It's official

My first day of work is September 1st. No cavorting at the beach for me. =(

I will admit that I'm very grateful to have a full-time job, and will cease complaining about the lack of beach time. The sub rosters are bulging with laid-off teachers, and retirees (who haven't really retired), and I bet with the cuts in training funding, sub jobs will be few and far between this year, unless the swine flu hits hard. I'll be very very glad to have a place to go every day, and the fact that I don't have to drive all over the universe and get up at 5am every day to see if/when/where I'll be working. Nope--this--my friends, is a good thing.

Maybe I'll go to the coast over the weekend or something...

Portland Fermentation Festival

I definitely couldn't miss Portland’s first-ever Fermentation Festival (and a chance to say hello to Sandor Katz), so I made the trek down to the Pearl District for the Fermentation Festival from 6 - 8 pm at Ecotrust.

Fortunately it was easy to get there by bus. I just took the #9 and walked a couple of blocks around the backside of the downtown post office. The bad news, is said bus had no A/C and it was in the high 90's, so the trip was unbelievably hot and very uncomfortable.

Once I got there, I realized, Holy Cow, there's a lot of people here! You really couldn't walk through the conference room or anything. It's a wonder the fire marshall didn't show up, but I ran into Christi right away and said hello. It was a bit intense with all the people, so I didn't really do any sampling until the crowd thinned out a bit. Instead I walked down to the farmer's market right around the corner and meandered around there until some time went by, then tried again. While I was at it, I had a paleta. An hour later, it was slightly better inside.

Sandy was answering questions about fermenting (and its common mishaps), and I wandered around the room sampling stuff. Sandy's creative concoction featured okra and pears, among other things. Someone brought potato cheese, which was a huge hit. There were lots of samples of kimchi and kombucha, some lacto-fermented sodas, some coconut water kefir (agua de coco), lots of homemade wine and ale and cider, and other things I've probably forgotten about. A lot of people brought samples, and were there sharing samples of homemade fermented foods such as pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, kefir, and home brews. Someone even brought natto! I would love to learn how to make some of the things I've never gotten around to making before...I actually have recipes for most of these things courtesy of Wild Fermentation, but I still would need to obtain starters for things like kefir and kombucha.

I've been doing the home fermentation thing for awhile now. I don't know what initially got me into it--it could have been living in Japan and being exposed to things like miso and tsukemono (Japanese pickles), or simply eating my grandmother's homemade foods. I'm sure watching my dad brew beer in the kitchen was a source of inspiration too...

Whatever it was, I've taught a number of people how to make sauerkraut and kimchi, and when I lived at Declerye, we used to make pickles and kimchi and various wines all the time, since we had lots of produce from the garden in the summer. Since I no longer have such an enthusiastic audience, I don't do it quite as often these days, but I still make sauerkraut, brine pickles, and wine fairly often.

Home fermentation is pretty easy to do most of the time. It's a very low-tech process, after all, it comes from the days before refrigeration and pasteurization. You just need suitable containers, a ready supply of produce, and a few other relatively easy-to-find items (such as Kosher salt). Things that can go wrong are neglect (not paying close attention to a project), temperatures that are too high (things sometimes ferment too rapidly in warm weather), or too much oxygen (most things ferment more successfully when they aren't exposed to the air). Once you get used to the idea that it's totally normal to see some of the culture or bacteria growth on the surface of your pickles (just rinse if off if it bothers you), it's less problematic. You quickly learn what's normal (for example white stuff floating on the surface of kraut is normal), and what isn't.

a few more days

It's a few more days until school starts up again (for employees, at least--the kids have until September 8th, I think). I'm already having those back-to-school dreams.

It's also a few more days until Brian gets laid off, and no longer has a job. About the only good thing about this is that he's eligible for unemployment and COBRA. Other than that, it basically sucks.

Life around here is about to change irrevocably for both of us. I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about it right now, since it's hard to know what to expect.

It's not the boat I necessarily want to be in, but I better grab an oar and start paddling.

