Plaxico
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Q: Are you going to find out the gender?
A: No.
Q: But then how are you going to know how to decorate the nursery?
A: Uh, we'll put in a crib and a changing table and a bookcase along with some
brightly colored posters and stuffed animals. Tom and I manage to co-exist in
the same non-gendered bedroom, so we're assuming that little Plaxico can survive
in a non-gendered nursery.
Q: OK, but how are you going to buy baby clothes?
A: Uh, onesies are pretty much one-gender-fits-all. Anyway, as she writes this,
Plaxico's mother is wearing men's jeans, a unisex t-shirt and a unisex sweatshirt,
and so far today no one has mistaken her for a man. We're sure Plaxico will muddle along just fine without pink lace or football appliques.
Q: Why are you calling this poor fetus "Plaxico"? You're not really going to
name it that are you?
A: Several years ago, we were watching a football game, and one of the players
for the Pittsburgh Steelers was named Plaxico Burress (well, still is named
that). I thought that was either the dumbest name I'd ever heard or the most
awesome name I'd ever heard, and vowed to name our firstborn Plaxico. Tom vetoed
that idea, but we started calling our then-hypothetical child Plaxico. So now
that our firstborn isn't so hypothetical, it only made sense to keep the
continuity and call it Plaxico. (Plaxico's still-hypothetical sibling is named
Carly Patterson Reilly. When we were watching the Olympics, and Carly Patterson
won the women's all-around gymnastics gold, Tom claimed to like the name Carly.
I was all, "No child of ours will be named Carly," but the nickname stuck, and
Plaxico and Carly Patterson became our hypothetical children. [An awesome sidenote: Sports Illustrated described Carly Patterson as having a body
shaped like a Snickers bar.])
Q: Is Plaxico actually a fetus? Or is s/he an embryo?
A: According to something I read, Plax graduated from "embryo" to "fetus" at the
end of the second month. Which is now. Sigh... Plaxico's first graduation.
Before you know it, s/he'll be graduating from high school, and I'll be all, "It
seems like just yesterday you graduated to 'fetus.'"
Q: Was this planned?
A: Yes. Please remember that half of this kid's genes come from Tom
Reilly. While most fetuses (feti?) probably naturally just grow toes or separate
brain lobes, we're pretty sure that on our first ultrasound we saw an itty-bitty
tiny Excel spreadsheet on which there were entries like, "Project: Grow Toes;
Target Completion Date: January 26; Actual Completion Date...." - a fetus
after its father's heart! Or maybe my
genes are dominant, and what we thought was an Excel spreadsheet was actually a
chocolate bar.
Q: Is Emily going to keep running while she's pregnant?
A: Yes. Well, maybe. The good old first-trimester fatigue isn't doing much for
my motivation, but I'm trying to get out there several times a week. I'm already
starting to huff and puff more than usual, but I thought that was left over from
my two-week cold. But no, my OB said, "That's pregnant-lady running for you."
Q: But I thought women's uteruses fell out if they exercised too strenuously.
Or something like that. Wouldn't that be especially harmful if you're pregnant?
A: Ha, ha. My OB is actually a marathon runner herself, and in this enlightened
day and age it's considered beneficial for women to exercise (in moderation)
while they're pregnant. There are some outdated notions about keeping your heartrate under 140 beats per minute but, as noted previously in this sentence,
that's outdated. A good book is
The Runner's World Guide to Running and Pregnancy.
Q: I was thinking Emily had been looking a little chubby lately. But I guess
she's just pregnant?
A: Uh, yeah.
Q: Did Emily give Tom permission to sing '"I got me
a wife and she's as big as a whale, and she's about to set saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaail!"
to the tune of the B-52s Love Shack?
A: Yes, Tom has provisional permission to sing that song. When Emily is
actually as big as a whale, that permission may be revoked.
Q: Are you excited about purchasing fleece items for little Plaxico?
A: Yes. In fact, Tom has already purchased tiny fleece mittens and tiny fleece
booties for Plaxico's first winter in chilly VA.
Q: Are your cats,
Angus and Spike, excited about the new addition to the family?
A: Who knows. Angus is still trying to recover from all the guests at Christmas,
so we don't want to spring anything new on him right now. And Spike is probably
just trying to figure out how to work this development to her advantage.
Q: What does Plaxico look like right now?
A: You can see ultrasounds here,
and
this
website gives a rough idea of Plaxico's development.
Q: So how far along is Plaxico?
A: That's a complicated question. And here's a brief primer on conception:
Assuming a woman has a normal 28-day menstrual cycle, she ovulates two weeks
into the cycle (actually, ovulation is 14 days before the next period,
not halfway through the cycle - so that means that if a womans has a 32-day
cycle she ovulates on day 18, not day 16).
Pregnancy is usually dated from the last menstrual period (LMP), which means
by the time a baby is conceived the mother is technically two weeks pregnant
(assuming a "normal" 28-day cycle). Home pregnancy tests work by picking up the
pregnancy hormone, and most of them don't work until around the time the woman's
period is due, or about 28 days into the cycle (caveat: some claim to pick up
the hormone up to four days before a missed period, but if you read the fine
print that only works for about 60 percent of women). So, by the time home
pregnancy tests can pick up the pregnancy hormone the mother is technically four
weeks pregnant. Let's review: if someone tells you she's 20 weeks pregnant,
that means she conceived 18 weeks ago and her last period was 20 weeks ago.
Why use LMP, you ask? Well, as near as I can tell doctors use the LMP dating
because most patients can pretty accurately determine their LMP, while many
couldn't pinpoint when they conceived. That doesn't seem super-accurate to me,
since that assumes a 28-day cycle, but I guess it's better than nothing. Also,
I've heard that many doctors do the official dating with an ultrasound, so maybe it's a
mute point. Anyway, at the risk of being TMI, Plaxico was conceived on or around
December 1, but LMP dating should start from November 17.
Q: Can you PLEASE change "mute point" in the second-to-last sentence of the
previous paragraph to "moot point"? It's driving me nuts.
A: Ha, ha, ha. That's what you get for thinking I was chubby. Mute, mute, mute.
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