At 11 weeks, our baby is still so tiny. It's like 12 mm or something like that, something grams. It's so tiny it's still on the metric system! At any rate, I got a little baby envy today, when I was shooting a wedding. I caught sight of a Dad dancing with his little girl, just bouncing her in his arms and having a grand old time. Of course, the baby had a perplexed expression on her face, probably similar to mine when I see drunk relatives clap rather sparatically on the dance floor. Watching the baby was fun, she was so full of wonderment, and very likely, confusion.

FC still has no appetite, and I feel really bad for her because she cooks all these food, and she can't even eat them. I end up eating all her food, which means I'm probably growing much more than she is supposed to be. Hopefully her appettite returns, so that the baby will have something to chow on. She told me pretty soon she'll be eating everything in the house.

Except my Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder.

Mmm. Corn Chowder.

Added a link to my other blog, the irresponsible, lazy, procrastinating rambling jerk when I'm not busy obssessing about the future birth of my child. Read at your own risk.

Somewhat unrelated post that fascinated the inner geek in me (or some would say, "Inner? It's stamped on your forehead, potato.")

Sperm.

Yes, I'm a boy, and I'd like to talk about sperm.

What used to be the by product of boredom tinged with primal needs has turned into something quite fascinating. The egg is also interesting, but since I don't know as much about them, I'm not really getting into it right now. But I was thinking about the amount of information that exists in a single sperm cell - DNA, hair color, gender, family history, characteristics, probably even life span... It's very amazing that there's just so much stored into a little swimmer. AND, the ability to swim beyond all odds to the intended target, while its fellow swimmers are being eradicated on the way. I even watched something on TLC that was even cooler.

Of course, this is kinda relevant only to porn stars and people with multiple partners, not myself or any of you readers out there. But the program said that recently, they discovered that sperm are somewhat like soldiers, in a sense that when there were multiple partners, the first donor's sperm had two stances - attack the egg and fertilize it, and defend the fort and kill the second donor's sperm. No kidding. It was on TV, so it's real. They even showed video of the defending sperm swimming over and doing a cannonball on the second donor's sperm, spearheading it and killing it. Then doing a victory swim and hi-oneing the other sperm from the first donor.

The same day I was thinking about this, I was thinking the way other a geek would think about sperm. Compression. Technology now hinges on compression, the kinda technique that makes video games, media files, and programs possible and more advance. Sperm is the ultimate compresser of genetic information. It's quite amazing.

All right, I'm done talking about sperm.

FC said something that I found to be funny this morning. She was going to count the number of times she goes to the bathroom today. The she went on to say that she didn't used to drink this much water, and in the past, she just held it until she absolutely had to go. But due to the baby, she's been not resisting her natural urges. So there's our body function story for the week.

FC's been sleeping up to eight hours a day nowadays, and she still gets tired by the end of the night. And since we work opposite shifts, there are some days whereby I only see her once or twice a day, and it's beginning to affect our dynamic a little. I think, as FC would agree, that we do need to spend more time together, just being goofy and kicking each other's butts. Except now I'll have to let her win, because bullying pregnant fiances is often frowned about in general.

FC also said that her belly was beginning to harden, and I was wondering if that was evolution's way of preparing the body for the body, sorta a hardening of the shell to protect the baby kinda thing. I think I'm still at the point where I'm liking the idea of having a baby, but haven't overloaded myself with baby literature yet. Probably won't, since I'm not really into reading books. (Syrinx screams somewhere.) If they made baby magazines with lots of pictures... Well, I'm there.

So Monday's another big day, when FC has to go into the OB again, this time for the emmio or something. This is when a long needle is inserted into her belly, and I pass out, and then while the doctors are attending to the foaming mess that will be me, FC would go, "Excuse me, there's a needle sticking out of me here, hello!" Anyway, some fluid is taken out and there is enough genetic information to test for stuff like Down Syndrome, gender, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. Initially, I was riding a lot on this test but after the baby video we saw on the ultrasound, it's no longer a deciding factor about anything, just another test. The exciting thing would be that we'll be finding out the gender, so that's cool. Names are closing in to a point, Alex Andrew for boy, and either Zoe or Madison for a girl.