More thoughts about pregnancy

1. What's the one thing you would change about pregnancy?

It would be nice not to be so tired ALL the time. I miss having some stamina...now I have none. The frequent urination is also kind of a pain when you're trying to work or sleep. It's one of the hardest parts about being a teacher while pregnant.

2. What was the most surprising symptom?

The forgetfulness/brain fog that you have when you're pregnant. I don't do a great job most of the time, but now it's pretty bad. It's really hard to "keep it together" when you can't think straight half the time. It's really hard to multitask.

3. What's something every pregnant woman should know?

It gets really hard to hide the fact that you're pregnant after about 4 months. People start to notice.

4. What's the funniest thing that's happened to you while you're pregnant?

So far, I haven't had any particularly "funny" moments, although the baby moving around tends to make me laugh.

5. What is the one thing that annoyed you the most during pregnancy?

All the digestive issues, not being able to eat or drink normally. During the previous school year, I had to carry around ginger chews and small snacks.

6. What's the one thing you couldn't get enough of?

Sleep!

7. What is the one piece of advice every pregnant woman should have?

Pregnancy is different for everyone, so a lot of "so-called" advice won't apply to your situation.

VOZ Pizza Party

The VOZ party is the first time that I've seen both Sarah and Stephen together for quite awhile (it seems like I've run into Stephen more often, which always seemed kind of ironic since when I lived with them, he was always gone doing SEIU stuff). They were having a fundraising party at their house for VOZ. The only people I recognized was Susannah and Romeo, but it was nice to meet some new folks (after all, I don't get out much these days).

I've never seen the earth oven in action (which I affectionately call the big brown egg), but the pizza sure was good. The crust of a pizza from a wood-fired oven is a thing of beauty, and Stephen was creative with his toppings (I never would have thought of feta, cilantro, and corn, but they were very good on a pizza). The food was awesome, and the weather was great, so I had a pretty good time just sitting there enjoying the lush backdrop of the garden (I wish my garden looked this good). There were some crazy renegade chickens from the house next door that flew over the fence, one after another, and walked around quite brazenly, pecking under your feet looking for stray bits of corn (someone brought a big pot of corn on the cob--yum!) and food. I ate a ton of watermelon and pizza (everyone kept plying me with food!) and listened to various conversations in Spanish (my Spanish sure is getting rusty from lack of use!), Fransisco's guitar, and the clucking of the chickens. It was a nice peaceful afternoon, and the perfect day for a garden party.

I brought home a bag full of heirloom tomatoes, which I will be quite happy to eat. By far the best Sunday I've had in a long time...

Mrs. Q's Pregnancy FAQs

Is this your first child? Yep!

What day did you find out you were pregnant? I suspected it for awhile, but I found out for sure on April 25, 2009.

How did you feel when you found out you were pregnant? Well, a bit surprised and rather excited. It was a pleasant surprise.

Who was with you? Brian was home at the time, so I told him right away.

Who was the first person you told? Besides Brian, I'm not sure. Didn't tell anyone right away, I don't think.

How did the daddy react? He was probably even more excited and happy than I was...

How did your parents react? They were thrilled.

Have they bought anything for the baby yet? No idea.

How often do they call to check on you? About once a week.

When was your first appointment? My first prenatal appointment was at 8 weeks.

When is your due date? End of December. I'm hoping we'll make it into January.

How far along are you? This is week 21.

Pre-pregnancy weight? Not sure, since I don't own a scale.

Weight now? I think I've gained around 10 lbs or so, but I really don't know.

Have you had an unltrasound? I had one around 19 weeks.

Have you heard the heartbeat? I think the first time I heard it was the 2nd or 3rd appointment. It was hard to find the first time, but every time I've been to the clinic, I've heard it...my running joke is that my baby's heartbeat sounds like a freight train.

What do you want? I don't care if it's a boy or a girl--I'm fine with either one.

What does the daddy want? I think he would prefer a boy, but he's never indicated any preference.

Are you going to videotape the birth? No way! Just pictures. I don't really want all the sound effects...

Natural or medicated? Natural, hopefully. I like to keep things simple.

Do you think you will need a c-section? Hopefully not!

Are you scared about the labor? I think I'm more scared of the hospital than the process of giving birth. I always get the hives when I have to go to a medical facility.

