Well, because the unmitigated happy couldn’t possibly last, there’s now drama with the Boy’s daughters.  Specifically his middle daughter, who’s gone on the attack about our plans to move north in a year or so.

She is practically hysterical.

The Boy is upset.  And feeling guilty.

I am frustrated.

Mostly because the Boy has nothing to feel guilty about.  This is a 25-year-old young woman we’re talking about.  One who’s been living in the city with her boyfriend all summer and who has come over for dinner exactly once, despite numerous invitations.  This is the young woman whose new, non-housetrained puppy the Boy cared for for over 2 weeks without much acknowledgment from her of the enormous favor he was doing her.  This is the young woman who rants that her father is ‘shutting her out of his life”?

I am trying to be fair about this – lots of changes, pregnant stepmother, new house in a city she has no intention of ever living, and apparently her mother is also talking seriously about leaving the city (honestly, it’s too damned expensive to live here if you’re not working in Manhattan and making a fortune) so I GET that she’s feeling insecure and like everything familiar is shifting.

But she’s taking it out on someone who shouldn’t get attacked like this, and I find it irritating to be in the position of wanting to jump in to his defense, but knowing that would make things SO much worse.  Not something he wants, and certainly not what I want to do to him.

So I have to sit back and watch this rather nasty attack have its way with him, watch all his giddy happiness over the house turn to worry and possibly regret.

And I hate that.

So the doctor appointment went fine, though Thor was hiding from the doppler.  Since he’d been kicking the shit out of my ribs on the subway ride over, I wasn’t really concerned.  Still didn’t like it not being loud & clear, though, so I suppose I’m scarred forever by bad doppler scans in previous pregnancies.

The rest of the day is for resting, eating gazpacho, and dealing with a few pre-Italy errands.

Mostly resting.

I haven’t been sleeping well – probably due to excitement, but since I’m off work, it’s not quite so critical.  The Boy’s currently engaged in moving his office up two flights of stairs so we can move our bedroom into his office, and set up a baby bedroom in our bedroom.

Which means we’re getting a crib soon.  And I’ll be able to un-pile the mass of baby-stuff that’s currently threatening to eat our room. Maybe today should also be a ‘write thank you notes’ day, since I’d like to do that before Italy, and it would make the un-piling easier if I don’t have to keep things in gift-bags with cards attached…

All in all?  A relaxing day.  A glorious not-at-work day.  A day I might just spend napping and eating and napping some more.  Because I can.

Wow.

So yeah, it looks like we’ve got a verbal agreement on The Perfect House.  The Boy will call up this morning to go over details, but it seems like a done deal.

Wow.

Talk about moving fast.

I love it.

After several years of feeling like my life had completely stagnated, working a job I hated in a city I disliked, trying for a baby that wouldn’t stay, here I am, getting everything I want within a month or so.  (Ok, granted, I’ve known the baby and the no-more-hateful-job things were coming for a while now, but it’s REAL now!)

I hardly know what to blog about.

My husband is getting excited about Permaculture chicken-coops.

I’m getting excited about painting rooms, selling books on eBay (house furnishing fund!) and joining a New Moms group in the little town.  I’m getting excited about the prospect of being a house-mom for a while, getting back into baking & cooking and (to a lesser extent!) cleaning routines.  Looking forward to scouring the area’s antique markets for cool furniture.  Looking forward to building Thor a playhouse out back.  And a swingset.  And teaching him to ride a bike.  And taking him hiking.

And meanwhile, I’m off to my last day of work, looking forward to setting aside this part of my life, hoping it doesn‘t make sense for me to have to come back for a week or so in late fall to secure maternity leave benefits or anything.

It’ll likely be 6 months or more before we’d really move in – we won’t be closing ’til late September-mid October – and who moves to NH in the middle of winter?  Which is good – give me time to adjust to baby-schedule here where things are familiar and easy, (and I can use the fancy stroller I still have my heart set on!)

More pictures to come, once we’ve got some stuff on paper, but I will leave you with this one, of the second floor of the library – with the reminder that this is a LOUSY picture compared to how cool the library actually is…

Yeah, so the New Hampshire trip went well – so well, in fact, that we might very well be putting in a bid today on the Perfect House.

Wowza!

