Female Carrier Type

It has been quite the roller coaster ride over the past couple of months.

During August, Mr. CrazyCat and I dropped off his freshman twins at their respective colleges. I wish I could say that the experiences of dropping off each child went really well. Mr. CrazyCat and I did our best to make their move as easy as possible, however their mother really went out of her way to make the experience as miserable as possible. Being the eternal optimist, I hope next year's move will go a bit better.

Less than a week after dropping off the last child at school, Mr. CrazyCat and I took a holiday trip up to the CrazyCat family farm. During the trip I had sneaking suspicion that life as I new it was going to change forever. After returning from the trip I used a rudimentary chemistry set (cup, dropper & test strip), took my results to Mr. CrazyCat and announced that I was pregnant.

Good Grief!

This certainly wasn't something that we were trying to accomplish, however we weren't exactly trying to prevent it from happening either. The results certainly took us by surprise. So my next step was to make an appointment with my OB/GYN to confirm the pregnancy. To my surprise, a positive home-pregnancy test means you're really pregnant. I had no idea. I learned it is the negative result that one must be leery of.

That evening Mr. CrazyCat and I, armed with the lone test result, made the rounds to the grandparents-to-be and made our announcement. I'll admit, telling my parents that I was pregnant was really exciting - much more so than when we announced our engagement. Mom had been in ill-health since the beginning of the year - bacterial pneumonia which lead to a diagnosis of lung cancer which lead to her treatment of radiation & chemo. To tell her that she was going to be a grandma was probably the best news she received all year. Sadly though she would not survive to meet her grandchild as she passed away on October 8. Being pregnant for the first time and coping with the loss of my mother hasn't been easy. I thought for sure that she'd be around to help me register for the baby shower, be there to answer my frantic 'first-time-mom' phone calls and to enjoy being a grandmother to my child. I wonder if she had many of the same thoughts after she and dad adopted me as she lost her father just two weeks before I was born. It's strange how life has the habit of repeating itself.

Many of our friends have asked us if we were going to the learn the sex of the baby prior to the birth. It was a no-brainer - we wanted to wait for the surprise. Recently I called the OB's office to receive the results of my CVS test. The nurse ruffled through a bit of paperwork to find my file and then proudly announced...

Nurse: "The results are normal for a female carrier type. "
Me: "umm... ok.... What is a female carrier type?"
Nurse: "A female carrier... female sex... you're having a girl."
Me: "Oh! Oh. Thanks."

So there you have it....I'm having a female carrier type.