Do you have a name picked out? Not telling!

Is your baby going to be named after someone? No, I'm not into naming kids after other people. I think you should have your own identity.

Have you felt the baby move? I started feeling movement at 16 weeks. I tend to feel it most when I'm laying down, and when there's music.

Do you have stretch marks? Not yet, but there's still lots of time to get them...

What was your first symptom? Being really tired!

Will your baby have godparents? Yeah--I better get on that...

What is the baby's room theme? This one doesn't get a room to itself for awhile so I'm not doing any "themes".

What was the first thing you bought for the baby? Someone down the street was having a yardsale, and I bought a bunch of clothes.

Are you ready to be a mommy? As ready as I'm ever gonna be, I suppose. I'm pretty good with kids in general, so I think I'll be fine. I don't have much experience with babies besides sporadic encounters, but other people's babies seem to dig me. We'll see...

pears!

You know summer's almost over when you start seeing those greenish-golden Bartlett Pears falling on sidewalks around town (much like the month of July is a shower of plums, an event I use to mark the midsummer point). To me, windfall pears--and apples--signal the hastening of fall's inevitable arrival, and a time when I need to start thinking about getting into a back-to-school frame of mind (and practicing the lost art of getting up early).

Walking around the neighborhood with the dog, I've noticed the neighbor's Bartlett Pears are landing in convenient locations that I can easily reach, so I've been helping myself. Over on Holgate Ave. on the north side of the street between 39th and 52nd, there's a whole stretch of pear trees, one right after another, that an enterprising pear-loving soul could potentially profit from. North Portland's also a fairly good spot to find large pear trees, as I recall...

Soon, though, it'll be time for apples and figs, then fall will be upon us in earnest. Don't know if I'm ready for it right now, but just like fruit flies...it's inevitable.

get your kicks

I've felt Sprout move around off and on at different times since about week 16, but now it's getting more noticeable. These days, I can pretty much count on the calisthenics to start just about the time I go to bed.

Tonight, laying in bed, I felt some pretty good solid kicks. What was different on this occasion, though, was that these were perceptible from the outside. Naturally of course, Sprout stopped just in time for me to reach over and grab Brian's hand (so that he could feel them too). Of course, I was so excited that I could hardly go to sleep. Oh well, I'm sure there'll be plenty of future opportunities for this sort of thing...

Those infamous leg cramps

I'm finally starting to get those infamous pregnancy leg cramps that you always hear people talking about. For awhile, the main problem was just my legs falling asleep if I sat still too long, but now I'm getting these too. Uggh. I've noticed that I have to be careful not to flex my legs while lying down, or I'll get them, and the only way to cut them down to size is to leap out of bed and launch myself into a standing position as fast as possible. I think they're circulation-related, but I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about them. Just one of those things, I guess.

the annual mulch roundup

It took a few days, but I'm glad to say that the annual mulch extravaganza is done for the year, and the pile of cardboard by the back shed is completely gone. This year, we were finally able to tackle the infamous median strip, so the grass eradication project is slowly but surely coming to fruition.

This year, I dispensed with the informality of hauling mulch one truckload at a time, and just ordered a dumptruck-load. At first glance, it's way spendier, but I figure when you factor in the gas (from all the back-and-forth trips), it might be pretty close to the DIY price. It's definitely a huge time-saver, and it's nice to not have to sweep out the back of the truck at the end of it all, or worry about mulch blowing around while you drive down the road.

This year, I went with Clackamas Compost Products (instead of Mt. Scott which is way closer to home, but they charge more for delivery). What Clackamas Compost lacks in sheer variety, is more than compensated for by the ease of service. The guy showed up bright and early on Friday, just like I asked for, and I got right to work spreading mulch.

