Habari Gani? (What's the news?)

I forget that Blogger posts blogs reverse chronologically, so the photos below are actually chronological as you scroll down...if that makes sense. I intended to make the most recent first, but it didn't happen that way. Enjoy!

Before you go thinking to yourself, "well, that's a boy!" I assure you that my doctor said what looks like a boy part on this image is not what you think it is. Get yer minds out the gutter, people!

Here is a 24 week ultrasound of our child. I can't help but to think he/she looks like a demon who is scratching at my womb...

I love my demon baby.

I'm being harassed into returning to my blog. I've been wanting to put up a new post, but I was planning on scanning in my ultrasound photos before I did so. Laziness has prevented both Sam and I from reconnecting my old, slow, illness-prone desktop computer, and we tend to just use my laptop all the time. Laptop, however, isn't connected to the printer. Guess it's time to do a little finagling.

So, stay tuned for baby photos.

I'm now officially in my 7th month of pregnancy. It's really good right now. I've been depressed, terrified, sick, angry, elated, anxious, and have happily settled into peaceful acceptance and thrilling anticipation. I can't wait for this new chapter in my life, in our life, to start. It's gonna be a doozy, and those who know me know I've had PLENTY of doozy chapters in my life already. I'm afraid nothing will be quite like parenthood. I cannot wait.

However, in the meantime I think Sam and I are packing in as much childless fun as we can. Sam went on tour last month, replete with literally blowing the doors off a club they played in downtown Atlanta. Okay, a tornado actually blew the doors off, and the heating units on the roof, and parts of the roof, and most of the windows out of their tour van, but it's more fun to blame it on rock n' roll.

I went to San Diego with my mom and sat on the beach doing nothing but reading. Everyone knows that that's WAY more fun than being on tour. At least when you're not in a band anymore. I got a tan, bonded with my mom, it was lovely.

This June I'll be taking 4 classes over two weeks at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sam think that's "fun" for me, and I guess it kinda is, but mostly it's a career advancing move, and someone else is footing the bill, so why not. I don't think I'll want to go anywhere for two weeks once I have the baby, so I might as well do it now.

Some of you may know that I'll be transferring to Washington University this fall. The George Warren Brown School of Social Work and Wash U's School of Medicine are jointly starting an Institute of Public Health. My mentor is leaving SLU to GWB, and I'm going as well. I'll transfer in as a second year PhD student, and it shouldn't change too much for my coursework and timeline. I'll keep doing the work I'm doing in cancer communication, but now I'll have everything paid for and get a stipend that isn't even linked to work. Sweet, sweet deal. You gotta love rich institutions. I'll continue to work part-time in the Lab as well, after I get back from maternity leave, perhaps mid-October. But school starts August 27th, and I won't miss a beat of that. Hooray for grandmas and aunts.

I'm trying now to hook up the printer. Stay tuned as baby is on the way...