Latest Doctor Visit

Tonight we went to see Dr. Molinari again. Our appointment was at 8, but when we got there one woman was already waiting and two other couples soon showed. I read "Seabiscuit" while we waited and E continued with "Widow for One Year." We got in to see the Doc at 8:35pm. He checked E's vitamins and then we checked the sonogram. Several pics are attached here. Our little wonder is now 3.86cm long and the heartbeat is steady at 160beats/minute. He/she was moving around, grooving to an unheard track. The doctor told me that next time I could bring a blank DVD-R as he will be doing an external sonogram from now on and we can record the show. Cool.

Everything is on track and looking good. E continues to feel wonderful.

You can see the basic shape of the fetus and the waveform of the heartbeat.

Here is another shot. In this frame the doctor is measureing the womb. Very cool

New pregnant shopping strategy

E's got a new shopping plan. She goes every day, just to the local market, to get whatever she's fancying that day. My good cholesterol was way up when I had it tested in Madrid, but my bad was up a little bit, so on her daily sojourns she's been getting lots of veggies for me. We've been eating lots of veggies and cheese this week. Good stuff. No new morning sickness. E's riding high and feeling well.

The big news from this week is that Dottore Occhionero was arrested. We were wondering how to tell him that we wouldn't be going to him much longer, that his equipment was antiquated etc. Since he was arrested for embezzlement and performing illegal abortions and obviously won't be working at the hospital anymore, we are saved from the explanation. The only sticking point is that he had not charged us for any of the visits. The grandma that gives E her shots told us. Che scandaloso!

E photo for end of Week 9

Here she is at week 9. Just as beautiful as ever, but I dare say, a little pancia sta crescendo

Staying quiet in Madrid

Spent 5 days in Madrid. E had to keep quiet about her condition and her familiar ruse of detoxing and ya-know keeping herself ready in case she might get pregnant. No one guessed, but my pseudo-boss's wife has E pegged. They were out shopping and she asked E if it was okay to eat lunch in a smoky cafe. She's onto us. We ate well over the 5 days and now I'm sporting a new pc. Nothing new to report on the pregnancy front.

I'm Telling

Last night we told Eng-J and S. S was suspicious anyway. Her sister is due in two weeks and a woman can suss these things out. They are the first people we have told in person and it gave me some practice on how to spill the beans. Shakes of hands were extended all around, plus a couple of kisses on the cheek. Eng-J just said "Thanks mate. More pressure on us." It felt good to talk about it. Make a few lascivious comments, all in good humor.

The First Heartbeat

Today we went together to the Ob/Gyn. My first visit. Dr. Molinari is a private practice practitioner. His office was next door to the shot-giving grandma, on the second floor. E and I were there promptly at 10:20am for our 10:30 appointment. We sat in the waiting room looking through trashy Italian versions of 'Hello' magazine. In the waiting room was an ad for the Medison 3-D (4D depending on which literature you read, as if anyone thought that a live 3D video feed constitutes adding another dimension. If that was true, then all movies would be 3D...just without that pesky depth part to add the 4th) sonogram. On the adjacent wall was a Matisse print. Ahh, European sensibility. We were called in at 10:40 and I was impressed with Dr M's clean office and his adjoining examination room. he wore a striped shirt and a completely different striping tie underneath his lab coat. Even in Italy this is a fashion disaster, so I knew he must be a good doctor. He took all of E's critical data; date of birth, reviewed vitamins she was taking, asked about her last menstrual cycle, when she diventata signorina (loosely, when she became a woman....but quite a provincial way to ask that question), and a basic medical history. He took all the data down on a lap top *gasp* and then took us into the examination room.

He had the sonogram next to the examination table and a white parafan for E to change behind. I immediately noticed the DVD recorder next to the sonogram equipment. I noticed later, while examining the print outs, that he had a Medison SA9900. The examination room had more medical brochures and poster advertisements, but he had saved a couple of 3D images and they were inset in a Degas reprint. Interesting juxtaposition and that 3D image is awesome. So he got the womb up on the screen and took some measurements. I'm telling you, I learned more new Italian words in the 45 minute visit than I've learned in the last month. Camera gestazionale is my favorite. He could switch from a plan view to a elevation view (dork engineering term). Our little bean is now 1.47cm long. It was only 7mm a week ago. He turned on the audio and we could hear the heartbeat. The screen showed the wave-form of the heartbeat and he could freeze the image, like on an oscilloscope, and measure the period of the wave to calculate the heart rate. The little one is beating strongly at 160 beats/minute. He printed out a couple of images for us, took our 80Euro and wished us a good day.

