I started out trying to document this journey with a Tumblr, or in a book, or in a journal with letters to her, or in some other pinterest-inspired way that I could one day share with her, but even with these high aspirations, I'm 24 weeks in and have not done it. Hopefully when she arrives, I will do better in the way of creating memories with her and documenting her life. As a side note, and a confession, I also had delusions of eating all organic food, running, continuing a dedicated yoga practice throughout this pregnancy, etc. and have fallen short of those goals as well. I think that these delusions were fed by a belief that pregnancy entailed mostly sporting a cute soccer ball sized stomach and the joy of feeling the baby move, but I think that most people know that those beliefs were delusions as well. Just in the past week, I've been able to stop taking an anti-emetic several times a day, and have traded those pills for lower back pain, heart burn, and varicose veins. But I'll take it :) And there is a lot to be said for the joy and excitement of feeling her move and watching her tiny body roll over in my stomach.
So to backtrack, mainly so that I can write it down while still fresh in my head, here are some highlights of her life so far.
September: On the day before Sean and I left on a vacation in Italy and Greece, I found out that I was pregnant after noticing that I looked sort of chubby in the bathing suit that I'd purchased a few weeks before for this trip. I had to confirm this pregnancy with no less than 4 pregnancy tests. Sean was on a business trip, and while I had the best of intentions (see my success rate with intentions above) to wait until he got home to share the news with him in a pinterest-inspired way with banners and cupcakes, I ended up succumbing to telling my mom no less than 30 minutes into "waiting". For full disclosure, I also told my sister-in-law, Lyndsey. When Sean got home, I had gotten him a "homecoming present" of a book entitled "Dude! You're Gonna Be a Dad!". It took him a second to connect the dots on this one, and he asked me if I was pregnant. In typical Sean style, he was never anything less than completely thrilled and excited, and thus we began our lives as the parents of an Appleseed-sized baby.
Later September: We came home early from Italy because of horrible morning sickness that settled in a little over a week later. I have never felt so sick in my life and was sure that I would die. Zofran helped with that, but I spent the next 4 months of my life revolving everything that I did around when I could take my Zofran. And later my Phenergan as well. Zofranigan-again as we call it. I learned at this point, that everyone has advice for pregnant women. Eat before you get out of bed is popular, but didn't help. And all of the other google-friendly solutions that people offered again and again didn't help much either. I eventually accepted that it would just have to go away on it's own and hopefully that would happen before May.
October: We shared the news of our baby with Sean's family over Patrick and Stewart's wedding weekend with a video that we'd made on our trip. We shared the news with my family inadvertently shortly after when my grandfather died suddenly. While we'd wanted to share it with them obviously in a different way, God's timing was so clear and perfect in offering the joy of new life in the midst of incredible grief. The baby is due the day before my grandfather's birthday, and I think that it reminded all of us that "for everything there is a season" and that we serve a perfect and loving God who may take, but who also gives, and gives in abundance.
November: I was eventually admitted to the hospital for dehydration, which helped tremendously. I also felt the baby kick for the first time around 16 weeks.
December: We found out that Appleseed, as we'd been calling "him", was a her. We went in with intentions (intentions again) to have the tech write the baby's sex on a card for us so that we could find out the next day with our families. In the end, I didn't have the patience for that, and we went ahead and found out in the ultrasound room. We went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in an effort to teach her not to be a cheap date and talked about what it would be like to have a little girl. The next day, we had a gender reveal with our families and let our moms cut the cake.
January: We've been working on the nursery, and picked out a name. We also started being about to see her move, and feel her much better. So sitting around watching my stomach, and then subsequently talking about how smart and strong she obviously is, takes up most of our time in the evenings. Strangers began for the first time acknowledging my stomach (I think that's pretty courageous) and asking when she was due, so I must look fatter.
And now here we are, so maybe I'll keep up with this blog again.
