  I feel such a loss that those pieces of my mom's life are question marks.  Who held her at 2am when she cried?  Did anybody kiss her face and tell her she was beautiful and amazing and miraculous?  Did anybody take pleasure in her sparkling blue eyes and revel in the magic that is inherent in all babies?

What was the name you were first given, Mom?

Someday, we're going to find out.



I've been asked a lot about the conference.  "Oh, how was the adoption conference in Denver?"  I never know what to say, but I do know that nobody really wants to spend two hours talking with me about it, and so I just end up smiling and saying, "You know, it was good!  Thanks for asking."

Because what do you say about being privy to so much personal loss and grief and sadness and the celebration of life that comes anyway, despite all the pain?  I'm not even sure that it's my place to recount the lives I learned about, the stories that break your heart, and the joy that binds everyone.  Or maybe it's all of our places to do that for one another.  



This conference was so FULL.  I could never write a long enough blog to cover it all and the range of emotion to accompany it.  Well, I could, but I don't want to and I doubt you want to read it.  There were a thousand little things I'd like to remember, but most of them are jotted down in my airplane journal on the pages behind my Everleigh Jane doodle.  I guess this is it for now!  I have other actually pregnancy-related things to write about, and now that this is out of the way I'll be able to do it.  I hope you're all doing well.

Top row, left to right: Carol, Leah, Zach, and Michelle
Bottom row, left to right: me! Dad, Mom, and Sukari

20 Week Photos, Bradley Class #2, and other ramblings

I know it is a few weeks late, but here are photos from 20 weeks, aka: The Half Way Point!

We had our second Bradley class last Tuesday.  Turns out the other couple dropped out. I'm not going to read much into it, because I have considered doing the same.  I was really hoping to meet some other couples and have it be a group experience, but we will still get the actual content without that, so I don't mind much. It was a fairly uneventful class.  We talked about my food diary and the areas I was lacking. We did some review of the material from the first class, and we talked a bit about the actual anatomy of pregnancy. Really we've read so many books on pregnancy that there was no new information and I really feel no need to review for the "quiz" on it today.

Last weekend A went to a convention for the American Adoption Congress.  She was selling items for our business that focuses on adoption reform and her mother is the secretary of the Congress.  There were some workshops and panels on donor conceived individuals and it sounds like she made some good contacts.  I, however, learned that I do not do well when my wife is away for 4 days.  Just sayin'.

I know when I started this blog a few days ago, I had an actual idea of what I wanted to write about.  However, that seems to be lost to me now, so I think I will end it before it really does just become rambling.

But here is one more photo taken by my lovely wife. I thought it was funny...

Bradley Class #1

We had our first Bradley Class this week. I'm not completely thrilled with our choice yet. Really, if the method weren't so highly recommended to us, there is no possible way I would have chosen to go to a class on "Husband Coached Birth". Nor would I buy a book about it. But alas, it seemed like the best choice. Hopefully we were right.

There were about 5 different classes in town and they were all starting around the same time (remember A's entry about emailing the instructors?). Evidently this isn't the norm, so our class only has us and one other couple... and they have already taken the class. It just feels a little awkward. I guess I should just count myself lucky because we basically get a private class for the cost of the group class. Our instructor is interesting. She is a chiropractor and the classes are at her practice. I like her, but it is obvious that some of her chiropractic views contradict with what she is supposed to teach.

For our first class we watched some old birth videos, talked about pain management and nutrition, and went over the exercises.

I keep putting off doing the food journal. It just annoys me. Really, right now I'm just trying to find *enough* food. Lately nothing sounds good and it makes it really hard to eat more spinach and kale. I think A is as annoyed with it as I am. Regardless last nights dinner had a large serving of spinach, as will this morning's smoothie.

I guess I'm just feeling overwhelmed and cynical this week (anyone who talked to me yesterday can attest to my volatile state). Hopefully next week I will be able to focus and be more open to the class and what it is trying to teach us.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am going to do some editing and then I will post some of the photos my lovely wife took last weekend since we are 20 weeks (half way there, woohoo!).

