genetics counseling

we had our genetics counseling today. the counselor was really nice and had a soothing demeanor. she explained the amnio procedure and what to expect. they will do a sonogram first to look at the baby's position and do some measurements. then find an area where it's safe to inject into my belly and get a little of the amniotic fluid. the pain will last 1-2 minutes. they look at all chromosomes and make sure there's no abnormalities. my test is scheduled for next friday. 24-hr bed rest is required after the test, maybe even 48 hrs - depends if there's still cramping. she said i should expect contraction-like pain. eeek. she said she'll call me the following monday with preliminary results and the baby's sex but i won't have the full results until about 10 days after the test. she went through my family history and was drawing the tree. she used circles for female and squares for men. my mom has 8 siblings and my dad has 5 so my side of the family took a while. i have cancer and diabetes in my family but no genetic disorders. mik's mom has more siblings than mine although his dad only has 2 so his didn't take that long. his family also has cancer and diabetes. mik really wanted to do the family tree drawings for the counselor... he wished he could. haha! then i brought up that i have genetic anemia. i eat a lot of beef but i'm still anemic. turns out i have hemoglobin J so she asked for mik to get his blood drawn. apparently when two people with this problem have a baby together, there's a slight change of sickle cell disease and other risks. she said not to worry but OH MY GOD!!! mik should know the blood results in the next couple of days so fingers crossed! so if it turns out i'm the only carrier of hemoglobin J, then our baby has 50/50 chances of getting it. :( sorry dragon...

i have been stressing out about telling coworkers not just about the pregnancy, but about mik and i dating. i had trouble sleeping the last couple of nights. so today i decided to talk to my manager about it. i sent her a meeting request with subject line "touchbase". as soon as she accepted, she bolted to my office. i knew she would be dreading the worst - me quitting my job! she walked in and had a worried look. asked me a random work question then said "so we have a touchbase later today?" i asked her if she was free and if wanted to discuss now. she agreed. i started out by saying i felt bad that i kept it from people, that i was dating someone at work, and now it has to come out, because i'm pregnant. i could barely finish what i wanted to say - i started to tear. but she was so happy for me and started to tear as well! she said i shouldn't worry about anything and that she was sure it wasn't an issue. we talked about my pregnancy and how i was feeling. i told her that i thought she had a hunch because i caught her looking at my chest a few times so i thought to myself "oh no! she knows i'm pregnant!" she said she was just jealous of my boobies. haha. she said i'm making her want to get pregnant again (i think she will have another - she has 2 boys). she was truly happy for me and so understanding about the
entire situation. i love her!!! she asked me if she could do anything for me and i told her to just run it by HR just to make sure there's no issue. fingers crossed that everything's ok and one of us doesn't have to quit our jobs!

ben and jerry's phish food after dinner. YUM!!! :)