Marriage optimist

This girl I knew in high school appears to have gotten divorced. I say "appears" because I haven't actually been in touch with her for years, but she just took her Facebook "married to" status down so her relationship status isn't listed at all anymore, and changed her name back to her maiden name. So it seems pretty clear. This is after months of cryptic posts about how she will get through the tough times, and she's so glad her friends are there to support her, and so on. Also someone posted on her wall once about how she would get through this, and the first TEN YEARS (!!) of a marriage are the hardest. I don't know, maybe I'm young and naive, but a 10-year rough patch at the start of a marriage sounds like a pretty freaking long rough patch. I mean, even if you stay married for 50 years, that's a good 20% of your marriage right there. My goodness.

ANYWAY, my initial point with this had nothing to do with her divorce, really. It has to do with the fact that her Facebook profile had a customized URL, and it was her married name. You know, facebook.com/firstname.marriedname. And now she is Firstname Maidenname again, but the URL of her Facebook profile still has her married name. And I remember when Facebook first started offering customized URLs, they gave a strict warning about how you had to choose carefully because once the URL is assigned it can't be changed, but dude, do you think they could make an exception for divorced people? Because how much does it suck to go through a divorce, drop your married name, and still have it staring you and all your friends in the face every time you log onto Facebook? I'm just saying.

Also, this is one of the first divorces I've witnessed via Facebook. AND, another friend has just changed his Facebook status from "married" to "separated." I didn't even know that "separated" was an OPTION for a Facebook relationship status. But apparently it is. I wonder if it's been added recently? Due to popular demand?

I was in college when Facebook was launched, so I grew up with it, so to speak, since at first it was targeted only to college students, and that's what I was at the time. As I've gotten older I've watched my friends' relationship statuses change from joke marriages to their close friends to "it's complicated" to "in a relationship" to "engaged" to "married." And I guess now I'm entering the time in my life when some of those marriages start to fall apart, and so I should reasonably expect to see more and more people listing their relationship status as "separated" or "divorced."

But STILL. It doesn't get any easier to watch, even with people you barely know. My sister went through a divorce, and that is obviously the divorce that has affected me personally the most, and, you know, it wasn't MY divorce so I was mostly there as her support system, and now she's remarried and pregnant (did I mention she is having a girl? By the way? Because she is, and, you know, YAY, and also how convenient for my parents that they get a matched set of boy-girl grandchildren arriving approximately six weeks apart, no?), and everything seems to have worked out quite beautifully for her, so that's great, but it still doesn't mean I'm less traumatized when other people get divorced. Or separated. Even if it's people I haven't spoken to in years. Even if it's people whose spouses I never met. Even if it's people whose lives I didn't think I was the least bit invested in.

I guess I just want EVERY marriage to work. And I blithely assume that they all will. My own marriage is so lovely and I want to assume that every other married couple has an equally lovely relationship of their own. And so I DO assume it, and then suddenly some of them are divorced and that means they didn't have the marriage I wanted them to have, or they did and then something changed, and either way: SAD.

And don't even get me STARTED on blog divorces. Whenever somebody in blogland announces that they're getting divorced, it hits me over the head like a sledgehammer. I'm never expecting it, NEVER, even if the person has been writing for ages about how their marriage is struggling.

Call me naive, but I'm not really looking forward to the continued disillusions about other people's marriages that are sure to keep coming in the next few years. So I think I'll keep on assuming and hoping that everyone I know has a great, happy marriage that will last for the rest of their lives. Even if that means I have to be shocked and upset on occasion when I find out news to the contrary.

Fall in the mountains

I am writing this from a hotel in the mountains, where I will be working for the day while Torsten attends a work conference. And you guys, in the mountains? It is FALL. Denver's been having record highs all month, but here, the high is 70 and the low is 40. The aspens are changing color and I just opened the balcony door to get some fresh air in here, and now I'm shivering and have to close it again.

