Weight Loss Secret #5492

For the past couple of years, I have chewed gum nearly every weekday (except when I was pregnant).

Upon reflection, I figured out a few years ago that sometimes, when I think I'm hungry, I'm actually just in the mood to chew. After I figured that out, I began to chew gum regularly.

Gum is an awesome help in my battle against the extra pounds. I pop a piece in my mouth every afternoon at work, and it helps me in the following ways:

• It gives me something to chew on, so that I don't go looking for food that I don't actually need because I'm not feeling hungry.
• It puts a pleasant flavor in my mouth and freshens my breath (my favorite flavor: wintergreen).
• If someone offers me some food, it is easy to decline because I am enjoying my gum.
• It cleans my teeth a little (I always chew sugarless gum).

It was really hard on me to quit chewing gum when I was pregnant. (I quit because of concerns about acesulfame potassium, an artificial sweetener that is in almost every type of gum, including sugared gums.) I would guess that not engaging in afternoon gum-chewing contributed to the extra weight gain I experienced while pregnant.

Kinda Funny, Kinda Not

So today somebody found my blog by posing the following question to Google:

am i peeing or did my water break?

Hope ya figured that one out, hon.

The Future Has Arrived

Young Vincent decided to show up on Thursday, October 5, at 6:25 p.m., weighing 7 lbs 11 oz, and measuring 21-1/4" in length. I will now tell two versions of the story, in varying levels of detail. The first is an executive summary. The second is not for the squeamish.

The Short Version

On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. After consulting with my doctor's office, they said I needed to head to the hospital immediately. We called Dad and Marvis to let them know it was time, and we got to the hospital at about 9 a.m. I got my first ever wheelchair ride from the emergency room check-in to the labor and delivery ward. Dad and Marvis arrived at around noon. We had really nice nurses and it was kind of a comedy routine. There were six babies being born that day in the hospital, and the OB/GYN doctor was really getting worked hard. After a lot of pain and a lot of work, Vinny was born. The nurses delivered him because the doctor was busy with another birth, but we did see him afterwards.

The Longer Version

On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. Jeff called Dad and Marvis to alert them to the possibility that my water had broken. They were minutes away from leaving for work, with Dad leaving for a meeting in Indianapolis, so it was good timing. I drank a glass of milk and called the doctor, but it was still too early so they paged the on-call doctor for me. While I waited for that doctor to return my call, I drank a glass of milk and e-mailed my boss with some results from a supercomputer run that had run overnight, the news that my water had broken, and apologies for not being able to contribute more to the report that was due that day. I sent a message to my sisters alerting them to the water breaking too. I also called our secretary but it was too early so I left her a message that my water had broken.

Eventually I gave up on the on-call doctor so I called the now-open doctor's office, and they told me I'd better go to the hospital immediately. I asked them if it would be okay to take a shower first, and they said no, absolutely not, get to the hospital immediately. Jeff drove us to the emergency room. I was still wearing my nightgown, over which I had thrown a t-shirt, and I was wearing shoes and socks. My water was still leaking as I was standing there waiting to get checked in. I asked them if I could have a tissue to wipe up the water going down my leg. They gave me a tissue but as I leaned over to wipe my leg, even more water gushed out and I made a big puddle on the emergency room floor. I was so embarrassed. Eventually someone from the Labor and Delivery department came and gave me a wheelchair ride to the right floor. At that point I was feeling some cramps, kind of like uncomfortable period cramps, and losing this water (which felt kind of like peeing except that I had no control over it).

They had me change into a hospital gown, and put me in a hospital bed with lots of absorbent padding, and I signed a bunch of consent forms for various things that might happen. The nurses were really nice and they had good senses of humor, meaning that they laughed at my jokes. ;) Naah, they also were very nice and had good attitudes of their own.

The woman doing my IV hit the jackpot or the fountain of youth or something and I bled a lot. Luckily I did not once look over there as she was doing it because I can't stand the sight of blood. I hate needles enough as it is, which is why I refused to look in the first place, but Jeff tells me that it was pretty gory. My fear of needles is also what made me want to avoid getting an epidural, if possible.

Jeff was by my side the whole time, and Dad and Marvis arrived after noon. The contractions were getting more and more painful. Jeff helped me concentrate on my breathing, and Dad and Marvis rubbed me and wiped me with wet washcloths. But it got so painful that I was pushing my nose into the side of the hospital bed really hard, and deeply considering biting the handles on the bed too. Finally I asked for an epidural. Actually, I believe what happened was somebody brought it up and I said, "Can I have one please god." So I got an epidural. It was creepy because I had to sit with my back slumped forward in a particular way, and I told Jeff that I don't want to know how big the needle that they stuck in between a particular place in my spine was but I think it had to be huge. After the epidural took effect, I was back to a much more mild level of pain and I could once again converse and ride through the contractions. The OB/GYN on duty that day, who was not my regular doctor but a member of his practice, came in and checked on me. The problem was that all day my cervix was effaced but not at all dilated. So I was having these contractions but pretty much for nothing. He checked my cervix and it was still not dilated. I was cheerful enough by that point to joke around again, so when he mentioned that I'd had an epidural I said, "Yeah, I did and it feels great. I don't know what the f*** I was thinking before!" He got such a kick out of that comment that when he went back to the office he told everybody there what I had said.