So, the voting commences! Zoe, or Madison? Madison, or Zoe? In the grand tradition of reality TV voting, put in your two cents or write your own candidate on the ballot! (Of course, like Network TV, we can always change the majority vote for ratings purposes...)

Been thinking a little bit about baby furniture, and how I'm leaning toward used baby furniture. You think about it, after the baby outgrows it in two years or whatever the baby-span of that furniture is, the furniture is virtually useless. Couldn't really do anything with it other than have another baby. Which we are not planning. But we know how that goes.

But anyway, since you're talking to a guy who bought used display tables from Freddy's for $5 each, and then after using it in a play, is using it for a dining room table and a coffee table, I'm just a cheapskate. I'm a firm believer of using something until it breaks, so buying certain baby furniture would probably force me to grind my teeth. FC said that she would foot the costs, but I'm still kinda iffy about spending so much money on something like that. No doubt we will have to buy some baby furniture, but I'll try to keep it in check.

Why when I was a little toddler, I didn't have a stroller, my mother just stuck me in a rubber tire and rolled me everywhere. And cribs were for wussies, I slept on straw! Baby formula, forget it! I was eating blended steaks by the second month!

No, really. It's a true story.

And I was born potty-trained. Diapers were for novices.

We are really leaning toward a Vegas wedding, after searching on the internet on prices and whatnot. It would cost about 500 bucks for the honeymoon (airfare and hotel) and about 150 for the wedding itself. We're not terribly well off, but at least this would be doing it in style, wouldn't it? We're still up in the air about what to do with JL, it seems as though she wanted to go to the wedding, but since our wedding is also our honeymoon, it would be a bit stifling to have her with us. After all, going to Vegas when you're not 21 is like going to Six Flags when you're 2 feet tall. Just not that much fun. But that's still undecided.

We're still batting around names, though it seems that we've already decided on Alex Andrew for a boy. For girl, we've got Madison and something else so far, JL's trying to help us in that department by naming of names in her last year's yearbook. I'm a little picky over names, probably because I tend to avoid association with names of people I already know, regardless of good or bad characters. I like Constance and Zoe because they're different, but they don't go well with my last name. There are other names out there that simply won't work because they're nowhere close to being "Asian" names. Not that Christian names are "Asian" anyway, but there are some names that work, some that don't. Trust me, I hear them and I say "No" pretty quickly.

Well, FC does the inevitable. She put in her phone call to her older daughter yesterday, and told her that we were engaged to be married, and that we were having a baby. From what my FC said, she sounded surprised, and was saying things like, "How could you not know you were pregnant?". It is probably difficult news for her, being how she's closer to her Dad (FC's ex.) and she had to excuse herself off the phone. So now we're just waiting, halfway expecting her ex to act up, but we'll be ready. You would think that two people being in love and having a child would be easier than this.

I'm serious, everytime I think about our baby kicking and bringing its little arms up to its head, a big broad smile finds it way to my face. I forgot to mention that the baby has a heart rate of about 173 bpm.

My FC is falling in love with the baby completely now.

As am I.

Despite all the things I have said regarding finding out what the tests will say about the baby, whether it is healthy or not, it doesn't matter anymore, because my FC is right. We can't even think about doing anything to harm the baby now because it is a living being with a personality. We could see the baby's heart beating, and I swear to you, it is the most amazing sight I've ever seen. FC said it comes close to topping Disneyland.

I would agree with her.

Without making you all wait, here's the first official picture of Baby Loi, and it's coming to be known for now.




This photo, of course, does the real experience no justice whatsoever. The visit to the Imaging Center was nothing short of mind-blowing. We couldn't see the baby with the traditional ultrasound, so they had to use an alternative method that involved a probe and lube, I'll leave it at that. But then we saw the baby and it was simply the most amazing thing I've ever seen. In glorious black and white, the baby was moving so much it was just crazy to watch. At just 11 weeks, we can make out the head, the hands and feet (all of which are intact) and there were several times when the baby was just moving about, the arms and legs were just actively waving about, as if to say "hello" to us out here. It was just an incredible sight to witness, it seemed as if nothing else was important at that point, just seeing the baby be okay and do jumping jacks inside my FC was enough to make me happy for the rest of the week.