FALL. It is GLORIOUS. I even thought to pack a couple of my new maternity sweaters, which I haven't even had a chance to wear yet. UNTIL TODAY.

Also, this trip is vaguely like a vacation. I mean, we're both working, and also we'll hardly see each other during the day as a result, but we're in the mountains, and the weather is vacationlike, and somebody else cleans up after us, and, well, we haven't actually been able to afford a vacation since Torsten quit his job, so this is as close as it's going to get, at least for now, and I will take it. HEAVENLY. The cool air alone is enough for me at this point. Especially since the AC is still broken in our car.

And, it only took us an hour and a half to get here. At rush hour. I'm still not sure I can really believe how close we live to such gorgeous places. We haven't been out to explore anywhere yet (see above re: work), but the view from our balcony alone is stunning:


Oh and also, here's my 24-week photo, as promised. Smile and everything!

The Grump returns

Oof. The grumpiness? It went away. But then? It came back. Last night I had a whiny traumatized meltdown because: a) we don't have a name picked out for Piglet yet; b) the players on Sunday Night Football were pissing me off; c) my back itched; d) Piglet was kicking hard enough to feel from the outside, I think, but the second Torsten put his hand on my belly the kicking stopped; and e) I'm pregnant, need I really say more?

Poor Torsten handled it like a champ, really he did, being soothing and not at all annoyed while I thrashed irritably around the couch trying to SCRATCH THAT DAMN ITCH ALREADY and WHY IS THIS COUCH SO UNCOMFORTABLE? and WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS DUMBASS EVEN I COULD HAVE CAUGHT THAT PASS and WHY DO NO GOOD NAMES EXIST IN THE ENTIRE WORLD ANYWHERE?

Finally the mood passed, more or less (but not before I HEADBUTTED Torsten in retaliation for him inadvertently tickling me), and then I lay on the couch stewing quietly about NOTHING and also EVERYTHING while Torsten rubbed my back and then we talked about names a little more and settled on one that might be a real actual contender, and we are both going to think about it for a few days and decide if it really is a contender or what, and that made me feel better. (NO IT IS NOT ALFRED.) (And we won't be sharing it until Piglet is born. But then I will indeed post the real name on the blog. So you should get to find out in approximately 16 weeks.)

Now it is morning and I am feeling decidedly less grumpy, so that's nice. Also I had a dream about Piglet the other day: he was born sort of unexpectedly and we didn't have anything ready for him, including a car seat, so while Torsten went out to buy a car seat last minute (and I was annoyed because he wasn't able to get the pattern I wanted), I tried to make the baby stop crying, and the only way to do that was to carry him hanging upside down over my shoulder so his legs were dangling down my front and his head was dangling down my back. Also he was born with a full set of teeth. He was pretty cute though, so that was nice. It was the first time I've dreamed about Piglet since we found out the sex, and in the dream he felt much more like a real baby that we will get to meet soon, so that was nice too.

Oh and Torsten and I are going to the mountains for a couple days this week, for work of all things, but I am still looking forward to it, except Montana isn't coming with us and it will be the first time we've left her home alone overnight. Our next door neighbor will be taking care of her and it's only a couple nights and I'm sure it will be fine, but I'm having traumatized thoughts of her having anxiety attacks (as a rescue dog, she is very people-oriented and can be sensitive to anything that smacks of negativity or abandonment) and/or pooping all over the house. Oh well. I suppose this will be a good dry run for when I go into labor and we have to leave her home alone at the last minute. The same neighbor has already promised to take care of her then, too, so hopefully she won't poop everywhere and scare him into changing his mind.

Tomorrow I'll be 24 weeks! Don't worry, there will be a photo. Hopefully I won't be making a nasty, grumpy face in it, but I can't promise anything.

Bloggy gratitude

You guys. In the past week or so, guess how many boxes of AWESOME baby stuff have showed up in the mail for us?

Three.

