I don't know if you all recall my story of how JZ and I got engaged, but I did have to work through a lot of issues about becoming a parent again. One thing that tipped me over was thinking about that picture JZ used as her icon over on WX, when she was a toddler and was standing there playing with her ear. And she had dark wavy hair and big eyes and looked watchful and smart and sweet and strong. And I thought, "Yeah, I'd like a little girl like that."

The other thing was an image that came to my mind of Jacqueline being pregnant and my hand was on her belly and she looked up into my face and smiled. And when I thought about that I wanted it. I thought, "I would want to meet the person that was half me and half her and wholely themself."

So. I'm very happy that Jacqueline is pregnant and particuarly pleased that it's a girl this time.

Wow. This is seriously tears-of-joyworthy. How beautiful.

Or perhaps a boy with a tiny weewee.

Heh. They weren't looking for actual weewee so much as pelvic tilt on the first ultrasound. Which, incidentally, was done by the same ultrasound tech we had when Emmett was in the womb. ("If it tilts up it's usually a boy, if the tilt is toward the toes it's a girl." "Are you sure?" "Well, don't quote me in court...")

She came in and seemed familiar. But it wasn't until I heard her voice and her dry sense of humor that I realized, shit, it's the same one. So I asked Phyllis, "How long have you been doing this?"

"Uccch, it feels like forever, but it's been about 11 years." Which is exactly right since she hadn't been doing it for very long when she did the ultrasound on Emmett.

Anyway, I found it to be a very encouraging sign and almost immediately relaxed about the pregnancy at that point. Up until then JZ kept testing positive for one freakin' thing or another that had to be eliminated. As it turns out, genetic testing showed that she was a recessive carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. So we had to test me to clear that. Then she came back with a positive blood test for syphillis.

Which the doctor covered by saying, "We don't actually think you have syphyllis but a false positive means we have to test for autoimmune disorders, like Lupus."

So JZ was pretty much constantly stressed during the early weeks.

Final scorecard, however:

No CF
No funny syphillis (thought lots of funny syphillis jokes around the house)
No Lupus
Girl Zmayby

Please free me from this conference call. I hate the systems where you announce your name, and so it names you when you click off. Sometimes (like now) I play nice and give my name, but now I can't sneak away in the middle.

I've been doing other work during most of the call anyway, so I have no clear of idea of what they're talking about.

Plus I'm the lightheaded again.

No funny syphillis

Damn, I *never* know anyone with syphillis! My friends are too clean-living.

Penicillin really has ruined all the fun.

My friends are too clean-living.

And here I am wondering if mine are too dirty. I can't swear there's any syphilis, but we could trade and see. That way I can be relatively dirty again.

My friends are too clean-living.

And here I am wondering if mine are too dirty.

My friends are pretty damn dirty, but apparently they paid attention in the safer-sex lecture.

My friends are pretty damn dirty, but apparently they paid attention in the safer-sex lecture

NO FUN. I mean, apart from where it's more fun.

I guess I'll just have to wait until Jesse gets a hooker for me, and then do something terribly dirty to start evening things out.

My friends are too clean-living.

And here I am wondering if mine are too dirty.

See, between the two of you, you have a full set of friends who are just exactly dirty enough.

My irony of the day - I'm so full of antibiotics that I'm probably killing bacteria ten feet from my body. So I come down with a cold - a VIRUS.