16 weeks

I am starting to think I might be a bit overextended. Things are pretty OK for now but it occurs to me that with the possibility of a new baby in July (yes I say "possibility" because I am a medical person and therefore justifiably paranoiac) I may have to cut back on certain things. For one, I've been having fun with the speaking engagements but travel is the worst and I find it guilt-inducing to be away from my children, even though they can largely toilet and dress themselves independently (so long as you don't need things to be on right-side out or require pants to be on bottom, shirts on top, that kind of thing). Anyway, I have some speaking engagements booked through early Spring, but I don't think I'm going to be accepting any more after that nor for any appreciable amount of time after the baby is born, unless they're relatively close by or, like, for the most noble cause in the world.  (Or if they're going to pay me a skrillion dollars, in which case ideology be damned! Not really. A little bit. Show me the skrillion dollars first.)  LIMITS. I HAS THEM.

Speaking of which, here's your 16 week picture, pervs.

In the interest of uniformity of variables I'm trying to take all such pics first thing in the morning, because due to the happy effects of progesterone (and smooth muscle relaxing properties thereof) the different between AM and PM is obviously not at all related to uterine distension but nonetheless enormous. Literally. The night bloats, am I right, ladies? It also does not help that I have only one pair of maternity pants left in my closet--unless you count scrubs, in which case I have a hundred pairs. Apologies, however, for that fact that this particular pair is weirdly baggy in the crotch and makes me look like I am sporting a monster dong. (They are from one of our outpatient orthopedic surgery centers, if that explains anything.)

Back to the subject of paranoia, my OB offered to take a look at gender parts tomorrow (they don't routinely do an ultrasound at 16 weeks but he is very nice and after exchanging the Secret Doctor Handshake he said that if we wanted he could do a quick peek as "a courtesy")

(There isn't really a secret doctor handshake)

(There is an encoded medallion that you hold up to the sun on the solstice, however, that shows you the location of the hidden tomb of Hippocrates)

...but really, I don't care if Thing 3 is a boy or a girl so long as s/he is healthy. I know everyone says that and it's true, but we all know that in medicine, especially those of us with a background in Pediatrics, have seen Very Bad Things and it seems like whenever you're trying not to worry about Bad Things, it's all you can think about. So here's to normal exams and good results, right? Of course the genitalia of the fetus is almost certainly one of the least important parts of an anatomic survey, but of course I am a good little monkey and always very CURIOUS.

Hope you had a good weekend and all that.