We looked at 5 or 6 properties, and found one that I loved, but the ceilings felt low to my tall Boy, and which was located in the worst school district in NH.  He loved another one in the same school district that I didn’t care for.  But the school district thing was killing us.  We’re pretty education oriented here, but I didn’t want Thor’s only option to be a private boarding school.  Which it would have been, for high school at least, if we were to buy a house in this district.  Which, therefore, we obviously wouldn’t.

But then on Sunday, we went to see a house “in town” that we both were going in to view out of a sense of duty, more or less.  I thought he loved it, he thought I loved it.  We were, though, apparently neither of us that excited at the prospect.  The online photos looked little and dark and cramped.  So we went in with no expectations, whatsoever.

We fell in love.

It’s on an acre and a half, which means fruit trees and big gardens & chickens, but no goats or cows.  This is ok.  The fruit trees & garden were non-negotiable, the chickens were “I’d REALLY like to have chickies again” and the goats/cows were, “If we’re on some land I’ll want them, otherwise, not so much.”

It’s a good 2 hours closer to NYC (and the Boy’s daughters) than the other properties we looked at.  It’s in a border community that feeds the faculty at MIT & BU & Harvard.  Seriously, if you spit from the front porch, it’ll land in Massachusetts.  Nice school district, nice library, nice community.  LOTS of kids.

And the house.  Oh my, the house.

The house is actually in two parts.  There’s the original 1800s farm house, which has bigger-than-average rooms, but is your basic living space below/sleeping rooms above floor plan.  But then there’s the barn.  The barn which has been converted into an enormous 2-story 10,000-book library.  And office space.  With a reading room circled around a woodstove.  And absolutely gorgeous wood detailing everywhere.  And windows and light.  And, OMG it’s wonderful.  Our combined insane book collections aren’t going to come close to filling this place up.

And there’s room for the piano again.

And a Christmas tree.

It has a formal dining room big enough for the Boy’s ancient French farm table.

And a garage with enough room that our assorted hammers and electric drills will not have to live in a linen closet anymore.

And there will be guest rooms for anyone who wants to visit – with lots of floor space in the library for air mattresses if we run out of rooms with doors.

And there’s a pantry.  Two pantries, actually.

And a flowery back yard.

And a ‘wild’ back lot.  With apple trees.  And blueberries.  And pears.  And a big garden already fenced.

And a sun room.

And I’ll get to buy furniture with the boy.  And paint the whole house (because there ARE some truly weird paint jobs going on in some of the rooms).

And it’s only 30 miles from the NH coast.

And only 4 hours from NYC.

And only 1/2 hour to our friends’ in Manchester.

And I really really hope this works out, because I can SEE living in this house for the rest of my life.  I can see this being where my son puts down his roots.  I want this place to be OURS.  I want to move in there, like, tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, folks.  I haven’t been this excited about a place to live – well, since forever.

**

In other exciting news, Baby Thor has been aptly nicknamed.  The kid is huge.  They’re estimating 5.5# already (32w, 4d) and his head & abdomen are in the 95th to 97th percentile range.  His arms & legs are around 50-60th percentile, so at least they’re catching up a bit.

Big baby, though.  Damned big head.

All is well, though, he’s still measuring in the range of normal, and one of my unspoken fears – autism – has been mostly laid to rest.  I was under the impression that autistic kids had big heads – and they do, but not at birth.  At birth they tend to be in the < 25th percentile range, but they catch up at 2-3 years, til they’re in the 70-80 range.  So a big-headed baby at birth is at lower statistical risk than average.

So that’s good.

And I’ll keep telling myself that all during active labor when I’m cursing the fact that I fell in love with a man whose father has to have his hats custom-made because his brain’s so big.

**

In other, other news, my last day of work is tomorrow.  I decided last week that I am done – no going back for an extra week or two after we return from the trip.  It’s too hot, I’m too uncomfortable, and frankly, my body’s working too hard to support this ginormous child.  I need to rest so I’m not exhausted when he shows up – Superstar OB still thinks he might be a couple of weeks early – and because I’m lucky enough to be in the position of not going back to work when my maternity leave is over, it’s not like I’m ‘using it up’ now.  So that’s a good thing, all around.  It will – unless Thor decides to be an Enrico instead of a Henry – give me a chance to work on his nursery, and buy things like diaper pails and strollers before he arrives.  It’ll also give me a chance to get calm & stay calm.

