FAQ

If you missed yesterday's post, you might want to scroll down and take a look. Otherwise, you're going to be a little lost. I'll wait.











There. So, we're pregnant. Or I'm pregnant. Or we're expecting. Or whatever you prefer. I interchange all of the above, because I'm just that PC.

From in-person/on-phone conversations and the various places I've posted my "announcement" picture, I've received the same several questions, so I thought I'd go ahead and gather them all in one place and answer them. Some were answered in the comments from yesterday. Feel free to make use of your scroll feature (or your nifty two-fingered track-pad move, if you are privileged enough to have a MacBook).

How far along are you? According to that wheel due date predictor thing that doctors use (what is that called, anyway?), I'm currently 6 weeks* along.

When are you due? Again with the wheel thing: July 17th. Give or take a day.

How are you feeling? Actually, already a little nauseous off and on, but I'm trying to combat that by keeping my stomach full (eating lots of bananas, healthy protein) and by drinking lemon ginger tea (just dried lemon and ginger in a tea bag), since ginger is supposed to help with nausea. So far, that seems to be doing the trick. I have been progressively less sick with each pregnancy, so I'm hoping and praying that that trend continues.

What do the kids think? MA is delighted and keeps referring to the baby as "her...or him." She'd really like a little sister. MS thinks that, to be fair to MA, it should probably be a girl but would be happy with a boy. JW is nonchalant. ZL is clueless, although he keeps looking at us suspiciously when we talk about him not being the baby anymore.

Is this going to affect your trip to the States in the Spring? We are still planning to travel the same dates (don't have tickets yet, but we're making reservations soon), mid-March to mid-June, although I'll probably need a doctor's note to travel back. We feel fine about that. We've always talked about handling our own birth, anyway. We never planned on it being the back of a plane, but...

Just kidding. Most often I go over my due date by about two weeks, so it really should not be a problem.

***Are you going to find out the gender? (Added for GfG's sake) Yes, we've found out each time so far. With MS, it was very helpful, since we were moving overseas six months after he was born, so that I could spend my pregnancy pre-shopping for his first couple of year's worth of clothes. With the ones born overseas, it's a little difficult *not* to find out, since you have an ultrasound each visit (and, no, I don't want to know the potential harmful effects; I'm not dying on that hill; I save my hills for delivery preferences). And, then, with MA, who'd pregnancy we were back in the States for, it was again helpful to do all of that little girl shopping while we were there. This time, I have to know which set of bags of clothes that I'd *just* culled through to give away to actually give away and which to keep. (I literally spent last Monday going through all of MA and ZL's outgrown clothes keeping only what I absolutely could not part with, which means all the practical stuff was set to be given away, reasoning that someone else should be getting use out of it. Fortunately, I hadn't actually followed through on that yet.)

Are you crazy? (okay, so no one actually said/wrote this out, but you know some of you were thinking it.) Yes.

And my favorite comment on my Facebook: Awww...another dependency exemption on your tax return (I'll make a note on your file!!) from our accountant. :-P

*Yes, I know it's early to make an announcement. We have never had a miscarriage, but we are keenly aware that it is always a possibility. I have maintained since my first pregnancy that, for me personally, I'd rather people know and walk through that with me than not know. So now you know.