I put down a new layer on the the front beds (they were looking a bit "threadbare", no doubt due to the fact that all the obnoxious neighborhood cats think of them as their personal litterbox--eww! I also did the garden in the back for the first time, hoping that it'll do something to alleviate this clay/hardpan/riverrock that I have. (You practically need a pickaxe just to dig any kind of holes back there to plant something, and if you needed to dig down deep enough to plant a shrub or tree, I swear you'd need a backhoe!) I also put down a ton of cardboard/newspaper for weed suppression because it's nearly impossible to keep up with handweeding this space, and the clay's too rock-hard to use a hoe on. Pretty much anywhere there wasn't a plant growing got the cardboard/newspaper treatment...Hopefully next year I won't have to do nearly so much handweeding...trust me, I won't have the time for it.

The front and side yard got re-done more for cosmetic reasons than weed-suppression. The cardboard and newspaper I put down last year seemed to do an adequate job of keeping the weeds/grass from making a comeback. Only the dandelions were strong enough to come up through that, and they were easy to pull. Plus, soil improvement is just as sorely needed in front as anywhere else around here.

The best part, though, was finally eradicating the grass/weeds in the median strip. It's a pain to mow because there's lots of shrubbery out there (service berries, thimbleberries, currants, etc), and of course, the ground is far too hard to dig in to plant anything else. I've always wanted this grass (and the weeds) gone, gone, gone, since all they do is create more work for me, so it was very gratifying to get out there and bury it all under cardboard and newspaper. (Cardboard and newspaper are the poor man's weedcloth--and if done correctly, work nearly as well in my opinion.)

The nice bonus this was an ideal time to get rid of all the huge boxes left over from the bamboo flooring, (in a sense, it was sort of a zero-waste home renovation purchase: the flooring ended up on the floor, the existing carpeting was recycled at East County Recycling, the plastic wrap was recycled at FarWest Fibers, the foam sheets went to PLC in North Portland, the paper got recycled in the municipal curbside recycling, and the boxes will slowly breakdown over the winter and smother out the weeds and grass underneath).

Since it's an area that gets blasted mercilessly by full sun all day long, so we went out and bought some drought-tolerant groundcovers to help anchor the new mulch. I went with some sedums, some kinnick-kinnick, creeping raspberry, and some oregano. I would have liked some thyme, but they didn't have any in stock. Eventually I'll plant some other stuff out there too...when I have time, that is.

It feels good to have that done for the year, and done before the rains start up again and dictate when you can get some work done.

maternity clothes I'm liking...

Thanks to my rapidly changing profile, more and more of my regular clothes are becoming obselete every day. Even if I had the money, I doubt I'd use this as an excuse to go out and buy expensive maternity clothes, so here's some alternatives that I'm counting on to help the situation along.

1. Scrubs (aka "Hospital" Pants): You know the ones--they typically come in decidedly institutional colors, and have a drawstring waist. Unless you have some kind of medical fetish, they probably aren't high on your list of fashion musts, but I must advocate in favor of them. For one, they're widely available cheap and used at places like Goodwill. For another, they're expandable and will grow with you for awhile if you get a big enough size. I don't recommend wearing them to your (non-clinical) job, but they're great for around the house.

2. Salwar Kameez: Much more fashionable than the above, we can thank India and Pakistan for this highly useful, maternity-friendly item. Thanks to those drawstring (or elastic) MC-Hammer pants, and the long tunic with side slits, they're extremely versatile and you can wear them comfortably throughout many lifestages (from anorexic teen to carrying triplets, one size DOES indeed fit all). Much more practical than saris, they're easiest to find if you live in an area where there's lots of immigrants from the middle east, India, and Pakistan. Around here, they turn up at Goodwill pretty regularly. Otherwise you have to order them online. I like these because they're exceedingly comfortable, come in an endless variety of fabric and color choices, and are very "work-friendly".

3. Drawstring (or elastic waistband skirts): Fitted skirts are a total drag when you're pregnant because eventually you WILL outgrow them. Skirts with stretchy waistbands or drawstrings, on the other hand, will usually grow with you. Awhile back, these flowy, gauzy, India-print drawstring skirts were popular hippie-wear. They're a bit harder to come by now, but you see them now and again, and they're great for summer. About the only bad thing I can say about them is that sometimes they get caught in the wheels of rolling computer chairs. Others are so sheer you have to wear something underneath them if you don't want to put on a free show.

