It was a Merry Christmas - 9wks 1 day

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and it was all I could have asked for when it came to sharing the news with our family, and now we're going about the business of letting the rest of the world know.

Friday, December 22, we drove into Franklin at about 2am, and woke both my parents. They have a new addition of their own--a dog named Riley. So, after we dealt with the dogs, we had my parents open an early gift. It was so cute! They sat there looking at it, going, "Really? Really?" They were so excited to be grandparents!

Over the next several days, we shared the news via our little announcement frames with my aunts and uncles, my grandparents on my Dad's side, and then my mom's side of the family. As the week progressed, my nausea turned into vomiting on a regular basis--I was late for church because of it, which raised a few eyebrows. Christmas Day was a marathon of surprised people. Dinner was with my mom's family at her sister's house, where one of my cousins passed out the frames anonymously, and everyone opened them at the same time. There were congratulations and hugs and exclamations of "I thought so!"

On the 26th, we headed to see Dan's parents. We went first to his Dad's house in Chatham and did our Christmas exchanging that night. At their house, each person opens one gift at a time, with everyone else as an audience to each gift. So, we just gave Bob and Jordan a frame and everyone watched while they opened. Let's just say, they were excited, too! (My ears are still ringing with Jordan's "OH MY HECK!")

A few more days, and we were off to Matthews to visit his Mom, and another round of gift opening, another round of tears and excitement, and another new set of grandparents. Pat and Meg and Eric managed to keep the secret even though they were there a whole day ahead of us! Thanks you guys! It meant so much to us to be able to tell all of our immediate family in person. With everyone so spread out, there really isn't another time of year when we see everyone that close together.

And yes, it definitely feels more real, now that everyone knows. We're already getting asked about names and the baby's sex, and even when we're having the next one!! Btw, we don't know to all of those questions :)

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

It's almost time!

Christmas Present for the Grandparents
Originally uploaded by Toasted Salmon.

So, we're down to the wire, and I spent last night frantically wrapping gifts, and printing announcements so that we can leave as soon as I get home from work tonight.

I think I won't work on the day we leave on a big trip again. In fact, I'm questioning the wisdom of traveling to so many different places in a week's time. I feel a little like we're playing "Tag, You're IT!" with our families because we only get to spend a couple of days in each place. I wonder how this will work with kids? I'm honestly a little nervous about paving the way in that department. With the first grandchild for most of our family, there's no precedent for how long distance Christmases are spent. I guess it's one more thing to be praying about.

On to the joys of the season, though! I've been feeling a little grumpy the last few days, and it's getting harder and harder to talk to our families without telling them the news, so I'm sooo thankful that today has finally arrived! Tonight, when we get to my mom's house, we're going to give them a gift bag with a frame in it just like the one in the picture. (hard to take a picture of this since there's so much glare from the glass) I can't wait to see their faces, and we'll have the camera ready, but it will be late at night... maybe we'll do it in the morning?

I feel like I want to see the Nativity movie again. We missed the Christmas services at Corinth, my family's home church, and we'll miss the services Christmas Eve at Mariners', our home church. So I'm really just feeling hectic, nauseated and grumpy, with no connection to the wonder of Jesus' birth at all.

On the development side of things, Baby Kee is officially a fetus tomorrow. Most all of his parts are in place, and instead of a peanut, he looks like a miniature person. I can't wait to see the next sonogram--he'll have a face, and elbows and toes! You can't really see a difference in me, but I feel it. My pants are just a bit snugger, though I haven't gained a pound yet, and my breasts feel huge, though they only look a little bigger. The changes are starting, but it will be a long time yet before the rest of the world sees anything. Thank goodness for scrubs!

Mr. Understanding - 7wks 3days

Today I discovered that it is not a good idea to move in the morning before having something to eat. I woke up, stumbled into the bathroom, and was suddenly dizzy with the urge to empty my very empty stomach. There I am, holding my head in my hands, trying not to wretch, and yelling for dan to bring me something to eat--now! I can hear cabinets opening and shutting, and he's calling out my options:
"you want an egg?"
"no!"
"how 'bout and english muffin?"
"no!"
"ice cream sandwich?"
"oh, god, this is not good... nothing, I don't want anything, i just need to eat"
"umm..."

Poor Dan. Luckily, while I've turned into raging hormonal woman, yelling at everyone and threatening to puke at any moment, he's turned into Mr. Understanding. When I do start to melt down, he just smiles at me and says, "You're making my baby." Which does tend to slow me down and make me smile, too.

