Kids say the darnedest things

Over Christmas, we visited Ingrid's friend Katie, and her 7-y.o. daughter Samantha, the one who visited NYC a few months ago and already knows taxis are preferable to the subway, and that Chinatown offers good deals on fake logo bags.

At this visit, Katie told Sammie that we were pregnant, and Katie got us a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. So sweet! We weren't sure if Sammie would be confused at all about our lesbian pregnancy, but the convo went like this:

Sam: Ingrid are YOU gonna have a baby too?
Ingrid: No, I'm gonna support Liz and take care of the baby once it's born.
Sam: You'll be kind of like the Daddy then.
Ingrid: Well, kinda, yeah.
Sam: What will the baby call you?
Ingrid: I'm not sure; that's a question we're still thinking about.
Sam: (Thinking for a few minutes) Hmm. You're going to be a Mom, but kinda like a Dad. How about if the baby calls Liz 'MomMom,' and you, 'DaMa?'
Ingrid: Brilliant! Perfect!

Sometimes kids sort of inherently understand the essence of things. Thanks, Sam!

Sleeping Beauty

Ok, the past three nights, I have had dinner, lay on the couch and fallen asleep by 8 or 9 p.m. How am I going to swing New Year's Eve? I feel bad for Ingrid. In addition to this early-to-bed thing, I take at least two small naps in a day, usually in the car with my mom, where I am now.

My friend Nina told me some people sell maternity clothes on craigslist. I looked, and there were a few listings. Brilliant! I found an amazing dress at Barney's Co-Op at the South Coast Plaza mall in Orange County, California, but it was slightly too tight in the sleeves. My mom says it's because I'm too "buff" in the upper arms. Not sure if that is a compliment or a criticism.

Still wavering at 121 lbs, 9 lbs more than when I got pregnant. Ingrid says my blog is really about a pregnant lesbian with an eating disorder. We're not going to put that in the profile, though, OK?

Today, I am trying to visualize our baby, and start talking to it more. Ingrid is usually the one who does the talking, through my belly, but we're away from each other this week, so I am trying some new rituals. My aunt Anh told me last night that it's an old myth that if you gain all the weight in your belly, it's going to be a boy, and if you gain it throughout the hips and butt and lower body, it's a girl. How did I live 35 years without ever knowing this???

Should SuperOva wear high heels?

This pic is from 15 weeks, BTW.

Last night we had Christmas with the Nguyen family, my mom's side, the Vietnamese family. Everyone was really cute; both of my grandparents wanted to feel my belly. Four different women there, though, saw that I was wearing high heels, and they said, "No more high heels!" Hello? I'm not infirmed! Just a little tired once in awhile. In fact, I had to take two naps during the time we were at my grandparents' house for dinner. Has anyone else who is pregnant stopped wearing high heels, as long as they were comfortable in them? I rarely do wear them, but I've been feeling so schlumpy lately, that I kind of like it once in awhile.

I've been reading this book my friend Rhonda gave me, The Natural Pregnancy Book. It's kind of hippy dippy (so is Rhonda; she had a natural childbirth), but I've been wanting to consider natural childbirth, and every friend I've mentioned it to is like, "Are you fucking crazy??!!" But I really am kind of curious. The book is very woman-centric, and dissuades pregnant women from thinking of themselves as weak or sick or infirmed, at the same time encouraging them to get plenty of rest and listen to their bodies. My body is saying I need two naps a day, but that it's also OK to wear heels, if I don't have to walk in them!

Merry Christmas, Tiny!

...And to Tiny, a good night. And to Ingrid, too, who's not here with me. We went to the family's Christmas party in Mechanicsburg this past weekend, and it was a success. Nearly everyone there hugged and congratulated us, and told us how happy they were for us. It was very supportive and wonderful.

One guy, Craig Bitner, apparently didn't know the news, and was pretty shocked when Ing told him. He tried to make a joke about it, and said, "I'm trying to figure out who the donor is. Is it someone in this room?" He joked about it with another guest, who has never seemed all that excited about Ingrid's and my relationship, and she said nothing, stone-faced. I didn't witness that. But the party was, for me, all love.