They kept raising my pitocin level and eventually I did start dilating. And I soon got to the point where I was fully dilated, and couldn't hardly stop myself from pushing. Well, I could, but it meant that I had to tense up during the contractions, which made them hurt a lot, even in the epidural state. I told the nurses that I really needed to push. They wanted me to wait because the doctor was in another delivery. Eventually after they saw that I was fully dilated they let me push.

Pushing was very painful, even halfway numbed by meds. I can't imagine how unbearable it would have been for me without the epidural. Jeff was on my right, and Marvis was on my left, and they helped me push by counting and holding me up for the pushes. Dad cheered me on from the side. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and at times it felt hopeless. As I pushed him out, it got more and more painful, probably because I was tearing. But once his head came out, it was pretty simple from there. I felt distinct relief when his chin came out. Then I pushed out the first shoulder and it was pretty much over. He cried immediately when he came out. The nurses wrapped him in a towel and put him on my belly for me to see.

The doctor wasn't there when the baby arrived, but after a while he came in, collected the cord blood, and sewed me up. I had a fairly superficial although very long tear that he fixed up.

I can't describe my feelings when I saw Vinny for the first time. I know that every family member there had tears in their eyes when he came out, but when I saw that beautiful baby for the first time it was amazing. He looked so sweet and he was so calm. His eyes were just so deep. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then he glanced over at Jeff, then back at me, then back at Jeff, then back at me. After that, the nurses took him away and fixed him up while the doctor stitched me up, but I got him back within the hour.

I'll tell you more about him, and maybe even post a picture or two in a later entry.

Official Due Date

Today is Vinny's official due date. I would have liked for him to be born by now; in particular, before October 1 (which is often the cutoff date for school enrollment), but I guess they say you can't hurry something good. But it's okay, I guess, because this allows me to work longer, thereby accumulating more vacation time that I can use during my family leave.

On Monday I had a bit of a fright. I went to work as usual. But over the course of the morning, I found that I was getting ravenously hungry. I tried to ignore it and just wait for lunchtime. When I got up to go to lunch, I discovered that I was really dizzy, shaky, and was breaking out in a sweat. I managed to make it to the cafeteria and I promised myself that if I didn't feel better after lunch, I would get some help. Eating my lunch seemed to make a big difference, but just in case, I went to the lab's health department and had my blood pressure taken. It was normal, thank goodness. The nurse said it sounded like I had experienced a drop in my blood sugar. I went home a little early just to be safe. Then on Tuesday I worked from home. Jeff bought me some snacks to take to work with me today, so I didn't have to worry about a repeat of the low blood sugar.

I still don't know why my blood sugar dropped like that. I have never had that experience before, and since about the 3rd or 4th month of pregnancy, I have not needed to have a morning snack in order to make it through the day. So I don't know what happened.

Interesting Facts

Still around... no sign of Vinny yet. I thought I'd take this time to tell you some interesting things I've learned this week.

• Only 5% of babies are born on their due date.
  
• Most first babies are born late. (Damn!)
  
• Before a baby is born, its head drops into the mother's pelvis. This can occur anywhere between several weeks to just before the baby is born. As of my last doctor's appointment, he had not dropped yet.
  
• If I push on my swollen ankle with my finger, it makes a depression that doesn't immediately go away -- kind of like those Swedish memory-foam mattresses they advertise on TV.
  
• The super-duper computer doesn't like it if you try to open more than 128 files at once. Doing so causes your job to crash. In addition (something I figured out a few weeks ago), if your job requires more time than you requested, and the super-duper computer cuts it off, this results in a segfault and core dump. It took me a week to figure this out and after confirming with a colleague, this is indeed a "feature" of this machine (where "feature" really means "error"). They should really tell you these things so you don't spend a week trying to track them down.
  
• Facts about North American telephone area codes:
  
  
  
  • Telephone area codes used to be of the following format: xyz, where x is between 2 and 9, y is either 0 or 1, and z is 1-9 if y is 0, or 2-9 otherwise. In the case of y = 0, the area code was supposed to cover an entire state, whereas if it was a 1, the area code was supposed to cover only a city or part of a state.
    
  • Area codes with the fewest clicks on a rotary phone were assigned to the biggest cities. Thus, Chicago was 312 (6 clicks -- just add up the digits), while Hawaii was given 808 (26 clicks -- the 0 is really ten clicks).
    
  • From 1962 to 1981, only two new area codes were added to the system.
    
  • The proliferation of fax machines and cell phones resulted in the need to abandon this system, which is why today a telephone area code is of the form xyz = [2-9][0-9][0-9]. There are some reserved exchanges that cannot be used for area codes, such as x11, and the numbers 8yy (y= [2-5]) are reserved for future toll-free expansion.
    
  • There are still some area codes left, but not as many as we would like. There are various plans for increasing the number of available telephone numbers, including adding an extra digit to distinguish between United States and Canadian area codes.
    
  • If you're a numbers junkie like me, and you want to read more about the telephone number system, I got all this information from Wikipedia's articles about the North American Numbering Plan.
    
  
  

I'm a Winner... and You Could Be Too!

Last week, when I was at the lab's International Festival, I entered a trivia contest at the British Isles booth, and I found out today that I won the grand prize! Apparently I had more correct ansers than anyone else, which I find quite surprising but I'm not going to complain. Anyhow, I won a fabulous paperweight from the Orkney Islands, made from a round stone with a sheet of metal hammered onto it and etched with a winged dragon. It is pretty cool looking.