And the food that's getting me through today? Potato chips! Lays Original... gotta love 'em. I barely got through my nauseating morning with a bowl of cereal. Driving up the interstate to work felt more like riding a roller coaster, and when I got here, some lady had decided to make a casserole and bring it to work. I'm sure it was supposed to taste good, but it was positively putrid to me! Heaving my way in this morning, I was so thankful for the chips and ginger ale that are found in abundant supply here. Like magic, my nausea subsided, and I started feeling normal again. Of course, now, the nausea is back. I guess I need more chips.

Second Sonogram - 7wks 2 days

I just got to see him again!!! He's grown so big! Measuring almost a whole centimeter from head to butt, he's enormously bigger than last week. This machine was a little older, though, so the photos aren't wonderful, but he's definitely there and growing. We even got to listen to his heartbeat--much faster this time, and so reassuring.

And here's baby!
Originally uploaded by Toasted Salmon.

And that's the funny part. I didn't realize how worried I had been. This all still feels so unreal to me, that I can't quite believe that this baby is growing and thriving. I still find myself preparing for the day when this is all over and I have to let everyone know that I'm not really pregnant, that we're not really having a baby. It's unrational, I know, but I just feel like I've made the whole thing up, and I'm about to be found out. I'm not sure what will make it more real, or when I will start to believe that maybe, just maybe, I really am pregnant, and this baby really is growing, and we really are having a baby!

Maybe when we get to share the news with our families, it will be more real. I'm looking forward to telling my mom most of all at this point. Every time I talk to her, I want to tell her about my nausea, my crampiness, ask how she felt... and in less than a week, I get to! I won't be able to wait for Christmas day, and I don't want to cheat either of us out of that time spent together, so I'm planning to wake them up when we arrive late Friday night with an early Christmas gift. Dan and I got frames from Khols this weekend, and I made a little note to go in them congratulating each family member on their new role (grandparents, great aunts and uncles, greatgrandparents, etc), announcing that a photo will arrive in August. For the grand and great grandparents, we got double frames, and I'm planning to include a sonogram photo as well. It turned out really cute--I spent a large part of the weekend working on them, and I can't wait to see their faces when they unwrap their gifts!

Newest nauseating smell... 7wks 0days

My super sense of smell ain't all it's cracked up to be. We took Cocoa to the dog park today, and while there, Dan opened a can of coke to drink. Coke. The smell (of the coke!) about knocked me over. Who knew coke had a smell?

*Yawn* Just so sleepy - 6wks 4days

I had a day off on Sunday, which was wonderful, before starting my work week. I've only worked 3 days this week, a regular work week, but I feel exhausted. I thought back and counted up the hours of sleep I've gotten this week-- 8 or more every night, with a nap on Sunday, and I can't stop yawning.

I've never had an easy time sleeping in, or taking naps during the day. (Dan is the napping pro--he can fall asleep anytime, anywhere.) I have too many things going through my head, a constant to-do list, to be able to lay down and rest. A wonderful book, Sabbath Keeping, has shed new light on that for me, by the way, and I recommend it to everyone!!

This week, though, I have no such napping issues. I now have the ability to lay my head down on the pillow and not move for as many hours as I am allowed to sleep. I even take naps in the middle of the afternoon, with the sun up and everything! Sunday morning, Dan got a small taste of revenge for my usual bright-eyed morning greeting. I often wake up before him on our days off, and when I can't stay in bed any longer, I just look at him, wide eyed and smiling and two inches from his face, and that's what he gets to wake up to :) He did that to me this weekend, and it was downright scary.

So, very sleepy, can't wait to go to bed tonight, and thinking that this baby must be doing some growing or something, because I'm not doing a whole lot, and I'm exhausted.

G'night...

I think we'll name the baby Izzy - 6wks 2 days

There are lots of opinions on whether or not parents should know the sex of the baby before birth. As a labor and delivery nurse, I used to be rather snobbish in my opinion that finding out the sex ruins the surprise and is really just going too far. Why do we need to uncover all these mysteries in life? What happneded to the joyous moment at birth when man, woman, and child meet for the first time, and someone announces through tears, "It's a ___!" Plus, when it's a surprise, I often get to be that announcing voice :)

Now, however, I've had my first glimpse at this child, and even though he's just a little blip on the screen, I am in love! And I want more!! I want to know what he really looks like, not just the shadow of an image we get with ultrasound. I read in my pregnancy books, and devour the pictures of developing embryos at this stage. I can't wait until I can look again, maybe on a slow day at work. And one of my friends points out that you feel that much closer to the baby, knowing such an integral part of this new identity as gender. Of course I want to know who my baby is as soon as I can!

