When we last reported on our lives (July 1996), we had just attended wedding number 4 for the year. Marc had just accepted a full-time position as a technical manager, with a company called ISX Corporation. Jonathan had started preschool at Temple Ahavat Shalom (before, he was going to preschool at Shomrei Torah). Jackie had just joined a new project at XonTech (which we forgot to mention in our last bulletin). Life was full of new beginnings.
Jackie is really enjoying her new project. It is in the requirements phase, which means she will be able to contribute to the entire life cycle of the project. It is being designed in an object oriented manner and written in an object oriented language, so it is on the forefront of technology. The people are all very high caliber and enjoyable to work with. Most importantly, it is intellectually challenging and stimulating work.
Marc's new job is just as exciting. He is doing advanced database research, developing new database techniques for the 21st century. If Jackie's project is on the forefront of technology, then Marc's is cutting edge. His project is also in the early phases, although being research, rather than product oriented, is following a less rigorous process. (This is actually good, because it means the tedious parts of the process have been eliminated.) Not surprisingly, Marc's project also involves object-oriented design and an object oriented language and is also very challenging and stimulating.
Marc also gets renewed acquaintance with something he hasn't missed for years -- business trips! In his first three weeks, he gets to take 3 trips. Fortunately, he gets to travel to the Bay area, which can (mostly) be done in a single day. Eventually, however, he may get the pleasure of visiting Washington, DC, Atlanta or St. Louis. Well, can't complain about those frequent flyer miles (unless the government starts taxing them, of course)!
Jonathan starts going to school 3 days a week (he had been going 2 days). Jackie starts taking off Tuesdays to be with him. Grandma Sharon watches him Mondays, as she has been doing for a year or more. Jonathan seems to take the new routine in stride, although sometimes he misses the time he used to spend with his dad. Jonathan also hits a major milestone -- he toilet trains himself! By the end of the month he is both day and night trained. All those people who say, "wait until they're ready" really know what they are talking about. Training was a breeze. He's never had a daytime accident and he's had less than half a dozen nighttime or napping accidents.
Jackie does something she has only done once in her life before -- she misses her period. A home test confirms what Marc and Jackie had hoped -- Their endeavors have been successful. Not being the kind to kiss and tell, they keep things quiet.
First the yucky news. Jackie experiences something she has missed out on so far in her life -- morning sickness. The bad news is -- she doesn't understand why they call it morning sickness. The good news is -- it's not all that bad. It's worst if she gets hot. So we run the air conditioning a lot.
The insurance company decides not to settle until after the %*&@! motorcyclist on cocaine has given his deposition. Jackie attends the deposition and is surprised by a number of things that he says, like
On a brighter note, we leave our cares behind and fly off to Chicago for wedding number 5. We check out the children's museum there -- definitely should be on your to-do list if you have kids! After that wedding, we rent a car and drive to Detroit. After a whirlwind two days of sightseeing (Greenfield Village) and relatives, we drive on to Toronto, for more relatives and more sightseeing (the CN Tower and the Toronto Science Center). Two days there, and we take off for Niagara Falls. Jonathan loved the falls, particularly the Maid of the Mist Boat ride ("look at the waves, Mommy") and going behind the falls. We spend the night in Corning, NY. The next morning we visit the glass museum there (worth seeing!) and the National Soaring Museum in Elmira. Jonathan loved the museum with all the planes and plane models, but his favorite part was the tiny amusement park (with 6 kiddie rides) that we found right after it! Then on to Kerhonkson (in the Catskills), where we spent 3 days at a dude ranch. The riding was fun, although the food was awful. Overall, we weren't impressed. Next on our tour was New York City - Long Island to be specific -- for more sightseeing, and (of course) lots of relatives (and a LOT better food). Ask Jonathan , and he will tell you that the thing he liked the best was the Statue of Liberty. We went there and Ellis Island. Too bad we didn't go earlier in the day, because there was plenty more to see on Ellis Island. Wedding number 6 was in New York, and then after a parting visit to Coney Island and (of course) Nathan's, we flew home.