It seems like I never win anything, so this was pretty exciting to me. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it made my day. Usually, contests are random and so the probability is just not on my side. Other contests are based on guessing, and I am usually no good at guessing. So it was a welcome surprise to win something based on my knowledge of famous British people.

In honor of this, I want to share the joy of winning. Alas, the only contest I can think of is a guessing game, so it will be dependent mostly on luck, I'm afraid!

Answer the following questions before 7:00 p.m. EDT Thursday, September 28, 2006.
1. When will Vinny be born? (Give both a date and a time.)
2. How much will he weigh?

You can answer in the comments, or send me an e-mail with your guess. I will determine the winner and award an exciting prize. Good luck!

One Year

One year ago today, I started my job.

It's been a year of many adjustments, some easier than others. For example, adjusting to an income that exceeded my expenditures was not particularly difficult. Adjusting to the loss of my karate class and all my friends, that was tough. I don't think I had any idea what my life would be like today when I started my job. It's certainly much different than I might have expected.

In this year, I have made new friends. I still miss my old friends in Illinois, but I like the people here too. I have adjusted to hills and curvy roads after seven years in the flatlands. (It didn't take that long.) It was much harder to get used to my job. I feel like I work much harder at this job than I worked as a graduate student. In graduate school, the deadlines were more nebulous than they are here. I feel like I get along well with my boss and my colleagues, and that makes me happy. It almost seems like we all get along too well, and that makes me a little bit suspicious sometimes. I guess that's just my inner paranoia speaking.

The biggest adjustment is yet to come. I know that having a child is going to make my life very different. I mean, when I was a graduate student maybe I didn't work so hard but it was the same type of work. But I've never been a parent or even babysat regularly. The closest I've ever come to that is teaching children's karate once a week. But I had to deal with those critters for only one hour at a time, whereas this will be a full time gig.

Now that I've passed my one-year anniversary, I am eligible for family medical leave. It was quite a relief to pass the one-year mark without having to worry about my job. So son, feel free to come out whenever you're ready!

A Swell Week

Haha just a little pun there in the title of this post! I've been swelling a lot lately. I've taken to wearing shoes that enclose my feet so my feet don't swell so badly, but all that ends up doing is making me have really swollen ankles instead of really swollen feet. On Saturday I spent most of the day with my feet in water, and it felt pretty good, although it did little to take down the swelling.

I've been finishing up the sewing that Laura and I were doing for the nursery. This week I finished up the curtains and the crib dust ruffle. I complained to Marvis about being unable to iron for very long, because the standing was making my ankles swell. Well, suggested my brilliant bonus mom, why don't you lower the ironing board to sitting level? I don't know why I didn't think of that. Anyhow I did that and was able to do more sewing at a time.

Then, my sewing machine started squeaking really badly. It was so loud it was giving me a headache. So I bought some oil for it, and proceeded to oil everywhere, but it was still squeaking. Finally, Jeff helped me turn it upside down and oil underneath it, and fortunately, that's where the squeak was coming from, so after that I was able to sew without suffering.

As for work, I've been trying to finish up some important stuff so that I don't have to worry about getting it done before the baby is born. In particular, I've been trying to get this code running on our super-duper computer. So far, I don't yet have it running, and I'm not quite sure what's going on. But I am getting closer to figuring out the problem and assuming he doesn't come too early, I should have it done before I have to go.

Speaking of the baby, I guess most everybody knows, we've decided to name him Vincent David: Vincent because we like the name, and David after my beloved cousin who died a couple of years ago. We plan to call him by a diminuative of Vincent, but I have a question to pose to all my vast readership. How should we spell it: Vinnie or Vinny? There are potential advantages to both spellings, so I can't decide. Most people seem to be spelling it Vinnie, which is fine. But spelling it with a "y" means that it has one fewer letter, making it easier to type and possibly to write for those of us who are handwriting challenged. On the other hand, writing "ie" might be easier than writing "y." But I guess this is something that doesn't really matter that much anyhow.

Adventures in Travel

So we decided to get away this weekend for our last child-free getaway. Jeff decided that we should head south. We didn't actually end up getting very far, only to Chattanooga. But we had a good time because no matter where we go, being together is fun. Also, there are a lot of things to see and do in Chattanooga.

On Friday night, we got off the interstate at an exit that promised to have lots of hotels. It was a good thing it did, because we went to three hotels that didn't have any non-smoking rooms before we found a fourth hotel where we could stay. By that time it was very late and after I looked at some brochures about the area I went right to sleep.

We did not see the eponymous choo-choo. But there is a park where you can go and see it. Instead, we went to Rock City, a kitchy attraction made famous by barn advertisements throughout the nation. We never knew where it was until our neighbors told us it was there near Chattanooga (actually just a few miles south, in Georgia). It was an interesting place although a bit challenging to navigate. You walk along all these paths through rocks and gardens. I managed to squeeze through "Needle's Eye" and "Fat Man's Squeeze" although I'm glad we didn't take this trip a few weeks from now. I was pretty worn out by the time we got out.

