On Matters Of Cabbage ...

As a general rule, during the first few months of pregnancy, women - and even some men - find themselves researching every single thing they can about pregnancy, child birth, etc...  I'm no exception to the rule.  Here's some advice for you that you probably won't take.  I didn't take it either.  Whatever you do ... DON'T Google mucus plug.  Just don't.  You didn't listen did you?

After drowning my eyes in eye bleach from ignoring the aforementioned advice, I decided to move on to something hopefully more pleasant - breastfeeding!  I plan on breastfeeding my baby.  While I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to breastfeed, after reading the horror stories about pain during breastfeeding, I immediately start to doubt whether or not I want to partake in this beautiful and natural experience.

In anticipation of what I'll be in for, I start researching natural remedies for easing the pain of raw nipples.  After discovering a dizzying array of recommendations for various nipple creams, I stumbled upon an old wives tale to put cabbage leaves in the freezer to be placed as necessary on the nipples to help ease pain and ward off infection.

I look up at Rob and mention "We will need to get cabbage shortly before I'm due and put it in the freezer." to which he replies, "Ok, I know what you are doing."

"Oh? What am I doing?" I ask, sure that he doesn't know what I intend on using the cabbage for.  "It's for pictures."  I was right, the image that came into my brain at that point in time was just horrifying.  "NO!" I exclaim as I try to purge the image from my brain of cabbage leaves covering the ...ahem... bathing suit areas of our bodies while posing with our new born child.

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press found here.

"They would be for my nipples to ease any pain and ward off any type of infection while breastfeeding."  "Oh ok," Rob says as I look at him horrified.  "Why would we use cabbage in pictures?" I asked afraid of the answer ... and of the image that is now permanently burned into my brain.

"For a cabbage patch ... pose the baby for photos with a bunch of cabbage around it." he says with a sudden look of confusion.

Photo via DrGreen.com ... relevant article Cabbage Leaves and Engorgement.

I blush with embarrassment as I explain the atrocity that I had envisioned upon his initial suggestion about how the cabbage leaves would be used.  All I could say after the explanation while Rob rolled around on the ground laughing hilariously at me was ...

"The internet has ruined me."

The Final Frontier

Image borrowed from the documentary Trekkies by Denise Crosby.

Children: the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Parenthood.  The continuing mission: to raise strange little humans, to guide their lives for the betterment of civilization, to boldly go where our own parents have gone before.

Yes ... I'm a sci-fi geek.  Yes ... we do have wives / girlfriends / significant others.  Yes ... we have children and become parents of little geeks.

Expect geek and/or nerd references to appear in my posts often.

Also, for the grammar nazis out there across the interwebs ... I have a tendency to abuse ellipses.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Crystal and I started this blog in part to catalog our adventures as parents.  While our (as of this writing) unborn child - hereafter referred to in my writings as Mini-Minion - will be her first, I feel like the seasoned veteran of the team with two sons of my own already as well as experience in the past with five step-children.

I hope to be able to use this space as a place though to not only record for posterity the events of our lives as parents, but also perhaps to entertain ... and even maybe bring attention to related issues in our society - a soap box of sorts - hopefully that will spark some meaningful discussion.  I have been known on occasion to get up on a soap box about issues.  (This is the internet ... everyone here has an opinion on something.)

AGAIN ... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Crystal asked me to take this post to give my story about the day we confirmed that we are indeed having a baby.  She already did a great job of telling the gist of the story on her first post titled "Pretty Pink Box" on Monday ... so ... I'm not going to rehash things but I will expound upon a few of the items she mentioned on her post.

Pretty Pink Box

Once upon a time about 7 weeks ago ...

I'm not surprised that my period didn't start for several reasons.  I never have a normal period unless I'm on birth control - birth control is the only thing that normalizes my periods.  This time though, I know it is for a different reason.

I read the box carefully. The pretty pink box with the pictures of positive pregnancy tests on the front is unwrapped of it’s plastic cover.  We need the test to confirm what we already know. I need the test to confirm that I'm not just another hopeful woman.  Rob needs the test so that he's not just another hopeful man.  

We haven't tried for long but we are trying.  I honestly expect at least three or four months of trying before success.  I looked at Rob a few weeks ago and said, “I was thinking, maybe we should stop preventing.” Rob looked at me, smiled big and said, “OK.” ... and off to trying we went. Here I am now three weeks later opening the pretty pink box with the pictures of positive test results.

Tuesday night before going to bed I mentally reminded myself that I need to take the test in the morning.  I slowly drifted off to sleep hoping that the test I took would look like the positive tests on the pretty pink box.  Wednesday when I awoke, I rubbed my eyes, stretched, and felt that tingling feeling of needing to use the bathroom.  I remembered what day it was.   

I leave the bed and stumble my way to the bathroom as fast as my not quite awake or functioning feet and legs can carry me.  I grab the box, open it, and pull out the packaged test.  When I open the test my first thoughts are ... 

Where is the cap?  What the hell?  You pee on this, what are you supposed to do after you pee?  How do they not have caps for this anymore?  Is the economy so hard up that a cap can’t be manufactured for pregnancy tests anymore?  Is this test defective because there is no cap?  Should I pee on both the tests?  Should I check the other test?

Giving up hope that a cap will appear, I sit down on the toilet.

I bring the test and wrapper out to the living room and sit in my chair.  I carefully set the test on the end table, sit back and take a deep breath.  I look at my cats. I look at my dog. I look at Rob.  “There is no cap,” I said.  He replies, “No cap?” I shake my head disappointingly. “No cap.”

I sit there. I'm not even dressed for the day.  My hair is disheveled. My eyes are still heavy with sleep. My mouth is dry with morning dragon breath.  This is the moment that could change my life, and I look like hell!  If I am pregnant, the baby is not going to care if I look like hell. The baby just needs a safe and warm home to grow for the next 40 weeks.

Then I started thinking about how pregnancy will change my lifestyle drastically.

I will miss the sweet taste of wine on my tongue. I will miss sushi.  I won’t miss being able to clean the cats' litter box though. With that thought all I could think was "SCORE!"

I’d have to be careful with painting - acrylics only and no smelly fumes allowed.  I wonder what foods I might crave and what foods I might have aversions to. Will I have morning sickness? Will I swell up and have to worry about salt intake? I love salt!  Then it hit me.

Coffee! I love coffee!  I don’t just love coffee but I need it to properly function in the morning.  Every morning I sit in my chair hold a cup of coffee to my face and just breath in the aroma.  People know when it is acceptable to speak to me based on how full that first cup of coffee in the morning is. If two little pink lines show up on this test I am not going to be able to speak to people for the next 40 weeks.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Three minutes. That’s a lot to think about in three minutes.  If this test comes back positive, I have to woman up and handle whatever pregnancy could throw at me.  If this test comes back positive, my life would drastically change.  If this test comes back positive, I might be giving up speaking to people for 40 weeks.  If the test comes back negative, I will be disappointed.

Three minutes is over.  One line and life continues the same for now.  Two lines and we're having a baby.  I take a breath and pick up the stick.  Rob looks at me.  I look down at the stick that came in the pretty pink box.