May 15, 2011: How we found out about Baby Moser

On a Sunday night, I was in my bathroom and noticed that I had two remaining home pregnancy tests when I had previously thought there was only one left. It was a couple of days early to test, but since I had two left I figured I’d go ahead and use one right then. After I did my part, I immediately cleaned off the plastic stick and held it up in the light. The horizontal line appeared right away and so did the vertical test line, but nothing else. I let the disappointment sink in, and I set the stick on the counter while I went to wash my hands and brush my teeth. When I was done I glanced over at it again, and I could hardly believe my eyes. Now there was also a vertical line making a big fat plus sign!!!

I was so shocked because I didn’t feel any different than how I normally feel. I really thought that I’d just feel magically different somehow when I became pregnant - that I would intuitively just know that I was, and the test would merely confirm it. Once the moment of disbelief had passed and I triple-checked the stick to make sure it wasn’t just my eyes playing tricks on me, I went in search of Phil.

I found him in the garage, where the attic ladder was pulled down and he was tossing empty boxes up. I heard that he was on the phone, so I tried to be patient and allow him to finish his conversation. Unfortunately, I soon realized that he was entangled in a very long and boring-sounding conversation with his dad. I had my proof stuck in the waistband of my pajama pants and I just wanted to wave it in front of him so he’d know! However, I thought that wouldn’t be the most “special” memory so I held off.

For about the next 15 minutes I tried to motion him into the unused bedroom (now a nursery in the works) and act like I needed his help organizing some of the junk and unpacked boxes we had piled in there from our move just a few weeks prior. He kept looking more and more annoyed and tried to indicate through motions that we could just take the dogs on a walk while he kept talking with his dad. We were having a near-argument through merely waving hands in the air. Then I decided to text him:

Me (8:51 PM) - Can u please end your convo ASAP? Not trying to be rude.
Phil (8:52 PM) - He’s talking about Mema.
Me (8:53 PM) - Please?

Finally, a minute or two later, I heard him say, “Uh... Dad? Dad? I’m sorry, I have to go, can I call you back about this in a little while? …. Ok. Bye.” and then he came around the corner from the family room into the bedroom hallway yelling in a loud voice with drawn-out words, and I quote, “Oh my freeeeeaking goodness! What is so important??” Very uncharacteristic of Phil to get so annoyed with me.

Now, here is where I *almost* tried to play around a little bit. I was thinking that I would say, “Oh - I need your help straightening up this room!” and he’d say, “Right now? That’s why I had to interrupt my phone call?” and I’d reply, “Yes! We only have 9 months to get it ready, and the clock is ticking!”

However, I decided that the best-case scenario would be that I’d get a cute chuckle out of him, whereas the worst-case scenario is would be that I’d accidentally goad him into an actual fight, since he was obviously pretty irritated already. It wasn’t worth the risk! So I threw cuteness out the window, and in response to his question, I gave him a huge smile, and while waltzing towards him, yelled in an equally loud yet sing-songy voice, “We’re having a baaaaaby! I’m pregnant!”

I will never forget the instant change in his expression! I can't remember a time when I have seen him smile so big! We spent the rest of the evening laughing about his instant mood change and talking excitedly about our much-anticipated little blessing.

Fear

When I used to think about having children, I would become really apprehensive about how much it was going to hurt. Nowadays my perspective has changed a little bit. I'm not really worried about the pain. I actually think I have a pretty high tolerance for it, which is good, since I'm planning a home birth with no drugs.

This is my single biggest fear: WHAT IF MY BELLY BUTTON POPS OUT??????

Impatience is my middle name

Last week when we were at the doctor's appointment and they said they could do an ultrasound and tell us the gender, guess who was jumping up and down and begging Phil to "forget about my silly beach plan - let's just find out RIGHT NOW!!!"

So we did! And we're having a little baby boy!!!

I hope our son will look a lot like this cutie pie in a year or so...


Right now it's too hard to tell if he looks like anyone, other than a little skeleton! But he's our sweet precious beautiful baby and we love him!

Finding out!

I caved. I just don't think I can wait until the end of January to know the first tidbit of information about our sweet baby! We're going to find out!

We have a doctor's appointment on August 31st. However, I don't think I want the ultrasound technician to be a part of our special moment. Therefore, we're going to bring a card and an envelope and ask her to write it down (if she can tell).

In October, we're taking our "babymoon" vacation to Puerto Rico. We'll be there on Phil's 31st birthday, so the plan is that we will find a secluded spot on the beach that day and open the card!

To find out or not to find out?