But then, with all that we do know, and all that we do see on sonogram, the movements that mom can feel, the ability to schedule your delivery, and the hard work that comes with labor and delivery, another friend points out that finding out her baby's gender at birth was her treat to herself, her own little gift at the end of this first long journey with this brand new person.

So, for now, I think we'll call the baby Izzy. Because even if we do find out, it will be a while, and in the mean time everyone keeps asking: "Izzy a boy? or Izzy a girl?"

And here's another little piece of our puzzle--we think it's a boy! (maybe) There are certain aspects to the timing of conception that give about an 85% accuracy to predicting gender if you know when you ovulated, which we do. And, a very anecdotally accurate chart called the Chinese Birth Calendar is predicting a boy for us as well. I've had lots of patients (who actually knew when they ovulated) tell me it was correct for them, but no other evidence for that at all really. So, if I had to guess right now, my guess is that Baby Kee's favorite color is blue. I'm just so enamored with this baby that I can't wait until we meet, no matter what color Izzy wears!

I SAW HIM!!!! (or her) - 6wks 0days

I'm in Norfolk, at the Sheraton, and have very little time to type. The last 24 hours have wreaked havoc on my digestive system because I knew I'd have a sonogram today. This was it, the moment of truth--and what if there was no pregnancy there? What if there was only an empty uterus where my baby was for a few days?? How was I going to deal with that?

Well, I saw his heartbeat!! I saw him! He's a little peanut, measuring about 0.21cm from the tip of his head to the bottom of his butt. He's tiny, and beautiful and perfect and we can already see his heart beating!!

A Perfect view of baby!
Originally uploaded by Toasted Salmon.

I'm in love =)

I'll be sure to write all about it and post pictures when I get home, but I'm so excited right now, and I really just want to jump up and down and tell EVERYONE that there's a baby growing inside me, AND HE'S REALLY THERE!!! I didn't just make it up!

I love you guys--all of you who don't know yet, and who I'm waiting so paitently to tell. I'm just overflowing with it right now. It's just beautiful, and I don't know what else to say.

I am in love.

I have Superpowers! - 5wks 4days

I've long been an advocate of breastfeeding and natural childbirth, and if you want to know why, just ask--I could talk your ear off for hours about the subjects. In my internet searchings, I've been most amused to find funny T-shirts that advocate the subject. One t-shirt for a little boy says, "Boob Man" and another for mom says "I make milk--what's your superpower?"

It turns out I already have superpowers! In the last 48 hrs, my sense of smell has begun to compete with a bloodhound, and it's not always fun. Everything is obnoxious! A doctor walks in and I can smell the cologne like he just poured it on me. Someone across the room puts lotion on their hands, and it doesn't advertise a scent, but I can just smell flowery stuff everywhere. A patient is asked if she smokes, drinks or uses drugs, and she says no, but to me it smells like we're in a bar, so I have to ask "ok, then, who does?" and when the dad fesses up, I have to ask him to leave, because I can't breathe! The bottle of water smells funny, don't even get me started about the gas station, and I am so thankful Cocoa just had a bath! There are good smells, too. Everything is magnified. The clean laundry (that's been in the drawers a while) smells fresh, Dan smells like home, and when there's no offending odor, I find myself utterly happy.

This sense of smell is tied very closely to my level of nausea, though, which has suddenly appeared in full force since yesterday. Overwhelming and sudden, and now nothing really helps it. In the last week or so, I've had a wave every now and then, but I would just eat something and be fine. Now, however, I have to keep eating, because if my stomach gets empty, it wants to heave, and nothing can stop it. And sudden drops in blood sugar are starting to signal the coming nausea, which I guess is good because I get some warning. Nature Valley peanut butter bars are my friend. And ginger ale. And salads and fruit. And sometimes milk and oreos :) But mostly salads. I've been living off of those pre-packaged ceasar salads in the produce section. They come with everything--croutons, cheese, sometimes sundried tomatoes and bacon bits. And I add anchovies, which are my new favorite food. In case I didn't mention it, it's lunch time and I'm stuck in the PACU with a patient. I'm kind of hungry.