Which leads me to…

**

Italy!  We’re leaving on Friday.   Nellie is going to the Doggie-Spa on Thursday, at which point my feelings of overwhelming guilt will begin.  We’re going to spend Saturday/Sunday in Rome, seeking out cool things to see (anyone have any favorite spots they’d like to share?  I’m leaning toward the catacombs – nifty, underground {read: cool} – but am up for almost any suggestions.  Then we’ll drive to Tuscany where we’ll be staying in an old abbey for the next 2 weeks.  I intend to eat a lot of really good food, drink some excellent wine as per my OB’s instructions, and NOT give birth while there.  I might also go to see Florence & Siena, and a few other places, or I may just loll by the pool and coddle my largeness with much gelato and many iced drinks.

I’m beyond excited.  And delighted that my hips have recovered enough that I’m not going to be necessarily couch-ridden.  And happy too because the time will go by fast for having something fun going on every day, so maybe I won’t get too impatient for the really exciting thing.

Which is that….my kid could very well be born fullterm – anywhere from a month from now, to a month and a half from now.

My baby.  My enormous, gigantic, destined to be a brainy football player just like one of his Grandpas, doomed to grow up in a house full of books due to the extreme geekiness of the parents he’s stuck with, baby boy.

Wow.

So much is happening, and it’s all good.

The Boy just submitted a bid for The House.

Wow.

Wow.

This was a very exciting day for me, mostly because we’re forgoing the traditional ‘how to have a baby’ childbirth class in favor of Hypnobabies coursework, so this was my one chance to be around other preggos and ask questions of an ‘instructor’.  I think the last time I saw a hospital nursery was when my little br0ther was born 35-odd years ago.  I’ve only ever seen labor/delivery rooms on tv.  I figured my ideas might be a little out of date.

Yep.

I knew that I liked this hospital – it’s where Grandpa Endocrinologist has his offices, and it’s where I go every few weeks for another anatomy ultrasound.  Everyone’s very pleasant, and it’s not as scary as some NYC hospitals can be. But still – it’s NYC.  Highest C-section rate anywhere outside of Brazil.  So I had a load of questions to ask.

The tours require no registration, you just show up and one of the lactation consultants gives everyone the schpiel.  Poor woman.  She kept trying to make jokes that were falling on deaf ears and then making jokes about what a bad audience we were.  Finally, another woman there (the only one besides me who wasn’t 20,) said, “Miss, it’s 180*, we’re all 8 or 9 months pregnant, we’re missing our normal dinnertime for this, and we’ve been at work all day.  There’s nothing in this world funny enough to make me laugh right now.”  She got a round of applause and a hearty laugh from everyone there.

But anyway.  Beth Israel is in the process of earning its ‘baby friendly’ designation from UNICEF which mostly involves being extremely pro-breastfeeding and pro-mom/baby bonding.  They’d rather have baby & mom skin to skin than stick the kid in a warmer.  They do not provide pacifiers or sugar water or formula without a medical need.  They have lactation consultants running classes & available for consultation 7 days a week, and they check up with moms a week or so after you leave the hospital – plus you always have access to the consultants if you’re having a hard time.

Which is all very cool.

Although the ward was pretty full, we got to see a semi-private (standard) room, whose crowdedness prompted the Boy  to immediately say, “I’ll pay money for a private room.  We’re definitely going for a private room.”  And there are two levels of private rooms – one is actually called the “super-deluxe” room, with a fridge and a private toilet/shower and a bed for the Boy.  Some of the private rooms don’t actually have private toilets, though, which sort of offends me.  Seems like that’s a place you want immediate access to, 24/7 post-partum?  But there aren’t enough of either to reserve them, you just have to hope that when you go into labor, they’ve had an opening.  Hmmmm.

Other things?  They will allow two ‘birthing companions’ into labor/delivery with you and one can come into a c-section operating room with you.  However, if you use a doula who’s gone through B.I.’s additional training, she can also accompany you into the operating room.  They also host a ‘meet & greet’ for doulas a couple of times a month where you can meet a dozen or so in one place – which is a nice idea, I think.  But whether or not we go that route – yeah, B.I. is pretty into the whole doula-thing,  and they think a natural birth is preferable and should be encouraged.

Which I find encouraging.