We're approaching that time where it would be possible to find out our baby's gender via ultrasound. I have an appointment in about 3 weeks.

Back in May when we first found out that we were expecting, I couldn't wait to get to 20 weeks so I could know that first tidbit of information about who this baby is. Then a number of people told me about how they didn't find out in advance, and how it was truly life's most amazing surprise. I started to wonder if finding out the baby's gender in advance would feel like peeking at my presents before Christmas.

We're still not 100% certain but I think we're leaning towards letting it be a delivery-room surprise. I don't think it will be any inconvenience not to know in advance, since I want to have as many neutral, re-usable baby things as possible. I think it will be more memorable to let the baby make its own little announcement, rather than hearing the news from an ultrasound technician.

We'll see if I can hold my resolve when I'm actually at the doctor's office, having the ultrasound, knowing that the technician probably already knows and I don't.

Our house and its inhabitants

I guess I should pick up back in February, when we were buying our house. We bought said house. We love it!

We moved in on April 2. Just a couple of weeks later, we had to rush to Amarillo to say our final good-byes to Phil's Mema, the most amazing woman I've ever known. We miss her so much.

We came home from Amarillo with two extra passengers - Rocky and Sugar, Mema's pugs. She adored them. We adored her, and we love pugs. Thus it only made sense for us to take them with us and become a 4-pug household.

A few weeks later, we became a 3-pug household when Sugar passed away. She was very old and I guess she just didn't want to live without Mema. Rocky has adjusted to all of the changes just fine. He gets a walk every morning, so he's looking more trim these days and has a lot of energy.

Speaking of looking trim, my own physique is headed in the opposite direction soon. And I'm actually excited about that. Our newest household resident should be arriving at the very end of January. We think this onesie says it well - we know that Mema is smiling down on us from heaven...

House fever

Our lease on our little 2-bedroom apartment ends May 15, and we have to give 60 days' notice regarding whether we are going to extend it or not. For the most part, I really like the apartment and its residents. It's very convenient to Phil's office - less than a mile. However, I'm ready to have a little more space - the kitchen is small, the master bedroom is small, the bathrooms are and all the closets are small. Plus, we have some college girls living above us who have been more and more frequently having their boyfriends over for some ridiculously noisy 2 AM escapades directly above our bedroom. All of these factors have me more than ready to find a house!

I've been scouring the real estate listings in detail ever since we moved here as we tried to decide what area of town we wanted. I have looked through hundreds upon hundreds of listings. We finally found "the one" and are making an offer today! I can't believe how fast it happened, but everything seems perfect - the timing is right, the price is right, the house has all the features we want (and more!), and we're ready to lock into a contract.

We should hear back from the seller's agent by 5 pm tomorrow!

The pool

The nice thing about the Novotel is that it has a great pool and hardly anyone uses it. I packed my swimsuit, but forgot the cap and goggles. Yesterday I found those items at Hypercity so I am all set to swim daily for the next two weeks. My freckles are already back in full force... sigh...

Throwball Tournament

This morning was our throwball tournament at the Lal Bahadur sports complex. It was a lot of fun, but we did not win either of our games. I scored a couple of points in serving but was otherwise not very helpful!

End of Busy Season Party 2010

Backstage after getting all done up - me, Kabina, and Christina. The room was soooo hot and we were all sweaty. :(


The setting... a covered area at Shilparamam - Sampradaya Vedika.


Kabina, Matt, and me

After the fashion show - Manjari, me, and Bhavana

Party planning

These are the dresses that we are supposed to wear for the fashion show on Friday - ghagra choli. First of all, the midriff-baring dress thing is not going to happen. No way! Also, we are supposed to buy them before Friday. Mais c'est Mercredi, et trop cher pour moi! Hopefully we can find a place where we can just rent the dresses...

Anyway, the whole office is getting really excited about this party. We had a few visitors come through our floor early this afternoon to get everyone pumped up about it.

Too many meetings

Somehow I've gotten roped into a couple of extracurricular activities around here which seem to be almost as demanding as my real job! I joined a women's throwball team and we have a tournament on Saturday morning against a few other teams within our firm. We had practice last Friday and we are supposed to have two more practices at some point this week.

Next, I was guilted into volunteering for a fashion show to be held at our end-of-busy-season party this Friday night. Today was our first fashion show practice which took an hour. An hour. To have me awkwardly practicing runway poses. Me. This is why I am an accountant. I am no model, folks. I am not graceful. I hate being the center of attention. And I had to practice strutting down an imaginary runway with an Indian tax manager telling me, "Stop there! Turn! Hand on your left hip! Turn the other way! Pose there! Twist your body more to the front! Lean back!"

