Adventures on the Journey
We’ve been working away at the house a fair bit lately. Nearly all the drywalling is done and we’ve finished up all the mudding and sanding. How do you know if you’ve been working with mud for too long? We’re not sure, but we figure it’s at the point where you begin looking for holes to fill that aren’t in the wall.
We’re in the home stretch now, all the walls are finished. Nearly all of them are primed and a few are painted.
As of today, we have 34 days to the due date for little junior. The pregnancy is going as good as could possibly be expected. Jen is carrying the little Michelin extremely well, but you can finally tell that she’s pregnant.
Until this last week, she’s been gaining a mere 1/2 lb per week. This is the babies “plumping up” period and the weight gain has accelerated. Mama has developed a bit of amnesia, something other fathers have told me is quite normal. Personally, I think it’s quite fun.
Today she had the very first contraction that she felt. As I understand, it’s quite normal to have them sporadically in the last 6-8 weeks. I can tell exactly how far along she is by her answer to the “are you ready to get him out yet?” When the discomfort level exceeds the fear of giving birth, I’ll start keeping my hospital bag packed.
We are 7 weeks and counting to Junior’s due date. I am excited and nervous both and feel like these last weeks are going by slowly. My belly feels large enough as is, and all the other mothers at work smile and say things like, “Just wait and see. It will get even bigger.”
Martha, Matt’s little sister, is hosting our baby shower in May. For those needing advanced warning, we are registered at BabiesRUs and Target. And no, we still don’t know Junior’s sex. We still want it to be a complete surprise.
This past weekend we experienced Junior hiccuping. The number of things you feel when a baby is growing inside you is quite amazing.
In planning for our life in Texas, we need to have a budget planned. One of the unknown factors in the equation is child care costs. So, to aid myself in the guessing, I looked up the average costs or raising a kid in the U.S. The USDA (Department of Agriculture) publishes these stats, and the monthly per-child costs for a two parent median income family is as follows:
Housing: $270
Education/Daycare: $110
Miscell: $80
Food: $90
Transportation: $95
Clothing: $35
Health Care: $50
Monthly Total: $730
Can it be? Does it really cost $730 each and every month to raise a kid? Most parents I’ve talked to don’t think that’s so out of line. When you decide to have kids, you need a bigger house, more furnishing, and invitably, replacing furnishing, all of which contributes to that $270/mo for housing. Nothing else looks terribly unreasonable, so we end up spending $8,760 a year, per child.
If our family follows the trends of average Americana, we’ll have $158,000 invested in Junior before we can kick our pride an joy out of the house. The average American family (household) has $8,000 in consumer (credit card) debt and 2.3 kids. To just pay their taxes, child care, and debt payments amounts to the first $34,000 of their paychecks. That sum would raise several families with children in most parts of the world.
We are preparing to enter the 29th week of our pregnancy. I am no longer straining to see a pregnant belly. For the longest time (about 26 weeks), the only discernable difference was the enlarged mammaries. While those are some fantastic side effects, the real deal has finally arrived and Jen’s belly is now protruding. In fact, she now follows it around as it leads the way. Our “face to face” conversations are now belly to belly instead. Junior is growing rapidly.
Last week I drove to Dallas. At 9:30PM on Wednesday evening, Justin and I piled into the Jetta and headed South. We arrived in Dallas 23 hours later and sacked out. On Friday I attended a “Discover Dallas” event hosted by DTS. I got to sit in on a couple classes, meet several professors, and chat with the President of the school. I learned a lot about DTS and what to expect there. I’m pleased to report it was all good.
DTS was quite a bit bigger than I thought, with nearly 2,000 students. It’s one of (if not the) world’s largest non-denominational seminaries. In 1994 it was the sixth largest seminary, period. I’d guess it’s moved up since then. Dallas is certainly in Texas, where they do lots of things in a big way. The worlds largest seminary (SBTS) is there. Whereas most major cities have a mega-church or two, Dallas has dozens, with several that exceed 10,000. Where you might find a religious school or two in most cities, Dallas has dozens. It has been said that Dallas is “in the buckle of the Bible belt.”
That’s not the only thing “big” you’ll find in Dallas. Dallas sports the highest concentration of tech industry outside the silicon valley. Step aside Seattle (which we referred to as “Silicon North”). On Saturday, our real estate agent took us around to help us get a feel for the real estate market.
Yet another “big” is the amount of house we can get for our money. We can get a new 4 bedroom, 2 car garage house with a golf course in the front yard and soccer fields in the back yard for $173,000. Best, it’s only a 20 minute commute into downtown. The options in that price range are many, diverse, and overwhelmingly good. To buy that much house in Atlanta or Seattle we’d expect to be paying twice that, or having a commute measured in hours.
I’m feeling more ready to move to Dallas as each day passes. The house here in Cadillac is making rapid strides toward completion. Our monster profiles are updated and we’re watching for opportunies in Dallas. The pregnancy and health insurance concerns are the only obstacles to leaving before the baby is born.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted a “how Junior affects Jen and Matt” update.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted a “how Junior affects Jen and Matt” update. In contrast to the first trimester (which was bordering on abject misery for Jen), the second trimester is pretty smooth sailing. Based on all the books and web sites we had studied, we expected this and planned our trips to Costa Rica and the Virgin Islands accordingly.
