the underwear drawer

ling ling

So. The news. Believe me, I wanted to break it sooner. Our families have known for more than a month already, and a lot of our friends already know as well. But as for the Big Announcement, well, I thought that it was best, in the name of professionalism, to tell my new co-workers before I publicized the news on the Internet. You know, to be polite. And it's an in-person conversation kind of thing, I didn't start work until yesterday, so...there you go.

The partner I talked to reacted beautifully, by the way. Of course, I was stressing about this for months (as you could well imagine), what their reaction was going to be, how it was going to come off, me just starting my job and all that--but all I heard was congratulations and don't worry and we expect these kinds of things and where are you going to put the crib? So that was just such a relief. I know it's not really a matter of getting FIRED or anything like that, but, you know, I don't have a long relationship with any of these new people yet, so I wasn't sure if they were going to be surprised or annoyed or mad or what. Anyway, two thumbs up on the new job. Lovely hospital, lovely group of people.

We don't know if Cal Jr. is a boy or or a girl yet, but we will find out in a few weeks. Ideally, I would love to find out next week, along with the status of the rest of his/her innards--my new OB does anatomy screens between 18 and 22 weeks, and we are 17 weeks as of this past Sunday. But due to the realities of my situation, I had to pool all my appointments to fall on the same day, such as to minimally interfere with work. And my next OB appointment isn't until September 4th. So we'll just have to wait until then. Patience is a virtue.

And now a funny story. Before we got pregnant, Joe and his mom were talking, and Joe's mom was saying that we should have another baby, preferably a GIRL, because AREN'T YOU JUST ACHING FOR A BABY GIRL? And then she suggested that if we did have a girl, that we should name her "Ling Ling," because "that's a Chinese name." Joe said that we probably would not. Because that's the name of a dead panda.

(To her credit, Joe's mom now disavows all knowledge of The Ling Ling Incident, so we can draw one of two conclusions. Either she wants to pretend she never said Ling Ling, or Joe is lying. Either way, I think we have a nickname for this fetus until we settle on a real one.)

(Hi, Joe's mom!)