We got to walk through all the security measures they take around the babies – double bracelets, lock-down around the elevators/stairs, footprints/fingerprints that get verified all the time.  She asked us all to make a commitment to stop watching made-for-tv baby shows, birthing dramas, etc.  She gave us her email address and very sincerely told us to ask any questions at any time.

On a discouraging note – the only newb0rn in the nursery when we filed by was gigantic.  We’re talking double digits.  He looked like a 3-month-old, honestly.  Scared me into preforming some kegels right there & then.  Dear lord that was a big baby.  Hey Thor!  Listen up!  Momma wants you to be big & healthy, but not TOO big, you hear me?  None of this 14# at birth shit.  Yikes.

On a somewhat scary note, For a few minutes, I honestly thought I was going to be heading right back to B.I. for an exam last night.  It’s beyond hot right now, and humid, and the subways weren’t running on time last night between work & the hospital, which meant standing on a 110* platform for 20 minutes at a time.  And elevators were down at the Lexington Ave. stop, which meant climbing, like, 5 flights of stairs, and by the time I got to the hospital, I was pretty exhausted and really damned hot.

And apparently dehydrated.  Because no sooner had we left the hospital than I started getting more insistent BH contractions than I’ve experienced to date.  These ones almost hurt they were so intense.  And coming way too close together.  I guzzled a liter of ice water from a drug store, and bought another to hold to the veins in my throat/temples on the way home, and once home, I took a cool shower, then laid down and had the Boy turn on the a/c and everything did calm down.  But I felt like it was too close a thing.  I think I have decided to make next week my last week of work – I’m just not cutting it.  I slept for almost 12 hours this morning, and I could fall back asleep right now if I had the opportunity.

The sad thing about this upcoming vacation is that I’m not as psyched about seeing Italy as I am about sleeping in Italy.  My priorities at the moment revolve around getting more sleep.  And staying cool.  And hydrated.

But Thor didn’t seem put out by my raised body temp.  He was kicking and doing flips, performing even when the Boy came over for the show.  He’s been a little quieter this morning, but that’s typical.  I will admit to being more than a little interested in hearing the latest guess on his size at our U/S appointment on Monday.

(Please, Thor.  Don’t make me the one that everyone gasps in pity for at their maternity tour!)

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m starting to get a bit nervous about delivery.  Why?  Because I’m not nervous about delivery and never have been.

Makes no sense?  Well, I also completely dismissed complaints about the discomforts of pregnancy, and you know what?  This ‘creating a human being’ shit is kicking my dimpled, cellulite-ridden ass.

I feel pretty fortunate that the two things that I thought were going to be with me til the end – heartburn & SI pain – have instead been intermittent offenders in the ‘make Sprogblogger miserable’ campaign.  I feel weirdly fortunate that being on supplemental progesterone, steroids, DHEA, whathaveyou, all those months pre-this-pregnancy got me fairly used to having my sleep interrupted.  If this were the first time in my life I was experiencing the joy of trying to function on 4+ hours of sleep a night (and only 2 hours of contiguous sleep) I’d be pretty bummed out.  As it is, at least I know I’ll survive – just not at my best or brightest.

But seriously – the fact that it’s the hottest summer on record in NYC is making it harder, and the fact that I’ve never had much tolerance for heat + humidity.  Seriously, folks, I grew up in a place where summer temps often reached 110*, and 6 months at a time where the temp got over 100* every day was not an uncommon occurrence.  And I always hated people – transplants from humid climes, usually – who’d downplay it, saying, “Well, at least it’s a dry heat!”  But it was.  And humid heat just plain sucks.  Sweating doesn’t help cool you down (which is a shame, because I can sweat up a storm!) and it usually gets hotter after dark, which is just wrong.  And window air conditioners?  Well, they don’t work all that well.  And they’re noisy.  Let’s just say that the most comfortable I get these days is riding the subway, because my belly guarantees me a seat, and the air conditioning is pretty damned effective on the trains.

And it’s harder work moving this body around than I ever thought it would be.  I figured, “Hell!  I’ve gained 25 pounds during ART treatments, and I’m still relatively graceful.  How much different can pregnancy be?”

Hah.

