dudes.

I am, like, so totally lame. I can’t believe I’ve gone so long without writing anything, and there is so much to write about I don’t really know where to begin. So I’ll take a page from Io and give you a bulleted list that will hopefully catch you up on the major events of my life recently.**WARNING: Pregnancy talk ahead.**

• I’m 9 weeks pregnant. There. I said it, as publicly as it gets for now. I’ve told my family, and while we’re not going full-scale public with the news until we hit 12 weeks, at least I don’t have to worry about my mother finding out from some friend of the family who had stumbled across the blog. If you know me in real life, please keep this to yourself for now. Also, Manny’s family doesn’t know yet – we’ll tell them at 12 weeks, too. I’m really looking forward to that – I think they are going to be really surprised, since they don’t know that we’ve actually been trying or any of our issues.
• I’m still having trouble believing it and have never paid closer attention to the state of my used toilet paper. But it’s sinking in gradually – telling my family did help it feel more real and every day I believe more and more. I’m having lots of symptoms, which helps a lot – sore boobs, queasiness on and off but thankfully no barfing yet, gas, tiredness. I am grateful to have so many reasons to believe that this is real.
• I have my first u/s on April 6, when I’ll be 10 weeks. They could have gotten me in last week but Manny had a conference and wouldn’t have been able to come, so I pushed it back a bit. Having visual confirmation will be nice but I’m surprised by how calm and in the moment I seem to be. It’s kind of weird – usually this state of mind doesn’t come easily to me.
• Manny and I had a great time in BC with my parents and my sister, BIL and nephew. It was nice to get away from the snow even if we didn’t have really great weather until we got over to Victoria, where it was absolutely lovely.
• I had an amazing time meeting up with some bloggy friends – I had lunch with Tara, Emily, Emily, and planningdoesn’twork. It was so nice to meet them face to face and spend some time together. This Emily remarked at one point that I was quieter than she expected me to be, and afterwards I was thinking that it would have been nice to meet everyone just one on one, but I just didn’t have the time. I do tend to be a little quiet in big groups, preferring to observe and listen. But we did have a really good time together, and it was amazing how much everyone was pretty much how I imagined them to be. Also amazing is just how real our bonds can be, even though we may have and may never meet. Seeing these women in real life confirmed for me once again that blogging relationships are real and important. 
• The day after I met up with that gang, I got to meet Deathstar. And let me say that however awesome she is on her blog, she is even awesomer in real life. As she said, we could hardly get the words in fast enough, and we were tripping over ourselves to finish each other’s sentences. It was amazing. Also, she has the most ridiculously gorgeous eyes (she’s a knockout from head to toe, just to be clear) and I hope she wasn’t freaked out by me staring at them. In addition to being beautiful, she is also funny and smart and has that gift of really being present in a conversation and being able to really listen. After spending a couple of hours with her, I was on a high for the rest of the day. 
• I found out that my job will not become permanent at the beginning of June, but they’re willing to give me a four month extension on my contract, which means that if all goes as hoped, I will be starting my maternity leave at the beginning of October, which my sister and others have said is actually a good idea cause it gives you time before the baby comes to get organized and take it easy. The downside is that I won’t be getting topped up, so it’ll just be 55% of my salary, and I won’t have a job to go back to after a year. The money would be nice, but I’m too lazy and too preoccupied to look for another job right now, and in any case it would be virtually impossible to find something with equal pay and benefits to what I get right now. It’ll just take some more planning on our part to make things work, but really, it’ll be fine.  And I’m extremely grateful to be living in Canada where I get a full year of leave. It’s also possible for Manny to take a portion of that year as paternity leave, but we haven’t really discussed that yet. Plenty of time to figure all that out. 
• I’ve been asked to write an article for the magazine that is published by IAAC – it’s going to be about blogging and IF. I’m really excited about it and I will be coming to all of you for thoughts and input, cause I’m only able to have anything to write about because you’re all in the community. 

Ok, that’s it for now. I promise to get back in the swing of things and write more. It’s occurring to me that by not writing I’m missing out on a record of what I’m going through. I’m still up in the air about whether to start a new blog or just to keep writing here – will certainly keep all of you posted on any future changes. 

It’s good to be back.