What's in a name?

While I was growing up, my immediate family all had the same last name.  Granted that there were just the four of us (me, my brother, Mom and Dad) but I remember loving it when we received gifts that said our family's last name.  In elementary school I had a project where I was supposed to design my own version of our family crest and I was glad we all shared the same name, because the kids with two names struggled.

I didn't realize, truly, how much that meant to me until we got married and were suddenly faced with a dilemma.  Who changes their name?  Should we both change our name to something new entirely?  Or should we just hyphenate?

In the time leading up to the wedding, we got this question approximately eight hundred million thousand times:

"What are you going to do about your last names?"

Which is a totally fair question.  After much debating, finagling, and rehashing the subject we just gave up and said, "Screw it.  Let's just each keep our own name."  We got married, kept our own names, and life went on without much excitement about the names.

About a year and a half passed us by without my giving the name debate much thought.  But then I began having a crazy desire to make babies and started thinking about the fact that no baby of ours would be biologically related to both of us - so whose name will our babies have?  Will we burden them with a hyphenated name?  What are we going to do?  And I began to be filled with dread over our family not sharing the same name.*  I stressed about it, and the more I read and researched the legal rights a non-biological lesbian mom would have over her kids, the more I worried.  There are no rights to be had, by the way, if you aren't genetically linked.  It became all the more important that we all share the same name, to at least lead people to perceive us more as a family.

T already had her bachelor's degree by the time we were married.  I didn't then and I don't now have any degrees.  I never really had done anything that it was important to me to keep using my family's last name; and always anticipated changing my last name anyway, so why shouldn't I just become a McGill?  Something in the thought resonated with me and once I had it in my head, it wouldn't leave.  I wondered if I'd actually be able to get away with changing my name through Social Security Administration due to my marriage of a year and a half before - of course, the snag comes because it's a gay marriage, not recognized by the state of Arizona.  I figured that there was really only the one way to find out, so I headed to the SSA office.  I waited in line twenty minutes, I presented the clerk with my marriage license and my name-change form and it took him about five minutes to change my name in the computer.  He gave me a receipt of name-change and told me to expect a new Social Security card in the mail.  We still don't know if it went through because T has somewhat of an androgynous name, or if the guy just didn't care or if he thought it should be easy... and we will likely never know.  But I am thankful for him.

I left the office in a daze... could it really have been that easy?  It was official - I was a McGill and our family really was going to share the same name.

Fast forward a couple years.  Before we were licensed as foster parents, I got a somewhat random text from my mom one day.  It was something to the effect of, "If you guys ever have a daughter, you should name her Everleigh!"  She'd seen the name somewhere, some celebrity named their daughter Everley or Everlee or whatever.  Naturally, my mom and I are very attached to the -eigh ending of names because that's how my name ends!  My childhood was filled with sayings like, "Bee Happeigh".  My pet cockatiel was named "Birdeigh" (after naming the bird Ginger, only to discover the bird was male and thus he gained a new moniker).

At first, I wasn't sold on Everleigh.  I thought it might be too weird.  I mentioned it in passing to T, who didn't seem sold either.

Interestingly, over time, the name really attached itself into our hearts.  It had special meaning to us because my mom suggested it first, and the -eigh ending.  At some point, we thought it would be just perfect to use the nickname Evie for Everleigh.  We really fell in love with the name/nickname after that.

When we first started planning to try to conceive a baby, we began poring over our already well-loved Baby Name Book.  We went through a lot more girls' names, and tons of boys' names.  We spent some time wondering about what a good middle name for Everleigh would be.  We thought it would be best if we chose a single-syllabled name to go with a longer, more complicated first name.  Jane came up pretty quickly; and it's also T's grandmother's middle name!  Double score.  The icing on the cake is that the baby's initials would be E.J.M., which are T's dad's same initials.