Guess how many of them are from awesome, generous, amazing bloggers whom I've never even met in person?

THREE.

First, The New Girl went far, far, far above and beyond the contest of hers that I won and sent me a whole box of pregnancy/new parent stuff. Huge piles of books. Baby wraps (including a Moby wrap! Which I had on our registry). Blankets (including a Miracle Blanket! Which I had on our registry). Nursing covers. And on and on. It is like the Mary Poppins carpet bag, only for newborns. And it is AWESOME.

Then, Erica sent a big box of maternity clothes, really nice ones from Old Navy, a whole set of jeans and long sleeve shirts and sweaters, basically an entire maternity wardrobe. All of it lovely, all of it in great condition, all of it stuff I would have picked myself. All in a box for ME ME ME. Except, one thing wasn't for me--a teeny tiny pair of adorable Keds that I cannot WAIT to put on Piglet.

And lastly, Kate sent me an amazing package of adorable, barely-worn newborn boy clothes that her own son grew out of almost immediately. There's a snowsuit and a whole adorable set of onesies, pants, hats, and other insanely cute tiny baby clothes. A whole entire newborn WARDROBE was in that box.

All of this! From people I know exclusively through our blogs. From people who are just really incredibly nice and thoughtful and giving.

This baby is already so loved and spoiled, even by people he's never met. And, another lovely benefit: it makes me feel pretty freaking loved and spoiled myself. Everybody wins!

Pay it forward

My parents arrived on Sunday for a week-long visit. They brought with them four suitcases, two of which were full of years' worth of collected baby items. Pretty much as soon as we all got home from the airport, my mom and I sat down on the bed in the guest room and sorted through all the clothes that she brought in addition to the ones that I've purchased. And, um, I'm pretty sure that Piglet is almost set, clothes-wise, for the first six months of his life. Which is kind of too bad, because I'm not sure that I'M set, shopping-wise. In fact, yesterday we went to the mall and I bought two more baby items. But they were on sale for super cheap! And they were so cute! And that makes it worth it, right?

It's lovely to have parents visiting. I am not very good at the phone, as in, remembering to call people regularly and have long chatty conversations with them, and being pregnant and exhausted has made me even worse at the phone, so it's nice to have face time to chat and say all the things that it wouldn't occur to me to say over the phone. And being bought dinners out doesn't hurt either. And the huge piles of baby stuff definitely don't hurt either.

Plus, my parents are incredibly generous. They don't just buy us dinners and baby clothes--they are also buying us the glider that we want as a baby gift, and they offered to buy us another piece of nursery furniture as an early Christmas gift. Now we are just torn about what to get--should we invest in a nice dresser/changing table combo and get a cheaper bookshelf? Vice versa? Get both for cheap? Splurge on nicer versions of both?

It's frustrating because this year we have no income, but last year we had income and next year we anticipate having income again, but this is the year we're shopping for the nursery and so we can't just decide that nicer furniture is worth the extra cash because it will last forever and drop the money. But we also don't want to buy cheap crap just because of the bad timing.

So far we've avoided the issue entirely by buying nothing. But, it's less than four months until my due date and that means that at some point soon we are going to need to make some decisions. Dear me. It is amazing how time just absolutely crawled during the first trimester and has been flying ever since. Piglet is definitely reminding me of his presence more and more by kicking harder and harder, too. But I really shouldn't complain because soon enough he'll be making his presence known through ear-splitting screams, and I'll look back fondly on the days when he couldn't make any noise.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten sidetracked. My original point here was that my parents' visit means both good company and incredibly generous gifts, and I love that about them. And I love that very shortly I myself will also get to be a parent and will get to pay forward all this generosity. I am really looking forward to that.

And also to the tiny baby who will wear all the tiny baby clothes that we are busily amassing. I am really looking forward to that, too.