Ingrid told her Grandma this weekend about the pregnancy. Grandma is 94 and has never been told outright that we are a lesbian couple, but we think she already gets it. Apparently she was confused at first about the pregnancy, but then started asking a few questions, about due date and such, and Ingrid told her she planned to adopt the child when it is born, and that we might use Ingrid's last name. Finally, Grandma said, "What if it's a boy? We could finally have a boy!" (All of Ingrid's cousins are girls, and there are no boys to carry on the family name, at present.) We took that as a wholehearted endorsement, at least as much of one as we ever expected! Hurray for low expectations, and family really coming through when you need them. Thanks, family.

I left my digital camera connector cord at work, so I can't post pictures of what 15 weeks looks like, but I am showing a teeny tiny bit. I'll post at 16 weeks, when I get back to work.

Please note my new blog title!

Thanks Lauren, my friend who came up with this great title! I wanted to use BabyFreak, or MommyFreak, but both of those were taken already. I like SuperOva, because with a lesbian household, you have twice as many eggs and estrogen (hopefully) than in a hetero house. Also, Lauren is a music writer, and I like the veiled reference to one of Liz Phair's songs, before Liz Phair got Matrix-ized. If anyone has any other suggs for a name, let me know!

This weekend my mom took my Vietnamese grandma out shopping and to drop the news that we're pregnant. I was a little nervous because I just came out to my grandma two years ago, and I haven't actually totally come out to my grandpa. He's the father of 8 children, and is very stoic and just sort of smokes and watches over every family occasion, with few words.

My grandma got tears in her eyes, and told my mom what a cute baby I was, and how happy she was for Ingrid and me. She then asked how Ingrid's family took the news, and how close we were to Ingrid's family. Pretty cute. The next night my grandpa called my mom and said he was very happy for Ingrid and me, and happy to have another great-grandchild. I guess that's as good as it can get, huh?

This weekend is the Eberly 36th annual Christmas party in Mechanicsburg, PA. I have been waiting NINE years to go to this party pregnant, because as far as we know, we are the only openly gay people in the community. Of course, there are other gays and lesbians (and a shitload of trannies in Harrisburg, where we think there is a sex-reassignment clinic maybe) in Mechanicsburg, but none in the Eberlys' community, that we know of. Year after year, we play with everyone else's kids and grandkids, and finally, it is the Eberlys' turn to have some attention on our future family, which I am thrilled about. I think bringing visibility to lesbian and gay families might rock their world a little bit, and I hope I'm ready for it. The personal is political, Gloria! (Plus, I'm superexcited for the Swedish meatball tray and the peanut brittle--both staples of the Christmas party.)

PS My friend Jen's friend gained SEVENTY lbs during her pregnancy. I fear for my future, I really do, but Ingrid feels like if I get huge, it will kind of be karma. Mom, I want a postchildbirth trainer, if you're still taking suggestions for Christmas gifts!

Eating for Two?

I've gained 9 lbs so far, in my 14th week. I think I might be gaining weight too fast; Ingrid says my old eating-disordered habits are kicking in. I was watching the Today Show at the gym, and Meredith was dispelling myths your mother told you, including that when you're pregnant, you're "eating for two." A medical expert said in the first trimester, you're supposed to only eat an extra 150 calories, and in the second and third trimesters, an extra 300, a day. 150 a day! I ate like 1,000 extra calories a day in the first trimester. That might be the problem. But Tiny is HUNGRY!

Meanwhile, what do people think of the Miss America scandal? Isn't the pageant a crazy, outdated sexist institution anyway? How can we call this woman out for her partying when we make Paris Hilton and Britney the heroes of our culture right now? Nick, I know you're the only one reading: What do you think?

The Pregnancy Police

I've read about this concept of "The Pregnancy Police"--those people who don't know you that well, but who think they know what is best for you during your pregnancy. Like everyone who warned me on my trip to Paris last weekend not to eat any cheese. Or the people I've been out to dinner with who have joked, "There'd better not be any alcohol in that, young lady." It's MY baby, not yours!