Gherkins

Today it was gherkins. E's appetite is back, but its finicky. Fine. As long as she's eating and feeling well there's no problem with eating pizza 3 nights a week. Tomorrow is the first joint hospital visit with the ob/gyn. I think I'll get the see the little tyke. We met the work team for dinner. The baby was craving steak so E went with the pepe verde and lemon soda (wow, not sure I needed Italics for that) and I had the mixed cold cuts with chees, taglieri misti, some orecchiete and some pinot grigio.

Keeping Quiet

This post is post-dated. I didn't write anything after being out till 1am on Thursday night. But this is as good a time as any to describe my issue. Thursday was J's last night in town. Aside: Every time I started to think about that, Ben Folds Five's "Steven's last night in Town" kept coming to mind. So, not that I need an excuse to go to Molly's for a Weiss bier or two, but it was J's last night so we were all going to meet out. Us, the rest of the team, the Austrians, the Italians (to be fair, only 1 Italian guy, the rest were girls at J's behest), and English J and his fiancee S (Czech).

E was keeping up her pretense of 'detoxing' to explain why she wasn't drinking. I am sure to the more attuned women this is not a very good excuse. E's Polish after all. After a couple of weeks of telling people she's avoiding alcohol to detox, the reasoning starts to wear thin. S asked E at Molly's if she was sure she wasn't pregnant. Like E is going to tell her at a bar. One of the nice Austrian couples brought their baby boy with them. This little guy is so calm and since Italy has instituted the 'no smoking' policy in restaurants and bars, and because Molly's is a laid back place, they often bring him out. I was transfixed by him. Maybe the beers were giving me a goggle assist, but I found myself focusing on the kid. Thank god the rest of our bar mates were on the sauce or they may have noticed. At some point I wanted to exclaim Aside: I remember in 8th grade Language Arts class when we had to write a dialogue for creative writing and everyone had problems with syntax; when to use quotation marks, how to punctuate around them and the teacher telling us we had to use more descriptive verbs than said. People were trying like hell to use exclaimed, described, decried, explained, lamented, stated, uttered, teased, shouted etc. So I'm putting in 'exclaim' when 'said' really covers it adequately. I never read 'said' or any other vocal action verb when I read a book. The dialogue itself conveys the context, you don't need to waste cognitive power on the verb choice "Hey, see that guy, that little one, we're going to have one of those in 8 months!"

See, I don't want to tell anyone about our baby yet for practical and superstitious reasons. I've read that most people wait until after the first trimester, until you're out of the danger zone for miscarriage, before telling people besides immediate family. I'm all for that. I don't have many people here that I'm dying to share the news with because we aren't that close and E doesn't have to worry about any recriminations from work, but I still think we should wait before informing the general public. E told a Polish friend of hers (mostly becuase this girl is married to a local Italian guy and knows who the good doctors are in town) and her old roommate from Dubai. That's cool. If we were living in Atlanta, surely I would have told a couple of my close friends; The Mayor (sorry for the psuedonym, dude, but Google is an all seeing monster) and certainly Andy. And I would tell my cousin as he and I have shared a lot in the last couple of years. But we're not there. We're here. Plus you only get to tell people once, so you can't screw it up. And, if you can do it in person it carries more weight. So I'm stuck in Italy without anyone to confide in. Sure, E can talk to her sister and her friend here about the changes and what she's going through and how it feels etc. But I can't. I find myself at work, suddenly overcome by some idea or thought or image, and I have to bite my tongue.

Eng-J and S were out to dinner with E and I the day we found out we were pregnant. We stifled any outwardly-projected joy and had a really nice seafood dinner with them, while inside my joy was brimming. The east coast of Italy is hell-and-gone from Atlanta, by any criterion you want to use. This blog, therefore, is my outlet. If my family gets to read it, great, its the best way to make sure everyone is up to date on the happenings here, but its also a chance for me to talk about what's going on without divulging anything to my work mates. For now.