Then, since we were so close and Jeff had never been, we drove into Alabama and had lunch there. In case you were curious, Chattanooga and Georgia are on the eastern time zone, and Alabama, about 20 miles west, is on the central time zone. After lunch in Alabama, we traveled back to Chattanooga and went to the Tennessee Aquarium, where we saw an IMAX movie before going into the two aquarium exhibits. Both exhibits begin at the top of the building and proceed downward. First we saw an exhibit about rivers, and it was really interesting. The other exhibit was about the oceans. By that time I was getting really tired. After we saw the aquariums we headed back to our hotel where we rested up before going out to dinner.

We left for home on Sunday, and we spent the rest of the day resting up. Then today we went shopping in preparation for packing our bag for the hospital. There were a lot of things we needed to get, including snacks, toiletries, a bathrobe, and nursing bras and nightgowns. Jeff had the patience of a saint while waiting for me to try everything on.

There are a lot more fun and interesting things to do in Chattanooga and I hope we'll get down there again someday. For example, there is the Chicamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway (which I want to ride next time), and a riverboat cruise. I never knew there was so much to do in Chattanooga.

Adventures with Imaging

On Thursday we got the first portraits of our son. Thanks to the wonders of 3-D ultrasound imaging, we now have pictures such as this one of our pride and joy:



It might be a little hard to see at first but it's a profile view. Jeff thinks his nose looks like mine, but it just looks like a typical baby nose to me. It looks like he may have inherited my lack of chin, but it's hard to tell because the umbilical cord is in the way.

We were also able to see some real-time images (which they refer to as 4-D, the fourth dimension being time) of him practicing up on breathing. You could see his chest moving in and out, even though he's just inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid. She confirmed that he is indeed a boy, no mistakes from last time. Also she checked out his size and estimated his weight at over six pounds. He seemed to be about two weeks ahead of the curve. Maybe that means he'll be born early.

With Apologies to Bob Dylan

How many times must a woman go pee,
before her baby arrives?
How many aches will she get in her feet,
her ankles, her knees, and her thighs?
How much more weight will she gain before then;
her ankles will swell to what size?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times will the baby kick me,
until he decides to come out?
How many days will it take me to lose
the weight that is making me stout?
And how good a mom will I turn out to be
and will I remain filled with doubt?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.

Busy B

I've had a busy week. Last week, I worked really hard at work. Then, on Friday, Laura came for a weekend visit. As a gift for Vinny, she came to help me sew for his nursery. It was a big help because thanks to my medial epicondylitis, I really can't do much sewing by hand. So we did the pieces that would require the most hand sewing first: the blanket and bumper. Thanks to Laura's excellent sewing skills, we finished both of those pieces. She also cut out all the pieces for all the other nursery pieces: the curtains, the valance, and the crib caddy. That was a big help because it's now a little bit hard for me to get on the floor, much less get up from the floor. So it's nice that all these pieces are ready for me to sew whenever I get to it.

The nursery theme is tropical fish. I looked at all the nursery themes at the store but was unhappy with them, so I decided to make my own instead. I found some great tropical fish fabric on the internet and went from there. The cost of the nursery is comparable to if we'd bought a set at the store, but it's more what we want. Plus it's made with love, so it's got to be better, right? :)

In addition to sewing, we also managed to talk a lot and have a good time. We took some time out to have fun, like going to what is the best Thai restaurant in East Tennessee, according to a friend of mine; eating delicious Mexican food cooked by Jody and delicious manicotti made by Jeff; and seeing a few sights around town. She also was kind enough to clean our gutters. I told her to come back any time!!!

I took Laura to the bus station early Monday morning, and then returned home and went back to bed. Then in the afternoon I went to the doctor because I was a little worried about the sudden swelling in my feet, hands, and face that I had developed. As it turns out, I'm just fine, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia.

Today, they held a baby shower for me and Jeff at work. As part of the celebration, Jeff got to come to the shower. Since he had a visitor's pass that was good for the entire day, he just came to work with me and read while I worked. I took him to lunch to experience the disgusting cafeteria food, and after lunch we went to an awards ceremony during which my boss got an award for being a good mentor. I was not the one who nominated him for the award (it was a summer student), but I definitely think he is a very good boss and I can understand why the student nominated him.

The baby shower was at 2:00. Lois, our department secretary, was the one who organized it. She had evidently been listening to me when I babbled to her about the baby, because the shower theme was tropical fish, with a cake decorated with tropical fish, paper plates shaped like tropical fish, and a tropical fish tablecloth. All the attendees, except for one woman from upstairs, Lois, and myself, were men, and in fact some of them said it was the first baby shower they'd ever been to. Lois said they had to play one shower game, so she had a list of baby-related words that they had to unscramble, and whoever got the most in three minutes won a prize.

I think everybody got together and gave Lois a bunch of money and she went and bought a bunch of gifts for us. There was a lot of stuff, and it was really great. In addition, my boss gave us a gift card, which was really nice of him.

It made me feel really good to know that all those people cared enough about me to chip in for this baby shower. I haven't been here quite a year yet but I have made a lot of friends and put down some roots. I am always surprised to (re)discover that people really seem to like me, and today I was pleasantly reminded that I am not as unlikeable as I appear to myself.

Busy Week

In addition to our anniversary on Tuesday, Jeff and I were out and about the next two evenings as well. A former classmate of mine and fellow student of my advisor was in town for a meeting, so we went out to eat with her on Wednesday night. She works at Argonne National Lab, and she graduated about five years or so before I did. She has two kids already and is pregnant with her third. She and I are due at nearly the same time! So Jeff enjoyed going out with two pregnant ladies. (Oh, the intrigue! Which one is his? Or are they both his?) We had a lot of fun talking with her. I asked her a lot of questions about the logistics of working and having a baby to take care of. She was happy to give me all kinds of advice. I'd say that she's the closest to a role model that I have these days. She shows that you can have kids and a successful career.

