Happy St. Patrick's Day

Although I'm not Irish or Catholic, and have never really gone gung ho over St. Patrick's Day, it has become a sentimental day for me because it's the day Chris and I met. If it hadn't been for a day that Americans have come to celebrate by going out to bars and if it hadn't fallen on a Friday, I believe that Chris and I may have never have crossed paths, even though we were linked by only a few degrees of separation. But there I was out in downtown Minneapolis with a large group of soccer friends, including Ethan and his wife Lesley, who had invited her college friend James. Chris, who was visiting James for the weekend at the tail end of his spring break from UMD, came along. By the time I met up with the group, they had abandoned O'Donovan's Irish Pub and relocated to the non-Irish Brothers, a place crowded with undergrads who may or may not have legitimate IDs, no cover and cheap drinks. But as much as it is a meat market, it's also much less pretentious than most other clubs downtown, and on the most crowded night of the year for drinking establishments, it had room for our group. Still, it's the last place I expected to meet my future husband. Or that three years later I'd be pregnant with our first child and celebrating St. Patrick's Day, not drinking green beer, but in a doctor's office.

After much anticipation for today's appointment, it was rather short, but still packed with a lot of information. The nurse started by reviewing my medical history (determined quickly that I'm not a high-risk pregnancy) and gave us the book Your Pregnancy & Birth and a folder packed with information regarding childbirth classes, resources for parents, recommended prenatal tests, a hospital registration form, a medication list(apparently pregnant women can take more than just Tylenol), an equally long list of all the signs indicating you should call the doctor ASAP and so much other information that when it came to questions, I didn't know what to even ask. Chris has been doing more reading than I thought and looked much less overwhelmed. The nurse also recommended that we sign up for a five-week birth class, and a breastfeeding class if it's not covered in the birth class. Blood was drawn, my urine tested (no traces of sugar or protein - forget what they were testing - but the lack of both was a good thing), weight confirmed (despite my self-consciousness, my weight gain wasn't as significant as I thought it was) and I was out the door.

This is good news to Chris, but I learned I'm not carrying twins. Usually one wouldn't find that out until the first ultrasound at 20 weeks, but if I were carrying twins, I would have been informed of that when I went in for that spur-of-the-moment ultrasound a few weeks ago to determine how far along I am. I was disappointed, but the nurse left with, "Well, maybe next time."