Last night we had drinks (yes, I had seltzer) with our friends Liz and Jessica. Jessica's sister-in-law is also pregnant--6 weeks along. It's her third child. She told me once she was out, during her last pregnancy, and saw an OB that is in the same medical group as her OB, at a restaurant. She said to the doctor, "The goat cheese salad is my favorite. Ooops, I'm sorry! I had goat cheese." The OB said to her, "In 35 years of treating pregnant women, I've never seen a single case of listeria." Listeriosis is a bacteria--what they warn you could happen if you eat unpasteurized cheese or meats. That's why everyone screams about eating stinky or soft cheeses, and cured meats, etc.

Our friend Nick saw me for the first time since I announced my pregnancy last night, and he was rubbing my belly, saying, "I want it to get to know me!" I loved that! Nick, Tiny is already knowing you...

This is what 14 weeks looks like

Can anyone tell a difference in my body in the last two weeks? I've gained 7 pounds. Today I talked to my OB, Dr. Cara Dodson.

She calls and says, "Hi Liz? This is Dr. Cara Dodson from Spring OB-GYN."

"I know who you are."

She laughed. "You said you know who I am? Sometimes I call and say, 'This is Dr. Dodson,' and people just pause."

"You're very much in my consciousness, don't worry."

She laughed again. Then she told me that our genetic tests came back good, the first one for Down Syndrome. My odds, being a 36-y.o. woman (at the birth of our child), based on age alone, are 1 in 170, of having a fetus with DS. After the bloodwork and sonogram, our odds are 1 in 3,000. I was thrilled to hear this. I hadn't been panicked before, but this was very reassuring news. Just one less thing that I had to think of juggling. So I'm thrilled.

PS I want to shout out to the Mechanicsburg Area Brunch Club: eg Tita Eberly's friends, and the Junior League extension of Mburg, Pennsylvania. Tita emailed all of her friends about my pregnancy, and they've all sent back very affirming notes, full of encouragement and excitement and enthusiasm. It's more than I even hoped for, so I'm thrilled about that. Tita's friend Pat Myers offered to throw us a shower in Stone Harbor, where the family's beach house is. How sweet is that? She's been a family friend since Tita was in kindergarten. Pretty cute. I was very touched. Thanks Pat!

I love Paris in the springtime... well, anytime, really

We've just returned from four days in Paris with my mom, my aunt Peggy (my stepdad's sister) and my stepcousin, Julie, who is 7 1/2 months pregnant (pictured here, with me). Julie's having a child by herself--the father isn't involved, and she's a little devastated by that, to say the least. But she's forging ahead as a single mom, and has bought a townhouse close to her parents in the suburbs of Paris, and is already decorating the nursery. We brought her a little t-shirt that says BROOKLYN.

It was interesting spending the weekend with Julie--a single mother, with an unexpected pregnancy, and us, a lesbian couple, with a very (obviously) planned pregnancy. One family, extended, with two children, coming in a nontraditional fashion, that I expect and hope the family will all welcome equally and with open arms.

The trip to Paris was a little harrowing. There was a storm in Paris and we couldn't land there, so we had to land in London, and ultimately take SIX TRAINS to get to Paris, where we finally arrived at 7 p.m. (We were due to land there at 11 a.m.) But from there, the weekend went swimmingly. We didn't buy too much, but we did a little shopping at the outlet mall in the suburbs of Paris, La Vallee, where my mom bought Ingrid a Lalique gold ring. I think my mom's secretly happy she has a daughter-in-law, rather than a son-in-law, because it's another girl to shop with. We did spend one day walking around Paris, which was great. We went to a dinner party with some of my mom's high school friends. We left early to go for a walk, and the host, this 60-year-old Vietnamese Frenchman said, "Go to the Bastille neighborhood. That's where the men are. There is no nightlife in this neighborhood, and there are no Tom Cruise lookalikes here." I was like, "What part of Tiny Has Two Mommies do you not understand???" This was after I explained to this guy, when he asked if we were schoolmates, that no, we were "partners, and we live together." Sometimes the power of cluelessness is stronger than anything else.

