12 weeks

Merry Christmas! We announced our news to family, friends and coworkers over the last week and everyone was very excited for us. Many folks were surprised we were able to keep it a secret for so long. We will be traveling up to MN to see Josh's family this week. I know they are anxiously awaiting our visit, since we haven't seen them yet since the news about the baby. Last week was a rough one, I actually took a day off to catch up on sleep and have been feeling better since then. I am almost afraid to say it, but maybe I am on my way out of morning sickness....just maybe. I still feel nauseous, but not violently ill. I think it has to do with the relaxed schedule of break and being able to get a lot more sleep. I just hope it lasts and I can start to forget the throwing up part. It has been really wonderful to see people respond to the news. It has meant a lot to me, and is helping me be more excited. I go to the doctors on New Year's eve, so I will update after that letting you know how it went. I am hoping to hear the heart beat again. Until then...

11 weeks

When does this end......oh wait, never. Anyone else terrified by that prospect? When Josh and I were considering starting a family I actually said to him, "You don't understand, marriage I can get out of, I am a mother for life!". Now of course I don't want out of my marriage, Josh has been the single reason I have survived the last few weeks. He cooks, cleans, irons my clothes and puts me to bed at 8 o'clock. But I still have many days (mostly when I am over the toilet throwing up) that I wonder how I am going to do this. Because, all I am looking forward to is not feeling sick anymore, but I know as soon as that ends, something else will come up, then I have to give birth, then raise this child...for the rest of my life! I sat in my class today watching my 12 year old student go from one ridiculous thing to the next and I really wondered..."will I be able to love my own 12 year old", because I sure don't like these kids. They smell, do stupid things and generally annoy me....how am I going to love my own kid when it annoys me, and never goes home or moves on to the next class?This is terrifying. Who decided I would make a good mother and have what it takes to form a life? Lord I just pray to not ruin it, let it just survive with a minimal need for therapy. Amen

10 Weeks

Still feeling very sick. I am really hoping that this starts to calm down in a few weeks as I ease out of the first trimester around new years. I actually threw up so violently this week I broke a blood vessel in my eye. That, or I am bleeding eternally from my medicine so I am hoping it is just the blood vessel. My pants are starting to get tight, I can still fit in to everything, just a little less comfortably. I weighed myself and I haven't gained any weight, so it is either bloating or just the baby starting to take up more room. The baby is about an inch and half now and will double in size by Christmas. It has all its fingers and toes and is starting to develop distinct characteristics of a boy or girl. It is forming its teeth this week as well. I have been having a few cravings, mostly for apples and pasta. They seem to be the only thing I can eat that doesn't make the too sick. I finally finished decorating the house. We added a tiny stocking between ours this year...just for fun. We are also trying to come up with a creative way to announce it to all of our friends. I am thinking postcards, but we will just have to see. If you have seen anything cute done, let me know.

Things that made me sick today...

1. The granola bar I ate before getting out of bed that is suppose to help me not feel sick.
2. The plain bagel I ate for breakfast (I actually threw that back up)
3. The smell of my own deodorant
   
4. The smell of my clean hair
5. the smell of the inside of my car
6. saltines
7. water
8. the smell of my classroom without students and then with students
9. The smell of the airfreshner in the teacher's lounge
10. The smell of the public bathroom I had to use to throw up in at school
    
11. My student asking me what my throw up tasted like ( I hate that kid)
    
12. The very plain soup and bread I ate for dinner, hoping to feel better

Today was a rough day....I hope I feel better tomorrow.

9 Weeks

This last week went by fairly quickly. I decorated the house for Christmas in between dry heaves. There are still no ornaments on the tree, but I will get to that slowly. It is crazy to think at this time next year we will have a 6 month old! I am still trying to be cautious about getting too attached and being too excited. But it is getting harder. With each passing week I hope more and more that this will last ans nothing will go wrong. I go to the doctors tomorrow to talk about the ultrasound and have a checkup. It will be nice to have some questions answered and be reassured that everything is going well. I am still really sick, with little to no cramping, so I am hoping that that is a good sign and that the baby (who is now officially a fetus) is here to stay. We are also starting to look at names and are open for suggestions...until we find out the gender of the baby, I am only looking at girls names. Why expend my precious energy unless I have too?

8 weeks

Still feeling sick, but trying to combat it with B6, eating pretty regularly and a lot of sleep. I pretty much have no life right now, I am just a gestational machine. I actually was in bed last night by 7:30. But don't worry, I didn't go to sleep until 8. Wild night, huh? But I actually felt the best today than I have in a long time, so I think there is something to this sleep thing. With Josh gone tonight I just might do it again. Thought I would post a picture of where we are at in the process. I am growing little fingers and toes this week!

after the holidays (Josh)

Well my little one, we told your grandparents and great-grandparents, and aunts and uncles, and your mom's and my aunts and uncles and our cousins about you over Thanksgiving...and they freaked. They are so excited for you to be here, I think they might be close to being as excited for you as we are. Although your mom has been feeling pretty sick lately, everyday there are these moments when I catch your mom's eyes, or rub her back while she's feeling sick, or simply hold her hand that ushers in a flood of hope, fear, and excitement, and I can't help but smile.

