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Holy Mother of God.

According to the calculator I found via Dr. Google our doubling time is 25 hours.

I know there is no way to know for sure until the ultrasound, but that is a week away.  Is it twins?  What do you think?!

Clearly this guy is still his calm, chill self.  I, of course, am not.  I think the best description of my current state is sparky.  Reduced need for sleep, increased energy and lightning fast thoughts.  A small touch (spark?) of mania.  Baby mania.

My wife went in for the second beta at lunchtime and now it’s wait time and the clock.is.ticking.  I’m feeling optimistic though.  She felt pretty yucky last night and I couldn’t have been happier.    Yesterday was our anniversary and I cooked jambalaya (yum!) for dinner (which Yogi LOVED by the way) and we had my wife’s favorite desert of brownies with vanilla ice cream.  It was a heavier meal than is typical around here and my lovely bride spent the rest of the evening with terrible heart burn.  Yay!!!!  Even she was happy about it.

In the midst of all of this beta craziness, Yogi has been doing some fun things.  First, did you notice the picture at the top of this post?!  He looks ridiculously cute in denim, but….. babies don’t wear jeans.    He looks like such a big boy I can hardly stand it.  This is the outfit he wore to school on Tuesday when he went back for his first full (9-2) day.  He did cry this time when I kissed him goodbye, but I waited outside the door and he had stopped in less than two minutes.  When I picked him up that afternoon his teachers said that he had made it all the way to their actual naptime at noon without snoozing on the sly!  He did however refuse to drink either milk or water in spite of the fact that I brought his two favorite cups (this is a relative term), but I imagine he won’t dehydrate in 5 hours.  At least I hope not.  Overall I think he had fun and I’m proud of him.  I am getting pretty sick of the sippy-stand off though.

I’ll post the beta when I hear it.  I’ve still just got SUCH a strong twin feeling, but who knows.  I know you can’t know for sure until you can see what’s going on in there with ultrasound, but if the number more than doubles isn’t that kind of suggestive?  If you have thoughts or ideas about this, I’d love to hear them.  Thanks to everyone for being so excited for us!

But…… who cares about any of that?!!  Today we are pregnant!

It was VERY hard to wait all.damn.day, but my wife sent a text with the numbers 280 and many, many exclamation points (my wife isn’t an exclamation point person so I love when she uses them and REALLY loves when she abuses them) and I didn’t care what time it was.  She called immediately afterward although we were both much too excited to actually talk.

I’m doing what I can not to over-analyze the number, but…. 280?!!!  It is true that today was 11 days post transfer of a day 6 blastocsyst and that is pretty far along for a 1st beta.  However, as a point of comparison – 10 days post transfer of a 5 day blastocyst that would become Yogi, our beta (it was the 2nd) was 157.  Hard not to compare.

280 feels like a HUGE number.

No way to know for sure until the ultrasound.

Patience is a virtue.

That”s all I’ve got.

More later.

Do you think of yourself as a “mother”? A “father”? Something in between? Why?

For reasons that are likely obvious, I love this question.

The strange state in which I reside and adopted my son, thinks of me as a “father”.  On his newly issued birth certificate my name is typed neatly in the box marked “Father”.  This is both ridiculous and hilarious.  Oh how I do love the South.  When we can’t figure out how to handle something, we just barrel through making assess of ourselves.

I think of myself as a “Mama”, which I occasionally also spell as Momma.  I haven’t decided which version I like best.  No matter how it’s spelled, Momma suits me.  It’s a designation that has more flexible associations (for me at least) than the more buttoned-up options of either Mother or Father.  Mama offers opportunity for invention.

I am a Momma when:

• I hold my wife close to my body so I can feel our baby kick
• I pull my shoulders back with pride when I introduce her to someone as my wife
• I snuggle Yogi close whenever he slows down long enough to allow it
• I worry obsessively about whether he will abandon milk forever when we forcibly remove him from the bottle
• I initiate a game of “pillows” by tossing pillows at Yogi’s head and tickling him to within an inch of his life while he’s down
• I tear up listening to Yogi and his Mommy splashing and giggling in the tub
• I toss him over my shoulder and dangle him by his feet asking “Where’s the baby?” when he gets impatient while running errands
• I’ve never seen two more handsome people than Yogi and my wife in khaki pants and collared shirts

While there can certainly be comfort in a script, gay families have something that is even more precious.  We have the blank page, pregnant* with possibility.

* I am working the word “pregnant” into absolutely any space that will consider allowing it.

The good news is that my Dad came home from the hospital this morning.  I would feel even better about it if the doctors had had something definitive to say about why he ended up there in the first place, but I’ll take what I can get.  After all kinds of tests and blood work, they couldn’t find anything that looked out of whack.  He got bag after bag of fluids while he was there though and that definitely seemed to help.  I guess the cumulative effect of all of the chemo drugs took a toll, but he is on the mend.  Whew.  That is a tremendous relief.

And then there’s the fact that we have THREE MORE DAYS.  I’m counting Monday because when my wife called to coordinate the test with her OB office they told her they would call with the results on Tuesday.  TUESDAY?!!!!  They agreed to put a rush on it for more $$ (grumble, grumble), but I’m still thinking it might be close of business Monday.  The details don’t really matter actually.  This wait feels endless.

But by far the weirdest thing going on around here is the fact that I am entirely preoccupied with something that I’ve only given the briefest thought to before.