I'm leaving for a sonogram conference tonight, so I may not post for a few days, depending on internet availability. But I will get to have dinner with my parents one of those evenings. This should be interesting!

Baby #1 (or so he thinks...) 5wks 2days

This is me in April of 2004 with our first baby, Cocoa (9wks old at the time). He's been our joy and he goes with us wherever we go (even when we go out to eat, often!). His latest trick? Give the baby kisses! He nuzzles my belly =) I'm thankful that he's calming down lately; however, I wonder how we'll deal with jealousy issues. He doesn't share our affection with others too well at this point. He was wonderful in september with my 1 y/o cousin Kaylee when we spent a week at the beach. He didn't mess with her much, and he let her crawl all over him and yank on his ears and generally be a kid without so much as a groan.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting Cocoa, he's now a 70lb lump of love who thinks he's human. Seriously, he knows the word "puppy" and he NEVER thinks it refers to himself. He spends most of his days lazing around and resting up for his trips to the dog park. He loves to take the short walk down to the beach for a swim, no matter the season, and is happiest when we put our full attention into finding fun logs to heave into the water for him to fetch. He takes long trips like a piece of luggage, occasionally whining to have his window rolled down, but mostly sleeping. This enables him to have the most possible energy upon arrival at his destination, when he turns into a bouncing, barking, brown ball of tail-wagging, people-licking, very enthusiastically everything-sniffing puppy! This fall, he's become quite the accomplished mouse hunter, and he works well as a team with Sammy Cat. His new favorite spot is on our mattress which we've placed in front of the fireplace. He and Sammy curl up on the bed, close to the fire and bake until they can't stand it, then they move to the window to cool off.

Btw, this is my first attempt at posting a picture, so hopefully it works and I'll add some more recent ones soon!

Christmas Treasures - 5wks 1day

Yesterday, Eric joined us for tree cutting and cookie making. We went to Masque Farms to select a tree, which took every bit of daylight we could consume thanks to yours truly, and brought it home. On the way home, Cocoa jumped out the window of the car and chased a family of deer through the farm before hopping back to the car to ride home! That dog is crazy, and I can't get enough =) When we got home, we had to figure out where to put the tree, make cookies, order pizza, get all the decorations out of the attic, the guys put the lights on the tree... and then they crashed while I decorated it.

It was so fun to have Eric be a part of it (and hard not to tell him the news!). I have always loved decorating the tree because when I was growing up, most of our ornaments were significant for some reason. Either it was homemade, and I can remember making it, or it was symbolic of what was going on in our lives that year. The same is true for our tree. We have filler ornaments, but many were made by us the first year we were married. Some have been special gifts to me from Dan, or purchased on honeymoons and vacations, or given to us by other people as symbolic of life events. I love poring through those memories every year at Christmas, and looking at them each night through the Christmas season. It's like the only photo album I actually look at, you know?

So, with Eric sleeping soundly on the window seat, and Dan, Cocoa, and me cuddled on the couch, all nestled around the tree, Dan read aloud from Luke. This passage is particularly sweet to me now, as it is the most well-told birth story in history I would imagine. Brought to life by the movie we saw Friday night The Nativity Story reminded me of God's care, and His way of doing things both ordinary and extraordinary all at once. And he ended with my favorite part--I could almost hear these words in the early part of the movie while I watched Mary on the screen--"But Mary tresured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) I thought of their encounters with the shepherds, and later the magi, the prophetess, and even later when he was a boy in the temple. We would not know these stories, except that Mary treasured them and pondered them in her heart. (You know Joseph wasn't exactly keeping a journal with a flowery cover and pretty pen...)

So, a couple of treasures for my new little one:

That Monday night, driving home from work, driving myself crazy with wondering about my late period, I found myself hoping, but not wanting to be dissapointed. However, I had a feeling. It was a feeling I couldn't shake. I felt my body had nothing to shed, I felt not full, not empty, but just right, and free. I don't know how to describe the feeling, and I wouldn't admit it to myself or Dan because I didn't want to look foolish when the test was negative. But I had a feeling, and I knew there was no cycle for me to complete this time.

I am sometimes so very afraid that I will have to deal with losing this child soon. I don't know what to do with that fear, but give it away.