Over the next year, we considered other names.  We lengthened and shortened the list.  But always, we came back to Everleigh Jane.

Then just last week, we learned that T is growing a baby girl in there.  A daughter.

Our very own Everleigh Jane.  She's really coming!**

*I want our family to share a name - I don't want anybody to feel that my desires in any way place judgement on the way they choose to name their own families!  To each their own.

**The name is not set in stone; we absolutely reserve the right to change the name once we meet her if we think she's somebody different!

This is a wooden sign T's father made when he was in middle school, I believe.  His family had it up at their house for awhile, and then it got passed back to him as he got older and had his own family.  Recently, it was passed on to us in celebration of our family name.  By the time I got my hands on it, it was in rough shape.  I cleaned it up and painted it, and now it's just waiting to be hung up in our home!  Isn't it great?  I love it.

Our Little Easter Egg

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Ours was busy, but that's the way we like it.

Saturday morning we got to sleep in a bit. When we did get out of bed we talked about what we each wanted to accomplish during the day. The list was quite intimidating and overwhelming. Eventually I resorted to writing it down and we dove in. Since our weekends are rarely spent together, I pouted and insisted until A agreed that we would do our errands together even if it meant not accomplishing as much.

We started with taking the truck for an oil change. While we waited we made a menu for the week and shopped across the street. We came back home and got a bunch of clothes and some of our old nursery stuff to a second-hand store. It was going to be quite a wait so we ran to Wal-Mart (yuck!) to buy some under-the-bed storage containers. We got some cute onesies while we were there. When we got back, they had finished and only wanted 3 of the things we brought. We left the rest of the clothes for them to donate to charity and took the baby things to sell on craigslist. I found a pair of jeans and a shirt, which are both desperately needed.

We dropped the unsold baby things off at home and took the truck to the car wash for a bath. By the end of this I was exhausted and we headed home. A detailed the inside of the truck and took pictures so we can start pursuing selling it and getting something with better gas mileage. I, however, laid on the couch and read a book (which is not about pregnancy!).

By this time the sun was setting and it was time to head to my parents house for our weekly craft night. My goal was to do taxes and A was excited to see some pottery she had glazed that would be coming out of the kiln. Unfortunately, it hadn't cooled off enough to bring out yet, but we were greeted with a much better surprise...

For our nursery we decided not to get a set and just make it ourselves. We want to get vinyl wall stickers of birch trees and put them on the wall that the crib will be on. I really wanted to make or buy some kind of moon wall lamp. We also wanted to incorporate owls into the theme somehow. It turns out inspiration struck my mom. She spent the day carving an amazing snowy owl out of clay that lays over a ring that will hold a piece of fused and slumped glass for our moon light! It is amazing and I can't wait to see the finished product.

After the excitement of the lamp wore off we got some food. By this point it was getting sort of late and we hadn't accomplished any crafting. We had brought some washable markers and I asked A if she wanted to decorate my belly or do something else. We found some chairs that were good heights and she started her belly art. At this point I should mention to those of you who don't know me, or somehow missed this information, I am incredibly ticklish. I have almost lost friends over it, I have an actual physical scar from it, I really, really hate it when people tickle me. Markers on my belly tickled a lot. Somehow I made it through without any injury to my lovely wife and with a great Easter belly!



Everyone took pictures and laughed at my belly (and laughed more when I laughed and the egg changed shapes!).

Saturday was dedicated to visiting A's family in Gilbert. We slept too late, took a while to get out of the house, and needed to stop and take care of the cats we are cat-sitting for the week. We finally got to Gilbert in time for a late lunch. When we came back I worked on our taxes a bit and A and her mom started getting things together to dye eggs. This year we both independently found articles about dyeing eggs with natural dyes, so that seemed the way to go. We brought cabbage for blue and turmeric for yellow. We had some pomegranate and cranberry tea for red, but forgot it at home. The article A found showed how to use pieces of nylons to hold leaves and flowers on the eggs, so that was what we were going to do.



