News from Israel, Day 1 & 2

As most of you know, Steph took off for Israel on Thursday. She'll be there for just over a week as part of the 3-week Brandeis Summer Institute for Israel Studies, whose participants spent 2 weeks at Brandeis learning about current scholarship in the field of Israel Studies before traveling to the holy land.

I'm happy to report that Steph made it successfully to Israel, although not without some anxious moments along the way. Thunderstorms along her flightpath to Newark kept Steph (and her entire Brandeis group of 3 staff and 20+ program participants) at Boston's Logan Airport until nearly 8 pm on Thursday -- 5 hours past the flight's original departure time! But they made it to Newark and the flight from Newark to Tel Aviv left on time. Neither she nor I have taken the direct Continental flight before, but apparently the opportunity to sleep 7 hours on the plane beats the chance to wander around a European airport at 5 am local time for a few hours. Who knew?

Once in Israel, Steph had a great Shabbat dinner with great food. I can't do justice to her description of the dinner over the phone on Friday afternoon (EDT), but I hope she'll describe it in an upcoming post. Earlier today, she took a group to the fabled Tower of David Museum (yep, that one -- the one that featured prominently in Steph's dissertation) to talk about monuments, memory, contested space, and different narratives making up Jerusalem history. The group enjoyed the visit, and it sounded like a great learning opportunity for the faculty participants.

OB update

Over the last 2 days, Steph spent some quality time at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Yesterday, she and I went for her first trimester screen. We saw Philomena, although she was playing hard to get and was nowhere near as photogenic as in the ultrasound image I posted previously. Her heartrate was 165 -- nice & healthy. Steph also had a blood draw as part of an integrated test for indicators of birth defects. We won't know the results for about a month or so, and there's another blood draw in a few weeks that's also part of the test.

This morning, she went back to meet with the OB, who told her that she's in good shape and Philomena is healthy. Steph has been having some cramps in her legs, but a return visit to NWH in the afternoon indicated that there are no blood clots (the OB wanted to get that checked) and now Steph is cleared to go to Israel tomorrow. It'll be a good trip for her, but I'll miss her. Herman and I will get by somehow, and Zelda will probably just slobber on me a bit extra while her mom is away. More news soon.

Some interesting reading

Because this blog is titled "Tales of Steph and Josh," not "Tales of Philomena the Fetus," I thought I'd share with you a fascinating series in the Boston Globe about Mitt Romney. Granted, Romney's the governor I've loved to hate for several years now. But this extended, multi-part profile is quite compelling. For example, did you know that Mitt's great-grandfather was a Mormon pioneer -- establishing at least 3 separate communities in the West and in Mexico -- as well as an itinerant polygamist? Even after the LDS church turned its back on polygamy, old Miles P. Romney just kept on adding notches to his belt. Fascinating stuff. Today, in part 3 of 7, Mitt launches Bain and makes a skad of money. Check it out for yourself: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/romney/

Clothing, clothing everywhere....and not a stitch to wear

So Josh wants me to commit my clothing rant to blog...thinks that some of you might be interested. I think you don't give a fig. But I'll rant here anyway, just in case you care. If you don't, feel free to tell me to put a sock in it. :-)

I'm in the in-between stage of clothing....my old clothes don't fit (except for all the stretchy pants and skirts I bought after my surgery 2 years ago...they're coming in REAL handy about now), and maternity clothes look ridiculous. I made the mistake of going maternity clothes shopping on my birthday, and that was a big bummer. It only made me look super dumpy, but not pregnant.

After about 15 minutes of being pregnant I couldn't fit into my tops anymore. For those of you who think I used to be buxom....think again. Now I'm going to Burlington Coat Factory and Target for some XL shirts, because while I don't fit into my shirts, clothes made for a bump look ludicrous. I have more of a belly now, but no bump. I hear I have about another month before I really start to look pregnant, and not just fat....

So, please forgive me if I wear the same clothes over and over. I do wash them, but my selection is rather limited. In fact, Josh was just folding laundry (isn't he a great guy?) and commented that all the clothes were his. Well, DUH. Nothing fits me, and I have a one-week selection. Thankfully that's all I'll be in Israel, or the gig would really be up....

Hope I didn't waste too much of your time with this rant. Until next time.....

Love,
Steph

We've got news!

Hi all,

We've had news for a long time, really. (Actually, since before the time of the last post, but we couldn't say.) But now we can! And so....

Steph's pregnant! Yay!

Little fetus Philomena (yep, that's her name for now) will probably emerge in late December. So we gather. We'll know the gender for sure in about 2 months, but right now we're going on intuition. As my lovely sister says, we've got a 50-50 chance of being right!

Below is an ultrasound taken on Tuesday. You can see Philomena's head at the left and the rest of her body on the right. What you can't see is that she was doing loop-de-loops in there! Quite a little athlete.


Next up is a 1st trimester scan to screen for for Down's Syndrome -- that'll be on Tuesday to be followed by an appointment with the OB on Wednesday. Then Steph goes to Israel for work.

More news soon. Steph and I will keep posting here as life and stuff develops.