Polenta

So the other day we came to the realization that if we found out we were having a baby girl, we could no longer refer to the baby as "Stinklebert" (mostly this was at my insistence as well as the protest of grandmothers who did not entirely approved of the placeholder name to begin with). Brady offered up the option of “Stinklebertha.” We were making polenta for dinner and agreed on that as the new placeholder name if we found out we were having a girl. Well, we are happy to announce that “Polenta” is on her way (don’t worry, we do have some real, grandmother-approved names in mind, but until we decide, she’s Polenta). The technician said he was sure. We could even tell at certain points during the ultrasound before he told us. We are very excited to meet her in November! (So far the due date is still set for the 9^th)



Here's the best profile shot. We actully didn't get any pictures printed out, but a DVD of the whole thing. So I tried to get some good screen shots to include.

We have a thumbsucker. The technician said sometimes it just looks like babies are sucking their thumbs in the pictures, but he said she was really going at it. When we watch parts of the DVD, we can actually see the sucking motion. We can also see lots of wiggles. She does not like to hold still to get her picture taken. The technician had to come back for several shots of her face because she was squirming so much.

This is my favorite one. We didn't expect anything like this at all, but right at the end the technician said he wanted to try something. He got out a different attachment for the ultrasound and took a few shots. They just looked like blobs at first, and then he started to pull away layers of the picture and we could see her little face. She was facing the placenta, so he couldn't get a shot from the front, but this was pretty great.

We are going to see if we can get any of the video clipped (don't worry, we wouldn't post 30 min. of ultrasound). So if we can, we'll put a good 20-30 sec. segment of thumb-sucking for you all.

Does this thing run?

So, for the past few weeks I've been toying with the idea of a marathon.  I wanted something to really challenge myself and I've really enjoyed running lately.  Then the New York Times's health blog took on marathon training in preparation for the New York Marathon.  Then I started hearing people talk about running marathons.  So the idea's been working on me for a while.  I started combing the internet and reading all about marathons.  It turns out there is a lot of advice out there.

Long story short, from everything I read I was persuaded that given enough time I could actually work up to a marathon.   After searching out just about every marathon that wasn't on Sunday within a 6 hour drive of Knoxville and found myself two options.  If I can be ready within about 6 months I can run the St. Jude's Marathon in Memphis on December 5, or if I need more time I can do the Nashville Country Music Marathon (yeah, I know) on April 24.

So . . . I'm gonna do it.  I'm officially declaring my marathon candidacy right here on this blog today.  I think I'll decide which marathon to run by about August.  I want to give myself plenty of time to get ready without injuring myself.

Since I decided to do a marathon I went to Barnes & Noble and thumbed through the books on running/marathoning.  I found a book called ChiRunning that has really surprised me.  The author has devised an approach to running that is based on principles of Tai Chi.  The focus is on good running form that engages core muscles while relaxing the legs and arms.  You get momentum by leaning and letting gravity pull you forward while lifting up your legs to catch you from falling and perpetuate the forward momentum.  The technique is a lot easier on your body than normal running and is quite energizing.  If you're a runner or you're thinking about taking up running I highly recommend it (send me an email and I can forward you some info if you want to try it).

My first milestone will be a race some of us are doing on the 4th of July up in Boise.  It's a 6-miler which will be a first for me.  We'll see how it goes.

Heartbeats and Miracles

These are some pictures of a quilt I started six or more years ago. It wasn’t one of those baby-hungry, jumping-the-gun kinds of things. A friend and I threw a baby shower for another friend and we had a quilt set up for people to work on at the shower. We used this fabric. I really liked it and found out that they were maybe going to discontinue this particular pattern, so I decided to just get it then and save it for whenever. Sometime that year I had a really bad cold, so I had a lot of sitting around time and made the quilt, but I never finished the edges. I put it in a box and meant to finish it soon.

Probably a year after that, we moved to a two-bedroom apartment, hoping that we would get to use that second bedroom as a nursery. I found the quilt again but promised myself I wouldn’t finish it until I was actually pregnant—I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, which is such an easy thing to do when planning a future. Occasionally, over the next several years,  I would come across this quilt, look at it and be sad for a while that we still didn’t have a baby, then fold it up and put it back in its box, still unfinished. Some of you are more aware than others of the difficulties we faced during those years. Infertility is such a sensitive issue and not one that people are generally open about. Brady and I kept this pretty quiet—for a long time probably quieter than we should have. We worked with all kinds of doctors trying to get my health more stable and trying to figure out why I wasn’t able to get pregnant. We went through various fertility medicines, tests, and procedures. The doctors couldn't explain why none of the procedures would work for us. By last summer, we were completely worn out with the whole thing. After a lot of prayer and struggle, we decided to be done with all the treatments. We felt that we would be parents someday, but how and when really wasn’t up to us.

Well, all of that is quite a bit of exposition just to say that I finally get to finish my quilt. Early in March we were caught completely off guard by a positive pregnancy test. We were so reluctant to believe our eyes at first (I dreaded even taking the test—we’d had so many disappointments).  Again, we’ve kept this pretty quiet, just so cautiously excited. This morning we got to hear the heartbeat, though, and it is becoming more and more apparent that the “someday” we felt assured of before is finally here.