Then on Thursday, we had our first baby class, "Drool Time." Unfortunately, the class did not give me a chance to show off my drooling superpowers. In fact, no drooling was involved. If it had been, though, they would have all been terribly impressed by the sheer volume of drool that I produce. I have been told by dentists in three states that I produce more saliva than anyone they'd ever seen.

Seriously, though, "Drool Time" was an informative class. We learned a lot about baby care, such as how to bathe a newborn baby, and how to know when babies are sick. We have several more baby classes next month.

Speaking of baby, I had a checkup on Thursday, and the doctor said that he's doing just fine in there. At this rate of growth, we should have ourselves an eight-pounder, assuming he's born full-term. That baby is a busy little critter. One thing he enjoys doing is stretching out his legs. It feels kind of weird but it doesn't really hurt when he does that. I can see part of my belly rise slowly. It's kind of creepy but cool. Another trick he's developed is to backfist the uterus, BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM, really fast. That also feels weird but I think the leg stretching is weirder.

Good News!

I'm sorry that I haven't posted much on here, but I've been really busy with work. I can't post from work (well, I could, but I get so busy and also I don't think they'd appreciate me using gubmint resources in that way) and then when I get home I am usually so worn out that I can't do much more than sit around and stare at the television. Growing a baby is hard work, and I spend all my extra energy on my job.

But all the hard work on my job has paid its dividends. I'm not a staff member yet, but my boss told me last week that he's renewing my contract (which was expected) and giving me a generous raise (which was not expected)! So I am pretty excited about that. I hate to brag (for reasons that deserve their own post) but I have to say I believe that I am now the highest paid postdoc in my building. I may even make more than the incoming recipient of the named postdoctoral fellowship, after this raise. I was fortunate to have had that competing job offer which forced them to raise their offer by more than a third.

Women make a depressing 76 cents on the dollar to what men make, on average, but I think I am the outlying exception to that. I have been told that I am the highest-paid postdoc (with the exception of the named postdoctoral fellowship) by a long shot, and I get a certain pleasure from knowing that the only woman in the department makes a dollar on the 76 cents her male colleagues of similar experience make!

Adventures in Math and Pregnancy

One of my devoted fans (okay, my sister!) recently made the following request:
Hey, there hasn't been much math on this blog recently. Here's a challenge: come up with a topic that's about math AND pregnancy (just 'cause I find the pregnancy really interesting!)

Ha! I knew it! Somebody reads this for the math! (Either that, or she's trying to ruin my life.) In either case, I am too much of a math junkie not to talk about math when asked. (Maybe this entry will ruin her life instead of mine!)

It seems logical to take this opportunity to talk about probability and statistics and their relationship to genetic inheritance. As you probably know already, a sperm and an egg fuse into an embryo, which divides a lot and eventually becomes a baby (assuming all goes as normal). A human being usually has 46 chromosomes in each cell, and half the genetic material originates from each parent, meaning that the mother contributes 23 chromosomes and the father contributes 23 chromosomes. The chromosomes can be paired into 23 pairs of like chromosomes.

Chromosomes in a pair basically look alike, except for in the 23rd pair, which is the one that determines the sex of the baby. Females have two X-shaped chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y. So everyone inherits an X chromosome from their mother, and the father's contribution to this final pair is what determines their sex. There is a 50-50 chance that any given sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome.

Chromosomes are tightly coiled strands of DNA, and contain sequences called genes that "control a hereditary characteristic." As of 2001, scientists believe that humans have 30-40,000 genes.

There are many ways in which genes can control what we are like. Some traits are a result of simple inheritance, in which a single pair of genes determines the outcome. Usually there are two possible traits, and one is dominant over the other, meaning that a person having one of the dominant gene and one of the recessive gene will express the dominant trait. The actual genes a person has is known as their genotype, and the expression of those genes is known as their phenotype. For example, I was talking about the fact that I am Rh-negative. What this means is that my blood lacks a certain protein that the blood of Rh-positive people contains. Rh-positive is dominant, and Rh-negative is recessive. For simplicity let's denote Rh-negative as (-) and Rh-positive as (+). What are the possible pairings of these two genes? We can have four possible combinations: (+) (+), (+) (-), (-) (+), and (-) (-). Since (+) is dominant, the first three combinations will be expressed as Rh-positive, and the last one is the only case of Rh-negative. What are the chances that our baby will be Rh-positive?

I don't actually know Jeff's blood type. If he's (-) like me, then our baby will be Rh-negative no matter what, because no matter which of his Rh genes he contributes and no matter which of mine I contribute, the baby will have a genotype (-) (-). If Jeff is Rh-positive, then he's either (+) (-) or (+) (+). [(-) (+) is equivalent to (+) (-).] If Jeff is (+) (-) then our baby will be either Rh-positive or Rh-negative with equal probability, because Jeff's gene is what will determine the baby's phenotype, and the chances of him contributing either gene are the same. If Jeff is (+) (+), though, the baby will be Rh-positive no matter what.