That kid is solid.  Leaning over to grab something from the floor when I’m sitting down?  There’s nowhere for that  baby to go.  So my bend gets halted midway there.  Moving past people?  Besides the fact that I’m paranoid someone’s going to accidentally elbow The Belly or The Boobs, I just don’t move the way I’m used to moving.  In real life, I turn sideways to get through tight places.  Nowadays?  That’s not such an effective maneuver.  And then there’s the waddling.  Now, I’m nowhere near as bad as I was when the pain was at its worst.  But graceful, I am not.  Not unless you think ducks have an attractive walking gait.  My hips simply don’t function the way they always have, and it’s weird, knowing I’m walking so poorly, but being unable to correct myself.

So, it’s obvious to me that I was wrong about how hard pregnancy is.  Which informs me that I’m probably wrong about my vaunted high pain tolerance, as well as my ability to cope with fear and biologically mandated behavior.  Which tells me that no matter how much my brain insists that labor is natural, I’ve helped dozens of goats & sheep & dogs & cats give birth, that this is something I can do without being afraid, a bit of fear has definitely started creeping in.  Because really, if I was this wrong about pregnancy, I’m so going to be screaming for an epidural when labor begins.

My husband finally met my OB, and fortunately, we were the first appointment of the day, so  Doc had time to do more than run an U/S wand over my belly, announce with great aplomb “Your baby is still alive!” and walk out the door, which is his usual MO.

He chatted and made jokes and went over different indications of labor that would mean it’s time to call him.  He reiterated several times that although pregnant women do sometimes call him for stupid things , he’d much rather that, than have them NOT call when they should have – which he said happened a lot more often, especially with IVF patients.

He mentioned that if I show up at Beth Israel more than 3 times for “false labor” they’d probably try to induce me, so to call him before heading to the hospital on my own if I want to avoid that.

He also mentioned that yeah, if this baby’s head proportions continue on at this rate, it’ll make a c-section much more likely.  Especially given my age.  And small size.

He also mentioned that he was pretty sure Thor wasn’t going to beat his current record of a 12# vaginal delivery.  (Please, god, no!)  This made me happy.

He also SHOWED me my GTT results, and I realized that although his phone message said (and I know because I listened to it 3 times) that my 2 hour results were 198 – the only abnormal results out of the 4 – they were actually 98.  Way normal.  Which makes his jokes about not being sure they even gave me the Glucose drink more understandable.  I confess I got a bit scared again once I realized I was having a big baby, that maybe that one abnormal number out of four was enough of a warning that I should be following more of a GD diet regardless of numbers.  But now?  Now I say “Bring on the popsicles!”

Still haven’t gained weight, but doc’s not worried since I started out with plenty of IVF chub & the baby’s obviously not suffering any form of malnourishment.  I officially (officially, because before today, he didn’t know!) weigh more than my husband – who’s got almost a foot of height on me.  Oi.

Italy trip once again got the seal of approval.

My BP continues low/normal (110/70) and my next appointment is right before we leave for Tuscany.  I’ll be on Lovenox until August 18, at which point he’s just taking me off the blood thinners entirely, not moving me to Heparin as some docs do.  Still no stretch marks on my belly, though I’ve got a linea nigra all the way up to my ribcage, and I’m a little out-of-sorts that it’s crooked.  But then again, so is my newly-outie belly button.  And my belly in general seems to be bigger on the left than the right side.

Heartburn/acid reflux is either really really bad or non-existent on a day-to-day basis.  Chocolate’s the only thing I’ve found that absolutely triggers it, though I have my suspicions about salsa/raw onions.  Which sucks, but there it is.  When The Reflux isn’t bad, so I can sleep on my side, the SI back pain is manageable the next day.  I think  those two things were definitely related – sleeping sitting up in bed, sort of on my tailbone probably exacerbated this whole back-pain-trauma is what I’m thinking.  Now my back’s a bit sore, but after a hot shower to loosen everything up in the morning, I rarely have to limp at all during the day.

Hands and feet are swollen – no more wedding ring til after September, most likely.  And thank goodness it’s flip flop weather.  I’m definitely dealing with a bit of carpal tunnel in my hands, tingling & numbness, but so far it’s manageable.

Constipation?   Let’s just say that I am very happy figs are finally in season.  And that prunes are ALWAYS in season.  Pomegranate juice is my friend.  Feeling bloated and yechy has been, hands down, the worst symptom all along and will likely continue til the end.

