Oh, Baby!

Guess what?!

Well…

Okay, if the title didn’t already give it away… we’re having a baby!

This is going to be a big year for us! I’ll be turning 30 in a few weeks (yikes!), we’ll celebrate 7 years of marriage, and we get to prepare for a little bundle of joy.

We’ve known for a few weeks now and have been waiting for closer to the end of the first trimester to share the news publically. Long story (for another post), but we’re sharing the news a bit earlier. As I hit “send” on this post, I’m 10 weeks, 2 days pregnant, and my doctor has given me a due date of January 18, 2011!!

We’ve shared the news with some of our friends and family, so I’ll use the rest of this post to answer the questions we’ve received most often. This will probably be a long post, but I’m thinking you need to just get used to that… it’s going to be 8 more months of long pregnancy-related posts. TMI? Sorry, but we are talking pregnancy here!

When did you find out?

Thursday, May 13th. I felt strange starting Tuesday that same week, had a feeling something was going on, but postponed taking a pregnancy test due to some drama going on at work. So Thursday I flew home from work and immediately took a test… positive! Immediately. I even went to the kitchen to drink two glasses of water so I could take another test. Two pink lines again! (somewhat faded due to the dilution the water caused!)

How did you tell Bronce?

When all the excitement was going on after work that Thursday, Bronce had gone running. I had about an hour to decide how to tell him. I headed to one of the UT stores down the street and bought a little orange and white onesie (so cute!). I got a package all set and ready… and remembered we had small group that night. Oops! By the time he got home he only had time to take a shower and we had to leave for our friends’ house. I decided to wait to tell him - I wanted us to have time to get excited and ask each other a ton of questions and talk over it for a while, and I didn’t want it limited to the car ride across town.

We got to small group, I sat with my little secret for nearly 3 hours, and was ready to head home the minute we were done. Bronce and I spent the entire drive home talking about our meeting that night and I tried to stay as distracted as possible.

When we got home he quickly busied himself getting stuff out of the car, putting away some clothes, and generally making me crazy since I wanted to tell him our own news so desperately! Finally he wandered toward the den and I asked him to take a look at a box on the kitchen table. “I think something came from Amazon… did you order it?” He opened the box and saw this: 

He set it down, stared at me, and loudly exclaimed “Shut Up!” about five times. I laughed, said it was true, and insisted he continue opening the tissue paper. Wrapped in the tissue was the adorable infant pajamas I had run out to get before he got home. So cute! I can’t wait to put our tiny baby in this outfit.

 

We were so excited for the next few hours we could hardly sleep. It was a fun reveal.

Was it planned?

Yes. Want more details? Didn’t think so. :)

When did you tell your family and friends?

I told my closest girlfriends right away – I needed to talk to someone about it! I took a picture of the positive pregnancy tests sitting on a paper that said “We need to talk!” and texted it to them.

We told our parents that weekend. I really wanted to tell my parents first, so we arranged to have dinner with Mom and Dad Friday night. It was a last-minute thing but it was perfect. On our way to dinner we picked up a pink hydrangea plant and I stuck a note in the soil. They were so excited! (There was a hilarious moment when Mom figured it out before Dad… she was pushing on him to get out of the booth so she could hug us… Dad was looking around saying “What’s going on?! What is it?!” Haha, he’s hilarious.) Later Dad, always the clever gardener, said if it turns out to be a boy we can add aluminum to the soil below the hydrangea and turn the flowers blue. So cool!

[photo… well, I haven’t taken one so I’ll see what I can do…]

On our way home from dinner we called my brother and Jewel to share the news with them. They were so thrilled. Dad visited them a few weeks later and delivered a cute t-shirt we had made for Kathryn. (I’m hoping we can get a picture of this at some point!)

We had dinner with Bronce’s parents Saturday night. For that announcement we gave them a pot of Baby’s Breath. They were excited, too, and totally shocked.

On our way home we called Bronce’s brother, Spencer, and his sister, Lauren. Telling our families was possibly the most fun part of the whole thing.

We let the news trickle out to our friends as we spent time with them, telling a few each week.

Will you find out the sex?

Nope.

Okay, I say no. Bronce says yes. In fact, he seems to think that we should have the doc tell him and he will somehow keep it a secret from me for the next 8 months. Not likely. So… bottom line is that we’re still discussing it.

What sex would you rather?

That seems to change with each day. Sometimes I think I’d like a boy… but most of our friends and both of our brothers have had little girls (which means: lots of great hand-me-downs!), so that might be easier. I always wanted to be the mom to a house full of boys, though – those moms always seem so chilled out.

Bottom line? Healthy baby.

Do you have names picked out?

Some… I’ve had some girl names that I’ve loved for years. We’d love to have a junior if it’s a boy.

The name thing is hard… Both our brothers have named their daughters after our grandmothers, so we don’t have that to contend with. Do we go with family names? Biblical names? Name the kid after close friends (yeah, probably not)? I like names with some sort of personal meaning so we’re still up in the air about that. I kinda think I won’t share the name once we decide… maybe just the initial (which, if we don’t find out the sex, we’ll have to pick the same initial for both… geez, this is getting complicated).

How are you feeling?

I felt great for the first week after we found out. I was reading a lot about early pregnancy and the risks of miscarriage (I’m not irrationally worried, but trying to be realistic). One article I read said that moms with morning sickness are less likely to have a miscarriage… so of course I stupidly said to Bronce and a friend that I was worried I hadn’t felt sick yet. Duh. Why would I say such a thing??

Enter… 8-hour “morning” sickness. From 9am till about 5pm I was suffering from an intense nausea. I never threw up (would that make me feel better?) but just constantly felt icky. Nothing looked particularly appetizing and I couldn’t get up the energy to cook something that didn’t look yummy. Ironically, pickles calmed my stomach the best. But the thought of pickles? Bleh. I was reminded, though, of the reason I was concerned about my lack of morning sickness. I pray that this was confirmation that my body is adjusting to this little baby growing inside me.

But that was last week. Now? As far as pregnancy symptoms? Feeling great and got some energy back. I’m sure this will fluctuate for the next few months but I’m enjoying the good feelings right now.

Cravings?

No. Nothing. I’m not even all that hungry yet. I’m snacking some but not having those “gotta have it” desires yet.

Aversions?

No. Nothing. Or everything, I guess. But nothing makes me sick right away except strong smells like perfume. Food smells don’t bother me (yet!). But gross stuff on TV (like the nasty stuff Bear Grylls eats on Man vs. Wild) turns my stomach SO fast. Ugh, I can’t stand even thinking about it… I normally “fall asleep” while Bronce is watching that show (that’s code for “hide my head in a pillow and pretend I’m sleeping).

Picture?

Thanks for asking! I’d love to post a random picture! Here’s one Bronce took of me right after I told him I had a baby in my belly. I feel like someday (soon, based on the gobs of food I’ve been eating) I’ll refer to this as my “skinny before picture.”

Uh, no, I meant… Ultrasound Picture?

Oh. Unfortunately my scanner isn’t working very well. Our first ultrasound was a few weeks ago and it went really well – the picture is great! But you’ll have to take my word for it for now! I’ll try to get it up in the next post.

How are you decorating the nursery?

Oh… I have lots of thoughts about that. More on that in a future post. :)

I’m kind of new at this baby thing, so if there are any other questions you might have, ask away!