The Seversons

At this point, many but not all of you may know our big news: we’re expecting a baby in July.  It’s nice to finally be at the point where we can come out and tell people.  Eric is terrible with secrets.  There was a week before Eric decided to propose and actually proposed.  During that week his behavior with me was highly suspicious.  And since he couldn’t tell me, he compensated by telling every single other person in a ten-mile radius.  His behavior has been similar since we found out about our soon-to-be arrival.  The week we found out Eric’s brother was in town, but we decided that initially we would just tell our parents and wait a few weeks before we spread it to the rest of the immediate family.  Sure enough, when I left the house for a while, I came home to find that Eric had spilled the beans the moment he’d had an opportunity.  This pattern has repeated itself several times.  Apparently it’s difficult to be in close proximity to Eric and not have him blab to you.

When he is going to see someone who doesn’t know, he’ll say, “Well, I’m probably not going to tell them.”  Then he comes home and says, “So I told them.”  It’s endearing because I know how he works.  But just so you know, you may want to be on your guard with Eric and secrets.

As for me, I get the annoying actual pregnancy to deal with.  We are entering the sixth week of morning sickness.  It sucks.  Especially when you are someone who has a romantic attachment to food.  I often find myself fantasizing about the day when I can eat again.  The list of things I plan to eat when I can eat again is getting longer by the day.  Yesterday it was brunch.  I love brunch.  I am dreaming of having brunch even though the thought of the actual brunch is somewhat nauseating.  It’s a difficult balance.  Lucky for everyone this week I’ve come out of my funk a little bit.  Not physically, that’s all still there.  But I guess I’ve just decided that I’ve had enough time to be depressed about it.  I’m not doing things differently, I’m just not as dismal as I was a few days ago.  This is a big step.  Especially considering the fact that I may have months of this left to go.  (I know that most women say it goes away by 12 weeks, but I have decided not to assume that will happen because the depression that will follow if it doesn’t will be significant.  So I’m acting under the assumption that it’s going to be between 17 and 20 weeks.  17 is actually the average so I feel like this is a safer bet.)

It’s a rough time of year to not be able to eat.  I already missed Thanksgiving.  I missed having a birthday dinner.  I have to order out for our Christmas food, none of which I’ll be able to eat.  I doubt I’ll be able to eat anything of substance during our upcoming trip to Mexico.  I’ve bravely made a Valentine’s Day reservation even though it’s not outside the realm of possibility that I won’t be able to eat that either.  Instead of all those lovely meals, my diet consists mostly of Cheerios, eaten by the handful every 5 minutes or so for several hours a day.

As for the baby itself, it’s not something I think about as much as you’d expect.  I spend the day thinking about the state of my stomach and contemplating when I should have another handful of Cheerios or another sip of Gatorade.  This takes more energy than it sounds like and is an all-day job.  However, we did have an immediate quandary since we didn’t want to call the as-yet-undetermined-gender baby “it” and we can’t really call it “the baby.”  (This is because, as you may know if you’ve ever spent five seconds around Eric and I, we call each other “baby.”  And that’s it.  It gets confusing.)  I gave the name we use now: the nugget.  The Nugget was named because I’d just watched an episode of 30Rock in which chicken nuggets played some kind of role and because the baby at that time did not really resemble anything except a nugget.  When we find out the sex, I’m sure we’ll progress somewhat and start settling on a name.  But I’m pretty certain that this kid will have a Nugget nickname at our house until it’s long into adulthood.  My family has a thing for nicknames.  Mine, which my mother still calls me, was bestowed in utero as well.  I think the Nugget is one up on me, because at least their nickname is gender-neutral while mine is actually male.

For those who want the baby play-by-play, I’ve finally graduated to an OB who says everything looks great.  Eric is carrying around the ultrasound pics we got a couple weeks ago.  And yesterday I heard a very strong heartbeat, which is great news.  Especially since you usually can’t hear it until 12+ weeks and I’m only at 10.

As for the blog, while there will certainly be pregnancy and baby related updates, I am really striving not to let this be a state-of-the-belly type thing.  I’ll try and let people know when we have new info and we’ll be happy to post pics elsewhere when we have them.  Since I’m currently on a little break from work, I have virtually nothing else to talk about these days.  But I hope to be back to a normal posting schedule with actual interesting things to say in the near future.

I’ve spent all my time with Eric with a grad student. That is, until earlier this week when he finally went back to being a med student. The hours are pretty different, but so far I’m adjusting well. The man himself is thrilled and seems to be enjoying it all. Mostly I know this because he doesn’t complain about having to wake up early.

Seeing Eric with his stethoscope, talking about rounds, makes me remember back in the day when I wanted to be a doctor. I like to think of myself as an independent person, definitely not a suggestible one. The other day I heard about a study looking at the influence of television on teenagers. My initial thought was that it was all a bunch of bunk. But looking back, I have to admit I am completely wrong.

As a teenager, the two things I wanted to be were a doctor and an FBI agent. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my two favorite television shows were ER and The X-Files. The doctor idea was one that had never occurred to me before. What’s funny to me now is how many red flags I ignored. Like how I don’t like blood and guts. How my hands shake. How I tend to get a little emotional in stressful situations. Watching ER, what I learned was that all you needed to be a doctor was to be able to wake up really fast.

I’m pretty sure there was an early episode where the whole thing was about a doctor trying to sleep and constantly being woken up. For some reason this struck a chord in me more than all the scalpels and cutting. Being a teenager, I highly enjoyed my sleep and I was perplexed at how I’d handle this lifestyle change. So I decided I would train myself to wake up at the drop of a hat. This was a project I undertook with all seriousness. At the time, I woke up for seminary at around 4:30 in the morning. The rest of the family wouldn’t be up for another couple hours, and I was usually up as late as everyone else. (This is why much of high school now feels like a blur of sleep deprivation to me.) Since it was so early, I was in the habit of snoozing a few times. Doctors couldn’t snooze. So I put my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I’d have to stand up, walk across, and turn it off. It worked well. It was harder to want to snooze again when you were already out of bed. And I was apparently quite motivated because I really worked at it.

To this day, I still wake up very easily and quickly when I hear an alarm. In fact, I think my training was a little too good. I still can’t snooze correctly and even when I hit the snooze, I just lay there awake the whole time.

(The FBI agent idea wasn’t any good either—though I did pass my FBI test a few years ago when I decided to take it. Me? With a gun? Sure.)

Still, I admit that while I’d be a pretty bad doctor I am jealous that Eric is in medical school. That sounds kind of fun to me. Just without the tests and the pressure and the career part. This is probably because I thought law school was way fun, I am that much of a dork. Plus I feel like I have useful experience. In the few days we’ve talked so far, I’ve had to remind Eric several times that I can totally relate to where he’s coming from. Turns out being a public defender and being a doctor in a rather inner-city hospital have a lot in common.

But for the long-haul, I think I’m in a pretty good position. I get the vicarious enjoyment through Eric’s stories with none of the negatives. My life may not be interesting enough for a television show, but I will totally take it.