Week 27!

For those of you keeping score at home, we just crossed the threshold into Week 27 - which means we're more or less headed into the final trimester. Yippee!!!!! Pauline is due on March 26 - a day which seems a million miles away.

We had a check-up this morning. Pauline slept through it, but was kind enough to turn as needed so Dr. Buescher could measure her. She remains right in the middle of the growth chart, happily adding centimeters every week. Our next appointment should be fun - I'll be doing the glucose challenge test to check for gestational diabetes. This means I have to fast before my appointment - this should be a shock for both Speck and me, since we're both firm believers in breakfast - and then go in and have my blood sugar tested before drinking a sugar solution. They'll then draw blood at 1 hour and 2 hours after I drink the glop, to see how I'm processing the sugar. (Sorry for boring those of you who've been through this before!) I'd love to see an ultrasound from about half an hour after I drink the glop - it would be fun to watch the baby's first real sugar-high.

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In other news, we took a whirlwind trip last weekend to visit Caroline, Antoine, and Caroline's parents in France. Since we had days left on our Eurail passes, and I can't fly right now, we took the train. We left Berlin last Thursday after work, took a high-speed train to Karlsruhe, changed there for a night train to Paris, changed stations in Paris to get the TGV (French high-speed train) to Dijon, and then a local train to Beaune, right in the heart of Burgundy. We got in around 11 AM on Friday to Beaune - a very long trip! But since the sleeper car we were supposed to have to Paris was out of order, we hadn't gotten much sleep on the trip. So Beaune was less about sightseeing and more about finding places out of the cold to sit and warm up. We did make it to the Hospices; we also had a lovely lunch with incredible wines by the glass (where else in the world could you find a Chassagne-Montrachet by the glass?) Pauline and Tim both experienced their first-ever escargot as I indulged this particular craving. Caroline and her dad - and Antoine - came to pick us up, and we had a foggy overland trip from there to Autun, to Caro's parents' house. It was so wonderful to see her parents again! We spent Saturday alternating between exploring the sites in Autun and lapsing into food comas from Caro's mom Marie's wonderful cooking. (This included a second helping of escargots, which Pauline seems to really like; goose, the first time Tim or I had ever had it; a variety of delicious French cheese; baguettes, of course!; and seared Charolais beef that was unbelievably fresh.) We had to leave Sunday morning, and Caro's dad Roland was kind enough to take us out to the train station in Dijon. It was too short, and too much time on the trains!, but it was great to see the Vuillemins, catch up on the family news, and - as always - see Caroline and Antoine again. One of the best things about this tour in Europe has been that we've gotten to see Caro and Antoine so much. Tim took some great pictures, so we can prove to Pauline once she's old enough to recognize it that we did travel with her - before she was born, anyway! Sheesh, she's been to Paris - twice, technically; Rome; here and there in Germany; and to Burgundy.