Skin is clear, hair & fingernails are growing like mad, moods remain pretty darned consistent and cheerful.  I am sleepy.  Oh god, am I sleepy.  I could sleep for days, weeks, months.

And I go back to see him in 2 weeks.  When I get back from Italy, mid-August, it’ll be every week.

Dang.  This is really happening.

(woohoo!)

Well, we went and saw The Farm.  And it was amazing.  The land was astonishingly beautiful, a hilltop covered with grapevines and blueberry bushes, a holler running fat with tapped maple trees and underbrush thick with wasps and birds and little rodenty things.  Nellie made a friend of Roscoe, the neighbor’s big Akita, and I wanted to move into the barn, which was airy and clean and spacious.

The house, however, was another matter.

Don’t get me wrong – there was nothing WRONG about it.  An old farmhouse, kept up rather nicely, refinished wood floors, lots of original molding, original features (summer kitchen!) coupled with some really lovely (if out-of-period) additions.  But it felt weird.  And how lame is that, that for me, I guess it all boils down to feng-shui.  But I walked into that house and felt uncomfortable.  I toured the whole house, trying to imagine our things, our lives there.  And I just felt itchy.

The front door opens on the dining room, which is also one of the entrances to the greenhouse (dear lord, a greenhouse!) and the in-law apartment and the stairway up to the bedrooms.  Beyond the dining room is the kitchen, which leads to the living room.

The second floor was crammed with bedrooms and bathrooms, just as we knew it would be, no surprises there.  And the attic had some serious potential for offices or a big old master bedroom at some future renovation-y time in our lives.

But the first floor.  The living floor.  It felt inside out, somehow, disjointed and odd.  Distinctly uncomfortable.

And, in New Hampshire especially, spending time indoors is pretty much what one does.  I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be getting a huge amount of enjoyment out of the beautiful grounds in February.

And the nearest town is not a town that feels particularly welcoming.  It’s a depressed milltown, and it shows.  Its school has fallen rather dramatically in rankings lately, and it just doesn’t seem like a great place to drop in, have coffee, and meet some new friends.

So we are not placing a bid.  Despite the seller having dropped the price by a huge amount just a couple of days ago.  We may still go back to this house, because there is an awful lot of it that is just perfect.  (Greenhouse.  Barn.  Summer kitchen.  Maple stand.  Grape vines.  40 acres of woodland. Well-regarded private high school in town.)  We may still end up bidding, but we will not be doing it right now, and we may not end up doing it ever.

Which feels sad, but also like the right thing to do.

*sniff*

Ah well.  The house hunting adventure has officially begun!

Ok, thank you all for your words of comfort regarding my big-headed baby.  The U/S doc actually did a pretty good job of explaining how DE complicates things, and how even with a ‘normal’ 2-parent child, when dad is big and mom is little, mom’s influence tends to win out until baby’s born, at which point he’ll “catch up” and get big.  With three of us in the mix, my little-self might be keeping him small enough to deliver safely, while his big head might indicate he’s just gonna be a big kid once he’s out of the womb.  Ms. DonorFantastica was taller than me, but not a tall woman, so who can say?  Still, chances are, he’ll be taller than I am.

Which is great because I need another people in this house towering over me.

But enough of you provided me with similar stories of U/S measuring inaccuracies that I’m putting the nerves on hold for a while.  Short kid with big brain isn’t a terrible fate – better than tall kid tiny brain, so if I have to imagine worst case scenarios, this one aint even close.  And it helps that we had the CVS done, to definitively rule out the chromosomal disorders that short femurs can indicate.

And I did get to see a blurry face shot, thanks to the tricksy U/S work of the doctor – if I can get it to scan correctly, I’ll post it (along with helpful arrows pointing to eyes and nose and mouth.  He has chubby cheeks, though.  My baby has chubby cheeks.  How cool is that?

So mighty Thor is mighty, indeed.  Head & belly and overall size are in the 80th – 90th percentiles (yikes!)  Slightly more worrisome is that his femur length is only in the 27th percentile.  I specifically asked the U/S doc about this wide variance and he said he wouldn’t be worried until any of the measurements were lower than the 10th percentile.  Which is slightly reassuring, but I’m finding myself obsessing a bit about this high-on-some-things/low-on-others measurement anyway. 

Thoughts from the Interwebs?  I’m about to go consult with Dr. Google.