Nursery prints

In the last week or so, Piglet has started kicking significantly harder. I love it. But I do not love the sensation. It feels weird and shuddery and vaguely unpleasant, and occasionally it's startling and sometimes downright painful. But I still love it and want it to keep happening round the clock. At the same time I can definitely foresee a time later in this pregnancy when the kicking will be highly uncomfortable and I will be grumpy about it. So consider yourselves warned.

I browsed Etsy for some more nursery prints last night. I found quite a few that I liked, unsurprisingly, but there is still one particular artist whose work I absolutely love (it is even more gorgeous in person). We have already purchased three prints of hers for the nursery (this, this, and this), but now there are three MORE of her prints that I am dying to have. But unfortunately, our budget doesn't run to buying every single print we covet for the nursery. But maybe we could afford one more?

So basically, I need your opinion about which of the following prints we should buy, if we buy any:

Option A:


Option B:


Option C:


Which one would YOU pick?

P.S. Torsten would like me to state, for the record, that he went to the Great American Beer Festival last night and actually came home early, before he became drunk enough to get sick. He is very proud of himself for this behavior and would like to be lauded accordingly.

The pregnant cow

Over at Bodies in Motivation: Why I Feel Fat Instead of Pregnant

(Ironically, shortly after I wrote that post, I discovered that I fit into Gap maternity jeans. Who would've thought?)

GRUMP.

Oh hi. I am GRUMPY. And NO I do not have a good reason for being grumpy, as in, there is nothing in my life that is grump-inducing. It is just the HORMONES. And I am SORRY. But that does not prevent me from being pissed off at EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME OMG.

The thing is that I have actually had a very easy, uneventful pregnancy so far and for that I am incredibly grateful. There was one month of atrocious morning sickness, for which I blame myself because in retrospect I'm pretty sure it was caused or at least seriously exacerbated by my lap-band, but other than that it's been smooth sailing (KNOCK ON WOOD). And I really, really appreciate that, and really, REALLY hope it stays that way for the next 18 weeks.

AND, the other thing is that even WHILE I am irrationally, excessively pissy about everything, I am bizarrely, simultaneously happy. Does that make ANY sense? Little things piss me off to no end but at the same time I have a more global sense of happiness and delight over being pregnant, and over my life in general. And LUCKILY the hormonal moodiness does not obscure my ability to see the bigger picture.

BUT that does not change the fact that I am SO easily infuriated. Sometimes the moodiness manifests itself in tragic sadness over nothing at all, and very rarely as euphoria, but mostly it's just FURY, plain and simple. People who drive like aggressive assholes are subject to scathing internal monologues, and possibly some external swearing as well. The woman at Costco the other day who just STOOD in the middle of the exit with her stupid giant CART well after her receipt had been checked and approved? Well, let's just say she's lucky I didn't ram her with my own giant cart, creating a painful for her but OH so satisfying for me cart-and-dumbass sandwich.

And let's not even get me started on the fury I feel toward my bladder. Isn't it a muscular organ? And doesn't that mean that repeated workouts should make it stronger? So why do I have to pee every five minutes? Seriously, I get up to go to the bathroom and by the time I've returned to wherever I was, I HAVE TO PEE AGAIN. I wake up four or five times a night to pee. I lose literally four pounds overnight, every night, in water weight alone. I can't even think about going anywhere without a bathroom for more than 45 minutes at a time. And supposedly this is only going to get WORSE for the next 18 weeks?

Luckily for me, my husband thinks my Moods are hilarious, and doesn't get offended when my irrational wrath is directed toward him. Not even when I told him that Alfred is the stupidest name suggestion I've ever heard in my entire life and I was starting to wonder how I could even have MARRIED someone who would seriously consider naming their baby that.

(I still think I was right, by the way. ALFRED?!)

Oh and also, THIS. This 22-week belly is a pretty lucky and beautiful thing, too.

Baby clothes!

