7 weeks, 4 days

I announced my pregnancy to Beloved PI yesterday, and it went perfectly. :-) Again, I find myself wondering, why do I stress myself out about these things? He always has my back! Best PI ever. So yeah, I said "I'm pregnant," and he smiled and said "I've been wondering when you were going to tell me that." I don't think he actually knew, since I hadn't told anyone else at work, but they all saw it coming. I had been pretty openly baby crazy since that last intimidating conversation back in May, so I guess he had plenty of time to work through any mixed feelings he may have had. Yesterday, he was genuinely happy for me, and somewhat cautious, anxious for me to make it past that 12 week mark. I'm just happy with my little bean's heartbeat!

6 weeks, 6 days

I got to see my little lentil bean's heartbeat yesterday! It's just a little flicker in the middle of a 6 mm blob, but apparently that's exactly as it should be for this point in my pregnancy. Everything is going perfectly and I'm thrilled!

I'm thinking of telling Beloved PI this weekend (after confirming everything is good, before anyone else at work finds out, and over the weekend where there are fewer people around and he has some low key time to process). I expect somewhat of a mixed reaction from him. He'll be happy for me, because he has his own precious little girl and knows I've wanted a baby for a while, but he'll be upset at the prospect of losing me, if only for a couple of months, and he'll be terrified about affording to pay me during my maternity leave, since the last big grant runs out right around my due date. I'm sort of assuming the graduate division will take care of it, since they guarantee my stipend for 6 years of adequate progress (I'll be starting my 6th year then) and have a "recommendation" of 6 weeks paid maternity leave in the student handbook (which my advocacy crew is working to extend to the whole grad school as a minimum of 8 weeks for both parents). I'm hopeful that we can work something out, one way or the other, by starting as early as possible.

Anyway, any suggestions on breaking the news gently?

6 weeks, 4 days

Halfway through the first trimester already, can you believe it? That
whole counting from last menstrual period thing makes it seem like
time has just flown by. :-P Anyway, I'm still feeling pretty good.
I've been a bit nauseas at times, but no vomiting. Shall I spare you
the details of my yuckier or more private symptoms? I think so. The
grad school related bits of the experience will presumably be more
interesting to my readers, right?

Still haven't told anyone at work, and I definitely won't until after
tomorrow's ultrasound confirms a heartbeat. I thought I'd wait for
the end of my first trimester, but people keep telling me they'll know
long before then. I figured as soon as my symptoms start to interfere
with my work, or I start showing, but I may decide to tell my PI even
before that. My thinking there is to hopefully get him to stop piling
more non-thesis-related work on me every day, but I doubt it will
really work.

I'm expecting (hoping) to get my first publication out before the baby
comes. It should, for one thing, serve as evidence of "adequate
progress" or whatever they call it, in case there ends up being any
debate on my request for paid leave. It turns out that I'm due at the
end of August, the same time as our 2nd R01 runs out, so the graduate
program may have to pick up the slack on my stipend during a brief
funding gap.

My division already has a recommendation on the books for 6 weeks paid
maternity leave, but I'm still hoping we can push this new 8 week
policy through in time, or at least I hope I can argue it successfully
for myself. Six weeks is just such a pitifully short time...the
absolute minimum for recovery from an uncomplicated vaginal
birth...nevermind bonding with the new baby.

So my little work-life balance advocacy crew has accumulated support
for our policy proposal from various other people and organizations
representing women or grad students, and we're just waiting on some
sort of official statement from each so we can present it to the dean.
I also volunteered (before I knew I was pregnant...) to organize a
larger group meeting to find new leaders and get sub-groups working on
other projects. Unfortunately, since discovering my pregnancy, I've
had a hard enough time focussing on work, and I haven't done a thing
on this meeting, preferring instead to chat on the bulletin boards at
babycenter.com all day! <Sigh>

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5 weeks, 1 day

All is still going well. We told all of our parents yesterday with
pictures of the positive pregnancy test in Christmas cards. :-)
Everyone is very excited for us. I'm going to see my mom's side of
the extended family for the next few days and hope to share the news
with them too.