This struggle with infertility has been one of the most challenging experiences of our marriage and we are grateful to be to this point. Sometimes people say they are grateful for their trials because they become stronger. I’m not sure I’m to the point where I can say I’m grateful to have struggled with this, that I’d have it the same again if I had the choice. I think if Brady and I had our choice we would have had a whole mess of kids by our eighth wedding anniversary instead of just barely expecting our first. But I can say that I am grateful to be where I am and for the things that have gotten me here. We have had a good life so far. I got to do things that I didn’t think I’d get to do until my children were older (go back to grad school, be “Professor Wiggins,” etc). Brady and I have gotten to work in the temple for over a year now, which has strengthened us tremendously. We have learned and grown a lot and have truly felt guided throughout this process, as difficult as it has been. So while I wouldn’t choose to do it again, I am grateful that we are where we are and to be a part of this miracle.

I realize this is much more of a sentimental post than we usually have on here, so I will end with practical stats now: 13 weeks, beginning second trimester, not really much in the way of morning sickness (strangely, lots of sneezing), due November 9th (ish since they seem to always change the due date anyway). So that means everyone will have to come to Knoxville to meet Baby Stinklebert (what Brady has dubbed the fetus—I’m open to other placeholder names, though).

Wendell Berry

One of the highlights of last week was that we got to meet one of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry. He came to SLC as the keynote speaker for a symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Wallace Stegner (Berry's mentor). It was quite a treat because, as you know if you've read much of Berry's work, he believes in mostly staying put in the place where he lives (Kentucky). The last time he was in Utah was 20 years ago when he came to southern Utah for a wake for his friend and fellow author Edward Abbey, so we jumped at the rare chance to see him.

Berry did a book signing at Ken Sander's Rare Books in SLC and that's where we got to meet him (as seen in the picture above). Berry is critical of our unthinking eagerness to jump on every new technology, so I decided that it would be bad form to bring my camera. I decided that I would just enjoy the experience of getting to meet an author whose work I like. But . . . a lady from the bookstore was getting Berry to pose along with the people whose books he was signing. It was clearly bugging him and after she took our picture he turned to her and asked, "Are you getting what you want out of this?" It was pretty funny. So I got my picture with him and didn't have to be the thoughtless annoying person to force the situation—have our cake and eat it too.

After the signing Berry did a reading at the masonic temple in Salt Lake.  He's not a mason.  It was just the place with lots of seating that they got for the event.  It was cool to see inside the place.  Berry read from an essay he is still working on about the economy.  He's written a lot on how our current economy is wasteful, glutenous, and destructive and he brought this conversation forward in light of the current economic crisis.  He thinks that we should be thrifty, self-reliant, and that we should nurture a local economy and made some great points about struggling with the question of needs vs. wants.

He also read from one of his short stories (very entertaining) and then did some Q & A.  It was great to hear his written words in his voice and I think that I can "get" his fiction that much more now that I've heard him read it.  I'm feeling a bit too lazy now to try to capture some of what he said, but let me give you some links to a few of his essays.  He's really worth checking out if you don't know his work.  BTW, make sure you realize that he has a sense of humor when you read this stuff.

Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer

Feminism, the Body, and the Machine

Home Economics—Analysis of U.S. Agricultural Policy

The Pleasures of Eating

"One of the good ones"

Ever since we learned about our upcoming move to Knoxville, we have been so excited to finally be able to tell people where we are going and what our plans are. The response for the most part has been reciprocal excitement, maybe some tips or mention of someone somebody knows who once went to Knoxville. Recently I had an encounter that was quite different. I was at the health center and a nurse was helping me get a prescription refill processed. The processing was taking a while, so that meant it was time to chat and apparently fill her in on everything that is going on in my life. I have worked with this nurse in the past, and she’s really quite helpful, but it did seem strange how intensely interested she suddenly was in our upcoming plans. As soon as the internship came up, well, I had to dish all kinds of details about Brady’s degree, what he’ll be doing, what his career goals are, and so on. It really didn’t feel rude, just weird that she wanted to know so much. She was almost grandmotherly about it, except it was weird since she isn’t my grandmother. She’s really very sweet, and I didn’t want to be rude since she has been so helpful to me in the past. Eventually, she asked where we’ll be going. This is a snippet of the conversation at that point.

Me: Knoxville, Tennessee

Nurse: Where’s that? Is that one of the good ones?

Me: [a little surprised at the first question, but not sure what the second question even means, decided to answer the first anyway] Well . . . Knoxville is in the eastern part of the state, which borders North Carolina.

Nurse: Oh, well that’s all right [apparently North Carolina is one of the good ones]. Ya know, when ya get down into some of those others like, oh, Oklahoma or Arizona it’s not as good [really, she said Arizona—in retrospect, I think she meant to say Arkansas].

Me: Oh . . . yeah.

I imagine that my soon-to-be Southern sensibilities kicked in, and all I could think was, “Oh, bless her heart” in that slightly condescending, you-just-don’t-get-it use of the phrase. I think I know what she was getting at, so next time someone asks if Knoxville is “one of the good ones” I’m going to say, “Nah. We’re jus’ gonna go live with a bunch of hillbillies.” Although Tennessee did pass her standard, so maybe that wouldn’t be accurate. I do think they should change the state motto to “Tennessee: One of the Good Ones.” I think that would look nice on a license plate.

P.S. The picture has nothing to do with this post. It is one of the images I found when I typed “one of the good ones” into Google images—seemed fitting enough, though, since I'm not entirely sure what that phrase is really supposed to mean.

Knoxville, Tennessee!

The Wigginses are going to Knoxville!  We're thrilled—this was our first choice.

Success!

I got an internship! Hooray! Come back Monday when I find out where we're headed.