So... I don't have gestational diabetes! All four of my blood draw results were nicely within the normal range. My three-hour level was actually lower than my initial fasting level, which is great. I am hopeful that this means I am cleared for the whole pregnancy, but I haven't discussed the results with my midwife yet so I still don't know if they're going to want to retest me at 28 weeks or not. We'll see! But in the meantime I'll enjoy my freedom to eat when I want without testing my glucose regularly.

Also, the baby clothes I ordered from Old Navy arrived yesterday, and you guys, they are SO cute. The purple-striped waffle knit shirt is seriously possibly the cutest article of clothing ever to exist in the entire world. And the bathing suit? Well, I ordered it in size 6-12 months, thinking that would be perfect for next summer, and when I unpacked it, it looked startlingly huge. Seriously, giant enough that I had my first "OMG my baby is growing up SO FAST" crisis, imagining that he would already fit into that next SUMMER only a few months after he's born.

But then I noticed that the bathing suit is almost exactly the same size as the 12-18 month pants that I ordered, and at first I thought it was just sizing inconsistency, but then it occurred to me that maybe it's done intentionally to accommodate a giant swim diaper? Does anyone else have experience with this? It suddenly seemed like maybe it would be a really clever idea to make your baby bathing suits for this purpose, but I can't tell if it really was just a sizing inconsistency issue or if Old Navy is that thoughtful in their bathing suit production. What do you guys think?

Glucola is gross

Sooo at my prenatal appointment last week I ended up doing the one-hour glucose tolerance test as an early screening for gestational diabetes. Normally this test is done between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy but they like to do an earlier screen for overweight women, and since I was going to be sticking around for an hour after the appointment to do our ultrasound, the midwife threw it in.

And I BARELY failed. By TWO lousy milligrams. The cutoff is 140 and I was at 142. Now, the one-hour test is a screening test, not a diagnostic tool, and quite a few women who do not have gestational diabetes flunk the one-hour test. So if you fail that one, you have to do a three-hour test, which involves having your fasting blood sugar tested, then drinking a double dose of glucola (glucose solution) and sticking around the hospital for three hours to have your blood glucose levels checked every hour.

Nice, isn't it? Luckily my hospital has wifi so I can do work between blood draws and I don't have to take a whole morning of sick time, but still. I also got strict instructions about eating enough starch and fruit in the three days leading up to the test before fasting for the last 12 hours before the test. Luckily I'm not afraid of needles, but four blood draws in the space of three hours is really not my idea of fun, you know?

But really I'm worried about the results of the test. I know since I was borderline on the one-hour test I have a decent shot (something like 85%) of NOT having gestational diabetes, but ooh, I REALLY don't want to have it. First of all it sounds like a huge pain--I would have to take a diabetes management CLASS at my hospital, then be extremely careful about what I eat and constantly monitor my own glucose throughout the rest of the pregnancy--but second of all, when I failed the one-hour test I did some reading about gestational diabetes.

And man, I know the articles always make things sound worse than they are, but it was like a series of dire warnings about all the negative effects the condition can have on your baby, not only during pregnancy but AFTER pregnancy, and how it could impact your kid's health years down the line and you have to make sure to tell his pediatrician that you had GD so that they can monitor the child's health appropriately. And of course I immediately started feeling like I had failed Piglet before he was even born, even though there's nothing I could have done other than what I have done (generally eating a healthy, high-protein diet) to prevent it.

Anyway! Most likely I don't have the condition, and I'm trying to just keep telling myself that, and luckily my hospital's lab is very speedy so I should have the results of the test this afternoon. And in the meantime I am headed off to the hospital now for the test, which means that in a few hours I will at least be allowed to EAT. Without testing my glucose afterward, to boot. Fingers crossed that it stays that way.

But in the meantime, the disk with the ultrasound photos showed up in the mail yesterday, so now in addition to the profile shot I scanned in at the time, we can admire some adorable feet! And really, when do baby feet NOT make everything better? With little baby TOES. (The ultrasound report reads, "There is no club foot.")

