Preggers

Hubby has been wanting to take a pic of preggers me. So here it is. After a fairly average week of weather, we are having a beautiful weekend - so hot, in fact, that our personal trainer asked if we wanted to join him in a trip to a waterpark. Hubby thinks it will be too mobbed on a Sunday and past experience of Montrealers on hot days tells me he's probably right. So we're passing on the water park but maybe we will catch some more rays today. After all, summer is almost over.

Points and beats

I've been busy. After the conference was over, I had a sudden realization that it was less than three weeks before classes were due to start ... and that I still had two papers to finish and prepare for the arrival of my main co-author. 


The thought of not using the two months that my co-author is visiting our school to the fullest, got the fire lit under my arse, and I started doing some real work. Or, at least, I tried to.


It was hard kicking back into full gear, weeks after slacking off due to morning sickness and general exhaustion. So I spent a few days moping around the house doing a few hours of work a day, and then taking off to enjoy the sunshine or do chores. Of course, this didn't do much to relieve the anxiety about having to finish a bunch of work.


So I spent an afternoon writing up a solid to-do list and plotting the dates on a calendar, which helped me to focus. I was all gung-ho to kick start the process on Monday. But I didn't count on fate. The very frustrating experience of trying to do your airmile filing and  retroactively submitting boarding passes. First off, for some reason I didn't save all my boarding passes (unusual for me, but I blame e-tickets that don't look like boarding passes and therefore easily get thrown out). Next, I found out that one of my airline loyalty cards - apparently - was now inactive. Huh? But didn't I fly on this airline's loyalty program at least twice a year, and each time submit my card number. So when the hell did it run out and why didn't they tell me? The short of the long is that I have been unable to claim back some 20,000+ miles I collected on our trip to Asia in April. Bastards.


The frustration stayed with me for a few hours and was quickly reinforced the following day by other sources of frustration: our cleaner broke my bedside table and lamp (I luckily managed to rescue my wedding/engagement ring from the trash). I think we have the clumsiest cleaner in Quebec -- this must be about the sixth item she's broken over the past year. And a trip to the cleaning company's office revealed that the manager was out that day - marvelous.


In an attempt to replace said items, our "quick" run to Ikea turned into a 5 hour ordeal with traffic jams and random side-trips. I was more than annoyed. My grumpy disposition leaving hubby baffled and in the dog house for no reason. 


So the only thing to do at that point was to get back to work. I spent the last two days hiding in my office, giving myself an eye-ache and a head-ache from manipulating data all day. That, of course, isn't ever a painless experience ... I've already had to redo things several times and there seems to be some sort of weird bug in my software. But at least it makes me feel happy to be working on it. 


Finally yesterday was a slightly better day. It started off with a check-up at the doctor's office and I heard baby's heartbeat again, which once again pasted a smile on my face for the rest of the day. And, I also managed to find hubby a doctor - a minor miracle in this province. 


Any residual grumpiness can be blamed on having to teach again soon. 

General Public

This is why I worry about flying on the same plane as the "general public" ... some ass always seems to fly with you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-10996471

An exciting week

It has been a big week. There was the conference, which lasted 5 days and as always, through the weekend. I spent a lot of my time and energy on attending workshops, symposia and presentation sessions. And I spent even more time catching up with friends, acquaintances and co-authors. I heard gossip about a professor emeritus stopping the dance floor with his moves in the Musee des Beaux Arts where one of the receptions was. And about my fellow colleague who got hit by a ladder that shot off the roof of a truck when he was crossing the road in front of one of the conference hotels (he's ok, but limping badly from a leg full of bruising).


In addition, I managed to catch up with my good friend and running buddy who was this year's president for the entire organization and conference (which hosted no less than 9,500 academics). After all, I had exciting news to share with him which would mean almost as much to him as it does to me and hubby ...


I'm 13 weeks pregnant. 


Yes, it's exciting, scary, thrilling, new, weird, all of that. What makes it really great for us is that it's been just over a year since I miscarried Baby K. We had a long grieving period and we only recently started trying again. 


Not surprisingly, both of us were happy, but cautiously so, for the first months. Every time I went to the bathroom, I checked for blood. Every twinge in my abdomen had me hold my breath. To the point where my osteopath told me to start breathing properly because my diaphragm and ribs were "in the wrong place". Eventually, I began to calm down and deal with the reality of the first trimester: nausea and vomiting, sudden exhaustion, bizarre pains in my hips and knees, and an increased need for thyroid hormones (my doc upped my dose).


But as the weeks passed, I got happier and happier. In the beginning, I welcomed the morning sickness and took it as a positive sign of things going well. While I tired of that very quickly, we heard a heartbeat around week 11 and it took all day for me to wipe the smile off my face, followed by prenatal testing last week - an ultrasound and blood. The ultrasound technician told us all looked normal, but we still had to await the blood results. Seems we are in the low risk category for two major birth defects, and we need no further testing.


I do love the Canadians. They're very relaxed about the pregnancy and I see my doc every 4 weeks. I've gotten great vibes from everyone we've told, and found out that I get 55, yes that's correct, 55 weeks off work (!!!) at 95% pay. Sometimes, academia is the best job in the world.


I'm now feeling less ill and generally relaxed about being pregnant. I have the occasional bout of anxiety, of course, but I just keep hoping all will be well.


Due date: Valentine's Day. What a romantic notion.


Here's a pic of the upcoming addition :)