We Have a Heart Beat!

We had our 2nd appointment with the midwife on Friday. We were very excited but also slightly nervous. Of course we were assuming all was well in baby growing land...but we all have heard situations where things go wrong. This was really the first real proof (after the pregnancy test, almost 7 weeks before) that we had that all was well in there.

We had to make our way through all the talking and physical exam, before they got out the doppler. Then we heard it. The midwife found it without any trouble and it registered in right around 170 beats per minute, which is right where it should be for a 10 week old fetus. It was so amazing to hear, though I think I was a bit shocked at first, that this whole thing is real. We are going to have a baby!!

Now that we've heard the heart beat on the outside the chances of miscarriage go way day. We'll be 12 weeks along on Sunday. We've been having fun sharing the news with people, and are excited to keep sharing, it's sort of fun to do it gradually and hear everyone's response. I think I'll share some on another post.

The Day We Almost Had an Ultrasound

Ali was in a minor car accident Wednesday night. There was a little damage to the car (some scraping and a broken off mirror), and she reported feeling fine. Of course when she came home and told me this I was a tiny bit worried. I insisted we call the midwife on call (as they told us to do after ANY motor vehicle accident). The midwife assured us that at 9 weeks the babe was very well cushioned and as long as there was no cramping or bleeding, and she otherwise felt fine, it probably was fine....but....

BUT we could call in the morning and schedule an ultrasound if it would make us feel better.

At this point, we were both pretty confident that the accident did not do any harm. Ali said that the impact she felt from the accident was less than someone would feel if they hit the breaks fast at a red light or something. BUT, going the midwife route means if all goes well we'll probably only get one ultrasound and that's still a couple months away. So of course we would want to see what was going on in there now.

As I thought about it that night part of me thought I'd give up my "perfect expected parent" badge if I chose to have an procedure that wasn't 100% necessary. It felt like saying yes to an ultrasound was like saying no to cloth diapering or breastfeeding...like I'd be deemed unworthy of that awesome life that's growing in there. Eventually I got over that, and agreed that it probably wouldn't hurt to go get checked out. Then if something was wrong (either because of the accident or not) we'd at least know, and otherwise, we'd get to see our tiny little person. Seemed like a win all around.

Until I went to google and searched for dangers of ultrasounds. If you are expecting a baby, it's probably best that you don't do this. Our midwives had given us the "we assume it's safe, but don't have any real way of knowing" speech about ultrasounds. But that was nothing compared to what I found on the internet. There was the whole spectrum of possibilities from "ultrasounds are really safe, so don't worry about it" to "the heat and waves from the ultrasound could damage your babies brain (or worse)" to "ultrasounds will make your baby left handed." SERIOUSLY?!?

There were many different sites that said to avoid ultrasounds during the first trimester, or to not do them if it's not necessary. Though I'm not too worried about our baby being left handed we decided that if there was any risk at all we'd just skip it, sense it was really just for fun at this point, and not because we were really worried.

Geesh, this being a parent thing is hard.

Secret Keeping is Hard to Do

We've told a fair number of people about our pregnancy at this point, however we are not quite ready to tell the whole world. We know that sometimes things go wrong in early pregnancy and it might be easier to not explain that to everyone on our facebook friends list. So, the plan is to wait until we hear the heart beat (on the 22nd) before making any great announcement on the internet, at work (especially), or at church. In the meantime....it's become really hard to keep this secret. Not just because we really enjoy having people get excited with us, but because we apparently live in a very small community.

• The first day at work after we found out we were pregnant EVERYONE seemed to be talking about babies/being pregnant. There was pregnancy tea in the mail room, and cans of formula everywhere. The Program Assistant in Ali's program started telling me stories randomly about when she was pregnant. My boss loudly asked the maintenance guy right outside of my office door if his wife was tired when she was pregnant (I am very certain neither of these guys' wives are pregnant currently). Our friend and co-worker came into my office and started telling me, out of the blue, how she wanted to have a baby RIGHT NOW, and how they were going to start trying soon. She was asking when we were going to have babies. She was SO excited it was almost impossible not to tell her in that moment. 

• After work we went to Freeport to check out some baby stores. We had barely walked in the door of one of our favorite baby stores when I spotted the director of development at our agency. I dragged Ali to to the other side of the store, and prayed that she would leave without notice. Instead she meandered over to where we were and I started talking loudly (maybe too loudly) about our niece, Hannah, in a pretend conversation about her age. She probably didn't think anything of it but still. 

• The next day there happened to be a group information session at the midwives office that we were pretty sure we were going to use. This was the first time they had offered a group session, and we decided to check it out, even though it was too early in our pregnancy to get an appointment. We were standing at the desk to check in and right behind us was a coworker, standing with a client to register for the same group session. The client, I'm certain did not recognize us, but obviously our co-worker did. I sent her an e-mail the following morning telling her that it was a surprise to see her, and that we were not very far along in our pregnancy, and would appreciate it if she did not mention it to anyone at work. She wrote back to say that she had only told one person, but not to worry because she was "a locked vault." PS. If you've told even one person, you are not a locked vault. 

• The best story yet! Ali started a pre-natal water aerobics class at the YMCA last week. She is really excited about it, and I think it is totally amazing. She went for her first class on Wednesday, and was sitting beside the instructional pool, in her bathing suit, with a few very visibly pregnant women. Her class is at 5:30 and there's a kid's swimming lesson that goes from 5:00-5:30. Turns out her supervisor's daughter is in that  class, and of course, he was there. How long do you think it'll be before he notices that Ali is in an adult swim class with all pregnant women, and that he belly is getting bigger each week. We've got 6 more weeks to find out!! 

The world of secret keeping is full of good intentions, we'll see how long we can actually keep this one for, before the whole world knows! 

Where Did the Last Month Go?

Let's rewind to October 5th shall we? (14 days after our iui, and the first day that there was a possibility of getting an accurate reading on a pregnancy test.)

We wake up early in the morning and have the following conversation while still in bed:

Ali: Do you think we should take a pregnancy test?

Me: No, we'll find out soon enough one way or another. (AKA -- we've got a lot to do today and I don't want to start the day with a negative pregnancy test.)

Ali: I think I should take one.


So she does. And this happens. Twice.

***If you happen to know us in real life please do not mention this pregnancy in any public way (including, but not limited to Facebook). We are trying to not tell everyone until we at least hear the baby's heart beat, and we'd prefer for our employer to hear it from us first. THANKS FRIENDS!***

It was/is really unbelievable actually. As of today we are 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Though we are fairly confident there is a tiny human growing in there it is also easy to forget. We took the test, but sense then we have not had any confirmation that it's really true. We are getting prenatal care from a great midwife practice where we live, but they are pretty hands off when it comes to poking and prodding unnecessarily. We were there last week, and they took some blood and urine to run some tests and I asked "You're going to run a pregnancy test too, right? So we all know this isn't some sort of hoax." "She looked at me like I was crazy, and said they didn't do that." Weird. So we are banking on the clear pregnancy symptoms Ali is having (and the lack of anything alarming happening) to assure us that everything is just fine.  A week from Friday we will hear the heartbeat...I'm sure it will seem much more real after that.

We alerted some folks right away about our exciting news. That day was also the first day in our month long moving adventure, so we ended up telling some friends too, who knew we were trying so it wouldn't be totally weird that Ali wasn't lifting anything. That and we were too excited not to tell someone.

That Sunday we found out we were pregnant, moved a bunch of stuff, and on Monday Ali started her new job. To say it's been a busy month is a bit of an understatement. But, it's ALL good.