Sometimes there are traits where there is not a simple dominant gene, but two co-dominant genes and a recessive gene. For example, the genes for the A and B blood types are co-dominant, while the gene for the O blood type is recessive. I have two O genes, because I am type O. Both of my parents, however, are type A. How could this be possible?

My parents' blood phenotype is A, but their genotypes must both be AO. They each contributed their O genes to me, so that is why I have type O blood. We can use a Punnett square to see how this works. The first row of the square represents one parent's possible gene contributions, while the first column represents the other parent's contributions. The four remaining squares show the possible outcomes of their offspring's genes.

	A	O
A	AA	AO
O	AO	OO

As you can see, there's a 3 in 4 chance that my parents would have an A-phenotype child, and only a 1 in 4 chance they'd have an O-phenotype child. It actually worked out this way in our family, because out of four children I'm the only one with type O blood.

A and B are co-dominant, meaning that someone who inherits the gene for A from one parent and the gene for B from another, will actually express both and have type AB blood. A person with type AB blood can never have a child with type O blood (although they could have a child with type A or type B blood).

Some traits are a result of the effects of multiple genes. For example, eye color is determined by at least three sets of genes, two of which are understood so far. One set is the brown-blue pair, where brown is dominant and blue is recessive. Another set is the green-blue pair, where green is dominant over blue but brown from the first pair is dominant over this pair. I have brown eyes. My father has brown eyes, and my mother has blue eyes. Jeff has blue eyes. So the color of our baby's eyes will be determined by what he inherits from me. The question is, what genes do I have? I know that for the first pair, I must have B-b (where B=Brown, b=blue). For the second pair, I must have inherited a gene for blue eyes from my mother, because that's all she had, whereas it is not obvious what I inherited from my father, because it's masked by the brown gene. I asked him if there was anybody in his family who had green eyes, and he couldn't think of anyone, so probably (although not definitively) I inherited a gene for blue eyes from him. This means that my eye-color genes are probably the following: B-b b-b. But since we're doing this for the math, let's pretend for the moment that my eye-color genes are B-b G-b. What are the possibilities for our child? Again we do a Punnett square, with my possible contributions along the top, and Jeff's possible contributions in the first column:

	B G	B b	b G	b b
b b	Bb Gb	Bb bb	bb Gb	bb bb
b b	Bb Gb	Bb bb	bb Gb	bb bb
b b	Bb Gb	Bb bb	bb Gb	bb bb
b b	Bb Gb	Bb bb	bb Gb	bb bb

The first two columns for our offspring are all phenotype brown, the third column is phenotype green, and the fourth column is phenotype blue. So he has a 50% chance of having brown eyes, a 25% chance of having green eyes, and a 25% chance of having blue eyes. This table is not very exciting because of Jeff's pure blue eyes. But, if I were having a baby with someone whose eye-color genes were like mine, we would get a very different result:

	B G	B b	b G	b b
B G	BB GG	BB Gb	Bb GG	Bb Gb
B b	BB Gb	BB bb	Bb Gb	Bb bb
b G	Bb GG	Bb Gb	bb GG	bb Gb
b b	Bb Gb	Bb bb	bb Gb	bb bb

In this case, our offspring would have a 3/4 chance of brown eyes, as only the genotypes in the lower right 2 x 2 of the subtable would have non-brown phenotypes. The remaining 1/4 chance consists of 3/16 chance of green eyes and 1/16 chance of blue eyes.

Of course as I said above, scientists have not figured out all the genes that influence eye color. For example, my mother has a yellow ring in her blue eyes. What causes that? Nobody knows (yet).

There are some interesting sex-linked traits that are caused by genes on the X or Y chromosomes. For example, baldness is a sex-linked trait. The genes for baldness are located on the X chromosome, but baldness is recessive, so if a woman has one set of genes for baldness and one set for not-baldness, she won't be bald. The Y chromosome, however, does not have those genes so whatever baldness genes a man has on his single X chromosome is what he expresses. This means that a man inherits his baldness from his mother's genes, not his father's, so the best way to tell if a boy might grow up to be bald is by looking at his mother's family. There are some bald men in my family, such as my maternal grandfather, and a few of my paternal uncles, but my father has a full head of hair, so I'm thinking there's probably not a high probability that our son will go bald as he ages.

I don't know what our baby will be like but I'm interested in what you all think. Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes? Brown hair, blond hair? Curly hair, wavy hair, straight hair? A, B, or O bloodtype? Rh-positive or Rh-negative? Any guesses?

Adventures in Doctors' Offices

Today I had two doctors' appointments, and made four additional appointments. At this rate, my number of appointments will grow exponentially, and I will spend all my time in doctors' offices.

In the morning I went for my monthly prenatal appointment. They took some blood because I am Rh-negative and they want to see about the antibodies. Next week I get a rhogam shot so that this and any subsequent pregnancies I may have won't run the risk of Rh disease (in case this or any subsequent baby is Rh-positive). Basically what could happen without this shot is that the if our blood mixes and the fetal blood is Rh-positive, my body will think there's an intruder and try to kill it. Also today the doctor tried to listen to the baby's heartbeat. He placed the microphone thingy on my belly, and the baby shoved it away. He tried this a few times and the baby kept shoving or kicking against the pressure, every time. He laughed and said that he knew the baby must be there and doing just fine with such a strong healthy reflex reaction. After I was done there, I made two appointments at the desk: one for my shot and one for another checkup three weeks from now.

