Spreading the Word

I had to go back to our old template... I really wasn't feeling the new one and it kept having some crazy formatting issues. Maybe change is over-rated after all. :) I have added a little pregnancy ticker, now that the word is out. So there's a little something new!

I had my latest OB appointment yesterday and everything is looking good. We've had a lot of debate about the due date, though. I know that in real life, the due date really doesn't make all that much difference because the baby will come when it will come, but it sure would be nice to feel like we had a good sense of how far along the baby's development is now. When I first went to the doctor back in February, they thought I was at 8 weeks. Our first due date was October 10. That seemed a little far to me, but if that meant I was already 2 months through the first trimester, I was happy to take it! Then I was having some problems about three weeks later - we thought I was at 11 weeks - and had an ultrasound to make sure everything was OK. Based on the ultrasound, which is supposed to be super, super accurate at that stage, they decided I was actually only about 6 1/2 weeks along. What?! A whole month felt like a huge setback. So, our second due date was November 9. Sigh. Ian and I looked closely at the ultrasound pics and compared them to other pictures we could find, and that estimate really did seem like it matched up. BUT, then I started looking at the calendar and decided it couldn't possibly be right based on the date I had the first positive pregnancy test. So, I made up our third due date of October 24. I picked a date somewhere in between the two the doctors had given us. I mentioned all this to the doc yesterday, so she worked through all of the dates with me, which I really appreciated. She said I was right that the pregnancy test was crazy early, but that she's heard of other women having positive tests that early. We also realized that when I was counting back weeks, I got a little off, so the test date made a TINY bit more sense, but was still very unusual. Bottom line is that she feels very sure about the November 9 date and really wanted me to feel good about it, too. Boo. :( I'm trying to come to terms with November 9. So, we're now at 11 weeks for the THIRD time in this pregnancy.

There's a little feature on my new BFF site, babycenter.com, that shows you pictures of food approximately the size of the baby for each week. It goes from poppy seeds to pumpkins (a pumpkin? really?? that's scary!) and includes some rather odd choices such as kumquats, spaghetti squash, English hothouse cucumber, and a large jicama. I guess that's supposed to help give you a frame of reference, but I don't know that I've ever seen any of those foods whole and in person. I'm sure every pregnant couple has gone through this, but it's a little awkward to refer to the baby as "it" and for some reason, "the baby" doesn't feel terribly personal either. I know other couples who have gone with the food thing and called their baby "the bean" or "pea" or "peanut" and such. For some reason, we got stuck on kumquats. Particularly odd, since I'm really not sure what a kumquat is, but that's been our name of choice for the baby for now. Poor kid. :)

Do All Dogs Really Go To Heaven?

I sure hope so. Yesterday was a terrible day! On my clinical days, I work in a little rural town about 50 miles or so away from Charlotte. For some reason, there are a lot of stray dogs running around this town. It's not uncommon for them to run out in the road and I've had some near-misses in the past several months. Yesterday, unfortunately, was not a near-miss. A big black dog ran out right in front of my car when I was just coming into town from the highway, so I was going too fast to be able to stop in time... Plus, there were some other cars behind me and I really didn't want them to hit me, too. That darn dog was not a very fast runner and I hit it. :( I paged Ian - who was operating, of course - sobbing and told him I killed a dog. He was very sweet and soothing, especially considering he was in the OR with tons of people around and a couple other things on his mind than his hysterical, pregnant wife. :) I was still crying when I got to work and was quickly reminded how different folks in the country often view the death of animals. They were all relieved when I told them what happened, because they were concerned "something bad" had happened. They actually were the ones who pointed out that my car was a little smashed up. I hadn't even noticed it! Yuck. I was very nervous driving to work today... I made it, though. I'm sure hoping today's a better day... and that the poor dog is in a better place.

The rumors of my disappearance are only minorly exaggerated.

Hello world! I have emerged from my cave (aka: work) to make my 2nd blog entry.

Mae has, as usual, outdone me when it comes to keeping you informed on most of our doings. However, as I peruse the last 20 entries, I realize that she hasn't written about this nugget:

We're going to have a baby in October!!

Obviously, we're overcome with joy to be so blessed to bring the next member of the Villanuueva-Costello clan into the world. If you're just finding out, you're not too far out of the loop. Mae just mass emailed almost everyone we know with the news, so if you didn't get one of these emails, by all means update us with your email address!

As if this wasn't enough maturity being forced upon us, we also face the following life-changing events in the next months: signing on to be the 1st fellowship trained bariatric surgeon in Wichita, qualifying for a mortgage, looking for a new house in Wichita, finishing my fellowship here in Charlotte, moving to Wichita, establishing a private surgical practice, and finally, having our first child.

Now, you're all caught up. Leave it to a surgeon to summarize life in a single (albeit, run-on) sentence.

Winding Down

It's crazy to think that I only have about a month left to work here! Where on earth has this year gone? In some ways, it's hard to remember before I was working, but that might just be because my brain is tired and fuzzy. :) I decided to quit working a couple months before we move for a number of reasons... Three of the big ones are:

1. My work stopped giving us gas cards and it just cost me $50 to fill up my little Jetta today! I just really don't make enough there to justify my 100-mile round-trip commute 3 days/week.
   
2. We need to find a place to live! My work isn't so friendly about taking time off, so I figured the easiest thing is just to quit and then have plenty of time to find somewhere to live.
   
3. There's so much I'd like to do here before we move. Work is really getting in my way. :) Really, everything has worked out quite nicely. I had all of the summer and early fall off last year and then worked through the "winter" (I can't even really call it winter here). Now I'm quitting as soon as the weather is perfect again. Not a bad life, I have to say. :)
   
   

So, I'm looking forward to returning to my life of luxury soon. There's also so much I'd like to do at work and with my clients before I leave. That's going to be tough. I just sent out my therapy schedule for the rest of my time here. Weird. It's going to be a busy month! There are several kids that I feel like we're getting pretty close to time to terminate therapy anyway, so I'm going to be doing a lot of assessing and trying to figure out who will be ready to quit when I leave and who will be better off continuing with the new therapist. There's a lot still to do! We interviewed a woman last week that I think would be really fantastic for them. She's got boatloads more experience than I do and I really think she could help bring things to the next level at my site. I hope they end up hiring her. We'll see!

In other news, Ian & I are heading up to Asheville next weekend to hang out with Joe & Jill and do the whole Biltmore thing. It should be lots of fun. We're very excited!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!