Holy Cow--There Really is a Baby in There!

Well, at long last (and a week earlier than it "should" have been), we had our first appointment! It was scheduled for 3, and I knew that they would probably be running behind. While we waited in the waiting room, I filled out a family medical history form, and TH checked out all the other pregnant women's bumps. I totally caught him doing it--and he laughed and said that he can't wait until I have one.

Just before 4 we were called back, and I finally got to meet my doctor. He is the sweetest man ever! He had kind, twinkly eyes (like how I would imagine Santa's eyes), and he was very huggy (which I love!)--I think by the time the appointment was over I had gotten two or three hugs from him, and even TH had received a man hug.

After the initial chit chat, they wheeled in a u/s machine. It was a little awkward having TH there with me while someone else stuck a wand up my jay-jay, but I guess I'm going to have to get used to things like that. I was anticipating a few tense moments, but almost instantly Dr. was showing us the baby! We went from amazement at "And there's your baby!" to sheer awe at seeing the little one's fluttering heartbeat. It was the most incredible thing to see that little heart fluttering away~153 strong beats per minute! I was hoping he would just sit there for 10 or 15 minutes, just letting us stare at our little one, a hope that, obviously, was not fulfilled. It was over too quickly, but we got pictures to take home with us.

I think it definitely took seeing that heartbeat to make this all real to us, to cement the fact in our minds that there is a baby in there! Before it was just conceptual. Now it's real.

Sprout is measuring dead on: 7 weeks exactly (I had calculated 7 weeks, 1 day) and is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

I am so in love.

Telling My Parents

It was very, very hard not to tell my parents over the phone as soon as we found out, but we wanted to tell them in person, so we scheduled a trip for them to come down and visit. Since TH and I travel so much, I make a lot of photobooks of our trips--a new photobook to share would have been no surprise to my folks. So I made a photobook of some of the best pictures of our recent trips. The last picture was the digital pregnancy test saying "pregnant." I don't know why, but I was way more nervous about telling my parents than I was about telling the in-laws last week!

Here's the video of our big reveal! It's kind of long (my mom flipping through the book and oohing and ahhing politely), so feel free to skip to the exciting part at the end (about 3:20).

Prenatal exercise

Without making all kinds of excuses let's just say that I let myself fall completely off the workout wagon after my race last spring and have stayed fallen off. (Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!) I know that I need to do something, even if it's just walking. I even made TH promise before we ever got pg that he would go on walks with me every day when I finally got KU.

Well, here I am, 6 weeks 2 days pg and I've been on a grand total of four walks. I'm not happy about this.

Part of the problem is that I want TH to walk with me, so I wait until the evenings. But we don't get done with work until 5:30, and I HAVE to eat something right after work, which puts our walk at the earliest starting at 6:30 and quite frankly I've been too doggone tired in the evenings to make myself do it! It just hasn't been happening.

So I told TH last night at dinner that I was going to start going for my walks in the morning. I'm waking up earlier than my alarm anyway. I used to workout in the morning religiously. I like the way it makes me feel for the rest of the day. And I don't have to worry about being too tired to do it.

TH is not a morning person. TH was not happy to hear my new plan.

But, a promise is a promise (and I might have added something about me having to go through a lot to make his baby and the least he could do is go on a freaking walk with me in the morning), so he reluctantly agreed to the pre-dawn jaunts.

This morning the alarm went of at 6 and although it was very cozy under the covers, I knew I had to roll my ass out of bed and do this. And he did too. That didn't go over well. He started to BMG (bitch-moan-and-groan). I burst into tears. (Dumb pg hormones...but I must say, effective!) He felt bad and was suddenly Mr. I-love-morning-walks and started getting dressed. And this is when this story became blog worthy.

He put his sports-pants on top of his pajama pants. He put on a T-shirt. A long-sleeve shirt. AND THEN HIS BATH ROBE. He topped it off with his giant puffy ski jacket. That's right, four layers on top, one of which was his bath robe, and the other of which was designed for winter sports. Real winter. Not 40-degree Texas winter.

I was so glad it was dark. He is definitely going to be the parent who embarrasses our kids.

He was so pissy the rest of the morning from not having gotten all the sleep he wanted and having been forced from bed to walk around the neighborhood in his bathrobe that I decided it's just not worth it.

I'll be looking for a prenatal yoga DVD this weekend.

Telling the In-Laws

TH's parents were in town over the weekend to celebrate my father in-law's (FIL) birthday. Originally we were going to wait to tell his parents, as they can be a bit . . . overwhelming . . . but we decided that telling on FIL's birthday was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

So we got him this onesie. Zeyde means "grandfather" in Yiddish, and Bubbie means "grandmother."
We folded it so that only the words showed and FIL would have to actually pick it up to see what it was, and then we wrapped it in a regular shirt box.

My only regret is that we didn't catch how it all unfolded on video. You'll just have to imagine the scene, which will be improved if you can manage to read FIL's part with a thick Russian accent.

::::we give him the box::::

FIL: Oooh, it's clothes.

me: It is clothes! We didn't know what size to get you though.