I have been so blessed with a loving and awe-filled husband in the first weeks. From the beginning he has been overjoyed, and I have never seen him act this way about anything. Never. He calls me during the day and asks, "How's the baby?" He kisses my tummy, and makes it clear that protecting me and the baby is his job. He makes sure we are fed, loved, and cherished. And he praises my "special baby-making skills." He is just as enamored with this baby as I am, which has taken me by surprise. Right now, I am luxuriating in that.

This is such a magical time of year, and it always is, but this year, I feel so blessed, so special, so cherished, so gifted. I could not ask for more than this joy. I want to shout LOOK! Look what God has done! My God put on flesh and became a man, and now He is giving me a glimpse of that very miracle in my own life. Who am I? How can this be?

By the way, today my baby has a beating heart, and "a primitive vasular system unspooling by the hour." (Barry Werth, from Conception to Birth)

Trust - 4wks 6days

There are so many things to consider that are running through my head--who will I use for prenatal care? (I know most of the practices and hospitals in the area intimately, and the decision between home, birth center, and hospital is not an easy one for me.) Where will I deliver? How will we afford this? Suppose I make through the pregnancy--how am I supposed to know what to do with a child? How are we going to grow a person into an individual, competent to participate in society? When am I going to stop being scared that the baby might not make it? And why do we have to wait so long for everything... I want to feel pregnant, to see this baby, to watch him grow into a toddler and form his first sentences, to laugh with him and hold him and teach him about life, and it all still feels so very far away. Not as far as it felt last week, though.

And with all these questions, there's only one place I can go. We trusted God for this baby. Before we were married we prayed long and hard about children and when we would have them. We didn't think it would be Biblical to get married without being ready to accept children, so we said from the start that we would love to have them. We used NFP for the first two years, constantly re-evaluating when we thought we might actively try for children. Last year we began to wonder why we were still saying no, still avoiding children, and there were obvious answers. We still feel like kids ourselves. We can't afford for me to stay home with them yet, which we both want. We don't live close to our families, which is very important to me... but just the same, if we see our children as gifts, and we can't predict the future, why do we keep saying no? So, last January, we stopped saying no. Still praying, we decided to trust God to give us children in His own time, and not to try for or to avoid pregnancy. We stopped keeping track.
Trust is a funny thing. It's hard to grasp in practicality. When we decided to "trust" God with our family plans, we switched insurance companies. If we had become pregnant in January, the pregnancy would not have been covered by the new insurance, so we thought, just for one more month, we'll avoid getting pregnant, and after that, we just let it go. So, when it really mattered, even though we just said we'd trust Him, we went back to the same old method. Sound like anyone you've heard of before? I can't tell you how many times I've read stories in the Bible and thought, "Those idiots, can't they see what God just did? Why would they turn around and try to take care of things on their own again?" Well, as if in a great cosmic show of humor, I ovulated extremely early and with no warning that month. Needless to say, we didn't get pregnant, and we learned our lesson. When He says you can trust Him, He really means it. So, we trusted God to give us children in His timing.

During the past year, it has been difficult for me to reconcile my desire to have children and my desire for other things, like traveling to visit our friends who moved to Africa. The first few months were a huge roller coaster ride, half hoping and half terrified that we'd end up pregnant right away, and trying to ignore when I knew I was ovulating. Avoiding caffeine and alcohol just in case, and having a drink when I got my period. Up and down, up and down. And all the while, God laying on both our hearts that our desire to adopt might not be as far away as we had imagined. When we found out that adopting from Uganda is as inexpensive as $5,000 we started to wonder, what's stopping us from pursuing that as well? God can just as easily shut that door as the one to pregnancy, and I was getting used to the idea that it might have been several years yet before we were gifted with either biological or adopted children. We went to an informational meeting about international adoption, and found that we have to finish construction on our house before we can start the paperwork, and were encouraged that this too could come sooner than we had planned.

So all these things were going on, and we were trusting that one day we'll have a family, that we don't know when the best time to start that is, and that all we can do is be open for what God has for us, when this Thanksgiving we turned up pregnant. Why now do I feel I have to make decisions on my own? Why, when I've finally become ok with the idea that I can trust God for a baby in His own time, do I get the news of this baby and lean on my own understanding for the next step? Guess I'm a little slow =) So, now, I'm trusting Him through this pregnancy, to do things his way. Natural delivery at home, or planned C-section for a breech baby--either way it's going to be His pregnancy, not mine.

"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28:20