THE BIG FAMILY REVEALS
Ok, so I now that I have that out of my system, I guess what I really want to say is that I can't believe that we're going to be parents. I mean ok, we obviously planned this. When you stop taking birth control and you start putting reminders in your calendar to tell you what days are the baby making days I mean I guess you kind of gave in to the idea that becoming a parent was inevitable. We've gotten a range of reactions, honestly the best so far though had to have been telling each of our parents on Christmas day. I definitely couldn't have thought of a better day to tell them. Don't get me wrong, it was extremely hard for me to keep it a secret from Mamma Dukes for that long. I literally almost ignored a phone call from her the night we had gotten the positive pregnancy test because I didn't think I'd be able to hide it.
But really, their reactions truly were PRICELESS. My original plan was that we wanted to use a sonogram picture and put it in the back of each of the photobooks we gave them from our wedding. Basically they would go all the way through the book looking at the pictures and then BAM on the last page there would be a pic of the sonogram. Unfortunately our first appointment that we were supposed to have on the 16th of December got cancelled. (seriously we were devastated, I'll elaborate more on that later). With that cancellation the plan went out the window because we weren't going to see the doc in time before Christmas to have that work out. So I went to plan B which involved using the idea of the "Priceless" commercials. You know the ones I'm talking about. So what we did was made three cards. One set for my mom and then another for Wesley's mom and dad.
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My mom's said the following:
{first card} Cost to print these cards.....About $.10 cents
{second card} Postage to mail you these gifts....About $10.00, I'm really guessing
{third card} The look on your face when you look up and we tell you you're going to be a Grandma....PRICELESS
Then Wesley's parents said the following:
{first card} Cost to print these cards......About $.10 cents
{second card} Time to make these silly cards.....Maybe 2 minutes
{third card} The look on your faces when you look up and we tell you you're going to be Grandma and Grandpa....PRICELESS
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It was absolutely perfect. I sent my mom's package to my Brother Steel's house to hold until Christmas morning because I didn't want her snooping early. The plan was that since she was going to my brother's house we would Skype so that they could open gifts and we could see them. Now obviously with the three hour time difference we got up pretty early. I think we started Skyping with them around 6:30 in the morning our time. The tough part though was that we were at Wesley's parents Christmas Eve night, so in the morning we had to be pretty quiet with the Skyping so they couldn't hear what was going on. Luckily we had some headphones so at least when they were talking you couldn't hear it in the house. Which is good, because honestly when my mom got to that third card she LOST HER MIND!!! She screamed and then just started crying and saying OH MY GOD. It was exactly how I imagined she'd react and it was awesome!
Wesley's parents we obviously handled a little different since we were going to be with them in person. We got through almost all the gifts and gave them ours at the end. Just when they thought they were done I pulled out the envelope and said here we have one more for you. I handed it to Wesley's mom and she immediately said well I guess it's not a gift card. {she could feel through the envelope that it didn't feel like a free dinner LOL} I just said don't worry about it, just open it. So she took out the cards and read the first one, sounding a bit confused. By the time she got to the second one though she knew what was up and you could see her eyes starting to fill with tears. Wesley's dad caught sight and he started tearing up as well. By the time the third card came I think she maybe only read three or four words and realized exactly what it was. They didn't exactly "lose their minds like Mamma Dukes, they aren't as let's say LOUD with their excitement" but it was really perfect, they both really cried a lot and I know they were so excited for another grand baby!
It really was the best Christmas present ever. Even though this all happened really fast and by no means did I think we would ever get pregnant this fast, the fact that it worked out to where we could tell them for Christmas was just really special, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
Our First Appointment
Finally had the first appointment on December 30th! We were originally scheduled for December 16th but we got cancelled on because the doctor had an emergency delivery that she had to go to. The extra two week wait proved to add to the anxiousness I already had. I just really needed the finite answer of yes you are indeed pregnant. I needed to hear the baby, see the baby, anything. Just needed real evidence. So we've chosen to see Dr. Joan Sasaki who is very local to us. The office is pretty much around the corner from our house and she delivers at a hospital that is within 5 minutes as well! The first appointment consisted of the usual half hour of paperwork {which I thought I was being proactive about by printing it out before I went and having the majority of it filled out but apparently it was the wrong paperwork. BUZZ KILL} After that I took the stroll to the bathroom for what will be the regular visit to pee in the cup. And then we really only waited about 5 more minutes until our nurse came out to get us. I dropped my stuff off in the room and then was taken on the walk to the scale...again which will become a regular visit in the doctor's office. Can't wait! So according to my calculations I'm still down about 8lbs since we found out. The doctor didn't show any real concerns about that, so I'm ok with it. She said that as long as I was starting to eat a little more now I should probably start to get used to that number going back to a positive very soon LOL. I ended up having to go through the typical "annual" appointment, which completely sucks. She didn't even warn me. Just wham bam thank you, have a nice day. After that though she went right for the magic wand and said to look at the screen. There that little baby was. At first I just remember feeling really quiet. Just so focused on what I saw that I feel like I was in a little cloud. She eventually switched over to the heart rate check and it hit me. I grabbed Wesley's hand and just kind of lost it. To hear the heartbeat was just so much more of an emotional thing than I thought it was going to be. The more the doctor moved the stick around and got a different angle each time I just had the biggest feeling of relief come over me. To finally know this is all real. Like FOR REALS REAL. I never really saw Wesley's face, he was sitting kind of behind me, but I'm sure he probably got a little choked up too. I decided not to ask. She printed out a few pics of the scan and that was really it for the exam. I changed back into my clothes and she came back in so we could go over future testing that we could do and any questions we may have. We've elected to do the NT testing as well as the Cystic Fibrosis testing. We just would feel more comfortable knowing if there were any complications so we could be prepared. So my homework was to get the testing scheduled for that and to get scheduled in for all the first round of blood work. We'll go back in 4 weeks to see Dr. Sasaki again just for a routine visit. SHIT GOT REAL PEOPLE.......there's really a baby all up in me!!