Ohh emm gee. I wish I could have taken a video of the practice. Not a video of me. A video of the manager/fashion show producer.

The Hyderabad folks have a disco theme and will be modeling disco wear. However, they wanted to have the U.S. expats and short-term rotators do a fashion show in traditional Indian dress, which I guess means that I have to go buy a sari in the next two days.

After fashion show practice I had about one whopping hour to get some of my real job done, and then it was time for a team dinner. Since there are 13 Hyderabadi team members, I split the team into two groups to enable me to get to know everyone better. Tonight, the senior consultants and experienced staff went out. On Thursday, I'll take the newer staff members out. We went to a place called 36 Chhatees where I had more Indian food than I'd ever had in my life. The team was highly amused at the foods that I deemed spicy. Baby steps.

I forgot my camera, and my iPhone doesn't take great pictures in the dim lighting - but here's our dinner group (clockwise around the table): Anupama, Manjari, Vinod, Narayana, Gouri, Srinivas, me, and Bhavani.

Hooters

Womens' dress in India is pretty conservative. For example, women do not even wear knee-length skirts to the office. So I must say I was quite surprised to notice Hooters in Hyderabad.

Weekend 1 of 3

It's Sunday afternoon already, and I just realized that I only have two more weekends left here. It's been a solitary but enjoyable weekend.

Yesterday I intended to join a cricket match in Secunderabad for expats & rotators. Unfortunately, my sleep schedule got a little messed up on Friday, and I wasn't able to fall asleep until 7 AM Saturday morning. Needless to say, I decided not to go to the 8 AM event! Instead I slept until noon, then went shopping at the mall. The Inorbit mall is nice, but it's so westernized that I almost didn't feel like I was in India (except that I only saw maybe 2 other caucasians the entire time). I browsed in a few stores, but nothing seemed like a good deal. Plus, I wasn't really looking for anything specific.

Finally, I made my last stop at HyperCity - think Target - to buy groceries. I don't like Indian food or spiciness, so my options here are extremely limited! I'm already tired of my three main options from last week: (1) room service, (2) Subway, and (3) Zone bars. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but yesterday I asked the hotel to remove all the items from my mini-bar refrigerator, and I stocked it myself. Behold the bounty from HyperCity:


By the way, this juice box is my new favorite drink. I hope I can find this somewhere at home. I don't know why this flavor is not more popular in the US... sooo delicious!

We understand your world.

Oh really? Because if they REALLY understood, wouldn't they use an image with the correct currency in the wallet?

Let's go to the mall!

I needed a couple of small things that the hotel didn't have, so I was told to go to Inorbit, a shopping mall near the hotel and office. The signs say that it is South India's largest shopping mall. I got a couple of things at HyperCity, which is like a Target.

I didn't actually need Listerine, but the label amused me so much that I had to buy it.


Also, as I was leaving the mall, I saw a sign for Gloria Jean's Coffee. Working at Gloria Jean's in the Saddle Creek Shopping Center in Germantown, TN was one of my first jobs. I loved that store, and I've complained a lot about it being gone. (I don't actually drink coffee at all, but I like Gloria Jeans' non-coffee drinks better than Starbucks'). Imagine my surprise to see that I can get Gloria Jeans in Hyderabad but not in Germantown. I didn't actually have time to find it, because I wanted to get to the office early, but I am definitely going back to Inorbit this weekend. :)

And of course, my good friend Coke, dressed in a festive label. I'm so glad I can get this stuff anywhere in the world!!

Commute!

First Day (Back) in India

I'm back in Hyderabad for the first time in almost exactly 3 years. Honestly, I had been so focused on planning my post-India vacation in London & Paris with Brittany that I forgot to be excited about being back here in India, but once I landed I was reminded of a lot of fun memories from my last trip!

I left Memphis at 2:48 pm on Saturday. First stop was Chicago, where I had a brief layover - just enough time to hit up the United business lounge, watch an episode of Glee season 1 part 2, and get all relaxed with my new favorite drink, a Tanquerray and tonic (thanks to Critter for the recommendation). At 6:30 I departed Chicago bound for Frankfurt - an 8 hour + 14 minute flight. The plane was pretty old, and business class didn't have the lay-flat seats. It was not very comfortable. Also, the power in the seat didn't work so my computer became useless after the second episode of Glee, after which I was intending to get some work done. I decided to take that as my cue to try to sleep, so after dinner was cleared away, I took a sleeping pill. The next thing I remember, they were serving breakfast with only an hour left in the flight.

