Author Archives: Becky Bean

The DragonMonkey

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You know, I thought I’d spend a whole long post trying to explain why The Bean and I decided on “DragonMonkey” as a pet name for our soon-to-be-born son. Then I realized that this is definitely one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is the picture I saw when discovered I was pregnant.

This is not exactly what I was expecting to see when I typed in “fetus, age 6 weeks”. I understood on some level that it wasn’t going to look like a Gerber baby, but really. I mean, my fetus had a tail. It also appeared to be growing itself some handy little spinal spikes. Horrified, I immediately forwarded the photo to The Bean, and let him know that it looked like we weren’t going to be having a baby after all, but rather a baby dragon.

He replied that it was just the pregnancy hormones talking, and that I should calm down. It was obvious that we weren’t going to be having a baby dragon, but rather a baby monkey. In fact, he seemed quite pleased by the idea. He told me that he would rather have a monkey than a baby anyways. After all, as Dane Cook points out in one of his skits, monkeys make faces that are socially unacceptable in public, and are prone to flinging their poo about in a festive manner. Who wouldn’t want as an addition to the household rather than a baby?

I countered with the fact that a dragon would be MUCH handier to have about than a baby, as it could fly us around whenever traffic was bad, and singe any noisy neighbors with fire from it’s gullet (the gullet is the incorrectly labled “heart prominence” in the above photo.)

This discussion continued on for some time, until we finally came to the conclusion that we were probably both right. So, there you go. Within the next couple of days I should be giving birth to our firstborn, The DragonMonkey. Wish me luck!

Catch-up post

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Okay, so I know I keep saying that I am going to return to the world of blogging, and make regular updates…

But promises, promises, promises. You guys have heard it all before. I just thought I would jump on quickly, make a quick, disgruntled post, and then log back off. Unfortunately, I realized that without any context, this post wouldn’t make much sense at all. So, here’s my context:

I got married to a wonderful, wonderful man, who I shall promptly dub “The Bean”. The Bean and I are expecting our first child, and due to our shared, sick sense of humor that child is called The DragonMonkey.

I will fill you all in later on how that came to be, but I’m not joking. I know we’re going to have to come up with a real name one day for our future son, but at the moment, we’re just calling him The DragonMonkey.

Anyways, now that you are all filled in on why I have been so absent lately, allow me to vent.

After a really irritating time trying to track down an Ob/GYN near our new home, we finally found one near our house. I went to my first appointment with this new doctor a couple of weeks ago, and discovered that he seems to be intelligent, competent and friendly. What more could I ask for? Since that time, I have been seen by the Nurse Practitioner in his office, and really haven’t had that much of a chance to interact with him.

That is until last Thursday. Last Thursday I had more than enough time to interact with him, and I have a REALLY bad feeling about having him as my delivery doctor.

First off, the man is entirely too happy. I mean, I’m all for smiles and giggles, but there needs to be some boundaries. I understand that the whole world loves a pregnant woman. I even understand that Dr. Smiles really, really loves his job. Nevertheless, there are certain aspects of childbirth that I just don’t find funny. Episiotomies, for instance. (If you don’t know that is, you can look it up. I am NOT explaining it.) Call me grumpy, but when somebody is laughing and smiling in joy while discussing uniting sharp objects and my “cooter”, I get annoyed.

When that same someone is laughing, smiling in joy, and discussing my future episiotomy in THIRD PERSON, I start having issues.

Who in the world talks about themselves in third person? I mean, aside from a joke? Don’t they teach this stuff in medical schools? “THOU SHALT NOT REFER TO THYSELF IN THIRD PERSON”, or something like that?

If you think I’m overreacting, allow me to give you a little excerpt from last Thursday’s appointment:

Dr Smiles (smiling, of course): “So, do you have any questions or concerns you would like to talk to Dr. Smiles about?”

Me (embarrassed to be discussing my “cooter” with a relative stranger : “Well, actually, I just wanted to say… if it’s at all medically possible, uh, during the, uh, delivery… Um. I would like to avoid an episiotomy? Uh? Is this possible? It’s not standard, is it?”

Dr. Smiles (his smile widens to a grin): “Does Dr. Smiles look like the kind of man who would want to create unnecessary work?”

Me: “So, does that mean that we can avoid, uh, cutting? Unless it’s necessary?”

Dr. Smiles (leaning back against the counter, and laughing): “Now, why would Dr. Smiles cut if he didn’t have to?” Chuckle, chuckle. “Why would he spend all that time cutting, and then all that time stitching up, unless it was necessary? Does Dr. Smiles look like that kind of a man?” Chortle, Chortle. “Dr. Smiles isn’t going to do any unnecessary cutting. That just wouldn’t make sense.” Chortle, chuckle.

At this point, I can’t even remember what my response was. I think I was too taken aback by my dawning horror. How had it escaped my notice before that this man semed incapable of using a first person pronoun? I understand that when I am in active labor that I’m not going to be focusing on grammar, but REALLY. Can you blame me for worrying? I have a horrible feeling that labor is going to involve Dr. Smiles laughing and issuing directions like “Dr. Smiles thinks you should bear down a little harder! Hahaha! Dr. Smiles thinks you’re doing juuust great! Tee-hee-hee! Dr. Smiles says you can take a break now!”

http://www.trilulilu.ro/embed/flash.php?type=video&hash=bffd82441bbe6a&userid=Ana&src=hi5

Becky doesn’t think that this is going to go well at all. No, she doesn’t.