There are times when I wish you were here today, but I know that over these coming months I will have a lot to learn and a lot to prepare to begin to be ready for you. I just wanted to let you know that we are so excited for you. Your family is excited for you. And even the friends who we've let in on this little secret of ours are excited as well. It feels so special as we are preparing for the coming of another small child whose life flipped the world upside down in this time of advent, that we are also in another period of anxious awaiting for you.

what a day (Josh)

Today was one of the best days of my life. I'm sure there will come times when this will hit me in other ways, and there will be a sense of grief over the changes that will happen in my life, especially in my relationship with Shey...but today was a day when things became the most real thus far in preparing to have a child and add a new member to our family. Hearing the heartbeat of our child was absolutely wonderful. I couldn't help but smile, laugh, and become wide-eyed (which is saying something right Shey, my eyes don't open very wide!). I couldn't believe my eyes today, as I watched on the screen this mass of cells, beginning to take shape in my wonderful wife's womb...I was struck by the amazing intricacies of new life. More than that, I heard the heartbeat of our child. The strong steady beat, at 140 beats per minute.

Along with the joy in hearing the heartbeat we were relieved to see that things are moving along smoothly, with her/him being an appropriate size (1.10 cm from head to tail-like thing that will eventually become tailbone). I feel like as I drift off to sleep tonight, I can rest in a new way, having seen and heard of the joy to come.

I realize we must be careful in getting ahead of ourselves, but after the first ultrasound today, I honestly am thrilled, excited, and relieved for things to have gone smoothly thus far. I hope that Shey will start to feel better, she's been getting pretty sick these last couple of days...though a stronger morning sickness usually implies that the placenta and baby are developing well at this point (so maybe it is sort of good that she's not feeling so well).

I've added the ability to listen to the the heartbeat from the ultrasound today, you can check it out below, or if you'd like to download it, right-click here and "save as."

meet our blob of cells....

so the white blob inside the black circular blob is new baby Hayden. I know I am biased but I think he/she is beautiful. The ultra sound went well, the baby is on schedule and the right size. Everything looked fine at this point, which was nice to hear. Josh was able to record the heartbeat. 140 beats/minute. When we can figure out how to put it up as a sound clip we will. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving.

tomorrow (Josh)

tomorrow is a big day. up until the first ultra sound, Shey and I have been a bundle of conflicted emotions. on one hand, we are so excited and so thankful that Shey was able to get pregnant, and that we are entering into this amazing, tremendous, wonderful new phase of life, as we become a larger family. on the other hand, we have struggled to let ourselves really allow the excitement seep into our bones. we're scared. we're scared that something could happen, and the life that is already begun, could be gone, and we don't know how we'd react and process the loss.

so in a lot of ways, after tomorrow, i think that this will all feel more real, and we can begin to let go of a little more of our hearts that we are careful to guard right now.

but in even saying that, i'm so freakin excited, and there is no way to get around the fear of pain and doubt that we are facing, so i think we just have to let go. we know that we have a community of friends that will love us through any darkness we might walk into and not be able to find our way out, and that eventually we'll find our way.

i really believe and hope that tomorrow is another step of being able to let go...to let go of the fear of being too excited, or the fear of loss. here's to a new day, and to hope.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

So I need to back date this a bit, because I didn't get around to starting this until almost a month later. This might be kind of cheesy, but I don't journal (in the conventional way) and wanted a way to record this life changing event somehow. We also thought it might be fun for our friends and family (near and far) to be able to follow along with the progress and be a part of this.

So here it goes....

I had been feeling a kind of sick and run down and just had a sneaking suspicion. Granted I had been convinced on a few other instances that I was pregnant and had been wrong, but still went a head and bought a test, fulling expecting it to be negative. Josh was still at youth. It was three days before his 25th birthday. So nervously I peed on the stupid thing, peeing on my hand in the process. Waiting a few minutes I looked down to detect a strong vertical line (negative) with a very faint horizontal line (positive). I had bought the cheapest test on the shelf not wanting to waste money on this stupid hunch I thought I had, this I found out was not the time to be frugal. Anyway, after staring at it and trying to decipher it for 10 minutes. I called Josh and had the strangest conversation with him....going something like...."so I took a pregnancy test and it is really faint and I am not sure so could you just pick one up on your way home" (spoken in rapid succession without pausing for breath). Four pregnancy tests (bringing our total to 5) later I was finally convinced it might be true. I did have to splurge and get the digital one the last time. There is no arguing with the word "pregnant". So I called the doctors office and made my first appointment.

I went in on Thursday, Nov. 1, just to get set up with shots and will go back on Nov. 21 for the first ultra sound. I will be 7.5 weeks pregnant at that point and will pick up with that tomorrow. Maybe even having a picture of a gummy bear to share with you all.

Are those two pink lines?