So, last week I made a quick post titled Molybdenum is Coming. It was just a picture of a square from the periodic table. But it was a code. A code I figured at least one of the readers of this blog would get.
Indeed, one did, and he proceeded to email a number of the friends we have in common, clueing at least that small group in to what it meant.
I also explained what it meant on the last episode of Curmudgeon’s Corner, titled Element 42.
I had intended both the original post about Molybdenum, and this explanatory post to happen a little over two weeks later than I actually made the posts, but some folks were anxious to get the news out the door sooner rather than later. Namely, Amy was just about ready to burst wanting to tell everybody she knew. :-)
Anyway, for any of my other readers who have not already figured it out or found out through other means, here is the explanation…
For many many years, whenever the topic of baby names came up, I would joke that if I ever had a girl, I would name it Molybdenum. Because of course it would be Molly for short and that would be a good name, plus it would be an element, and how cool is that, and also, it is Element 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything, and you just could not top that!
So yes, although there were only a handful of people who would even have a chance of getting the reference… I still figured I’d use the Molybdenum thing as my pseudo announcement that yes, indeed, Brandy and I are expecting a baby…
For those of you who didn’t get the reference, or were not told about this by someone who did, this post is the official, non-cryptic announcement of that fact. :-)
To answer the most common questions, either those people actually ask, or that they probably think but don’t ask:
- Officially at the moment the due date is September 21st, although the doctor has given us dates as early as September 6th, depending on which thing she was looking at.
- We’ve been planning this for a couple of years now.
- No, there almost certainly won’t be a rush wedding between now and September.
- We may however actually start Brandy’s divorce proceedings against her husband who she hasn’t seen in over a decade.
- Yes, Amy is very excited to have a sibling coming.
- Yes, we plan to find out the sex in advance.
- Yes, there is a registry.
- My home office will become the nursery, I will move downstairs with Mike the skink.
- Yes, I know having a baby in the house will change almost everything.
- Yes, we told our parents and close relatives and such a number of weeks before I made the Molybdenum post… I didn’t make them find out by reading my blog.
- Yes, the picture is a sonogram of Molybdenum… from several weeks ago… February 9th actually.
- No, Brandy won’t actually let me name the baby Molybdenum. Drat!
- Umm… any other questions?
Anyway, we’re all very excited.
Molybdenum is coming!
Yes, just one:
Does your baby have a tail?
There’s something labeled as “tail” on the sonagram. I don’t remember a “tail” being labeled on Gideon’s.
Not that I’m being critical or saying there’s anything wrong with your baby having a tail.
And those things called arms and legs…i think they’re called something like “buds” cuz they’re not yet officially limbs.
i’ve congratulated you already, but this is all very awesome. i’m really excited for you to be able to experience taking care of and raising a baby.
oh, and when emma was born, her due date was Setp18…and she came on Sept8. lily was also born 10days early, but who know…maybe Molly will share a bday with Emma…
It probably no longer has a tail. The vestigial tail is usually visible in developing human embryos from about 4 weeks in to about 8 weeks in, after which it is absorbed into the fetus. This sonogram was taken at just about the end of that range, and the doctor specifically pointed out and mentioned the tail at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality#Coccyx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail#Human_tails
And as for the “buds”.. they are “arm buds” and “leg buds”. So close enough damn it! :-)
And yeah, kids don’t tend to pay much attention to what the doctor says about due dates. They do what they damn well please. :-)
Ah, I didn’t have mine taken until 5 months — no tails on m kid!
5 months? Wow.
We’ve had three already, and a fourth is scheduled for this coming week. The one with the tail was the second one of those.
We haven’t had a single doctor’s visit yet that didn’t include one, plus they sent us for two other separate ones.
I’m guessing this is in part age related. B’s only a few years older than you were when you had Gideon, but it is enough of a difference to put us in the category where they decide better safe than sorry, and do a whole bunch more tests to check for various things that can potentially go wrong that rapidly get more likely as you get closer to the end of your thirties than to the beginning of them.
I believe in this coming test this week, they will be measuring all sorts of things to make sure that all the body parts are developing at normal rates and in the correct proportions, as if they are not, it can be a sign of a variety of bad things that would force us to make hard decisions if they came up. I gather chances of serious issues that might be found at this stage given Brandy’s current age are about 1 in 200. Which is small… but not trivial either.
We’re of course trusting we’ll be in the 99.5% with no issues worth noting.
But I guess you never know.
you’re right in thinking the quantity of ultrasounds is probably due to age if every dr visit you’ve had one. for us, they only occurred around 10wks, at 20wks, and maybe one other time beyond that. but when we had emma, the 20wk ultrasound found low amniotic fluid (which put laura on bed rest for the next 5mths), which then triggered an ultrasound at every visit. but with lily and the one on the way, there have only been 2-3 ultrasounds.
sonograms…those are the ones that happen every visit for us.
I think I only had one at five months. I was 31 at the time — if you’re 35 or over your automatically pegged as a “high risk” pregnancy, I think.
Wait… when I first read Matt’s response, my first thought was “Am I screwing up and not recognizing the difference between ultrasounds and sonograms?”. But I checked to make sure… no… a Sonogram is the actual picture produced by an Ultrasound test… so you can’t have a sonogram without an ultrasound…
There are of course different kinds of ultrasounds though. For instance, there are ones done externally… and then there are those done using an internal probe… are you thinking of that sort of difference? They are both ultrasounds though (and both produce sonograms).
I had actually forgotten one when I listed them above. So far we’ve had FOUR. One of those was the more invasive internal ones. The others were the external ones done by the OBGYN themselves.
We’ve got a fifth one scheduled for this Friday, not sure which type it is. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.
I had one at 5 months (the yucky internal one) — and maybe one external one near the end. That’s it. My appointments consisted of getting weighed, baby heartbeat, my heartbeat, blood pressure, sometime blood or urine taken, sometimes invasive probing by the doctor — and then the end of the consultation where Chris would rat out my diet to my obgyn.
My advice to you Sam, don’t be a fucking rat.
Yup, we are definitely over the age to get the automatic pegging and resultant much more increased frequency of tests and such.
Rat, Rat, Mickey Rat!
Ah, found ours: See, no tail:
http://email.ops-netman.net/picts/sonogram-20-wks/100/sono-06.big.jpg
my bad. i didnt mean to confuse the issue between sonograms and ultrasounds. what i meant to say was that a fetal doppler was used each time we had a physician’s visit to hear the heartbeat, and we only had a ultrasound/sonogram 2, maybe 3 times over the course of the normal pregnancies (lily and the bun in the oven right now), while emma had the complication and required more ultrasounds/sonograms.
I like the labels. Too bad about the tail. Tails are good.
I haven’t heard a heartbeat yet, only seen it.