It Turned Blue!

After much discussion, Jimmy and I decided to start "trying" to start a family at the beginning of 2010.  After one very early miscarriage in April, we learned that we were pregnant again in July.  Because of the first loss I was pretty reluctant to share the news at first and we only told very close friends and a few immediate family members.  At our first appointment with Dr. Schmidt (6 weeks) we had an ultrasound and saw the little flicker that was our baby's heartbeat.  I cried (of course) and we then commenced to tell the rest of the family the wonderful news.  Lori (aka Lolo) and Mom (aka Grammy) were so excited and had to be warned not to share the news on facebook, email, text, and whatever other mediums we could think of.  Lori also inadvertently gave the baby its temporary nickname.  We sent her a picture of the ultrasound and asked her what she thought it was.  In her defense, pictures on phones are hard to see sometimes, so her response of, "it looks like Pluto or some space planet!" is understandable.  So we started calling the baby Pluto, which is ironic because Pluto (of Micky Mouse fame) is my all time favorite cartoon character and the much loved/abused stuffed animal of my childhood.

20 weeks...it's a boy!

I didn't tell the people at work until we were around 12 weeks pregnant just to make sure everthing was going to "stick" and they didn't get all worked up over nothing (I was going to completely miss one client's filing).  I'm happy to say that the partner in charge of my client only used the word "disaster" once and everyone was very supportive.  This was especially demonstrated when I told the client the good news...another partner preceded the announcement (at a conference table at the end of a meeting) by making the bomb dropping sound effect...thanks  Erin!  After I told work, Pluto decided that he would go right ahead and make himself comfortable in his little nest and I seemed to pop out the very next week!  Here are a few belly shots to remember (in no particular order):

Week 18

Week 24 at Misty's wedding!

Week 25 at Christmas in Mathis, TX (Gigi's house)

Week 39...almost there!

Week 27.  Biggles looks concerned.  He has no idea!

Week 33.  Possibly around Valentine's day judging from the flowers.

I seem to be of the fortunate few who carried all out in front (as greatly evidenced by the Week 39 picture).  I gained about 35 pounds during the process, mostly toward the end when sweets suddently became a necessity after every meal.  By then I could eat pretty much anything, which was a welcome change from the few first trimester weeks when NOTHING sounded good and the weeks following when I was excessively picky. I literally cried several times when Jimmy asked what I wanted for dinner (yay hormones).  I was starving all the time and yet nothing was appealing. Something that usually sounded good was fried chicken (Popeye's) and Whataburger breakfast taquitos (potato egg and cheese, please).  Jimmy even sweetly submitted a comment on the Whataburget website requesting that they serve breakfast all day long, since my craving was inevitably the worst on the way home in the evenings.  Apart from those mild cravings (oh, and Cherry Coke...mmmmm) I didn't really ever want anything in particular.  I had more trouble with not wanting food, such as steak, that I previously loved.

We were supposed to find out the sex of Pluto at our 20 week ultrasound.  As soon as the tech put the picture up on the monitor I saw it...you know...IT.  The tech was all smiles and said, "It's a boy!" to which I replied, "Of course it is."  The tears in my eyes really were tears of joy although I was pretty disappointed we were not having a girl (sorry, Nathan). After we learned that our little miracle was a boy we commenced trying to decide (or agree) on a name.  We had a girl's name all ready to go and had only decided on the middle name for a boy.  After a process of elimination over the Thanksgiving holiday we agreed on Nathaniel Henry, with Henry being after Jimmy's maternal grandfather. 

All in all it was a pretty easy pregnancy with no major complications.  I did have some pre-term labor contractions every once in a while starting in January (thank you busy season) but they never became serious and Nathan eventually had to be coaxed out into the world on his due date...but that's another story!

A little history...

Well it finally happened...I started a blog.  First Facebook, now this!  What is my world coming to??  Evidently this is what happens when you have a baby - you want to share with the world (okay, maybe not the whole world) and remember everything that happens.  It's that "remembering" that's the biggest problem, especially during the first few exhaustion and pain-killer fogged weeks.  Not that the later weeks are any less fogged with exhaustion, but I appear to have a better handle on them...or so it seems.  At any rate, one thing I want to be able to do, at the suggestion of my wonderful friend Kristin, is create memory books from our postings at the end of the year.  Hence, the first few posts will be travelling back in time to remember some of the things that have happened over the past few months.  I hope you enjoy!