Of course, now that we are past 13 weeks, my mom and Aunt Peggy are pressuring us to find out the sex of the fetus. Peggy says, "How on EARTH will your mother know what to buy you if you don't?" I'm sure she'll have an opinion on the name too.

Julie said she only has an appetite for pancakes and, a delicacy I never thought of: French bread spread with Nutella, which she eats before going to bed at night. Genius! I had never even thought to crave that. When I said this, my mom said, "Oh no, Elizabeth, you're going to get huge." I said, "Luckily mom, it's MY problem, not yours." When I told her Dr. Dodson said it's normal for a woman my size to gain 25 to 35 lbs, she said, "I think 25 is enough." I said, "I think I'll trust my doctor." See how those body issues are coming to surface during my pregnancy! This should be fun. I wrapped my arm around my mom and said, "Is it your worst nightmare for me to get HUGE??" Her silence was confirmatory.

We made it back in one piece, with a bag full of Parisian butter cookies, pates and meat spreads, mustards, chocolate bars and all sorts of other delicacies. I told my two friends at work about my pregnancy today. One of them brought me a chocolate cake to celebrate. I made some room in my full tummy for a little cake.

Mary Cheney is having a baby too!

It was reported yesterday that Mary Cheney and her partner are having a baby too. So Mary Cheney's pregnancy is bringing some issues of homophobia and families to the surface, as I expect ours will in our lives. Apparently Dick congratulated them, but someone from Concerned Women for America called the pregnancy "unconscionable." Nice. Last night we watched this special on PrimeTime Live where the producers set up cabbies in Las Vegas to taunt passengers by saying homophobic things, and basically all of the passengers in the experiment were like, "Gay people should be shot." The most sympathetic thing said was, "No, I don't believe ALL gays are child molesters." ???!!! I was so befuddled by this whole segment, I honestly wanted to cry. Don't get me started on the sexism of it all. By that I mean that homophobic straight men tend to be perfectly alright with hot lesbians, but it's gay males that pose a threat to them--basically the idea of sodomy, of a man penilely penetrating another man, is enough to send an entire population into a tizzy. But Madonna and Britney making out is just good TV.

This morning I went to St. Vincent's for bloodwork and a 13-week sonogram, as part of the UltraScreen we are having to determine our odds for chromosomal disorders for our Tiny Dancer. I waited nearly an hour but finally saw Dr. Franz Margano, who is not, in fact, Austrian or Italian, but Asian! I told him I expected an Italian man, with that name, but he said, "I ate too much rice!" Sounds like an IS Eberly comment. First thing the doc said during the sonogram was, "Ohhhh, it's a beautiful baby." I said, "Do you say that to all the girls?" He took pictures at every angle--it was Tiny's first opportunity to live like Gisele Bundchen!--and showed me: Tiny has two hands, two feet, a stomach, a bladder, a brain, two kidneys, two eyes, two ears. This all seems good! So the sonogram looked good; now I have to wait for results of the bloodwork. Stay tuned, but it was very exciting. I take back what I said about sonograms. I kind of want to show off the pictures now...

Gastric Bypass Surgery

God, Nicole, I feel your pain. They say when you get gastric bypass surgery, they rope off your stomach so that the part that digests food is very tiny, and can only accommodate a teensy amount of food, and that you get full after eating like three Carr's Water crackers. That's how I'm feeling these days, only I get very very full, after eating a whole lot of food, and not stopping. It's like I can't get full, for like 95% of the time I am eating, and then BAM, it hits me all at once and I feel like I've swallowed a balloon, and it literally hurts. But I imagine it feels like what post-operative bypass surgery patients feel, like their stomach is going to explode. The good news is, I'm hardly feeling nauseous at all anymore.

This is what 12 weeks looks like

I doubt anyone wants to see this, but I wanted a way to track my body's physical progress during the pregnancy. So here's 12 weeks--see the beginnings of the bump? I've gained a half cup size in my breasts, and my butt doesn't seem to have expanded, but when I asked Ingrid this, she was quiet. And then said, "Oh no, baby, no. It looks the same." My friend Alexa had gained 15 lbs by the first trimester, but she's 5'9".