Thoughts on having a boy

I grew up in a girl-oriented family. I am one of two girls; my mom is one of two girls; our close family friends (who lived down the street and with whom we vacationed regularly) have two girls. There was a time in college when I felt like I was the one in the family who did things differently--for example, going to a women's college where I was quite unlikely to meet my future husband, or studying abroad in Senegal--and I thought to myself that I would probably end up being the odd one out who had a son someday.

But since then I had pretty much assumed that I would have a girl. I leaned toward wanting a girl, though not heavily. I thought that Piglet was a girl. Almost everyone in the world seemed to agree with me; other than a few blog readers, everyone I encountered guessed that it was a girl.

When we went into the ultrasound we told the tech that we did want to know the baby's sex, if she was able to tell. A few minutes into the ultrasound the tech said to us, "You said you did want to know the sex, right?" I knew in that moment that she had seen it, that the Piglet had cooperated with nice uncrossed legs. We both said yes, we did want to know, and the tech said, "It's a little boy."

My first reaction was shock. I hadn't realized how convinced I was that the baby was a girl until I found out otherwise. I said, "Oh!" and Torsten reached over and squeezed my hand. She showed us the clear evidence that it was a boy, pointing out the hipbones from below, the legs extending out in a V, and the obvious outline between them. And I lay there trying to wrap my head around the idea that the little baby inside me was a boy.

The funny thing is that I wasn't disappointed. I had been afraid that I would be, if it were a boy. And I wouldn't have been disappointed if it had been a girl either. But I just could not grasp the idea that it was a boy. It really just would not connect in my head that this baby that we'll be having in a few months would be a boy baby. I really hadn't known how much I'd been assuming it was a girl. I watched as the tech moved on with the ultrasound and I worked on reconfiguring my concept of the person this baby is and will be.

And after a minute, as we looked at his spine and his heart and his bones and his bladder, it clicked. Suddenly it made perfect sense that this was our baby, this boy with his lovely four-chambered heart and the nice line dividing the hemispheres in his brain and his giant-looking belly (though actually the belly, giant though it looks to us, is apparently measuring slightly behind the rest of him--so I guess giant bellies are normal at this stage).

As soon as I grasped that our baby was a boy, that it was not the Piglette I'd been assuming but rather a Piglito, I was thrilled. I surprised myself with how delighted I was. My mind just flooded with great things about boys, and how wonderful it will be to have this boy in particular. A little bilingual boy who will wear adorable striped shirts and overalls and jeans and little sweaters (like this one OMG I NEED THAT except it would really be better for a toddler than a baby and also it's incredibly expensive but still LOOK HOW CUTE). A boy who will teach us to change diapers quickly so we don't get hit in the face with a stream of pee. A boy who will grow up to become a ridiculous, amazing, hilarious teenager.

A sweet little boy who will hopefully have a lovely straightforward relationship with his mom (and dad). A boy who will not get buried under a mountain of pink unless he chooses it himself (but who will still wear as much purple as I can find--so far this, this, and this). A boy who will be gross and probably have to be taught why it's not OK to pee in the front yard (but who maybe, if he's anything like his father, will skip the stage of bringing bugs and other icky living creatures into the house). A boy who will love his dog and will learn very early not to pull her tail. A boy who might someday grow up and marry a woman, making me some other woman's mother-in-law.

And is it bad that I feel kind of relieved that we will avoid some girl-heavy landmines with this kid, like wanting to wear revealing clothes very young, and the drama of mean-girl cliques, and the worry about sexual assault (though of course that can happen to a boy too), and down the line possible issues with glass ceilings? Because of course it would be lovely if issues like this didn't affect women more, but the fact is that they do and while I would love to change that I also selfishly appreciate that this child won't have to deal with some of those hurdles.

A BOY. Our beautiful little boy. I still can't even believe how happy I am about this.

Of course, we still don't have a CLUE what we're going to name him.