Since Jackie is 36, Jackie and Marc had decided to do a CVS test (a chromosome test much like amnio) to rule out Down Syndrome and other chromosome defects. This test needs to be done in the 10th - 12th week of pregnancy. Well, we were gone for all of the 10th, 11th, and all but the last day of the 12th weeks. The day after we came back was the last day of the 12th week, so we scheduled the test for this day. This caused a small problem in that there are some cultures that need to be done in the week before the test -- you don't want to introduce an infection to the baby! Well, the week before the test we were in New York. How to do the cultures? "Well," we said, "we'll just arrange to have them done in New York. How hard can that be?" We found out. We found out that we could not make an appointment to have a culture done without seeing the doctor as a new patient first. And of course the first new patient appointment was in October. It took my doctor in L.A. to personally call the doctor in New York to get the appointment. Then we asked my L.A. doctor to fax us the list of tests, just in case the NY doctor didn't know what tests, or did a different set of tests. Of course this took about three tries before we were in one place long enough to get the fax, and we were able to get the correct fax number to the doctor! (The dude ranch gave us the wrong number to use at first, which didn't endear them to us either!)
Then we were faced with the not easily surmounted problem of dealing with New York directions. Maybe it's just us, but when someone tells us to take a street until it ends and then turn left onto Montock, We expect a) the street to end, and b) the street where it ends to be called Montock. Don't ask why we have such silly expectations. But, finally, we ended up at the appointed place at (almost) the appointed hour, only to be told that "They didn't usually do cultures for people who were not their patients. This is HIGHLY irregular." Well, EXCUUUSE me! Look, do the tests, or don't do the tests, but I don't care how often you do this sort of thing. They did the tests, but our ordeal was not over yet. "When will the tests be back?" we asked. "Ten days," they said. "Ten days! No, we need them by Tuesday." (This was Thursday, and Monday was labor day.) "Well we can send them to the lab STAT, but even so it will probably take 5 or 6 days." Great. Here we've gone to all this trouble, spent several hundred dollars (our insurance won't cover tests done in New York), and you're telling us that we won't have the tests back in time?! Our doctor said it would take 2 days. If we had known it would take 10, we would have done the tests in Detroit. Sigh. We gave them the number to fax the tests to and left, convinced that we were screwed, and that we were not going to be able to have the CVS on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, we troop down to Cedar-Sinai, convinced that we could not do CVS, and that our choices were amnio at 17 weeks or nothing, and low and behold, to our surprise, we were told that the test results were there. The doctors and nurses at Cedar-Sinai were all really nice, which, after the nastiness of the nurses in New York, was like a breath of cool air on a hot summer's day. The test was a piece of cake, and two days later we had results -- we are having a (chromosomally) normal baby boy!
Now that we knew that we didn't have to contemplate nasty options, we started telling people, which we hadn't done up until then. We saved telling Jackie's family for Rosh HaShona dinner, the same dinner where we had told them that we were expecting Jonathan, 4 years earlier.
So now we just finished the first trimester, and morning sickness is fading (not fast enough!) Jackie's stomach is pooching, although everyone tells her that she doesn't look pregnant. (What, I always look this fat? ;-) The due date is March 20th, although we're rooting for the 24th (our anniversary). Jonathan is excited about having a baby brother. It seems like a lot of people are pregnant now -- there's three of us at work -- all due in the late winter or spring (plus the wife of one of the guys). Two of my cousins are pregnant -- one due within a week of me, and a close friend (who got married on our anniversary, coincidentally) is expecting only a few weeks before we are! What fun!
So here's to a new year full of all the good things life has to offer -- good jobs, good friends and relatives, and best of all -- babies!
Love to All,
Jackie, Marc, Jonathan, and ???
P.S. If you have any suggestions for baby names please send them to: jzev@xti.com
You can also read our
Created 9/27/95. Send corrections, criticisms and comments to: jzev@isx.com