4. Maternity hand-me downs: The best maternity clothes are the ones you receive from a kindly soul. Baring that, the next best option is a maternity consignment store. If you don't appear to have one of those in your town, try a children's consignment store--they might happen to carry some maternity stuff in the same place, even if that's not their primary focus.

5. Tunics: The problem with regular t-shirts (and shirts) is that eventually, most become too short (think glorified halter-top), and the bottom half of your belly hangs out to greet the world. While this might be kinda cute if you're a teenager, for most of the rest of us, this isn't the most attractive look, and definitely won't cut it outside of the house. A nice solution to the problem is a tunic, which is basically a long shirt. Full coverage is nice, and they're usually kinda flowy which is helpful as you expand.

whirlwind

Today was a pretty busy day around here. Because I was going to be in North Portland for much of the afternoon anyway, I decided to cram in all my "other side of town" errands. I took the pile of styrofoam over to PLC for recycling, visited some folks in the area, hit the hostess bakery outlet (I've been in the mood for bagels), went over to Peninsula Park to smell the roses, walked around on Alberta, scored some awesome free stuff, and last but not least, it was time to go in and fill out the new hire paperwork for my new job (yay, job!). On the way home, I hit the bins for awhile (ostensibly I needed some pillowcases, but of course I found some other great stuff--like the best teacher bag ever) then headed back to the barn.

Donald Macedo @ PSU

I was thrilled to discover that Donald Macedo was going to be in town today to do a seminar on critical pedagogy, so that gave me an excuse to get out of the house and go over to PSU.
It was good to get out and meet a guy whose writing I've read so much of, and some other nice folks, and a nice nudge towards getting back in a school-oriented frame of mind towards the end of summer.

score!

I'm starting to reach that place where not only do I look "pregnant" but my clothes no longer fit (especially pants and shorts), so I was quite thrilled when Maria called me to tell me she was going to hook me up with her old maternity clothes. Yes! Since we get closer and closer to unemployment every day around here, this is just one less thing I'll have to worry about (this is not a time in my life where I really can afford to go shopping for clothes). Luckily we're both teachers, wear similar sizes, and have similar taste in clothes, so it looks like everything will work out beautifully and I'll have something decent to wear in the upcoming school year. She also took me around to some consignment stores in the area: Piccolina and SweetPea, which will be handy in the days to come. Good to know...

Definitely feeling more "movement", more often as of this week. I can definitely feel more of Sprout's acrobatics these days, especially if I'm laying down, but even when I'm just out and about, I notice them sometimes. It's a pretty bizarre sensation to feel somebody moving around inside of you, and none of the standard descriptions really do it justice. I'm not even going to try.

The Sub Year in Review

Since I haven't been called in weeks, and it's now August, I'm going to assume that's it for subbing for the 2008-2009 School Year.

Here's a look back over the past year:

I didn't get a lot of steady work until almost November. Uggh. No wonder I was so broke. Things got better in the second half of the year and I was usually working almost every day, except during this dry spell that happened to coincide with a period of time where I was constantly sick (which worked out nicely). I did a lot more middle school jobs than in the past, and have decided that 7th and 8th graders aren't so bad. The schools I probably worked at the most were Jefferson High School, Jackson Middle School, and Whitford Middle School. I was at West Sylvan for almost an entire month as well.

Job Types:

Art/Graphics: I didn't do any arts classes, but I did pick up a TV/Video production class one time. That was an easy gig because the kids came in, got right to work, and didn't need me to do a thing. I always wish I would get more calls for art.

ESL-You rarely get calls for ESL jobs, but I always take them when I get them. I think I had 2 or 3 this year. One was at the elementary level, the others were at the high school level. ESL is fun for me because I usually get to do actual instruction (yay!) and dust off some of my best language games.

Language Arts and LA/SS: I did several of these because it's my endorsement area.

Paraeducator - Life Skills: I did this quite a bit, but not as much as in the past. These are some of the most fun jobs though-I'll readily admit that I love going to PE and other electives with the kids.