What we have learned in this second trimester is that Jen conceals the evidence quite well. While traveling, I had to point out that Jen was pregnant or people wouldn’t have known. Most challenged the pronouncement, looking first at the belly, and then to mommy’s face to verify. At 24 weeks, Jen is finally beginning to show, but the bulge is really only evident when she’s au naturale. Naturally, that limits the audience.
I’d expect that more than a few ladies read that nugget in envy. I’m also certain that nearly every proud papa out there knows my disappointment. After all, I’ve been waiting for that belly to “pop” out and make it’s self-evident proclamation. How else can I walk around with that silly “Yup, I did that” grin on my face? My day is coming, it’s just a matter of time.
I’ve noticed a few role reversals happening lately. For starters, I’m no longer the appetite that drives the eating habits of our home. Before the pregnancy, Jen was the driving force behind meal planning. She based a significant portion of her creativity on trying to select foods I’d like. In the first trimester, that shifted radically with her eating the few things she could keep down (or that tasted fine coming back up) and I fended for myself.
Now that we’re in the second trimester and Jen can eat again, I find our eating habits have reverted to their original patterns, except we’ve reversed roles. I’ve been shedding a few pounds so my intake is considerably moderated from my mountain climbing days. Jen has taken over my role as primary eater and for the first time, I find myself defending my food.
I have been advised to expect many more role reversals during this transition from happy dual income couple with no kids to the brave new land of parenthood. The best book I’ve read on this subject is Babyhood by Paul Reiser. Instead of boring (or frightening) you with all the details, he presents his own transition in the same comedic fashion that has made Mad About You such a popular television show. It’s a very enjoyable read.
First, for you speculators, Junior is not a name, simply a title our Doc calls our little baby. Thus, it’s what I’m calling it for now. We have chosen not to know Junior’s gender, because I don’t want to know. Jen leans towards knowing, so the compromise was having the nurse write it on a scrap of paper which we’ve placed in a sealed envelope. Without further ado, here’s our 2nd and 3rd photos of Junior:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude of 29,000 feet. We have turned off the fasten seatbelt sign and you may feel free to roam about the cabin.
Does this mean that the morning sickness is gone? Nope, but we’re hoping that it eases up soon. It is already getting a little better as normally good food odors like a cheeseburger or pizza now smell good again. Not so long ago, those odors were repulsive. There is still no appetite, but that will come with time.
In other exciting news, I got notice back from DTS. My application has been found acceptable and a background check is being conducted. Once the background check has cleared, I will be officially accepted as a student at DTS. In case you were wondering, the answer is “yes”, we will be moving to Dallas for four years of grad school.
For those of you who haven’t ever experienced morning sickness, let me try to help you understand what it’s like. The first thing to know is that there are varying degrees. Some women don’t have any, others, like my lovely wife, get their share and someone elses.
Age plays a factor, as do other things, but mainly it just boils down to luck. Some women have fierce morning sickness with one child, and none with the next, or vice versa. Some women suffer greatly during every pregnancy. Again, the overriding factor seems to be luck, or lack thereof.
The condition is not aptly named, as it is not confined to mornings. Jen spends just as much time bowing before the porcelain throne in the afternoon, evenings, and the middle of the night as in the morning. So much so that we’ve set up a giant pillow there to make the time pass a tiny bit more comfortably.
The truly special part about morning sickness is that you’re turned into a miserable, wretching creature even when you have nothing to throw up. The raging hormones are the trigger, not food. Eating becomes a bidirection experience instead of the infinitely more pleasurable unidirectional one. So you eat what you can, and hope to time it between wretches so that you get something from it.
Women who suffer excessively from morning sickness tend to lose weight. It’s not hard to imagine why. She looks at every food item and then tries to decide how it’s going to taste on it’s way up. Bananas taste about the same in either direction, but they get old after a while. Our doctor recommended eating anything that would stay down, including potato chips and cheese curls. I had never imagined hearing a doctor recommend eating potato chips.
Tonight Jen walked into the kitchen with her regular conundrum. She needs to eat, she wants to eat, but there’s not a thing in the world that she wants to throw up. There’s not much of a chance that anything that goes in will stay there. She wants to eat something, anything, but there’s nothing she wants to eat. How do you solve that?
Being male, I have my opinions. “Well heck, if you’re going to throw it up anyway, you may as well eat what you want.” This does not coincide with the sensibilities of the feminine species. I have this on good authority. There’s plenty of home remedies for morning sickness: ginger, Vitamin B6, carbonated beverages, unisom, etc. We’ve tried quite a few options. Some help, most don’t. None help enough.
There’s little I can do. I put a “I Love You” note under the toilet seat. I dole out hugs like they’re candy. I’d love to make this experience less onerous. I have a lot a stake here. What are the odds of her thinking this is a good enough idea to do twice if it costs 9 months of misery?
Fortunately, we’re nearing the end of the first trimester. That’s typically when morning sickness recesses and mommy gets to enjoy her body again, for a time.
