Viva Italia! Vivo Bambino!

I would love nothing more to have a story I could tell our daughter one day about *where* she was tastefully conceived.  "We-ah made-ah the sweet-ah love-ah in-ah Venice-ah, and-ah ya mama had her belleh blessed by the Pope-ah when at-ah the Vatican-o..beepa boppa boopa..."

As it stands, my version of "How I Met Your Mother" is definitely not a story I can tell her until she's at least...well, I think I'll just let my wife tell her the sanitized version. 

Anyway, I love travel.  I love traveling overseas.  And gods, I was stupid excited to spend a week treading the streets of Rome/Florence/Venice for just the historicity of it all.  I thought that if a week in Paris had my head spinning with joy a few years ago, this was going to blow my mind:  Collosseums, Huge Statues of Naked Dudes, Canals...


And then my wife promptly proceeded to throw up all over it.


Chapter 5

"Drinking for 2?"

I think having a healthy and calm mind is important when you're trying to make a baby.  Time was passing and we were starting to return mentally to the baseline of normalcy, and resume our efforts earnestly in trying to make a tiny human.  The trip to Italy was quickly coming up (right after Labor Day, 2018), and while we were doing that last minute travel fretting of getting house and pet-sitters in order, reviewing itineraries, checking passports...2 weeks before we left...we...oh heck...I'd love it if you guys heard my wife tell it:  (Transcribed with permission)

So on August 26th my best friend was in town from Milwaukee.  We decided on lunch and a shopping trip to Marshall's,  and as we were perusing discounted fitness-wear I said "I JUST need to say this out loud to someone: I'm three days late and my boobs hurt".

So, my best friend being my best friend said what you need your best friend to say in these instances when you're in the far away suburbs of Blaine,  and she said "OK.  Let's go next door to Wal-Mart, go to their pharmacy section, and get you a pregnancy test."  (My wife, knowing what they're about to do adds) "We need to make sure to find a check-out lane with the most awkward teenage cashier there is".  To which her BFF said:  

"OK.  Then let's make sure we do it RIGHT in the Wal-Mart bathroom to complete this high-class circle"

So it was on this fateful day, that I peed on a pregnancy stick in the Wal-Mart Bathroom- while at the same time in the stall next to me some mom was wiping the butt of her screaming child.  I don't know why that seemed funny to me at the time, but you can write that down too.

Anyway, the test was a "Positive", but the *control* line never showed up.  So I told my BFF who then said we were going head over to Brick's Restaurant and have a big glass of wine and then pee on the other stick. 

And this turned out to be the last glass of wine I would have for 9 months..."

And that, my dearest daughter, is the story of you.

She came home with the test(s), which for some weird reason (surprise) I put in my nightstand and asked if she'd take another one the next day.   (Which meant three plastic pee strips in my nightstand and don't judge me)  Having gone through that last bout of hope and heartache earlier in the year left me a over-cautious and not wanting to take chances.  (Also, is this it?  Are we ready?)    At that point, part of my own re-balancing was getting back to the "just the two of us" mentality...plus plus...we were going to a country that is famous for wine, and you don't just up and get pregnant right before international travel!  It wasn't lost on either of us that our first attempt at child-growing coincided with her dry South Padre Spring Break vacation earlier that year.

Hence the joke "drinking for two".  Yay, we're pregnant, AND on an overseas adventure!

To conclude this chapter, I want to mention that Costco travel is fantastic.  Part of our hotel package was a full continental breakfast.  We anticipated this would mean coffee, juice, and a couple of pastries to tide us over until lunch,  but our concierge brought us back into a room where we were greeted by what can only be described as "First Hogwart's Meal in the Sorcerer's Stone" sized breakfast buffet.   Me, being a Hippo McBoom-Boom was in Heeeeavan- We had fruit, eggs, thick bacon, sausages... they even had amazing smelling vegetarian food (CHANA MASALA FOR BREAKFAST? DON'T MIND IF I DO!) toast, chocolates...it's like your mind says "Yes, you're on vacation and screw your diet because you are going to be horsefooting all over Saint Peter's relics in 2 hours and seeing the Sistine Chapel with your own eyes so it's time to fuel up, mo-fo..."


Oh crap...

Most mornings my wife would wake up a shade of palish green.  She would generally start her morning sucking down Preggie Pops* and just praying to hold down a bowl of dry corn flakes.   This is in addition to the shift into pregnancy that demands you dial back the caffeine intake- so she was nauseous, *and* had some low-grade headaches.

In the subsequent re-tellings of our trip, my wife will tell you she liked France much better than Italy.  If you have a social media subscription and look through our pictures from Italy and see my wife?   You're looking at a beautiful woman who is fighting morning sickness on the daily, followed by ravenous hunger by about 11am.  In short, it was still a dream trip.  Albeit one where a developing human had a marked effect on our individual enjoyment.




**Preggie Pops are a thing.  They're these citrusy, sour hard candies that my wife told me about after we learned she was pregnant.  She tried picking some up at Target before we left- but couldn't find them.  But I hunted them down.  And thankfully, they helped get her through some of the worst mornings of our trip.  Just not the shitty risotto at that one place.  Ugh.