no sick days for the stork

The other day I counted all the couples I knew who are currently pregnant and it totaled up to 16 people (including my brother, Tyler, and his wife, Amanda). If you count the people I know who have had babies in the last three weeks (including my cousin, Julie, with her sweet Baby Sofia), it brings the number up to 19.

Nineteen!! It may be true that me and a large portion of my circle of friends are of prime child-bearing age and circumstance, but numbers this high make me impractically and irrationally baby hungry.

The amount of friends and relatives making baby announcements appeared to be growing exponentially and since I didn't want to suddenly discover that I, too, was pregnant, I went yesterday for an appointment at my new ob/gyn.

I am not pregnant. (And that sound you just heard was my practical, rational side releasing a heavy sigh of relief.)

But I have now checked "get annual physical exam" off my to-do list and have simultaneously established a relationship with a good doctor (who came recommended to me by most of the women in my ward) so that when the time comes for us to join in with the baby-announcement-making crowd, I will already be armed with a physician.

Going to the doctor in Brooklyn is different than going to the doctor...oh...anywhere else I've ever been to the doctor. The office is not located in a fancy schmancy clinic connected to a state-of-the-art hospital, but rather on the bottom floor of a home. It is a private practice in every sense of the word. My visit also had a personal feel to it that I'd never before been privileged to experience. It was the doctor himself who called me back, and before we went to the exam room, we sat and chatted for a few minutes in his office beneath his certificate-encrusted walls. I hadn't ever been given the chance to engage in an interview of sorts with my doctor, and I think I could get used to this sort of thing. In its own way, this appointment felt eerily similar to a visit to Dr. Cliff Huxtable at his private OB practice located in the first level of his Brooklyn Heights home.

(And though it has nothing to do with the office atmosphere, I for some reason feel it worth mentioning that, once you've gone through nine months of regular check-ups and have delivered a baby, an annual physical exam is a cakewalk and absolutely nothing to get stressed over.)

Even though it will be some time before my practical, rational side and my impractical, irrational side find a compromising middle ground on the baby-hunger issue, I do have a happy announcement to make. Yesterday at work, Blake was awarded a promotion and with it an accompanying salary increase and bonus. In the months since he began this job, he has worked incredibly hard and deserves every ounce of this reward. Congratulations, Blake! I'm so proud of you!