On an un-baby-related note, the airline lost my luggage yesterday, so
I have no gifts/clothes/toiletries/drugs/cell phone charger. They're
supposed to deliver it to my aunt's house by 3pm, but for now, I
should probably stop running my Blackberry battery down with long blog
posts. :-P

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4 Weeks, 4 Days

I'm so excited today! I scheduled my first prenatal appt for Jan 6
with the one midwife on my insurance network that has been recommended
for natural childbirth, and I found out they do an ultrasound at that
first visit! I'll be exactly 7 weeks from my last period, or 6 weeks,
5 days when using ovulation to determine the date (that's how I've
been doing my blog titles). I hope that's not too soon to detect a
heartbeat. :-)

Anyway, I'm glad to see I still have a couple of readers, despite my
sparse posting. I'm going to try to post much more often during my
pregnancy - somewhere between daily and weekly, as the mood strikes me
- so I can use it like a journal to chronicle the whole experience. I
also have a really pretty (physical, paper) journal that I got as a
gift several years ago and never used. I think I'll use that to write
letters to my baby...maybe one for each trimester of pregnancy, then
one for each birthday until the kid is old enough to appreciate it.

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4 Weeks, 2 Days

I'm pregnant! Due August 27, 2010. I'm only about a day late so far,
but I got a bright blaring pink pair of lines on my home pregnancy
test yesterday. So...yay! Of course, it's still a big secret, so
once again, if you are one of the few people who have figured out who
I am, please be discrete.

It was only our 2nd month of trying, and the first time we really got
the timing right, so I guess my family really is as fertile as we seem
to be, given the number of unplanned pregnancies among my cousins.
Let's hope our reputation for relatively quick and easy labors also
holds up, as I'd like to go as natural as possible. More on my birth
plan later, I guess.

For now, I just need to pick a care provider (OB or midwife) who
encourages and supports drug- and intervention-free childbirth, which
are remarkably few and far between in my area. There's only one or
two hospitals that seem to be really good about it, and of course,
neither are on my health plan. I got one recommendation for a midwife
in my network, so I've requested a first appointment with her, but the
hospital she delivers at has a reputation as the local baby factory,
which is not a good thing.

As far as pregnancy itself goes, so far, there's nothing too far out
of the ordinary. I had a tiny bit of light brown spotting today,
which made me slightly nervous, but I'm sure it's just implantation
spotting or something. I'm not even telling Hubby, as he's a nervous
wreck already. I've been reading every pregnancy book I can get my
hands on for a while now, but just yesterday, I picked up a book for
him at the library, "Pacify Me: A Handbook for Freaked Out New Dads,"
which he is enjoying so far.

Anyway, just wanted to share the good news with my anonymous blog,
since I'm not supposed to be telling friends yet!

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So, we've decided

We're trying to get pregnant. No, the lab didn't get any new funding,
and no, Hubby and I haven't received raises. So what has changed,
then? Well, two major things changed: (1) Hubby got a promotion,
which is not only a great step along his desired career path, but it
also switches him from a night shift schedule with rotating days off
to a schedule of regular work hours and regular work days with
weekends and holidays off. This will make daycare planning way
easier, and as I think I mentioned earlier, I've already decided we
can afford full-time care with a small, inexpensive home child care
provider. (2) I realized there is no end in sight to our financial
stress at the lab, so there's no point waiting for things to calm
down. I was looking at the budgets of our two big R-01s, one of which
is being submitted for renewal in a couple of weeks, and the other
will be resubmitted in February. Even with both of these requesting
the full $250k, we won't have enough to cover everyone's salaries,
much less enough to add another student in my section of the lab
(which would have been nice so things wouldn't grind to a screeching
halt when I go on maternity leave). But anyway, the point is I'm not
willing to wait forever for a perfectly comfortable lab situation that
will probably never happen. We're just going to go for it!

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