::::FIL takes two minutes to unwrap the box, being careful not to rip any of the paper. As he finally lifts off the lid and starts to make his way through the tissue paper, TH squeezes my knee with excitement::::

FIL: Oh, that's nice!

::::He takes the onesie out of the box and holds it up::::

FIL: very nice!

::::He holds the onesie up to his chest::::

FIL: See? It's my size!

::::I start to wonder what the hell is going on::::

FIL: Oooh, look at this! Little snaps on the bottom!

me: yeah. Snaps.

::::I wonder if he has ever seen a onesie before, and then rationalize that SURELY he can tell by the tiny freaking size of the piece of clothing that it's for a BABY::::

::::FIL turns onesie around and reads the front of it::::

FIL: Oh, look at this. Do you know what zeyde means?

TH: Do YOU know what zeyde means?

FIL: Yes. It means grandfather.

TH: That's right. It means grandfather.

::::TH and I stare at FIL, screaming GET IT?!?!?!? with our eyes::::

(wait for it)

(waaaait for it)

::::FIL loses all expression from his face and physically staggers backwards::::

(THERE it is!)

It was so quintessentially him. If ever you could describe an old Russian man as an airhead, he's the one who would fit that description. I am still kicking myself we didn't get it on film. He then went on to yell "Oh my God!" 10 or 15 times and proceeded to have hot flashes. We had to turn the fan on him.

The rest of the night he wanted "to sit by his grandchild" at dinner and proceeded to tell us all about when his two sons were born, which, by the way, if you ever want to really and truly appreciate having babies in 21st century America, listen to stories about having babies in Soviet-controlled Russia. Yikes.

And he kissed me a lot. And touched my belly. And asked what we were going to do about childcare and said that it was unacceptable that we will be putting a 3-month old into day care and that they would have to move to our area so that they could be closer.

Yeah. Like I said. Overwhelming.

But the news is out! Hopefully they will be good and not tell anyone until we give them the green light. Chances of that actually happening...............................?

Nursery Progress

So, we had the carpet guys finally back today to install the new carpet. He has been out to our house several times now, but hadn't seen the room painted. Here's how that went:

him: Wow, are you pregnant?

me: yep!

him: Congrats! Soo....was it planned?

me: (shocked but polite laugh) yes.

him: Oh. That's good. 'Cause none of my three were.

And then later, as they were leaving:

him: so, how many months pregnant are you?

me: oh, just a little over one.

him: how long have you been married?

me: in April it will be four years.

him: Man! And you guys are just NOW getting around to having kids??? In my family, that's WHY you get married.

me: *polite laugh*

him: yeah, your life is sure going to change. No more of this super clean, nice house.

me: yeah, I know. We're ready for it, though!

him: I wasn't ready for it. I had my first when I was 14.

me: (shocked face)

him: yeah, but we got married, and we're still married, so I guess it's all good. My oldest is 17 now, so I figure in a few years, we can start traveling and do all the stuff we didn't get to do before. Unless we have another. It's possible you know. Even after you get fixed.

me: Uh, ok, thanks, we'll call you again! Bye!

Poor guy. No social filter whatsoever. He's lucky that I'm married to someone with a similarly inoperative social filter and I understood.

So, here are the pics so far! The only thing left to do it the chair rail. Yay! (Yes, it's blue. Yes, we're considering it a gender-neutral nursery. Yes we think girl nurseries can look cute in blue, especially with pink accents.)

This is what we started with:

I am a master taper!

First color done!

Missed a step here. The second color is now on and the stars are taped.

Aw! TH did a fantastic job with the stars!! He wouldn't let me in to see until he was done. He touched up every single one by hand. It helps to have an OCD artist in charge of the final touches!

All that remains is a white chair rail on the border between the top and bottom. Yay!!

Wow, Universe! That was Fast!

So, not even two hours after blogging about how slow I felt like time was moving and how long I still had to wait until my first doctor's appointment, the doctor's office called and said that they had to reschedule my appointment! She tried to bump it back a day, but I asked if they had any openings the week before, and they did!

My new appointment is 1/27, almost a full week earlier! Hallelujah!!

Thank you, universe!!

Tick Freakin' Tock

Two weeks ago today I was staring down at a pregnancy test, trying to decide if my eyes were playing tricks on me or if there actually was a second line there. Two weeks. I've known I am pregnant for two weeks.

Everyone talks about how time flies when you're pregnant, how you can't believe when you're done with your first trimester, how you can't believe you are down to the double digits in your countdown to your due date, how you still have so much stuff to do and you're not sure you're going to have time to get it all done because gosh darn-it time is just going by so quickly!

To be clear, I don't want my pregnancy to pass in the blink of an eye. I want to enjoy every second of it. But my first appointment with my doctor is another 2 1/2 weeks from now. It's only been two weeks, and I have at least that long, plus another four days to go 'til I get to go to the doctor and have this whole thing legitimized. 'Til I get to see Sprout's fluttering heart. 'Til I get to rest a little easier.

These last two weeks certainly have not flown by! They've actually been two very long weeks. I cannot believe it's only been 14 days. And I still have that long, plus a little, to go.

Oi vey. Tick freakin' tock.