there

megan once told me that the best pregnancy advise she was given was to smile and say thank you. pregnancy and weddings (and i suspect parenting a baby) seems to be the main areas where people give unsolicited advise all the time. some of the advise will be very helpful and appreciated, while other times it will be way off base and even inappropriate. i kind of feel like i don't want to get into big long discussions with well-meaning people about things that aren't any of their business - such as where and how i give birth. so i'm going to take the advise of megan's advisor. case in point... when i arrived into work this morning after our second prenatal appointment with our midwife, one of the ladies asked me excitedly "who's your obstetrician?", so i explained that i have a midwife. she had a few questions about that and i was able to fill in some of her gaps in knowledge by explaining that yes, midwives can manage births in hospitals and can manage pain (the midwives in kingston can now manage births even when an epidural administered). she must have jumped to a few conclusions because she started explaining to me how it's so much better to give birth in a hospital just in case you need a caesarean. i'd already concluded that it's not worth explaining to my colleagues that i'm planning a home birth - they'll just worry. they'll find out after the baby is born. so i just listened to my colleague talk and tell me what's what as i smiled and listened.

to our delight, we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again! this time, it was slower this time because the baby is bigger. it's in a healthy range and sounded good and strong. it makes me so proud of that little so-and-so, growing all big and stuff.

mico also had the results of my bloodwork and it turns out that i don't have any STDs :p not a surprise, but always nice to know.  hooray!!

with the plans arranged for my (still slightly tenative) trip to berlin settled, i'm now needing to book travel and accomodations for a conference in phoenix in april! i REALLY want brendan to come with me, and am hoping to use aeroplan miles to fly him there. we'd take an extra day or so for a trip up the the grand canyon. that's another reason why i want him to come. i don't expect that we'll be in that area very often, and we've talked before about visiting the grand canyon. i think that would be amazing. among some of the coolest things to do in north america. it turns out that hotels are crazy cheap in phoenix and we could stay at a comfort inn for 33 bux a night. so there are exciting things ahead - in more ways than one!

where will she go, does she really know?