The quilt fiasco

I almost don't even want to post ever again because I don't want to push that sonogram photo off the top of the blog. I understand that ultrasound pictures just look like blurry blobs to most people, but isn't that one CUTE? I mean seriously, you can even see his CHEEKS. I can't get over how adorable I find it. He looks like an actual squeezable BABY.

Also, I swear more than ever that he looks just like Torsten. The morning after the ultrasound I woke up and Torsten was lying in bed with his head tucked against his chest and it was a MIRROR IMAGE. I suppose we'll find out when Piglet is born, but I would really not be surprised at all if I gave birth to a mini-clone of my husband. And I kind of hope that I do. Except maybe he could have curly hair? What do we think of curly hair on boys?

Anyway, this weekend I decided to finally make a quilt for Piglet, which I've been planning to do pretty much since I got pregnant. I went to the fabric store without any clear idea of what I wanted, except that I wanted to do something with the baby in mind rather than my own personal preferences, which is why I opted not to do something purple. I ended up going with a blue and orange, castles and kings theme, with the hope that it would be kid-friendly without being babyish, and have a bit of a mod vintage vibe.

I made it on Saturday and I felt really proud of it. It is a really nice, quality quilt, if I do say so myself: the fabric is soft and nice, and the sewing is good (not that it was difficult; it's just a bunch of straight seams done on a sewing machine, with an ever-so-slightly more complicated zigzag seam on the edging). Here it is:


And closer up so you can see the detail:


So I finished sewing it, proudly showed it to Torsten... and he wasn't exactly enthusiastic (as those of you who follow me on Twitter already know). He tried to be, and he liked the quality of the quilt itself, but I think he thinks it's ugly. Specifically, I think it's the crown fabric that threw him off. He thought it was "weird," and when questioned further said that he had been envisioning something more along the lines of "teddy bears."

Of course, it was late, and I'd been working on the quilt for hours, and I'd been all happy to be making a special quilt for my baby that he could keep for the rest of his life, and had thought it had turned out sort of lovely and bright and original, and to hear my husband be like, "But why does it look like that?" instead of, "Oh my god it's gorgeous!" was very... deflating. Combine that with those ever-present pregnancy hormones, and there may have been a bit of a tearful meltdown involved.

I went from thinking that the quilt was pretty and meaningful to thinking that it was hideous and shocking and everyone who looked at it would think that I was color-blind and I would have to throw it out (along with the money spent on the fabric plus the time and care that went into making it) and start from scratch with a new quilt that wouldn't feel special because I had already made one that hadn't been up to snuff.

I was a mess, basically. Torsten did make me feel better, and swore that he really did like the quilt and thought that it was pretty and just had been expecting something a little more childish but it really was nice. And he's been very good about swearing that he likes it ever since. I still feel slightly fragile about it, and am not sure whether I believe him entirely... but it was enough to make me decide that even if he doesn't like the quilt, I do, and Piglet hopefully will too. So I'm keeping it, and not making another one.

But let this be a warning to all of you partners of pregnant women out there: if she spends ages planning to make something for your unborn child, and then really does it and works hard and comes up with something that she is obviously proud of and happy with, even if there are doubts in the back of your mind about some element of it? Or the entire thing? Even if you think it's the ugliest thing you've ever seen in your life and you're feeling sorry for the baby that it will ever have to be saddled with such a thing? It really might be smarter not to say anything other than, "Oh, honey, it's beautiful!"

Just a PSA.

Introducing...

OUR SON!


It's a boy! Eek! And no, I will not be posting a picture of our child's genitalia on my blog, but rest assured, it was VERY clear. No ultrasound error in this case!

I had been kind of leaning girl prior to the ultrasound and was afraid I'd be disappointed if it was a boy, but actually I am THRILLED. And, we will be honoring my uncle with the middle name and I am really happy to be able to do that.

