This Monday, the busy weekend caught up with me.  I felt terrible and had some migraine symptoms on the way to meet with Dr. Kleinerman.  I haven't had a migraine in probably over a year, so I was rather worried.  I had MaryAnn, our research nurse, check my blood pressure and it was a little on the high side, 139/90, when it's usually consistently 110/60 or so.  I called Dr. Cook's office and was told to stay in bed the rest of the day, until my appointment early Tuesday morning.  I felt much better by evening, with my feet up and drinking lots of water.  

Tuesday was an incredibly full day. I started out with my appointment with Dr. Cook, which was non-eventful.  He said everything look fine, but the same.  How disappointing.  My blood pressure was back to its usually healthy low and everything else checked out.  He was very sympathetic to me, and my impatience with the not-so-impending birth, and kept patting me on the back and saying reassuring things, which did make me feel better.  It's nice when your OB validates your emotions.  

After that I had to hurry back to the lab to prepare for my committee meeting.  It went much better than I had expected!  Not only was I told that I didn't have to do one set of annoying experiments that was giving me trouble, but also was encouraged to start writing my thesis.  Of course, having official permission to write doesn't really change much; I still have a few more experiments to do and a few papers to write up, but it's comforting to know that my committee thinks I'm on the right track, and I know exactly what I have to do to finish.  We're looking at late spring for a defense date.

After celebrating that victory and eating all sorts of leftover treats, Joe and I had our interview with the pediatrician, Dr. James Allison.  He was an incredibly charismatic guy, calm and kind, just like you'd expect a pediatrician to be.  The practice is associated with the Texas Children's Hospital, which is comforting.  I was impressed with the office, and like the idea that they have a large practice where we get the chance to see more than one doctor.  There is a good variety of expertise represented there, from endocrinologists to asthma experts.  In fact, one doctor, Celest Garbarino, is a USL graduate and is apparently somewhat related to us by marriage.

Wednesday I took it easy, but when I went to the lab that evening, I got another migraine.  I finally decided it was all the chocolate I had been eating.  Since then I've been more careful about my eating and have felt fine.

On Saturday, Joe and I undertook the immense project of cleaning our carpets.  You would think that a small apartment would be quick and easy, but since there's no where to put the furniture, it was a hassle.  We would move the furniture to one side of the room, clean the exposed carpet, wait for it to dry, then repeat with the other side of the room.  It took us forever! and we were both exhausted when we were done.  But the carpet looks much nicer, and we feel better about letting Thomas crawl around on the floor.  

We weren't too tired not to go to a Halloween party, however.  We got an invite from Ashley, who works in the Smith building, and thought it would be a nice relaxing party.  Joe dressed up as Wilson, from Home Improvement, which just about everyone seemed to appreciate.  I just didn't have the energy to dress up, so I just went bare-bellied and told everyone I was a pregnant teen.  It was a great night, and we ended up staying past midnight.  There were a whole bunch of people there that we knew, and like, so it was really fun.  Additionally, I enjoyed meeting a bunch of new people, as well.  It was a very nice crowd, and it had been a long time since we had gone to a good, enjoyable party.  And I'm sure it'll be a long time before we do it again.

I spoke to my upstairs neighbors, new parents Mindy and Scott, about Dr. Cook.  They said he was just wonderful in the deliver room, particularly when it became apparent that she was going to have to have a C-section.  Very calm and comforting.  Of course, they also agreed with my opinion of his office staff.