Monthly Archives: July 2011

Dear Baby

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Baby,

Today you have been in my belly for 15 weeks 3 days.  You are about the size of an apple–around 4 inches long. I started feeling your tiny flutters today, and it is the most amazing thing. I can imagine your cute tiny toes wiggling back and forth and your little fingers finding their way to your mouth for sucking. I have no doubt you are the cutest fetus there ever was. I can’t wait to see you at my 20 week ultrasound!

Your dad and I talk about you a lot, especially on the nights when we use our doppler to listen to your tiny heartbeat. It’s so fast and precious! We imagine what you will look like, if you will be a boy or a girl, if your grandparents will go crazy spoiling you. We think about the excitement and nerves that will be running through us when the big day comes and labor starts. (I hope it snows and our Christmas tree is still lit.) We like to argue about what sports you should play–I don’t like soccer because it’s cold and games are long and kids hardly ever score. I see you more of a tennis player :) We’ve already thought about where we want to send you to school and when we should make you a little brother or sister. We mostly just let our conversations wander instead of making definite decisions. But one thing we know for sure is that you will be the most loved baby in the world. You already are.

We haven’t bought anything for you yet except two Phish onesies. Your dad bought them about 5 minutes after we realized we were pregnant with you. He’s crazy! Actually I guess you could say we also bought you a house! You will love it. There is a perfect little nursery for us to rock you in and a nice back yard for you to run and play. We picked the house because we want you to have a happy fun place to grow up. We already have a painter scheduled to paint your room, but i’ll tell you all about the nursery later.

Keep fluttering away. It melts my heart.

Love you forever,

Mom

A Mother’s Love

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It was surprising to me how a ball of cells immediately turned me into a mother. Minutes after seeing a positive pregnancy test, my mind was speeding with questions, concerns, worry. Something I knew for only minutes already had the ability to bring me the greatest happiness and potentially the greatest sadness. It’s all very humbling.

During the first trimester, I was very worried about miscarrying. The downside of being friends with so many women online is that you hear so many different scary stories and pregnancy loss seems to be a weekly occurrence. My heart ached–and still does– for those women and their partners, but my stomach also was constantly in knots knowing the life I was growing could be gone the next day. I had to avoid twitter and Dr. Google more than usual for my own sanity. I needed to fill my mind with positive thoughts.

Now that I am in my second trimester, worry still remains though less about losing the baby and more about if I am providing a healthy enough environment for the little one to flourish. Did I take enough folic acid? Was our decision to decline genetic testing the right one? Does SSRI use within a year of giving birth cause autism? Have the long term effects of Rhogam been studied extensively enough? The list goes on.

Through all the worry though, there lives an immense amount of love. A love great enough that no amount of worry in the world could squelch it. At a wedding two weekends ago, as I watched the bride and groom say their vows, I cried. I cried because I didn’t want our baby to grow up too fast and get married! Someone I have never even met I love a lot. And it’s awesome.

Lish (13 weeks 6 days)

I’m back…and pregnant!!!

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Well remember when I said I had a bad feeling about Clomid round #2? Well, thankfully I was wrong! It was that cycle that I became pregnant with the little ball of love currently residing in my belly :)

That’s right, I’m PREGNANT! Guess date is January 10, 2012.

Jr. Stac and I moved into a new house on Saturday, April 30–11dpo. Per RE’s orders I was supposed to test or go in for a blood test that Tuesday and Jr. Stac kept telling me over and over again NOT to test early. But we all know how that goes. So at 6AM on May 1, I snuck out of bed and tested. There was a really really faint second blue line, like I could barely could see it and I was not sure if it was just a figment of my imagination. I immediately woke up Jr. Stac to have him look at it and make the call. (In the back of my head I think I knew I was pregnant but was in shock.) He looked at it and thought there was *something* there but it wasn’t obvious enough for him to be “positive” that it was a positive test.

So I tried to go back to sleep. That didn’t really work so as early as we could we went to pick up stuff for the new house at the hardware store. I kept asking him over and over “Do you think I’m pregnant?!” I was in lala land and couldn’t concentrate on anything else so we decided to get a different brand of tests and take another one when we got home. Here’s what the second one looked like:

I just said something like, “Okay, that’s definitely a second line. I’m pregnant!” We hugged for a while and then I immediately called my mom. I was shaking a little bit as I said “I am looking at two positive pregnancy tests.” She said in a whisper, “Are you serious?” The rest of the day and week following is kinda a blur. I went in for two beta tests that showed the baby was there and growing. I felt a sense of relief, love, nervousness, shock, and pure happiness.

Over the next several weeks we told our closest family and friends. Here is a video of my grandparents’ and aunt’s reaction to the news respectively.

Starting now, I will be updating this blog frequently. Some posts I plan to share soon include bringing you up to speed on how the pregnancy has been going so far, a twin scare (!), birthing plans, new new house, and how we are feeling about the January arrival of our little one. Thanks for sharing along in this amazing journey, and a special thanks to all of my twitter friends who have kept me sane over these last 2.5 months, answered so many of my neurotic questions, and simply have been a wonderful support system.

Lish, 13 weeks, 4 days pregnant