Speaking of my belly, over the weekend Jeff felt the baby's movement for the first time. And I can see it move if I'm looking at the right time. And if you want to see how much I've expanded, here's a picture taken a couple of weeks ago (I'm even bigger now):



Anyhow, in the afternoon I went back to the orthopedist. In December, he had given me a handy-dandy shot in the elbow, which had really helped. Today, he was reluctant to do much of anything because he thinks my elbow problem has flared up because I am pregnant, like how people get pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel syndrome. But he did recommend me to have some occupational therapy, so I made an appointment for that and a follow-up appointment to see him again next month.

In the meantime, I read about my condition on the internet. As it turns out, I have medial epicondylitis, which is also known as golfer's elbow. Basically, I strained the tendon connecting my muscles to the humerus (upper arm bone) and this caused it to make lots of little tears. The tendon is made of collagen fibers all lined up together in parallel bundles, but the tears didn't heal right and now I have abnormally arranged collagen fibers and probably some scar tissue. According to the above hyperlinked website, there is a surgery for the most severe cases (I am a doctor, just not the right kind, but I think I might be a candidate for the surgery after the conservative treatments fail). What they do is open your elbow up and scrape away all the nasty fibers and reattach the tendon. Then, you have to have lots of physical therapy and it takes four to six months to heal up. Maybe after I the baby is born and nothing is working, the doctor will consider this surgery. In the meantime, I just have to endure the pain, try the therapy, and hope that something might actually work.

Adventures in Vanity

The weekend before I taught the supercomputing class, I decided to get a pedicure. Because, of course, all these people were going to be staring at my feet! Naah, but it's just one of those things: If you look your best, you feel more confident.

So I went to this certain establishment, the name and location of which is withheld for the moment. As the woman was getting rid of the calluses on my heels, she accidentally cut my heel. At the time, it just felt like a nick (like cutting yourself shaving) and I didn't think too much of it. But she was very apologetic and every time she caught my eye she apologized again and again. I wasn't angry because I knew it was an accident. I didn't complain about it; I just paid my bill and left.

It wasn't until I got home that I saw the full extent of the damage. It was actually a very deep cut, a square about 1/2" on a side, and right in the center of my right heel, exactly where your foot first contacts the floor when walking, and exactly where I can't see it very well without contorting myself.

So, during my course, I was glamorously limping around. But at least I had shiny toenails! This is my punishment for vanity, I mused.

But of course just limping for a few days would have been getting off too easy! Because I couldn't comfortably place my heel on the ground, I was just walking on my toes and I started to get really bad leg and foot cramps. Then, I noticed that the wound was still draining and it didn't seem to be healing up. I figured it was a good excuse to find a family doctor for us, so I asked the department secretary for a recommendation of a good doctor to establish a relationship with. She recommended a certain practice and I managed to get an appointment for this past Monday.

The doctor was impressed by the depth of the wound and the infection that I had developed. She cut out a bunch of dead skin that was preventing it from healing up, put a special dressing on it, gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and wants to see me for a follow-up appointment next week. In the meantime I am to take the antibiotics and keep the special dressing on it.

I think that the treatment seems to be working pretty well. I'm able to walk on it almost normally, meaning I'm now down to only half speed (due to pregnancy) rather than quarter speed like I was before. So maybe my punishment is coming to an end!

Ask a Pregnant Woman, Part 2

Laura had a question for the pregnant woman:

I'm interested in the "giving your body over to a stranger" concept, because that's something I think lots of people who haven't experienced it can't really fathom.

I think that's one of the main arguments of pro-choice people, that you shouldn't have to be pregnant -- that is, give up your control over your own body -- unless you've actually chosen to do so.

[Of course, you could say the choice to have sex was the choice to (potentially) get your body taken over by a very cute parasite (to paraphrase House!), so even that argument isn't necessarily pro-choice...]

My question is, are people patting your belly yet, or are friends and family relating to you differently, and does THAT also feel like giving yourself over to someone else?

Good question, Laura!

As for the "giving your body over to a stranger" concept, absolutely, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to be pregnant if you have not chosen to do so. Sure, if you have heterosexual sex, you run the risk of becoming pregnant (even using birth control), and that should be a risk that you are willing to take, under normal circumstances.

Of course the only foolproof way of not getting pregnant is to never have heterosexual sex. Unfortunately, this is usually unrealistic; sex is one of the basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. So birth control is a safe way to diminish the likelihood of pregnancy while satisfying this basic human need. For this reason, I am very much in favor of making birth control products such as the birth control pill, condoms, and spermicide, readily available. Still, these are not 100% foolproof (emphasis on fool) so we must be prepared to accept the consequences.

However, there are plenty of situations in which you are giving over more than you expected. If you are raped, for example, you are not making the choice to potentially get your body taken over; someone else is making that choice for you. Should you be required to carry that baby?

Or maybe, as it turns out, you have a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, "a debilitating and potentially life-threatening pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting with potential adverse consequences for the newborn(s)." (I think they theorize that one of the Bronte sisters died of this disease.) This was a risk that you didn't know you were taking when you made the choice to become pregnant. Should you be required to carry that baby?

I guess to me, the rights of the already-born trump the rights of the not-yet-born, and in these cases, the woman should have the choice to terminate the pregnancy. I think that it is important to accept the sovereignty of the woman over what happens to her body.