All went great at the ultrasound, he is measuring just slightly ahead of schedule and looks very healthy with a good strong heart, spine, and so forth.

HE! It's so crazy to say that HE is measuring on schedule!

Now to start the hunt for purple boy clothes!

Dual citizenship

After my brief mention of the whole citizenship issue the other day, I thought I should clarify the whole situation. Because it is a confusing mess.

As it stands right now, Torsten is a German citizen and a U.S. permanent resident (green card holder). He holds a German passport, not a U.S. passport, but he can actually go through the U.S. citizens customs line with his green card (which is nice when we travel together, that we no longer have to go through separate lines).

Green card holders have the right to apply for U.S. citizenship through naturalization after five years of permanent residency, unless they hold permanent residency through marriage to a U.S. citizen (as in Torsten's case), in which case they can apply for naturalization after three years.

The U.S. government tolerates, though they do not approve of, dual citizenship. (I myself happen to be a dual citizen with the UK.) The naturalization process requires you to take an oath of allegiance to the U.S. that implies that you are renouncing all allegiances and citizenships to any other countries. From what I can tell, this is not enforced, and is really just intended to make the new citizen agree that they would theoretically be willing to give up their other citizenship should it be required someday (as far as I know this doesn't ever happen).

So, on the US side there would be no problem with Torsten becoming a dual citizen. HOWEVER. Germany doesn't like that so much. I have done some preliminary research on this, and learned the following: Germany allows dual citizenship with another country if you are born with it. This means that Piglet and any future children we have will automatically be dual citizens, and they will not be required to choose between German and American citizenship at any point in their lives. However, if as an adult German citizen you voluntarily take on the citizenship of another country, you have to give up your German citizenship.

Our thinking on this was as follows: Torsten can't apply for U.S. naturalization yet anyway. There is no rush in becoming a citizen (our only real concerns are that he would be able to vote, which isn't major, and that if he somehow accidentally committed a crime, he could theoretically be deported). So, our plan was, have kids, register them as dual citizens through their father's German citizenship, and then figure out what we want to do about Torsten's citizenship status.

We know for a fact that he 100% does not want to give up his German citizenship. It's a lot more beneficial than U.S. citizenship in terms of things like social services, health care, and so on. For example, if something terrible were to happen to someone in our family, like an incredibly expensive medical problem that were not covered by insurance, we would always have the backup plan of going to Germany to have it treated.

But it would be nice if he could be a U.S. citizen too. We wondered how tightly Germany enforces this policy--if they would ever find out that he had become a U.S. citizen, and if they would really revoke his German citizenship if they did find out. We kind of set the matter aside, figuring we'd look into it more once we were done having kids, and figure out at that point what the best course of action was. In the meantime, the more pressing question is about how to register Piglet's German citizenship--and in fact I tasked Torsten ages ago with researching that question on Germany.info, whose citizenship information is only in German.

But THEN. On my post on Monday, reader Sarah (who I can't link to because as far as I know she doesn't have a blog--Sarah, do you have a blog? Or a Twitter account? Or anything? If so, I would like the link, please! And also, THANKS AGAIN) informed me of something that I had not come across in any of the (admittedly cursory) research I'd already done: there exists something called a Beibehaltungsgenehmigung. Yes, that is actually a real word. I have no idea what it literally translates to, but it basically involves receiving permission from the German government to become a dual citizen in advance of applying for citizenship in another country.

From what I can tell from my Googling, all he has to do is prove that he still has strong ties to Germany! And really, having tons of family and friends still over there, traveling there regularly, having an advanced degree from a German university, still being enrolled in the German health insurance system, and raising a German-speaking child should probably be sufficient for that. I don't know what the process is or how much it costs, but how awesome is that? Torsten has been tasked with researching the details of this process as well. But what great news! What a big question that we now will hopefully never have to answer!

And to think... I might never have found out about it if it weren't for this blog. Being a blogger just NEVER STOPS being useful.