SPED/Paraeducator/SC/Emotional/Behavior: This was a new specialty area for me and I did it quite a bit this year. One big thing I discovered this year is that I'm really good at working with kids in self-contained behavior classes, and I rarely have the kinds of trouble you would anticipate with kids bearing this label. Most didn't seem to mind having me around and were pretty cooperative (or at least no worse than they are with their regular teachers). This is probably the job classification that I did the most because once the word got around, everyone wanted me to sub for them, and I was totally fine with that.

SPED Learning Center/Paraeducator/Learning Center/Resource: I did this quite a bit as well. You get a lot of calls for this during IEP season.

SPED Autism/Paraeducator - 1:1: I did several one-on-ones this year, mostly with kids with Autism spectrum disorders who were in mainstream classes. A few were in self-contained programs. It's one of my favorites because I like working with kids with Autism. Beaverton has all kinds of cool specialized Autism programs that I love working in...wish Portland would do this as well.

It's plum season!

Plums are one of my favorite fruits, and I eagerly look forward to their arrival every year. Related to cherries and peaches, around here, plums arrive after cherries are over, just before peaches are really going strong. This usually happens sometime in late July-August, depending on the variety. Here, that tends to overlap with blackberry season, more or less.

There are tons of species of plums that grow very happily in Oregon, and luckily lots of people plant them ornamentally as street/yard trees, so there's tons of free plums for the asking. On a casual walk around town, you can easily find European plums, Japanese plums, and Damson-type plums growing in yards, alleys, and along streets.

A neighborhood walking inventory reveals that we have several of the small, sour Japanese plums; a few Greengage plum trees with greenish, custardy tasting plums; a guy down the street has a "yellow egg" plum (very tasty), several Italian Prune plums (also decent fresh), and a Santa Rosa (the red kind you see at the store).

Fortunately we have a good climate for plums here, so there's few problems or issues with disease and splitting due to too much rain. During most years, you can find plenty. We happen to live in one of the states where commercial plums are produced, so numerous varieties are available. If you get out into the wild a bit, you can even find the wild native varieties, some of which are edible.

Finding a plum tree for your free picking pleasure is pretty easy. In many cities they are planted as street trees and are very common. Often, you can find them in parking lots, if nothing else. In the spring, the bloom profusely like cherries, only a bit earlier. Shape-wise, many of the Japanese plums resemble cherries, but they often have purplish leaves, making them easy to identify. European plums are a bit trickier because they're larger and more erect than Japanese plums, but you can often identify them by their blooms, which come much later than Japanese types. Luckily, the plums themselves are very easy to spot on European plums, unlike Japanese varieties that hide inconspicuously under the camouflage of the leaves.

Japanese plums ripen the earliest, and the European prune & canning varieities ripen later in autumn (after the school year is underway). Because Japanese plums set a lot of fruit, they usually drop tons of it on the ground, which makes it easy to find a tree. One thing you may notice about them is they don't fruit consistently every year. Usually one year is a "heavy" year (where the tree produces tons of plums), and the next a "light" (or non-fruiting year, where few to no plums are produced). Be aware that there are some trees are strictly ornamental (and will never fruit), but most varieties, even those labeled as "ornamental" will produce some fruit, some years, during the course of their lives (thus annoying people who want "landscape" trees but don't really want any fruit). Luckily for the rest of us, this handily ensures there's plenty of unwanted fruit to be had. This also means that if you've spotted a likely tree, and it appears to be a dud, you should try again next year.

Plums are some of the most tolerant of trees, so they can be grown almost anywhere, hence their popularity in the landscape and as a street tree. We're lucky enough to be far enough north to grow both European plums and Japanese plums, so in Oregon, you often will be able to find a source for both types. You can tell that the fruit is ready to pick when it is fairly dark in color (for purple varieties) and is no longer hard as a rock. Ripe plums have a bit of soft squeeze (or give) to the flesh, so you can test them by squeezing them lightly. If you pick them before they're ripe, they're usually very sour, but some people (especially Guatemalans) seem to prefer them this way. Regardless of whether you prefer sweet or sour, they're usually easy to pick. Most plum trees aren't very tall. The branches aren't as fragile as cherries, so you can usually pull them downward without them snapping on you. Sometimes, you can simply pick them up off the ground (if they haven't split on the way down).