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| Very First Sonogram - 8w1d Yeah this baby is already a Packers fan, who would have thought?? |
Odds and ends of the first trimester
Well like I said in the beginning of this post. It's REALLY HARD to make a human being. Especially in the first trimester. I really did just want to be one of those women who never gets sick and just is a happy ball of joy for the whole pregnancy. Unfortunately for Wesley, yes I'm saying Wesley, not even unfortunately for me.....that didn't happen. Probably from about weeks four through week eight I was miserable. The morning sickness, {which by the way is such crap, it's not just morning sickness, I don't know why they call it that, it's ALLLLLLLL FREEEEEEKING DAY SICKNESS} well that hit. And it wrecked me. Life slowly became a shit show. I was feeling like I could puke all day. I wasn't able to really eat anything at all. I literally was living on the G's and C's for four weeks.
GINGER ALE, GINGER SNAPS, CRACKERS and CUTIES. From the time we had found out until the time we did the reveal to the parents I had lost 8 lbs. I just couldn't eat anything. By the end of the first trimester I was down about 12 lbs!!!
Towards the beginning when we found out Wesley had brought home Mexican from our favorite place Jalapenos, on a Tuesday {we had been doing a lot of Taco Tuesdays} He opened up the bag and I immediately had to run upstairs close the bedroom door and lock myself away to the bathroom. At first I was like OMG just let me puke, which I did. When it all settled my thought was ARE YOU KIDDING ME? MEXICAN FOOD IS GOING TO DO THIS TO ME? Sure enough yes it was, it was going to wreck me. We tried it again a few days later and the same thing happened. I feel like I died a little inside. God I love Mexican food… I miss Mexican food. UGHHHH.
Probably one of the things that just was really the hardest with the sickness was trying to hide it at the office. There are only so many trips you can make to the bathroom without being found out. So I just tried bearing it all day and then I would go home and want to puke for like three hours. I talked to my sister {she's a nurse} about taking the Zofran pills that I had from the week of the wedding when I had them prescribed when I couldn't stop puking and having the flu that week. She actually yelled at me and told me I was a dumbass for not even taking them yet. Honestly I was just trying to be a tough guy and power through this but it was just getting way to hard, especially having to try and make it through an entire work day. Mostly I at least was trying to make it to the first appointment. I decided that yes, I was indeed a dumbass and I started taking them. I would take one in the morning on the way to work and like clockwork for eight hours while I was working it really was helping. I did decide that through all of that craziness and getting pretty sick that I needed to tell my bosses at the office, just to be safe. Reactions went well, they didn't want to fire me and their lips were sealed.
So a few of the people on the inner circle that we told right away all asked, well are you going to keep teaching Spin and doing all this Pilates stuff? My answer to them and all of you who will be asking as well is ABSOLUTELY. Since I've already been doing this for so long I was told that it shouldn't be a problem at all and it is probably recommended to keep active as much as possible since I was really active prior to getting pregnant. With the spinning side of things I'm just monitoring my heart rate a little more closely. Have no fear everyone this little monster inside me is all good and totally down with the spinning. In fact, a couple of times so far when I wasn't feeling super great, I would go teach my class and actually come back feeling a million times better. Who knows, maybe it's the spinning, maybe it's just the rad jams that I play during the class that the baby likes. Either way I'm just really happy to keep staying active and doing the things that I love. We're still in certification training for Pilates, we had a bit of a break during the holidays which was nice, but it's still all in motion that I will be finishing that before baby arrives!
Bring on the Second Trimester!!!!
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