pregnancy mistakes

Evidently my blog made bigger waves than I expected. Abe said he had an attending ask if I was really pregnant. And nope, still not.

 

Being confused for a pregnant woman is one of the most depressing and frustrating offenses that can be made against a woman. This time I wont be upset as I seemed to have brought it upon myself, but a food baby confused with a real baby is downright humiliating. I did have a roommate in college and a boyfriend in college agree I had a “funny tummy” (thank you very much for that complex which I am still struggling with 11 years later) but there is only one time I can think of where I was confused for a pregnant woman:

We were at a conference and an old dental school professor was introducing me to another woman:

“Isn’t this lovely, two expectant mothers! Wow, that really is great.”

“Oh you are pregnant? Congratulations…Um, wait, who did you say is pregnant?”

“Yeah, it is really wonderful. Both of you having babies, when are you due? She’s due in X.”

“What, you think I’m pregnant, too? That’s news to me!”

Luckily he followed (perhaps strategically with), “Oh, I had heard you were. I thought for sure it was you. It’s not? But I heard you were. I guess I am mistaken.”

He evidently had me confused with another newly expecting woman he had heard about through the grapevine. And it was hard to convince him that I actually wasn’t pregnant. He was so pleased for me (I could see the genuine happiness in his eyes) he didn’t hardly hear my clarifications that I wasn’t pregnant.

I’m lucky he was just remembering wrong instead of me looking with child (isn’t that a strange phrase? kinda gives me the creepers!). Hopefully I can continue to prevent further incidences as I get older (and a little chubbier).

A little clarification

It appears there has been some confusion about exactly who and how many Jackson twins are currently pregnant. For those of you reading between the lines, I’m sorry to disappoint you but there is only one twin with a bun-in-the-oven. If you are still wondering, I can say, it isn’t me!

Sorry to disappoint, especially those thinking, “It’s about time!” For those of you thinking, “How will she make THAT work?” I’m wondering the same thing. Let me know if you have ideas or want to be my free full time nanny. Of course you’d have to be on call 24 hours a day, at least some months, so let me know.

I can’t say I blame you if you were confused. I suspected people may make assumptions. I am sorry I didn’t designate my photo as a “sympathetic bloating” and not the real deal. I didn’t purposefully try to deceive but I am convinced I can make myself look pregnant with how far I can push out my belly. I think my mom agrees (as she took the picture) and so does my husband (which he doesn’t seem to like).

Here is photographic evidence from the same day that I’m not as pregnant as I looked before (hopefully I don’t look pregnant at all!) and Amber trying to be sympathetically un-pregnant.

And photographic evidence that I have at least a 50% chance of having an adorable little duck of my own when I finally do make this milestone:

Do you see a resemblance? She is genetically equivalent to one of my own. It leaves Abe as the variable factor in the equation.

Hope Abe can pull his (genetic) weight!

And thanks for all of the congratulations. I will mentally store them away until they are really merited.

Baby names

 

First grade: that’s when I found out I was born with half a heart and half a brain (sounds like I should be part of the Wizard of Oz!).

Luckily for me, I had a very smart friend, Brita, who filled my sister Amber and I in on this fact. Up to that point we felt like we were pretty normal, but she was happy to point that as twins we did indeed share all of our internal organs, including our heart and brain.

I wasn’t happy to hear this: I think I cried a bit and at the very least did what any sane first grader would do and tattled on her to the teacher. I’ve since put it out of my mind but occasionally I wonder if maybe she was right. Like when we show up at family events wearing almost the same outfit (we live over a thousand miles away from each other). Or the fact that we almost always order the same thing at a restaurant even when sitting at opposite ends of the table. Or having the same color scheme and design ideas for Christmas trees.

My sister is currently pregnant with her second child. I’m guessing that her raging hormones and difficulty sleeping with her pregnant belly was responsible for another on of my strange dreams the other night. In case you are confused, when you share the same brain it makes ESP that much easier to channel. Never thought about it before, right? That’s why twins can read each other’s minds, feel each other’s pain, and say the same thing at the same time.

So back to my dream. I was out and about and was informed that I had just had a baby. I was surprised as I didn’t realize I had been pregnant and did not remember going through labor or anything about the baby. I remember saying, “Shouldn’t I at least be a little sore after that?”

I was told that Abe was home with the baby and that he had named him “Cameron Hapcock.” It’s a risk putting the actual name on here as you may be tempted to use it for your next child. I figure it was an inspired name as I’ve never heard of the name “Hapcock” before, let alone in this combination. It’s reminds me of the story of John from the Bible, “His name will be John!” Everyone was wondering, “Where’d that come from?”

Anyway, I was angry that Abe would/could name the baby without me. Especially a name like that. I went home to find him asleep with the baby, who was already like a 3 year old with long red curly hair. I didn’t get far enough into the dream to figure out if we kept the name. I guess we could always call him “Happy”—as opposed to other shortened options of the name.

So thanks, sis, for the pregnancy dream and the inspiration for the next name of our child. If you don’t steal it first!

Grand Teton

I’m evidently stuck in the past because I’m skipping back to last month. Part of our October trip included some time in Grand Teton National Park.