It was 10:00 AM when we landed in Frankfurt. We had to walk off the plane and board a bus that shuttled us to the terminal. An older gentleman sat next to me on the bus, and his wife was right across the aisle. Noticing a St. Louis Cardinals luggage tag on his bag, I asked where he was from. It turns out he and his wife live in Alton, IL, which is only about a 20-minute drive from the college where Phil and I met as undergrads. I didn't catch their names, but hopefully my they are now having a fabulous time on their tour of Rome and their cruise around Greece!

I only had an hourlong layover in Frankfurt, so I made a quick stop to buy some postcards for all my favorite little Texans (no, not Brittany...) and then had to rush to my next gate. Fortunately, the Lufthansa plane was a lot nicer than the United one. My seat mate was a nice man from Ohio who was making a 3-day trip to Hyderabad, a 2-day trip to Chennai, and then returning home. I can't imagine that kind of itinerary. I'm glad I'll be staying here long enough to get accustomed to the time change and decompress after 24 straight hours of travel. Honestly, if I had to get back on a plane on Friday night, I would not be my usually pleasant self. I think four weeks is just about a perfect stay for me.

The flight from Frankfurt to Hyderabad was 8 hours + 22 minutes. I stayed awake the entire time. What a short day! We departed Frankfurt at 11:00 AM local time, and about four hours later I looked out my window to see the prettiest sliver of the moon on the horizon:

It was a very strange feeling... the shortest day I can ever remember! We finally landed in Hyderabad at 11:30 PM local time at the new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, which is stunning. (Actually, it's not "new" - it's been open about 2.5 years, but the last time I was here it wasn't open yet, so it's new to me.)

Lucky me, my 2 checked bags were the very first to come out on the belt, so I was out of the airport very quickly. It's pretty intimidating when you walk out of customs to the area where all of the drivers and relatives are waiting for passengers, especially since I was the first one from my flight to walk out. However, my driver from the hotel found me right away and then we were off.

I was actually looking forward to the adventure of getting re-familiarized with Indian traffic habits, but the trip from the airport to the Novotel was uneventful. There's a highway that goes right from the airport to the Hitec City area; it looks pretty new. We hardly encountered any other cars along the way and it only took about 20 minutes to reach the hotel. I got checked in, unpacked, called Phil on Skype, and then crashed around 3 AM, waking up on my own at 8 AM.

Sunday was complete waste of a day! I wanted to get a lot of work done, but I found myself stuck in a post-travel haze all day. I did venture out of the room for breakfast and then sat by the pool for 10 minutes, but I didn't have a book (stupid me didn't pack any non-electronic reading materials) so I got bored quickly. I spent the rest of the day as a lazy recluse in my room. The day's non-highlights included a 3-hour nap, work, staring out the window at the people playing volleyball in the pool, watching French programs on TV, and video chatting with Phil and Brittany via gmail.

I made myself go to bed at 12:30 AM with hopes of sleeping till 8, but only slept for 2 hours and then popped up, wide awake, hungry, and bored. Please pardon this long, tedious blog entry but there's not much else to do at this hour. Now I have 7 hours before I have to go in to work (my team works 2 PM to 11 PM IST but I like to get in by 1 PM). At some point before then I should probably get a couple more hours of sleep.... like I said, I'm glad I'll be here long enough to adjust!

Memphis, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hyderabad, London, Paris, Miami

Yes, that's my travel itinerary - 4 weeks in India, 5 days in London, 2 days in Paris, and 4 days in Miami. I just threw Chicago and Frankfurt in for effect, but I'll only be passing through their airports. I'm very excited to have something to blog about once again!

Furniture conundrum

We're moving to Memphis in less than 10 days now. Philip is starting a new job with Raymond James on June 1! I am keeping my job; I am very fortunate that my firm has an office in Memphis and I have the flexibility to work from that office when I'm not traveling.

We sold our old bedroom set via Craigslist. It was hand-me-down furniture, and I'll admit, not very attractive. It was oak and very.... angular. I wasn't quite sure who would even want to buy it. Luckily a good ole' boy and his dad, wearing overalls, came and bought it from us. The deciding factor for them? It was "not gay" (imagine that said in a very slow drawl, "gay" being stretched out into two full syllables).

So now we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I'm trying to decide on what new bedroom set to buy once we move. I found one that I love because it has drawers under the bed which seems like a very efficient use of space. It's nice, right?

At first I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I was bothered by something about the way it looked. Finally I figured it out. It reminds me of......