I am thoroughly enjoying tossing this phrase out when Blue starts bugging me about something.

I�ve used it three times today. Do you think that�s too many? I�d like to think I can get away with it three times a day � at least for now. I suppose I�ll have to taper it off down the road, or I�ll be annoying to live with.

As far as the morning sickness goes: I must say, the novelty has worn off. I was really smug about it for about two weeks. At this point, I�d be grateful for some relief. It�s not so much the not eating that bothers me � it�s the constant discomfort. I�m queasy when I think about food, I�m queasy when I eat, I�m queasy when I don�t eat � and I�ve got some wonderful lower-GI cramping that comes and goes. (At first, I mistook the cramping for uterine cramping and it freaked me out � but that�s not what it is. It�s definitely bowel-type cramping. Urgh.)

I think I�m finally starting to chill out about everything. On Friday we had more bloodwork done � hcg, estrogen and progesterone. My routine on every bloodwork day is to have it drawn before 8am, then call my nurse at 11:30am for the results. She�s a cool nurse and she knows my routine � usually has my chart waiting for me.

So on Friday I had the bloodwork drawn, then got busy and distracted, and decided to wait until after lunch to call the nurse.

This is personal growth, people. Do you recognize it?!

The nurse called me and left me a voicemail while I was in the middle of something (I had my phone ringer turned off � another sign of personal growth on beta day). She told me my hcg was 49,707 � and that we don�t need to test it anymore.

I felt a little insecure about that � whaddya mean, you aren�t going to check it next week? Don�t you have to keep checking it? Argh! (Ok, a little regression after all of that personal growth is not totally unexpected, is it?) But then I thought, �Hey, cool, I�m so far along we don�t even need to check hcg anymore. That�s cool.� So once again, more personal growth.

What I�m doing now is beginning to think about life after the baby comes. I am getting a leeeeetle bit nervous about the hay-uge changes that are coming.

Primarily, I�m thinking about life with Blue. Our relationship is just so wonderful. He�s my best friend, and I really love playing around with him. We handle the serious stuff well, and we have lots of fun. He�s the center of my world, and he showers a crazy amount of attention on me.

So � I already know that Chip is going to take most of this attention that Blue and I lavish on one another � and the remaining attention will be lost because we�ll be too tired to function.

I don�t want that to happen, though. I really hope that we are able to keep focused on each other as well as Chip � and that this event brings us even closer together than we already are.

In my heart, I�m sure that things will be fine. Great. Wonderful, even. But in my head, right now, when it�s all so unknown, I begin to worry.

Unlike the whole pregnancy thing, I can actually do something about this worry. I can be proactive. And I can be mindful of the impending changes. And I can make sure that Blue gets a good share of the attention. Just have to keep thinking about it in the coming months �