Other than the awful smelling kitchen, the eggs turned out amazing. While they were steeping, my brother-in-law, H, showed up with his new girlfriend, S. We chatted with them for a while and then pulled the eggs out of the pots of dye.



and our favorite--


We had a great dinner and got to just sit in the living room and tell stories and get to know S. I don't think we scared her away, which is a good thing. After they left I worked on our taxes some more so my father-in-law could help me with the part for our business.

We finally left around 10:45 and headed home. It was a great weekend!

Centering Pregnancy

Wednesday evening, we headed over to the Birth Center (I drove as T scarfed down a gluten-free english muffin with an egg in it...) to attend our first Centering class.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Centering Pregnancy and Centering class(es) refers to the same thing. It's a program through the Birth Center in which women of similar gestation and their partners regularly meet together under the guidance of a midwife and a nurse.  This program takes the place of the majority of our remaining prenatal appointments.  Instead of having a routine prenatal appointment every four weeks, we have a Centering class every four weeks.  (Until the appointments would be closer together, at which time the Centering sessions get closer together, and so on.)  *I'd like to point out here that there are still a couple of appointments, for the Glucose Tolerance Test/RhoGAM shot, and one to go over our birth plan.

Centering Pregnancy advocates for women to take a larger responsibility in their own prenatal care while simultaneously providing them with a community of others going through the same stages in their pregnancies.  At every session, each couple has individual time with the midwife to talk about questions and concerns, hear the baby on the Doppler, and have the baby belly measured.  At the beginning of each session, every pregnant participant weighs herself and records her own blood pressure - a nurse takes it, but we have a chart that we keep ourselves and write everything down in.  The midwife inquires after these vitals during the one-on-one time.  During the time the midwife is with each couple separately, everyone else eats snacks and chats and gets to know one another.

Centering Pregnancy is a program that is nationwide, and is supported in many other birth centers and hospitals across the country.

So, our night, our first session.  We arrived and everyone was shepherded into the Community Room, where chairs and couches had been set up in a circle.  The nurse, Jennifer, handed around markers and nametags, and then pushed her blood pressure checker machine thing around the circle and took all the blood pressures - of the pregnant women, not the rest of us!  She handed out binders to everyone with all the information for all 10 sessions.

There was the obligatory "Let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves!"  Which is always fun, when you're T & A.  T made sure to refer to me as her wife, so others would know how we identify with each other, and told everyone that we're expecting our first and that we'd just learned that we are having a baby girl.  (Joy!  I'm still filled with joy.)  I assumed ahead of time that we'd be the only lesbian couple, and I was correct.  Everyone else had a husband.  T was the only one with a wife; what a lucky girl she is.

The midwife introduced herself, but really the informational session was headed by the nurse.  Nurse Jennifer.  Who, incidentally, is also pregnant and due in September, which I thought was cool.

We discovered that there are 10 sessions in Centering, but the last one is actually a reunion, held in October after all the September babies have arrived.  The 9th session is 2 weeks after T's due date, and the 8th session is ON the due date, LOL.  The midwife assured us the 8th and 9th sessions are mostly review sessions and opportunities to commiserate and ask any remaining questions.  If we're that concerned, we'll just review the material in our handy dandy ... NOTEBOOK!  (Blue's Clues, anybody?)

The information in this first session is nothing we didn't know already.  One of the curses of being super duper excited about babies and reading everything I could get my hands on before we were even trying.  This session was about nutrition.  I'm already tired of hearing about it; I can't imagine how T is tolerating it.

At one point, another person due on the same day as T was talking about lunchmeat and do we *really* need to heat it?  The nurse suggested to just heat it until it's steaming, and the woman made a face and commented that it sounded really unappetizing that way, because "who really wants a pile of steaming meat?"  Which I thought was a point well-made.  She had all of us laughing so hard.