Meanwhile, at home, Ingrid's really becoming Mr. Fix It. We had to patch a part of the wall in the potential baby's room, where two pieces of drywall needed to be connected. She looked it up online, we went to Lowe's and got Compounding Mixture, and she fixed the wall! I, for one, am impressed. We have yet to find a contractor we like, so we have to learn to do stuff ourselves.

Liz has two mommies

Does anyone remember the book Heather Has Two Mommies? It's a children's book about a girl with two moms that was very controversial back in the early '90s, and was banned from a number of schools.

My stepmom Lynn told me a heartwarming story about my halfsister Amanda, when she was about 6. We were at a department store, and a stranger made some refence to Lynn being Amanda's mom. I guess Amanda corrected the stranger, explaining Lynn was her "other mom." This stranger reacted oddly, or said something about that being strange, and Amanda said, "I think I'm really lucky to have two moms." Ironically, I don't remember this encounter--Lynn says I was there--and I would have been 11 at the time. I thought it was such a nice example of how kids see the world with such optimistic eyes, and how adaptable they are.

On a different note, Ingrid got into a fight with one of her high school friends once. We were discussing wanting to have a child, and the friend said something along the lines of "Well, I hope you are planning to have a male influence in your child's life." Ingrid said we do plan to have strong male role models in the child's life, but that we didn't have a particular brother, uncle, father type of figure, just one golden male, who would fulfill that role. This friend was concerned about that, and Ingrid got very upset, and started citing all these examples of fucked up people who had married parents, whose fathers were a part of their lives. We left the party in tears.

That said, we do get concerned about the male role models in our future child's life. (Fingers crossed.) Men in our lives, get ready: Nick, I expect you to show our kid how to start a blog. Christian, how to focus a camera lens. Fred, the inner workings of architecture, and the museums of NYC, and all of the old cities of Europe. Michael H, you can explain gender law and how to cook a vegetable lasagna?Maybe Cerulean, who is now only 4, can be something of a big brother figure? There are great men all around us. I hope to share all of your worlds.

P.S. If you live in NYC, go to the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see Annie Liebovitz's photographic exhibit, but stay to see Ronald Mueck's freaky-cool oversize realistic sculptures.

Sundays are my favorite day...

This is going to sound pathetic, but I've been waiting two weeks for tonight, when Cold Case comes back on. Yes, I like the crime procedurals. It started with Law & Order, then to the L&O spinoffs and then I discovered Cold Case, and ... tomorrow... the season premiere of The Closer starring Kyra Sedgwick, my favorite. They're all good. Cold Case is the one where I routinely cry at the end. Like, sob, not just little tears. It's Kathryn Morris, that really beautiful, really blond woman who just isn't quite comfortable among the living, and she has to seek out ghosts to feel right in the world. The two best ones were the fat girl in the fraternity house, and the women in the 1930s mental institution, starring Natasha Gregson Wagner. Cold Case wasn't on last week because of some holiday movie with Alicia Silverstone but it's back tonight. AND... it is followed by... an all new episode of Without a Trace! I also love Cold Case because the cute guy, Scotty Valens, is dealing with some demons of his own. His brother was molested by a coach when they were kids, and is just now coming out to testify against the coach, 20 years later. Everyone's got some baggage.

My friend Nick is an entertainment junkie. He has Tivo, and he watches a little bit of everything. He was the first to show me internet porn, incidentally, and WHOA, do I owe him a debt for that one! I think that might help me, but I'm too cheap to get TiVo. Ingrid loves a reality show--anything on VH1 or MTV or the HQ network. Her favorite is the one where they redo a house, but also have a psychologist talk to the family about relational dynamics. Yesterday, we learned that it's the little things that can disintegrate a marriage, not just one big thing.

On the subject of porn, we saw a great documentary. Everyone should Netflik it: Inside Deep Throat. It's about the making of the 1972 seminal porn movie, Deep Throat, that caused a bit of a sexual revolution, and prosecutorial waves, throughout America. Everyone in women's studies should also see it. With appearances by Gloria Steinem, Susan Brownmiller, Camille Paglia, Erica Jong. Very interesting and relevant.

