Going for No. 1 Baby

If this pregnancy sticks around -- and I'm still not remotely convinced that it will -- the due date is January 3, 2008. Two random things strike me about this date:

1. We might narrowly miss a nice 2007 dependent tax deduction. (Shoot.)
2. We have a shot at first baby of the year! woohoo!

I'm by no means impressed by the idea of getting on TV, especially in a post-childbirth state, but I do seem to recall some fabulous prizes are awarded, such as diapers (for the kid) and jewelry (for mom). I wouldn't mind some free gifts. It would also be a great story to tell the family.

But I do feel bad for the potential kid -- January is a terrible month for a birthday. Everyone's done with parties after the holiday season and people just want to hunker down inside. One year, as a kid, I celebrated my January birthday in June so I could have a pool party and we could go horseback riding. As an adult, I've had several birthday celebrations canceled due to terrible weather or plague.

Regardless, I'm definitely getting ahead of myself. The kid thing all remains very theoretical to me.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to stick to the rules and avoid eating uncooked sushi or hot dogs or Italian subs or basically any of the things I always ate as a treat. Yesterday I nearly had a sub anyway, but then I looked up Listeria online and saw that it causes miscarriages. If I have another miscarriage, I want to know for sure that it WASN'T due to consumption of deli meat.

So, no sushi, no cold cuts. No soft cheeses (although I still do have pasteurized feta in my Greek salad -- I gotta draw the line somewhere). No decongestants, which sucks today because my sinuses are killing me. No wine, which is a major drag, especially because my hormones are causing a lot of anxiety and a glass of wine would take the edge off.

It's hard to take these prohibitions seriously, because I still have the mindset that it would be foolish to expect to end up with a baby in January. Right now, if all is developing normally, it looks like a tiny pink worm. It doesn't start resembling a baby until about 10 weeks. But I had a friend who miscarried at 10 weeks, and another friend who miscarried at 13 weeks -- right after she made it out of the high-risk time period.

I wonder when I'll start believing this might actually happen.