There are five other couples, in addition to us.  Twelve people total, in these sessions, and I guess our group is a large one.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all the other couples were easy to talk to and it didn't feel awkward to be gay in that room.  I find that to be sometimes a rare commodity when first meeting a large group of new people who share only a pregnancy in common.  However, nobody batted an eye and everyone was very friendly.  Yay for that!

I fear that to combat potential awkwardness, my response is sometimes too pushy, too loud, or might seem like I'm trying too hard.  Before I knew it, we'd told stories about how we came up with baby girl's name, about our unplanned/unknown horse pregnancy, and about our gay family practice doctor.  In addition of course to stories about our ultrasound and about how excited we were to be having a daughter.

I did try to ask other couples questions and steer conversations their way, but I guess sometimes I'm simply too hilarious and charming and the conversation comes right back to me.  Rather like a boomerang.  What to do, what to do.  I will try to step back a little in our next class (if I can remember; it's not for another month!) and not seem terribly overbearing or needy.  Yikes.  Sorry, T.  I can be an embarrassment at times, haha.

Finally it was our turn to have midwife-time.  Naturally, we were last because I was busy chatting everyone else up until they'd all left... We got to hear little girl's heartbeat in several different ways, which was totally awesome.  We heard the heartbeat through her umbilical cord AND from her little body, both close up and far away.  Or at least as far away as she can get in the space of a uterus.  I didn't realize that you could hear a baby's heartbeat so many ways!  The midwife was more than happy to move the Doppler around and demonstrate the different ways to hear it.  She also pointed out that the squiggly noises were from darling daughter's movements!  Very cool.  T said that she was kicking away during the class, and she was certainly very active when the Doppler was looking for her.

And that was it.  All in all, we had a lot of fun meeting everyone and learning about their families.  As we suspected, the information isn't really anything new but we can always find something to take away from it.  That's the same experience we had with our foster parenting classes, as well, and both the foster classes and the Centering sessions are for 10 weeks - how funny.  Centering isn't 10 consecutive weeks, though.

I've blathered on long enough.  That's all for this evening!

Anatomy scan!

Last night was a very restless night. I slept wrong the night before and my shoulder hurt, I was also worried about work things. A was sneezy and I think I kept waking her up. Plus, it was like Christmas when you are 7 years old and you just can't wait to wake up and tear through your stocking.

We met my mom in the parking lot at the hospital (our midwives have to send you to the hospital for any ultrasounds and testing). The ultrasound tech seemed very capable and once we were brought back to the room, she started right away. I asked if we could get a copy of the video and she was a little taken aback. She said that she would print us out pictures and the video stayed in my medical record. I pointed out that it is *my* record and I have a right to it. She agree and said she would talk to her manager about the actual procedure when he was back from vacation next week.

It was amazing. For us. I don't think the baby agreed. There was a lot of chasing the baby around my abdomen and TONS of kicks and punches. It was crazy to feel a kick and then see the little foot on the screen move.


The first attempt at seeing the sex was semi-failed. I think the tech could tell, but she wanted a better shot. A has been looking at so many photos on the internet of sonograms that she had a guess, but I missed it. The tech said she would come back and hope the baby's legs were open more.

She continued with measurements of the abdomen, and different angles of the heart, counting fingers and toes. You know, all of the actual medical things that make it a diagnostic tool that insurance will pay for.

the foot and a little bit of the umbilical cord

waving so we can count the fingers

Next she tried to get the brain measurements. This was the point where the baby decided to play tricks. Every time the tech would get close to the image she needed, the baby's head would move. She would use the ultrasound probe to shake my belly around, she had me lay on my side, she would dig the probe into my abdomen as hard as she could (I had to hold onto the side of the bed to keep from sliding or rolling back over), but she couldn't get the brain measurements. After a few minutes of this she stopped and told us we were in trouble because our baby was a stinker. Ha!

Eventually she got the necessary measurements and tried for the sex again. She sighed because the only image she could get was really not obvious (unless, like A, you have been studying them online). Just then, the baby moved and gave her the perfect shot.

We are having a GIRL!!