So there it is. The lady at the Imaging Center asked, "Is it Baby Roth? And FC said, "Yes... but actually, it's Baby Loi." and that was just amazing. FC is about 11 months into pregnancy, and they found that out by measuring the baby on the computer, which is awesome. Unfortunately, I won't be able to bring in a video camera, but the stills they provide is pretty darn good.

The visit earlier today was rather boring, they were just asking questions and so forth, about our family health history, so nothing to report there. But the imaging center was cool. And I got to see my FC naked again. That was fun. =)

When we were leaving, we were so happy about everything that even the fountain was having a foam party. What a great day.

Here's a unrelated post with just my sweetie with Franklin.




One's taken, and the other enjoys long naps, cuttlefish, belly rubs, and can be reached at ext. 6553.

It's been two days since we posted, sorry about the delay, it's been a rather hectic few days.

Well, Valentine's Day was pretty exciting being how I proposed to my GF and she accepted, which made it official. From henceforth, GF will be refered to as, "FC". "Fiance," that is. First and foremost, I would like to thank Cody for his help, because without him, my scheme would not have worked at all. I don't think I'm going to go into detail what happened that day, just a real quick summary perhaps.

We went to Boss Tweed for lunch and my FC actually got nervous, because she had seen me fuddle around in the car and she thought I was going to pop the question then and there. It was just a bit of trickery on my part, a stuffed animal that pretended to be a ring. She was actually relieved, though by how she gave me most of her food because of her lack of appetite (baby seems to be a vegetarian, hates meat, kinda likes fish on odd days.) I had two bowls of clam chowder and about half of her clam strips. The funny thing was, I got the All you can eat cod and didn't even get a refill.

The second time I tried to trick her, I think she was already wisened up to it. It was just candy, and I don't think she was as surprised when I pulled it out. When we got home, she knew something was up when she saw the balloons that were lined up. The proposal was recorded on video camera, but when we watched it we decided it was something of a lackluster. Mind you, we both were very happy we were engaged, and we were happy to get it done, but the dramatics of the surprise wasn't there, and we were both rather normal on camera. But now it's exciting for us anyhow, it seems as if the engagement has brought us even closer. It seems like almost my life has expanded to fully include hers as well, it's a rather gratifying feeling.






We don't have a wedding date set yet, and I've thrown the idea of going to Vegas to marry and honeymoon. Don't know why, but I've kinda wanted to go to Vegas, and this would probably be our last chance to go for, what, the next 15 years? We might have a quickie one here, but who knows. Neither of us are real keen on a ceremony at all, so we'll just see what happens.

Actually looking forward to later today, because we have the ultrasound scheduled. This ultrasound is not like the one whereby you point around and figure out if it's a boy or a girl - sources who are not myself have told me that that happens in the fifth month, and we're in the 10th week. Which is like 3 months? At any rate, this ultrasound is just to confirm that the baby is coming along fine, happy as a clam, and so forth. It's a strange feeling really, because I'm looking forward to today, but I don't exactly know what it is I'm supposed to be looking forward to.

Just any information I guess. I'll be bringing my digital camera for archival purposes. Her OB will be pleased.

Franklin's twitching in his sleep. It's rather hilarious.

We decided a few days ago that "Zoe" might not be a good name to go for a girl, because "Zoe Loi" sounds too much like "Zoey Loiy", which probably means something obscene in Sanskrit. I think if I were the most evil of all parents, I would name my kid "Lois" if she is a girl. That would likely put me in the standing for most insensitive unthoughtful parent ever. So we're looking for the baby name book that we got before when we got Wilbur, our second cat. Petunia would be a good name.

For a cow.

In 1902.

In the South.