As for people treating me differently, I find that a lot more doors are held for me, my co-workers offer to take my tray up to the cafeteria window, and my boss treats me quite gingerly, making sure that I'm up for whatever task I volunteer to take on. For example, I'm teaching a one-day crash course in supercomputing, and he wanted to make sure that I would be up to it. On the one hand it's kind of nice to be treated so politely; on the other hand I'd rather just make the decision for myself as to what I am capable of doing.

Jeff and I have noticed that we get a lot of gifts from the future grandparents to their future grandchild, and not so many gifts for us. For example, when Dad and Marvis were here this weekend, they brought a gift for their future grandchild, whereas before, if they had brought a gift, it would be for us. After he is born I imagine that the attention will get even more skewed towards him. This is fine, it's just different from how things were before.

Nobody's rubbing my belly yet but I suspect that it's too small to be tempting yet. I'll let you know how it goes as time goes on.

Ask a Pregnant Woman

Being pregnant is an interesting experience. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm enjoying it, although there are certainly some things that I do enjoy about it (e.g. getting to eat more). Half the human population will never get to experience this, and as for the other half, there are plenty of folks who have not yet been pregnant, and some who will never be pregnant. Because of the fact that this is a relatively rare experience, I thought I'd offer up some answers to some questions you may be having about what I'm going through.

1. What does it feel like?
You know the feeling you have after Thanksgiving when you've overeaten and your stomach is stretched out, and you have to unbutton your pants? Imagine feeling stretched out like that, except that you're always hungry. That's what it feels like to me.

2. What does it feel like when the baby moves?
So far, I am only at about 22 weeks, so he is pretty small and weighs less than a pound. But for now, anyhow, it feels kind of like when you get a muscle spasm, only it doesn't hurt, it just feels weird. But as he gets bigger, I'm sure I will start to feel more.

3. What do you like the most about being pregnant?
Without a doubt, the thing I like the most is getting to eat a lot more than I would normally eat, and not feeling guilty about it. It's nice to have a second helping of dinner, and to eat leftovers for lunch. Before, I just ate salad or something very low in calories for lunch. But now I can't do that. That is, I can't do that if I want to be able to think about anything but food all day!

4. What do you like the least about being pregnant?
I dislike the fact that I'm always so tired. It was a lot worse in the first trimester. Also, I got a body pillow and that has made a big difference because I'm able to sleep much better at night. My biggest sleep-related problem is that I am a stomach sleeper, or if I can't sleep on my stomach, then I sleep on my back. Both of these positions are also conducive to keeping my arms straight, which is important for the sake of my left elbow and wrist. But I can't sleep on my stomach at this time, and sleeping on your back is bad too because it cuts off the circulation of a very important artery that supplies the uterus. So I have to sleep on my side, which is uncomfortable and makes it impossible for me to keep my left arm straight. Because of this I'm going to need to go to the orthopedist soon, I'm afraid.

5. Have you had any food cravings?
Nothing like the legendary pickles and ice cream or anything like that. During the first trimester I was extremely crazy about string cheese, which is odd because I've never been fond of cheese. Also one night I woke up and had to eat some grapes so I went into the kitchen and shoveled grapes into my mouth by the handful.

6. Have you had any food aversions?
I used to think that Santa Fe Beans and Rice was one of the greatest foods ever. So I made my own, and I seemed to have overdosed on them, because I can't hardly put a bean in my mouth anymore.

7. Have you had to change any of your habits or adjust your lifestyle?
Mostly I have eliminated artificial sweeteners from my diet. I used to drink quite a bit of diet drinks (diet root beer, diet orange soda, diet Kool-Aid, etc.) so I just drink water or milk instead. I read that the artificial sweetener acesulfame potassium is actually hazardous to your developing fetus, so I had to quit one of my favorite daily habits, chewing sugarless gum. Wintergreen is my favorite flavor. Unfortunately, even sugary gum usually has acesulfame potassium in it. The only brand of gum I found that did not have that sweetener in it was Double Bubble, and that gum is pretty much disgusting, so I have quit chewing gum altogether. I am looking forward to chewing gum again after he is born!

8. Any other comments?
To me, this experience has underscored how important it is for a woman to be pregnant only if she wants to be. If I didn't think that the outcome of this experience was going to be worth it, I would have a hard time giving over my body to this stranger for nine months. I'm glad that I'm in an emotional and financial state that is stable and that I will be able to support this new person in the manner that he deserves.

Questions for the pregnant woman? Feel free to post them in the comments.

En Pojke*

Sorry for leaving you in suspense, but the week has been quite busy. I'm taking some time out of my lunch hour to let you know that it's a boy we'll be expecting on or about October 4. He's an active little fellow, weighing only 11 ounces (why, then, have I gained 20 pounds?!?!), with a normal sized cranium, a good-looking face, a healthy heart, and extremely attractive gams (which he exercises regularly). We knew we'd be happy whether he turned out to be a girl or a boy, although it does feel like we're conforming to the family pattern (he will have only boys for cousins) and I'm not a big conformist, myself.

But that's about the extent of my complaints so now it's on to more questions, like what is he going to look like? Is he going to have (daddy's) blue eyes or (mommy's) brown? Is he going to be blond like his daddy or dark-haired like his mommy? Is he going to have short, stubby fingers like his mommy or the longer fingers of his daddy? And is he going to inherit my (lack of) chin? I guess we'll find that out in October!


*Swedish for boy