These are a few photos from our way to Jackson, Wyoming. What a beautiful drive! While I have been to Yellowstone a two or three times in the past, I had never made my way to Grand Teton (except in passing through to Yellowstone). We were able to spend a quick day there while on our trip. We felt pretty at home as we entered the park…

Here is the amazing Sheffield Creek behind me…

Since we had only one partial day in the park, we chose to spend it hiking Jenny Lake. This seems to be one of the major sites of the park.
Here are some bald eagles nesting in a tree above us above the trail.

Our original plan was to make it to the falls and then head back.

The beauty of the lake convinced us to keep going in a loop around the lake. Hours later, we finally made it back. I was glad we didn’t run into any bears on our way (or get stuck in the dark!). We didn’t follow the recommendations to carry bear spray or wear bear bells or any other precautions but we did think it was fun to make our presence known periodically, “Hey bear!” I really wanted to see a bear (from the safety of our car) but I’m relieved the only close encounter I had was to a mule deer I didn’t see right away.

He actually gave me quite the fright. And he didn’t have to do anything but sit there. But to my credit, in an unexpected place just at the top of a hill. This is after I recovered.



The famous Tetons. One thing I miss most about home is the mountains. Even though these weren’t “my mountains” I feel pretty sentimental about being closer to home and among the rocks. I couldn't help but remember the stories we learned about in Utah history of the mountain men (like losing ears to bears). I really don't know my Iowa history...what did those kids learn about instead?



It’s really cool to see these animals that were such a huge part of American history. It is strange to think they were everywhere and now can only be seen in a few places. I think he thought we were pretty interesting, too!

These houses in the park are known as “Mormon Row.” Evidently a group of Mormon settlers made this their home. Even today it looks like pretty harsh, bleak conditions. I think natural selection helped make us a little more genetically tough…hardy pioneer stock…in pink houses.

Prison tats 2

We treat a lot of inmates in our clinic. Surprisingly, they are actually some of our best patients but can also provide some of the best stories. Many of these involve ‘prison tats’ (you may remember this reader favorite post http://erinsheffield.blogspot.com/search?q=tattoo).

I was joking around with my orange jump-suited patient of the day a few weeks ago. He, like many of the other prisoners, had many tattoos. One the tattoos included one of some guns and a saying like “shoot ‘em up” although I don’t remember the exact phrase. I asked him about this and was assured it was some kind of tribute to a friend and not a threat, at least to me. I mentioned he seemed to have a lot of tattoos and wondered how one chooses so many things to put on your body permanently. I asked if he had any tats he regretted.

He told me, no, not really, except he had his girlfriend’s name on his chest. This was his least favorite tattoo as he wasn’t sure on the status of their relationship. Evidently the hard-time was taking its toll on the relationship. He mentioned that he had been in jail three times now for marijuana charges. He stated that when he gets out, he should probably move somewhere like Colorado or California, “because they have more lenient laws on marijuana.”

“Or, you could just stop using marijuana,” I suggested.

“Um, I think I’ll just move…”

(I guess now that is a better idea than ever with Colorado’s progressive new law.)

We have the best patients…

Another doctor at work relayed this story to me a few days ago. I just couldn’t resist.

He was evaluating a patient for a routine dental extraction. Before starting the procedure, the patient showed a picture to the doctor.

 

“Look at this, this is what I have to look forward to going home to tonight. What do you think of that? That’s my wife.”

The doctor took a look, “Oh, that’s nice.”

Pulling up a second picture on his phone, “And what do you think of that?” (He holds up a picture of his wife’s bare breasts)

I’m pretty sure my doctor friend was speechless…

 

Classy!

Another example of our wonderful patients. I’m grateful that they keep things interesting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Basement redo

The week we moved in to our house, there was about a foot of water in our basement. It’s an old house and I guess that’s pretty typical for this area (although being from the desert of Utah, this was a bit of a concerning thing to me). We figured we would never be able to keep anything important down there (at least not on the floor) and combined with the low ceilings, steep stairs, etc, wrote it off as much more than a dank laundry dungeon.

We knew we needed to get the radon fixed. When we had a consultation for that, the man suggested waterproofing the basement. That got the wheels turning and after about one year of simmering on it, we decided to go for it.

Here are a few before photos.

We started with installing a french drain system. Oh, and getting rid of the really awesome shower we had down there. What a sacrifice. To think we never had the chance to use it…

It got worse before it got better. Then went the framing, electrical, insulation, sheetrock, etc. Choosing the paint colors was one of the hardest parts.

We went for the green, which was a little scary at first…

And had to repaint the cabinets so they would actually be white…                                   

We were making progress and it’s amazing how something as simple as a laundry sink or a hanging bar for clothes can make you so pleased!

 

And finally after weeks, it’s practically done! Because it is a basement we didn’t try to make it the most luxurious room in the house. We painted the concrete floor and left the ceiling exposed for the sake of ceiling height (especially for Abe) but I’m pleased with the result, especially when compared to before.

 

 

So here’s the before and after results, side by side:

 

Anyone up for laundry? Now we just need to figure out what to do with the extra space.