Twins.

I have twins on the brain.  It must be because of the fact that we transferred an almost unthinkable three embryos.  I never thought about twins in any serious way during the wait after the transfer we did with two embryos.  The only thinking I’ve ever done about twins was in the very early days when we were moving towards IVF and having conversations about risks and being conservative and doing what we could to avoid it.  Not because having two babies at the same time sounded like a terrible thing (overwhelming, yes.  terrible, no) but because it sounded like a medically risky thing.

Now I feel a little differently.  My wife had such a strong and healthy pregnancy with Yogi and although the birth experience wasn’t what we had hoped for (damn C section), I’m not as nervous as I used to be.  This is probably overconfidence, but it’s where I am.  Yup.  Where I am is right smack dab in the middle of “Hoping for Twins” land.  Am I a lunatic or what?  At least I realize I’m a lunatic.  I do have that going for me.

That isn’t strictly true (at least for me – Yogi clearly has other impulses), but this picture has been the bright spot in my day.  A day that hasn’t been bright.

First there is the fact that my father FINALLY went to the doctor this AM after running a fever (it was 105 yesterday) since last Saturday and they admitted him to the hospital.  He has spent the first week of each month since April undergoing four days of chemo and last week was one of those weeks.  Usually it takes a few days, but he bounces back and feels alright for the rest of the month.

This time it didn’t happen that way.  According to my Mom, he hasn’t gotten out of bed in four days.  That’s what really got me.  I’ve never known my Dad to spend daylight hours in bed.  Certainly not for days in a row.  And now he’s in the hospital and they are running tests.  Not good news.  Not at all.

Then there is the fact that my wife is leaving tmw for a workshop and she won’t be back until late Saturday night.  That is three days of single Mom-ness during which I am sure to be completely preoccupied with thoughts (alternately optimistic and pessimistic) about whether or not we’re pregnant and now anxiety and fear about what is going on with my Dad.

Also today Jen posted sad news about the struggle that her family has been dealing with and it has just broken my heart.  I’ve been reading their blog since I started my own and I feel like I know them in some small way.  If you read Adventures of Jen, Tiff and Chunk, head over there and let her know that she’s not alone.

Tomorrow is another day…..

Today was a big day.  Yogi embarked on his first day of school!!!  Everyone keeps reminding me that it’s not actually school (it’s Mother’s Day Out), but I’m stubborn.  And I like school.

Whatever it’s called it means that the little guy will be spending each Tuesday and Thursday from 9-2 with two teachers and a handful of other 1 year olds.  My wife and I are excited about this school and his teachers and this opportunity for him to gain a little independence, have new experiences and enjoy himself.

Last Tuesday the three of us went in for a Visiting Day during which we spoke with the teachers and the other parents and Yogi investigated the toys and the classroom and the other kids.  In spite of the fact that most of the other kids were walking AND we found out that he needed to wear shoes to school (What??!!  The kid doesn’t walk, what does he need with shoes?), it was a good morning.

This morning was the real thing.  I packed up all of his required gear (diapers, change of clothes, lovey, lunch in approved container) and we walked through the cold rain (is it winter all of a sudden?) to his classroom.  I had decided that for Yogi’s sake I would take the calm and confident approach to my departure.  No dragging it out and save the tears for the car.  Of course, nothing ever unfolds in quite the way you plan.  After putting his bag in the Yogi cubby and his lunch in the fridge, I sat him down in front of the mailbox that he seemed to like on Visiting Day and my work was done.  A little girl crawled over immediately and they started opening and closing the mailbox like it was the greatest game ever.  They were so engaged that I decided not to insert myself and instead just slipped quietly out of the room.

I do admit to hanging around the door for a few minutes listening for tears, but none came.  He didn’t cry!  And what’s even more surprising it that I didn’t cry.  Not then and not in the car afterwards.  I did think about him non-stop between drop-off and pick-up, but it was excited/optimistic thinking not crazy worry thinking.

When I picked him up one of the teachers was holding him and he had a passie in his mouth.  We are only doing passie in the crib these days so I braced myself.  In spite of the passie, the teacher said he had had a good morning.  He caught about a 45 minute snooze mid-morning while everyone else played and some kid ate most of his strawberries at lunch, but all else was smooth sailing.  Well, he also refused milk from a sippy, but that is hardly a shocker.  From what I could gather the kids played and ate lunch and do whatever it is kids do during these kinds of programs.

The rest of the afternoon seemed pretty much like any other afternoon so I guess the boy was no worse for wear.  Yay Yogi!!!!

And so….. we wait.

And while we wait we have a delightfully busy Yogi to keep us distracted.  The boy is wowing us each day with new surprises.  Here are a few of his new tricks:

• Moving his hand towards the moon in his book On the Night You Were Born when asked “Yogi, show me the moon.”
• Lighting up and crawling at top speed towards the ball to pick it up and bring it to Mommy when asked “Do you see the ball?  Bring Mommy the ball?”
• Occasionally taking an actual sip of cold milk from his sippy cup.  Progress!! (Dr. Wonderful said that his No Bottle goal would be 15 months so we’re going with that for now)
• Sitting on the floor reading himself a book in a distinct voice that we’ve started calling his “book voice”
• Crawling eagerly towards his high chair when handed his spoon

Having a 1 year old changes the feel of the wait, but I’m not sure it makes it any easier.  It’s still going to be a VERY long eight days.