On the way...

8/9: I'm starting this blog Aug. 9, but I know I probably won't be posting it for quite a while still. I'm ready to start talking about the upcoming event that will be happening sometime around Feb. 10. --

Tiffany and I have something in common.

I learned a few weeks ago that a friend I went to middle school and high school with is expecting her first in February. So am I.

When my mother and friends were out here at the very end of the school year, I started suspecting that we might finally be pregnant. We've been trying somewhat since January, so it was about time. I've taken many p.t.s in the past when I felt even a day late, so I held off this time and really waited until it was worth the $5 test. Around June 15 I took 3 tests, and confirmed that it was really finally time. With Father's Day approaching, I wanted to wait to tell Brian, but I am of course always too impatient for that. So instead, I planned on telling him when we went out for our 3 year anniversary.

As I've already recounted, we went out to Ole Tapas to celebrate our 3 years together. Even though I'd already told Brian that I was still on a water-only-as-far-as-liquids-go-diet, he wanted to order us a bottle of wine, so I discouraged but let him, not wanting to ruin the surprise. Most people that know me know that I like to give out lots of cards, so he wasn't too surprised when I had a whole stack for him. After he received his anniversary card, and early father's day cards from the cat and new puppy, he found out he'd have to drink the whole bottle himself when he got the card from his newest, unknown, charge.

It was pretty unreal, and the pregnancy took a while to really set in. As far as symptoms, I had cramps at the beginning that were quite annoying. The next few weeks, I became mildly nauseous for most of most days. I never actually got sick, but I just didn't really want to eat or cook much. So I’ve actually lost about 5 pounds in the first trimester.

I had my official blood test on June 29, but didn't get the results until a week into July.

I had my first appointment with an OB doctor on July 24. Brian didn’t leave work in time and we arrived at the appointment late. This was actually a pre-appointment where they asked Brian and I lots of medical history questions, and gave us lots of information and free samples of pre-natal vitamins. And took a lot of my blood. Turns out I’m A-positive.

I ran late to our next appointment Aug. 4 (a student coming for an advanced math test I was giving came the wrong day and I had to sort out his appointment). I’m afraid we will never be on time. This appointment had an internal component, and they also listened for the baby's heartbeat. I had Brian wait outside, but then asked the doc if she would find the heartbeat again so Brian could hear it. It took her a while to find it, and Brian’s face looked really surprised when he heard the 160+ beats per minute. Her heart monitor was running low on batteries, so she went out to get another one, and returned with an old ultrasound machine, and gave us an impromptu, unofficial ultrasound. Since we weren’t expecting this, it was especially awesome. It was really shocking to see the baby moving around in there. I’ve never thought you could really see that much in ultrasounds, but I could see the features fairly clearly of our little one. It was quite active, and kept bouncing around, gaining the nickname from me “baby jumper”. It finally made this whole thing real.

Now we just need to decide when we are going to share this news with our family and friends.