Most plums are best eaten fresh. If you pick them yourself, they won't be rock hard (like the ones you would buy in the store), and are usually very juicy and sweet. I often just walk around the neighborhood and graze on them, a few at a time. European plums have wide variety of culinary uses. I am perfectly happy eating them fresh, but you can also dry them (prunes), or cook them (canned plums, jelly, or plum compote is pretty good). For beverage use, you could make plum brandy or umeshu.

Happy picking!

Ultrasound

Now that we've hit week 18 (or 20 by the medical establishment's reckoning), it was time for the standard 18-20 week ultrasound appointment (I skipped the early one because I had no reason to suspect an ectopic pregnancy or any other troubles). (I'm not a worrier and not high risk for much of anything, so I'm keeping the interventions to a minimum.) Ultrasounds are considered pretty "non-invasive" but that doesn't mean you need to go nuts with them...so for the most part, I feel it's best leave a healthy baby alone, and let nature do its thing.

At 18 to 20 weeks, the doctor is looking for congenital malformations because the fetus is large enough for an accurate survey of the fetal anatomy. This is also a time to discover multiple pregnancies, and check the accuracy of the due date. The fetal growth rate, size/age correlation, and the presence of conditions such as meningomyelocele, congenital heart disease, kidney abnormalities, hydrocephalus, anencephaly, club feet, and other deformities that can be easily determined by this point in pregnancy. By 18 weeks, your little bundle (or bundles if you happen to have multiples) of joy has a clearly formed skeletal system and many easily visible organs (brain, heart, etc.) that can clearly be seen at this time. If your recall of anatomy is good, you'll actually be able to understand most of what you see up on that screen. If you can, be sure to bring someone along to share the joy with (partner, best friend, mother, sibling, etc.) because you'll want at least one other person to share the moment. For men, especially, this is the first time that the pregnancy will be "real" for them. And if God, forbid, you get some unexpected bad news, you'll benefit from having someone supportive with you.

This was my first "fun" ultrasound (I've had them for less fun reasons), so the process was a familiar routine. You chug a bunch of water (since you have to have a full bladder for an abdominal scan--not fun when you're pregnant), put on the hospital gown (at some places you can wear your regular clothes, but at Kaiser, they have you put on a hospital gown for everything), go into the fairly dark room and hop up on the padded table. The technician covers you up with blankets so you don't get too cold, then the sonographer comes in to warm up the machine, and squirts goop on your belly (they actually warm it for you first) so it's not such a shock of cold. Then they whip out the transducer (which vaguely reminds me of a checkout scanner for some reason) and push it around over your abdomen and start looking for various things for about an hour or so. (If you're getting an earlier ultrasound, they'll likely use a vaginal transducer--uggh! Those aren't fun...) The nice thing about this particular facility is that not only does the sonographer have a screen, but they also have a nice big LCD flatscreen monitor up on the wall so that you (and anyone you've brought with you) can easily see everything that's on the tech's screen. Usually when you're getting an ultrasound, they ask you to lay still, be really quiet, and hold the questions 'til the end, but on this occasion, there was an intern in addition to the sonographer. Since the sonographer was in "teaching mode", she kept a nice running narrative while she was working which was a nice bonus. We didn't have to sit there in dead silence wondering what was going on--she told us everything!

The information obtained from the transducer scans appears as a picture on the monitor. Even in black and white, it's a pretty inspiring moment when you see your child for the first time. I was amazed how clearly I could see Sprout moving around (I guess the technology's improved a lot because I few years back, I remember people showing me their ultrasound photos, and I couldn't decipher anything whatsover in those blobs). When the transponder passed over the abdomen, you could see the heart beating. You could see most of the bones--right down to the tiny carpals/tarsals and phalanges in the tiny hands and feet It's a pretty amazing experience to say the least. Sprout was moving around in utero like it was Dance Dance Revolution time, squirming, kicking, twisting around, moving those arms and legs up and down. My goodness, no wonder I've been feeling some fetal movement--there's an active little squirm worm in there!