A Lesbian Shower

Our friends Liz and Jess last night told us that they told their lesbian posse of 8 basketball players that we were pregnant. One of the ballers said, "That hot girl is pregnant?" Ingrid said, "You've still got it, baby!" I felt pretty proud, and kicked up my heels right on 6th Avenue. Then Liz told us that their friend KerryAnn, an attorney who ran the NYC marathon this year, wants to have a lesbian baby shower for us. I thought that was about the sweetest thing I'd ever heard. Thanks KerryAnn!

Next week I go back to St. Vincent's for an "UltraScreen," a first-course, noninvasive test that involves taking blood and a sonogram to monitor the fetus to test for chromosomal abnormalities, particularly Down Syndrome. After this test, they can tell us our odds about whether our fetus might be chromosomally disordered. Right now, as a 35-year-old woman, my odds right off the bat are about 1 in 350 to have a child with Down Syndrome. This test fine tunes those odds a bit. People are asking if we're doing the genetic testing. Everyone has an opinion, as most people do about all aspects of pregnancy. Ingrid and I didn't want to do any testing at first. Now we're doing the first course. A second course of testing is an amniocentesis, which is invasive and carries a small risk of miscarriage. Off the bat, we don't want to do that, but I guess we'll see how the first test goes.

Last night I had a salad with grilled shrimp for dinner. I love shrimp, and I almost hurled. I had to order a hamburger. A hamburger! The shrimp really left a horrid taste in my mouth. Speaking of bad taste, Britney celebrated her 25th birthday this weekend. Happy birthday, Brit!!

Cravings

I just read this in Us Weekly on the treadmill at the gym. Tori, who's a few months pregnant, and her hubby Dean got KFC takeout. KFC!! In Hollywood!! Can you f'ing imagine?? The caption was, "Pregnancy Cravings?" Tori Spelling and I, birds of a feather!

Today marks 12 weeks for us. We visited Dr. Dodson, our new OB-GYN. She's 12.

Well, she might be 30. But still, she's younger than us. Ingrid's mom, Tita, says we should get used to that as we get older. So we got the second ultrasound, and our now-fetus (it's considered a fetus at 11 weeks) still has a beating heart! There was a tiny scare, at first the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat at first, but then she did a more complex ultrasound, and it seems like everything is OK. Our baby was moving around like crazy, right-side-up, upside-down, big old head, and little hands and feet. Ingy thinks he will be a dancer!

We told Dr. Dodson that we're not scanning in the ultrasound picture and emailing it all around, cuz it makes us feel funny when people do that. Ingrid said, "Not that there's anything wrong with those people, that's just not what we're going to do." I mean, who wants to look at someone else's ultrasound picture, unless it's your own daughter's, or your partner's, or something? If you want to see the picture, post a note here, and I'll show it to you.

The morning sickness is supposed to subside starting around 12 weeks, and I have to say, today is the first day I didn't feel light-headed or nauseous on the subway, and the first day my food cravings have really settled down. I had ONE bowl of cereal and a banana today, versus three normally. For lunch, a bowl of pasta bolognese. I had also picked up a tunafish sandwich that I found lying around the kitchen (yep, you'll eat almost anything when you've got pregnancy hunger. Or at least, I will.) But I got full before the tuna sandwich, and I put it back. Is that gross! It's progress though! I've gained four pounds. Dr. Dodson says that's not abnormal. Ingrid said that's like a one-period-cycle weight gain for her. Someone brought a family-size bag of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips into the kitchen, and I sat there and had a picnic by myself, I was so happy. Ok, fingers crossed for our Tiny Dancer. We won't know the sex until at least another few weeks, if we choose to. We're still trying to decide that....

OMG, I almost forgot! Also in US Weekly, I caught up on the Britney/Paris BFF situation. Get this: they're sharing clothes from Paris' closet now, and guess what they do to "pre-party?" They take turns dancing on the stripper pole IN PARIS' HOUSE!! She has a stripper pole! At home! "Um, Daddy, I want a stripper pole!!" It's really genius.