guess what?

Julia is pregnant. She’ll be fifteen weeks tomorrow. Not being able to reference this until she made it out of her first trimester (as well avoiding blogging about the STILL ongoing negotiations for the previously mentioned job) has kind of ground things to a halt here. I like to blog about what’s on my mind and, well, when I can’t do that, I kind of shut off. (Random note: What does the fact that Word’s spell-check does not recognize blog, but recognizes eBay say about the nature of our culture?)

We are excited, nervous and currently stalled in baby name negotiation – all of my male names (Maximilian, Xavier, Ezekiel, Aquilles, Apollo) have been soundly rejected. Julia has pulled Sophia (a previous favorite for a girl), as it is supposedly the most popular girl’s name in Brooklyn. Things are on hold until we find out the sex (Jan. 5th).

NYC poses its own set of challenges for pregnancy – Julia’s heightened sense of smell has made much of life outdoors unbearable. Selected quotes from the past month:

"Is every night trash night?"
"Brooklyn smells different than Manhattan."
"Do you smell that?" (at least once a day)

Eating has become a major challenge as well. Julia can’t have coffee, sushi, soft cheeses, cold cuts, sausage and lots of other stuff I can’t remember. What she can eat, she often throws up. They call it morning sickness, but it lasts all day.

A few weeks ago, while watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, Julia laughed so hard that she started crying, but not the happy kind of crying. It’s safe to say her emotions have been slightly affected by this whole thing.

We’ve spent much of the last month watching the first three seasons of The Wire (which has edged out 24, The Ultimate Fighter and pre-1997 Simpsons as my favorite show of all time – just rent it), trying to decide what to eat and speculating about our future offspring. Since Julia is exhausted, nauseous and depressed, any congratulatory email sent in her direction would be greatly appreciated.