While I sat there in awe of the tiny being who was putting on such an acrobatic show, the sonographer was busy looking at things like location and size of the organs and bones to take a variety of measurements that will be interpreted to assess gestational age, size and growth of the fetus. Thanks to all the anatomy review I've had in the past year working as a sub working at the middle and high school level, I was able to follow along quite well. Some of the things they were looking at during the ultrasound included: The placenta location, blood flow rate (doppler with color enhancement) and heart rate, crown-rump length (CRL-used to assess age), biparietal diameter (BPD-the diameter between the 2 sides of the head.), femur length (FL-measures the longest bone in the body and reflects the longitudinal growth of the fetus), abdominal circumference (AC-reflects the fetal size and weight to monitor growth), head circumference (HC), nuchal skin fold (to diagnose Turner's syndrome, Down's syndrome and a number of chromosomal abnormalities.); and sizes of the cerebellum, heart chambers, and kidneys. Apparently many abnormalities can be reliably diagnosed by an ultrasound scan, such as cleft lips/ palate and congenital cardiac abnormalities. The sonographer isn't supposed to interpret this information (that's the radiologist's job) but I inferred from her behavior that she didn't see anything particularly alarming or worrisome, and I didn't see anything on that screen that alarmed me, so I'm going to assume everything's fine. Based on that, and my general instincts and intuition, as far as I can tell, Sprout seems to be doing just fine.

At the end of the session, they print out some of the more interesting shots (profile, head, hands, feet, etc.) and send you home with something you can show your friends and family (and random strangers if so moved). Brian stopped at Walgreen's on the way home to get a photo album to stick them in, so he could take them to work to show off to co-workers. Pretty exciting stuff!

Gender issues

The ultrasound appointment is coming up in a few days, and to be honest, I've been on the fence on whether or not I want to find out my baby's gender. Some people I've known were very eager to find out their baby's gender, others were adamantly opposed and preferred to be surprised. Like most things in life, it's a personal preference, and for me, not one I feel very strongly about. My main concern is that "Sprout" is healthy and there aren't twins in there (yikes!).

Arguments against finding out:

I don't really have any strong feelings about which gender this child is, and I really couldn't care less if I have a boy or a girl. As far as I'm concerned, kids are kids are kids. They come with 2 arms and 2 legs and if you're lucky, no major birth defects or developmental problems. Honestly, I'd be fine either way.

For another thing, I don't plan to go buck-wild with pastel pinks and blues as a decorating scheme. I've always loathed pastels anyway, and I'm not interested in receiving buttloads of obnoxiously gender-specific clothing/toys/gear. Baby stuff is obnoxiously cutesy and highly gendered (good luck finding clothes for girls that aren't primarily pink or purple--gag!) I don't see it as my mission in life to perpetuate existing gender stereotypes, and I'm sure that society at large will be more than happy enough to make up for any lack of gender role conditioning that I fail to impart at home.

Also, I like surprises. I'm not the sort of person who needs a lot of certainty in my life, and wouldn't want to know my future if given the option. I can wait to open presents until the proper day/time. I don't like people to spoil the end of a movie I haven't seen or a book I haven't read. I enjoy finding things out on my own.

Arguments for:

We differ on whether we want to know the baby’s sex. I don't care much, if at all. Brian is wildly interested, but willing to live with my choice. I'm tempted to just let the ultrasound tech tell him, and not me, but knowing him, he'd let it slip. Or my midwife might accidentally let it slip during an appointment anyway. Since Brian is not so great at keeping secrets, then maybe not knowing is best for us both.

Where did the summer go?

This summer has gone by so quickly, and for the most part, I don't feel like I have too much to show for it. This is definitely not the best gardening year I've ever had, that's for sure. Having a couple of visitors from the north will help the balance sheet for sure.

Before I start feeling too nostalgic, I'll admit that I'm glad that crazy July heatwave is gone. Now only the late afternoons seem unbearable. Maybe I can finally get a few bike rides in before fall hits...the heat's really been cramping my style.

I'm already starting to get a regular flow of correspondence from the school district reminding me of the inevitable. Before I know it, pretty soon it'll be time to go back to school, which will be an "interesting" experience this year. All that I can really say about it is that all the variables have changed once again...but then again, they always do.